Felice had learned a long time ago, though, about intimidation, and how to countermand it. Rees was damned intimidating, but Felice had faced many opponents who’d scared the hell out of her, and she’d fought them anyway. Sometimes, she’d even won.
She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, met Rees’s gaze straight on, then deliberately looked away, as though she’d taken his measure and was ready to move on.
From the corner of her eye, Felice saw Rees’s start, then felt his stare again, reassessing her.
He would have gone on this way, in silence, but Kieran stepped in front of Felice, blocking Rees’s view of her. “I’m vouching for her, all right?” Kieran said. “Can we get on with it?”
The red-haired woman rose and joined them. “Kieran’s right, love. We have a lot to discuss.”
Big bad Rees turned a look on the woman that was so soft, so loving, that Felice wanted to laugh in relief. Rees clearly loved her, would do anything for her. The woman returned the look, far gone in love with her Shareem, but not so far gone that she was his drooling slave. She wouldn’t let him get away with anything, Felice saw.
“I’m Talan,” the woman said, speaking directly to her. “Come and sit with me, Felice.”
Kieran didn’t want to let go of Felice’s hand. Talan herself pried his big fingers open, then she slipped her small hand in the crook of Felice’s arm and led her way.
Not far—they sat down on a sofa near where Rees had laid his breath mask and Talan had shucked her robes.
“We have a problem,” Rees said without preliminary. He didn’t call for attention or clear his throat, but the others shut up and listened. “The patrollers are all over the dockyards. Mitch says he was stopped three times on his way in, questioned about Shareem and about a runaway indentured worker. They’re searching for Felice, and Kieran’s fight focused too much attention on us. So we need to back off and rethink our plans. And now Kieran has decided to bring Felice in on it.” Rees turned again to Felice. “If that’s the case, I want to know all about you, Felice. I want to know who you are, what you want, and why you think we should trust you.”
Chapter Eleven
Kieran had to stop himself from tackling Rees and demanding he leave Felice alone. If Kieran said she could be trusted, she could be trusted. That should be enough for everyone.
He also knew Rees would never take his word for it. Kieran was the messed-up Shareem, good at sex and nothing else. He’d never understand something as complicated as the problem of getting all Shareem off Bor Narga, at least in Rees’s view.
Kieran had decided he didn’t need to hear Felice’s life story. It was enough that she was here, with him. Would leave with him and be safe. After that . . .
Kieran didn’t want to think about after that. He didn’t want the past or the future. He wanted now.
He walked past Rees, went to Felice, and sat down next to her. He took up most of the room on the sofa, forcing Talan to scoot over. Talan did this with good grace, looking indulgent rather than offended.
Kieran put his arm around Felice, letting his Shareem pheromones soothe her. Felice gave him a grateful look, took a deep breath, and began.
“I’m a dojokuner.”
Felice stopped, as though waiting for their reaction, but the Shareem looked blank. Aiden asked, “A dojo-what?”
His lady Brianne sat forward and said, “Oh, wait. I’ve heard of those. Specially trained fighters who do exhibitions all over the galaxies. Very expensive exhibitions.”
“Not just exhibitions,” Felice said. “True prize fights on colonies and stations where it’s legal. A lot of money exchanges hands. Dojokuners are elite, sought after, and anyone who runs them has to be very rich to start with. Like racehorses.” Felice glanced around, saw more blank looks, and explained. “On Old Earth, we have running animals called horses, and the very best of them, the thoroughbreds, race for the highest stakes. Dojokuners are like that. They grew out of a tradition on Earth’s first space colony, RJ-57—I guess bored colonists started the matches, and then it became a famous sport. Kind of a cross between martial arts and boxing. Anyway, my family moved to RJ-57 when I was young, and I started taking lessons, then I got really good. I signed a contract with a trainer for a boatload of money, and my career took off.”
Kieran imagined her, proud and happy, ready to begin her life. “You’re young now,” he pointed out. “How old were you?”
