Eeete took the empty cup and gave Paige another from the second tray. Without comment, she went to one of the tables where the other slaves sat. They didn’t acknowledge her presence as she joined them and dined on her breakfast.
“Go on,” Zekin encouraged, easing the tray a bit closer to Paige. “You need to eat.”
She needed answers to everything that worried her but wasn’t yet ready to face the truth his response might bring. Lifting one of the egg-like things, she asked, “Where’d this come from?”
“The creatures in the water,” the man directly across from Zekin said.
The other added, “We take it from inside them.”
Paige dropped it back into the bowl. It bounced slightly.
“It won’t hurt you,” Zekin assured.
She nodded agreeably and tore off a hunk of the bread, resisting the urge to sniff it as an animal would with unfamiliar food. After a moment’s hesitation, she screwed up enough courage to bite into it.
Her mouth froze. Her eyes widened.
To her surprise, it reminded Paige of pumpkin bread, moist and slightly chewy, with a hint of cinnamon and ginger. Surprisingly delicious. She ate half of it with Zekin and the other men watching her closely. To see if she’d gag? Hurl? Pass out?
She cleared her throat and kept her cool, such as it was, then plowed ahead, asking what she probably shouldn’t. “Why do all of you look the same?” She’d already noticed small differences. The way Zekin held himself, the scar on his jaw, a mole on his temple that the other two didn’t have. One of them had wavier hair than Zekin’s. The other was shorter than him and the man he sat next to, his olive complexion also a shade lighter. Despite the small variances, their resemblance to each other was beyond strange. “Are all of you related somehow? Are you cousins or brothers of those three guys that just came in here and the ones I saw yesterday?”
“No,” Zekin said.
Paige blurted, “Are you some kind of clones?” Almost identical but not quite.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what? Are you even human?”
“Of course. Just different from you.”
Paige didn’t ask in what way.
On a heavy sigh, Zekin showed her his hand. Paige stared at the round circles where his fingerprints should have been. There were no lines on his palm.
Good God.
Seemingly reluctant for her to see more and risk any hysterics, Zekin brought back his hand and gestured to the guy across from Paige. “That’s Bruda.” He pointed to the other man. “Qatar. We resemble each other because of the geneticists on our realm. Millennia ago, they manipulated our DNA to produce the hardiest, most intelligent populace. Their efforts resulted in all of us appearing to be identical.”
“Though we’re not really,” Qatar explained. “The women find me much more appealing than Zekin or Bruda.”
She made a face.
“Apparently, Paige doesn’t think so,” Bruda said.
She turned to Zekin. “Do only the men look the same?”
“No. The women all resemble each other too.”
“Are any of them here?” She searched the area, trying to pick out two females that were duplicates of each other or even similar in appearance, but couldn’t. Again, the variety of hair and eye color, complexions, features and forms stunned her.
“No female from our realm has ever been here,” Zekin said.
Paige caught a hint of shame and reluctance in his tone, as if it pained him to speak. It killed her to cause him even a second of heartache or regret for having saved her, but damn, she had to know what was going on. “Why not? What is this place?”
“What those on your realm would call a penal colony,” Zekin said. “I and the other men who resemble me are criminals in our dimension.”
With Paige’s surprise and sudden unease, a wave of sorrow buffeted Zekin. A painful sensation he’d never allowed himself to feel when he’d been on E2, his behavior no different from his family, colleagues, friends. Vakar and the other rulers claimed that reason, rather than emotion, liberated a person.
Here, Zekin had none of the freedoms he’d once known on E2. He had no liberty at all, except to experience frustration, tenderness, alarm, joy, anger, melancholy. So many overwhelming emotions, he continued to fight them even now, fisting his hand on his thigh. “You fear me.”
“What? No.” Paige frowned as though he’d insulted her. “Not at all.” She rested her hand on his.