“About fourteen,” Felice said. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I only saw the glamour. It’s a whirlwind of money and fame, and I thought I wanted that.”
“That’s a long way from being an indentured servant on a cargo ship,” Rees said. He spoke patiently, without inflection as he watched her.
“No sport escapes corruption,” Felice said with a wry smile. “And dojokuners, though we practiced clean living and good health, attract so much money that corruption is inevitable. We started being asked to throw fights or stage them so certain gamblers could make a fortune. My trainer knew some shady people, I found out the hard way. I loved to fight, but I learned quickly that it could be a racket.”
“What happened?” Rees asked. “Something significant, I take it.”
Felice nodded. “My best friend was a woman called Valerie—Val. She was really good, better than me. We got pitted together a lot, and we always fought fair. She beat me most of the time.” Felice smiled in true fondness. “One day, when we were on station 929, which basically is a gambling port, our trainer said he’d put us into a championship match. He took me aside and told me I had to win. I laughed and said Val was hard to beat, and then he gave me the tiniest needle I ever saw. He said all I had to do was get close to her, inject her, and I’d win. It scared me, but I all the sudden understood he wasn’t going to let me say no, that he would threaten me and Val if he had to. I saw it in his eyes. I took the needle, then I went to a pharmacist and asked what was in it. Basically, it was a drug that would not only knock Val out, but kill her.”
The other Shareem were listening, hanging on her every word, as were the ladies. Kieran saw the anger in them, the indignation and understanding. Kieran’s own rage topped theirs—no wonder Felice looked so scared and sad. She’d begun her life with hope, and some asshole had dashed all that hope to pieces.
Kieran was too angry to speak. Talan said around him, “Oh, you poor thing. That’s terrible.”
“I told Val,” Felice said. She gave a shiver, and Kieran ran his hand along her arm, wanting to soothe her. “She was my best friend. I didn’t know what to do. Val suggested we stage the match ourselves, letting me win. I hated to do that, but it was better than me killing her.”
Felice blinked a few times, her anguish coming to Kieran full force. He put both arms around her and drew her close. “It’s all right, baby,” he said, and kissed her hair.
Felice took another calming breath. “So we threw the match,” she said. “Val went down, and I won. And then we learned the whole truth—the bet had been that I was such a good dojokuner that I could kill with my bare hands. Everyone had expected a death match. Our trainer lost a shitload of money, and he told Val and me that we had to pay it back.”
Talan reached around Kieran to pat Felice’s knee. Even Rees looked sympathetic.
“What did you do?” Talan asked her. “He couldn’t force you to pay it, could he?”
“Apparently he could,” Felice said, laughing a little, but her eyes held vast anger. “It was in our contracts, a tiny clause that said we were responsible if we incurred debt for the trainer. He got a lawyer, who said we owed him. Never mind our trainer tried to use me to commit murder. But I couldn’t prove he’d given me the needle—in fact, he found it that night while Val and I were out celebrating what we thought was my victory, and destroyed it—and we owed the money. My family didn’t have the kind of income to pay him, and neither did Val’s. We were just kids, and scared. Our trainer said I needed to go out and find the money, and he’d keep Val as colla
teral. If I didn’t come back with it, she was dead.”
Felice sat back, out of breath, her grief and agitation coming across loud and clear. Kieran nuzzled her hair, wanting to hold her until everything bad went away. The fact that he couldn’t frustrated the hell out of him.
“And you sold yourself?” Talan asked her in a gentle voice.
Felice nodded. “I found the nearest cargo ship and told them how much I needed. They drew up an agreement with me that I’d work to pay it off. They were from TGH Corp and could care less whether I was an elite fighter or just crawled out of a gutter. They only saw I was strong and could work. They paid the trainer, and I left with them. At first I was happy to work, because I knew I’d saved Val, even though she hadn’t been able to get away from the trainer. Then the years went by, and the deadline for finishing my indenture came and went. The company said I’d racked up expenses—food and clothing, plus interest, that I still had to work off. I calculated that I wouldn’t be able to pay it all off for another seventy years, which is what they wanted. I’d tried to keep track of Val to make sure she was all right, and a few months ago, I learned she’d finished her contract with the trainer and went back home. Got married, even.” Another shaky smile. “I was supposed to be her bridesmaid. That’s when I decided to escape. I picked Bor Narga, because of its no-slavery rules, and also because no one would guess I’d try to run away here. It’s a dangerous planet.” Felice finished, slumping against Kieran. “Kieran found me in the space dock. And here I am.”
“And we’ll help you,” Talan said. “Won’t we, Rees?”
Rees still looked sympathetic, even respectful, but he folded his arms. “Sure. After we check her story.”
Felice tried to sit up in alarm, but she couldn’t fight the strength of Kieran’s hold. “No—if you start looking for information on me, someone will know. They’ll figure out where I am, that Kieran helped me.”
“No, they won’t,” Rees said in a level voice. “Trust me, I can find out things with no one being the wiser.”
Kieran knew Rees meant he could mess with a computer to erase his footprint, or fingerprint, or whatever it was. Also, he had access to a woman called Dr. Laas—an outlaw herself—who had a computer with a snarky mouth and an amazing brain. Rees could find out anything about anything.
“You can trust him,” Kieran rumbled to Felice. “Even if he’s full of himself.”
A few Shareem guffawed, relaxing. They knew, by reading Rees’s body language, that he wasn’t going to toss Felice out to fend for herself. Or worse, make sure she was caught and taken away.
“I don’t want Kieran to be hurt because of me,” Felice said quickly. “Or any of you.”
“We won’t,” Rees said. “No one will know you’ve been anywhere near us.”
Braden broke in. “Except for Kieran’s fight at the dockyards. That wasn’t suspicious or anything.”
“Yeah, Kieran,” Eland boomed. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Looking for transport,” Kieran growled back. “What do you think? That cargo ship was perfect, but the crew got pissed off at me before I had time to explain.”
“Don’t worry,” Rees said in a firm voice. “I’ll deal with it.” He would. No one questioned his ability to deal with anything, or how he’d go about it.
Felice sat up again. “You know, if you’re looking for a way off Bor Narga, I can help. I’ve worked cargo transports for years. TGH Corp is a big company, and I’ve gone from ship to ship, place to place. I’ve met people, seen things I probably wasn’t supposed to. No one pays much attention to an anonymous worker.”
“She’s got a point,” Calder said. “She could tell us who is who down at the dockyards, who’d be most likely to help us.”
“No.” Kieran scowled at both Calder and Rees. “Leave Felice alone. She’s been through enough. I promised we’d take her with us, and that’s what’s going to happen.”
“Calm down,” Rees said. “Believe it or not, big guy, I understand. I won’t put her into any danger.”
Kieran didn’t relent. “Anything you want from her comes through me. Got it?”
Rees looked pained, but he unfolded his arms, relaxing his stance. “All right. You win.”
Kieran felt anything but triumphant. He turned back to Felice, wishing he could use his strength to keep her from all harm, all pain. What she’d done for her friend had taken great sacrifice, honor, courage, things Kieran wasn’t supposed to understand but he did, all too well.
The experiments to his brain had been done to give him singleness of purpose. Everything to him was simple, straightforward.
Other people caused complications, but for Kieran, there was only one answer. Protect Felice.
All that programming had to be good for something.
*** *** ***
Kieran walked closely beside Felice on their way out. She’d resumed her covering robes, pulling a fold across her face. One thing she liked about being on Bor Narga—Felice could become anonymous if she wanted.
Almost. The symbols on women’s robes meant specific things, Talan had explained—that the woman was unmarried, married, celibate, highborn, middleclass, doctor, solicitor, other professions. People with unmarked robes were usually workers or from off planet, and patrollers watched the off-planeters pretty closely.