The softness and heat of her fingers snatched Zekin’s breath. He could barely manage a swallow. Wanting to prolong this small intimacy, he turned his hand so that he could hold hers. She didn’t pull away as he feared, even though he’d shown her some of their differences—his unlined palm, the circles at the tips of his fingers. She appeared comfortable with their hands resting on his thigh.
“Did you steal food?” she asked. “Were you hungry? Was that your crime?”
Zekin exchanged a glance with Qatar and Bruda, who appeared amused by her questions. It was in the faint arch of their brows. “No, all three of us are from the ruling class. Nothing was denied us as long as we gave our full loyalty to Vakar, the realm’s leader.”
Something passed over her face. Uncertainty? Dismay? Zekin couldn’t be certain. However, she didn’t pull her hand from his.
At last, she said, “You committed treason.”
Zekin frowned. “Only in Vakar’s mind and those of the men closest to him.”
“Hey,” Paige murmured, gently squeezing his fingers. “I wasn’t judging. I’d never do that. You’re a good man. Hell, you saved me.”
Bruda cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed at her outburst. Qatar was as close to a mocking smile as Zekin had ever seen him. Ignoring them, he spoke to Paige. “We’re here because none of us could follow Vakar’s orders. No sane man could.”
She stopped squeezing his hand. “What did he want you to do?”
“Hunt the pleasure slaves—with crossbows—in the jungle outside of E4’s Palace.”
Her face paled.
Qatar folded his arms on the table and leaned closer. “When Vakar sent for us, we didn’t know what he had in mind. We’d never been out of our realm. We had no idea the Pleasure Palace existed. None of the populace on E2 is aware of it. Only his inner circle.”
“He had us dress in this,” Bruda said, gesturing to his clothing, “so we’d be hard to spot in the jungle. He gave us our weapons and told us to wait behind the thick foliage. As we did, the guards pushed a pleasure slave outside the Palace door. It was obvious hunger and lack of sleep had weakened the man. Despite that, Vakar claimed he’d make good sport. He’d be harder to track and kill than E4’s other creatures, whose intelligence isn’t as great.”
“They’re known as subhumans,” Qatar added. “Somewhat similar to the Neanderthals that once lived on your dimension.”
Bruda jumped in to explain. “While evolution created your creatures, our scientists were responsible for the subhumans. Though not deliberately. They were genetic mistakes from their earlier experiments. No one expected them to survive, much less breed and thrive.”
With every truth they revealed, Paige leaned farther away.
“Do you need a moment?” Zekin asked.
She looked at him as though she didn’t understand his question, then shook her head. “No. What happened to the male slave the guards pushed out?”
Zekin heard her revulsion. She cleared her throat as though to relieve the rasp in her voice.
“He begged for mercy,” Zekin said, recalling that awful moment, the man’s bewilderment and terror. “Vakar and his sons laughed.”
“Zekin, Bruda and I held back,” Qatar offered. “There was so much confusion and so many hunters, Vakar and his sons didn’t notice our horror. One of them made the kill.”
Paige sucked in a breath, her hand gripping Zekin’s.
He continued as dispassionately as he could—as he’d been taught—suppressing his own outrage
at the memory. “The next time we were ordered there, Vakar wanted to hunt a female slave.”
“Are you serious?” Paige cried. “Why?”
“He prefers his slaves young,” Zekin explained. “The males aren’t allowed to live past thirty. The females only have until they’re twenty-six. His scientists can always grow more to replace those who die from starvation and abuse, or those he hunts and kills. When he discovered he could kidnap women from your realm for his purposes, liking the variety they presented—as far as their temperaments are concerned—he demanded his guards do that.”
Shock replaced her earlier revulsion. “That’s how I ended up in that outpost on the surface?”
“Not for Vakar’s use,” Zekin said. “For the guards’. This is E5, not E4 or E2.”
“This is crazy,” she snapped. “What are you talking about? What kind of lunatic is he?”
“He’s a man with unlimited power,” Zekin said. “When Qatar, Bruda and I tried to help one of the pleasure slaves, rather than hunting her down, Vakar ordered us here for the rest of our lives, no matter how long or short that might be. The same as the other men you see in this place that are similar to us. They wouldn’t hunt the slaves either.”
Paige dug her nails into his hand.
Oddly, the pain felt good, reminding Zekin he was still alive, more so than he’d ever been.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re all prisoners here, yet you run the place?”
“We revolted and eliminated the guards,” he said. “We went to the surface, searching for an escape from this plane, and discovered the other guards’ outpost. We watched them travel through the portals, returning with pleasure slaves. Without their knowledge, we travelled with them, back to E4, helping those we could—like Eeete—bringing them here. Whenever we can, we go to their outpost and rescue the pleasure slaves they’ve brought to this realm. With an unlimited supply, Vakar hasn’t noticed any of them missing.” Zekin hesitated a moment. “We’ve also tried to save the women from your realm that the guards had kidnapped.”
Bruda cut in. “You’re the first Zekin, or any of us, was able to bring to this colony alive.”
Paige stared at him, then grew very still, her expression saying she was recalling something. “That woman outside the outpost, the one whose body had frozen… She was from Seattle too.”
“Your realm,” Zekin said.
Her mouth trembled as though she couldn’t take much more. Zekin wanted to stop but couldn’t. There was too much she had to understand so she’d continue to trust him and would survive whatever the coming days might bring.
“This device,” he said, gesturing to it with his free hand, “opens portals to the other realms on this planet. What you call Earth and we refer to as E.”
Her expression grew more dumbfounded and horrified.
As gently as he could, Zekin continued, “There are five dimensions on this planet. You come from E1, the realm closest to the sun. Qatar, Bruda and I come from E2, the plane directly below yours. There’s a time differential between the realms so that none of us can see each other or are aware of another dimension’s existence.”
“Unless a portal opens,” Qatar added.
Zekin nodded. “E4 is mostly jungle, even though it’s very far from the sun. Millennia ago, our rulers used it as a penal colony to house E2’s prisoners. There, the scientists experimented on those men and women, creating the subhumans and—”
Bruda interrupted, “No need to tell her that.”
Paige didn’t ask what? or why?, her favorite questions. She seemed too stunned to say anything.
Zekin resumed, his manner deliberately calm. “E4 hasn’t been used as a penal colony in a very long time. That’s probably why Vakar chose to build the Pleasure Palace there, knowing our people would never become aware of its existence. To appreciate why he’d hide such a thing from them, other than for the obvious reasons, you have to understand what life on E2 is like. From birth, our kind learns to suppress emotions. Duty and honor are all that are supposed to matter to us. We frown upon desire, lust, love as unnecessary or dangerous. Emotions cause turmoil. They create wars, suffering, misery. All the problems that continue to occur on your plane.”
“Our people know none of that on E2,” Qatar said. “Reason has created harmony, a perfect society without pain.”
“Or joy, variety, something to look forward to, to live for,” Zekin added, recalling his and Paige’s kiss. A striking moment no peace could ever match. “Our populace isn’t content. They’re anesthetized by fear of the unknown, of any type of failure or imperfection.”
“Not that it’s stopped Vakar and his inner circle,” Bruda muttered. “They not only explore their desires, ones denied the rest of us, they’ve deliberately sought them out at the Pleasure Palace. There, they can have anything, no matter how lewd or cruel, no matter whom it hurts or kills.”
Paige looked from him to Qatar to Zekin. “Where are we now? This place, realm, whatever?”
“E5,” Qatar offered before anyone else could, repeating what Zekin had told her a few moments earlier. “The land of fire and ice. So far from the sun everything’s frozen, as you’ve seen, yet also so close to the Earth’s molten core, there’s fire beneath us.”
She cut in quickly. “We’re underground in addition to being underwater?”