An off-planet woman running around with a Shareem would attract attention, Felice knew, and Kieran couldn’t disguise himself, no matter how hard he tried. His very walk screamed that he was different, not to mention those blue eyes.
Kieran took her back to his apartment in a route that avoided most patrollers and their stations, though the two of them had to duck into alleys a couple of times to hide from passing patrols.
When they reached Kieran’s place and closed the door on the day’s hottest temperatures, Felice pulled off her robes, but she was still apprehensive. “You know it’s dangerous for me to stay here.”
Kieran wore his stubborn look as he locked the door. “I said I’d take care of you.”
“Kieran.” Felice went to him and rested her hands on his arms. She loved his strength, so vast, but tamed for her. “It’s only a matter of time before the patrollers come to search this place. If you’re found with me—if they know you helped me . . .” She took a sharp breath. “They’ll punish you.” Felice squeezed his forearms and let her hands drop. “So, I’m going to go find another place to hide. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d help you find transport, and I will. But it’s far too dangerous for me to stay here with you.”
Kieran said nothing, only watched Felice tug at the collar around her throat, finding no way to unfasten it. “I don’t mind keeping this,” Felice said. “Though it might be easier for me to hide without it.”
She gave up on the collar, grabbed the robes again, and made for the door, her heart pounding and aching. Felice didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave Kieran when she knew something was beginning between them. She hadn’t made a connection with another living being since Val, and what she felt for Kieran . . .
Felice reached for the controls to open the door, but a giant hand closed around her wrist in an impossibly tight grip.
“No.” Kieran dragged her around to face him. “You belong to me. I take care of you.”
Felice took a step back. Kieran looked down at her with determination so great it was almost palpable. Behind the rage in his eyes, though, she also saw hurt, confusion, even fear.
“Kieran . . .”
“You are not allowed to leave. I command you. You obey me.”
Any other man might say, Please, don’t go . . .
“I want to keep you safe,” Felice said softly. “I have to.”
“No.” Kieran didn’t shout, but his voice was strong, like a solid wall of sound. “Leaving won’t keep me safe. I won’t be safe out on the streets looking for you. I won’t be safe throwing down patrollers who find you and try to arrest you. You let me take care of you.”
“Ho
w can you?” Felice looked up at him in anguish. “I’m death to you. Even the other Shareem think that. I can see they feel bad for me, but they’re not going to risk their lives for me.”
“Because you’re not theirs.” Kieran let go of her wrist but only to transfer his grip to her shoulder. “Look at Rees. And Calder. Even Aiden, who acts like an asshole, but he isn’t. Rees would never let Talan leave him for his own good. He’d go after her and drag her back. She’s highborn, and she gave up a lot to be with him. He won’t let go of that.”
“Talan isn’t a fugitive,” Felice pointed out. “One of those women in that basement used to be a patroller, you said. How do you know she isn’t running back to her old friends to report us?”
Kieran stared at Felice as though she’d lost her mind. “Because Deanna belongs to Justin. She won’t betray him. Or his friends.”
“So when a woman belongs to her Shareem, she stops being everything she was before?”
“I didn’t say that. Katarina is still a medic. Elisa is still a librarian. Brianne is still in the ruling family.”
“Not exactly what I meant . . .”
Kieran released her, but he remained firmly in front of the door, not budging. “I don’t always know what you mean.” He tapped his temple. “Screwed in the head, remember? But I understand that you trying to survive on the streets of Pas City by yourself will kill you. You have to stay with me.”
“I don’t know.” Felice gave him a faint laugh. “I’m pretty resilient.”
“Yeah, the elite fighter. I remember that part.” Kieran didn’t look amused. “You try to fight someone like you did at the docks, and everyone will notice. They’ll talk about it for days. That cargo ship was scheduled to blast out of here today, thank the gods, or the crew would be spreading the story of the crazy fighter through every bar on this side of the hill.”
Felice folded her arms, trying to mirror his belligerent stance. “How do you know the cargo ship was scheduled to take off today?”
Kieran Page 10