“No, of course not,” Qatar answered, as though she were as simpleminded as a subhuman. “We’re closer to the molten core because this dimension is beneath yours and all the others. Each of the realms is above ground.”
She made a face. “That’s not possible. Where I live, there’s ground and sky and—”
“The same as the other dimensions,” Bruda interrupted. “I’m certain if your scientists were advanced enough to understand this, they would have explained it to your people.”
Paige looked at Zekin as though he could straighten it out.
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“Yes,” Qatar added. “Returning to your question about the food, with the help of the slaves, we gather the land creatures on the surface and the water creatures down here, harvesting whatever’s edible.” He gestured to her cup. “The liquid you’ve been drinking comes from the creatures we’ve milked.”
She shivered.
Zekin pressed his hand against hers, offering what comfort he could. “On one of my missions to the guards’ outpost to rescue a pleasure slave, I was able to take the device.”
“But you don’t know how to use it?” She frowned. “Why not?”
“On E2, I planned our cities and roadways,” Zekin said. “Qatar oversaw many of the farms where we grow our food. Bruda taught the major languages from your realm. Although E2’s general populace isn’t aware of it, the ruling class teaches these languages to its children and those of the elite. Languages we’ve learned when the portals have opened. Because of our occupations, we haven’t been trained in how the device works. None of us are quantum physicists like Nikoli Zorr.”
Paige looked at him dumbly. “Who?”
“Do you recall the hologram at the outpost of the pleasure slaves that I said had escaped?”
“Of course.”
“When the guards ran this colony, we heard them speaking of the escaped slaves. The male and female entered a portal just as Vakar and his men were set to capture them on E4. On Vakar’s orders, many of the guards followed them to your realm. Not all of the guards returned. Those who did admitted they’d been unable to find the slaves. Vakar had them tortured, nailed to trees in the jungle, left as food for the predators for failing him. Others began to claim that someone from E2 must have helped the slaves to escape. That’s why no one could find them.”
Zekin paused to catch his breath, to calm down, something he’d never had to do before he’d known Paige. He didn’t want to alarm her more than she already was. “It’s been said that Vakar didn’t believe any of it. He accused the guards of lying to escape punishment and death. The ones he
re began talking about men like me, Bruda, Qatar, traitors to our realm. They discussed the possibility there was another in E2’s midst, one the rulers hadn’t considered or caught. Nikoli’s name finally came up. Months before, the guards heard the rulers talking about him. How Nikoli had disappeared one day and supposedly died a hero’s death, protecting our realm. ‘What if it’s not true?’ the guards asked each other. ‘What if he’s on the other side?’ They kept their speculation to themselves rather than tell Vakar. None of them wanted to risk torture or death as the others had.”
“First, for supposedly lying,” Bruda said, “then, if Vakar finally believed them, for failing to find Nikoli on E1 and bringing him back.”
“Clearly, the guards won’t be divulging anything anytime soon,” Qatar added. “Not even what they later learned. Of course, it’s all rumor at this point.”
“What is?” Paige asked.
Bruda answered first. “It’s said Nikoli fled to your side because of a woman he saw through the portals. Nikoli was supposed to be monitoring and closing the gateways when they opened spontaneously, which they do from time to time. There’s little worry that anything will cross over into E2 through a spontaneous portal. Our realm’s been protected from intrusion for eons. However, it is possible for one of us to enter your dimension. Which Nikoli may have done, given how much he was supposed to have wanted the woman.”
“Absolutely forbidden,” Qatar said. “Both the desire and the crossing over. An act of treason on our plane.”
“The same as nearly everything else in our perfect world,” Zekin retorted, then spoke to Paige. “It’s also been rumored that Nikoli finally built a device to travel through the portals. First to be with the woman.” He turned to Bruda. “What did they say she’s called?”
The man lifted his shoulders.
“Rekana,” Qatar offered. “No, wait.” He mouthed something over and over, his expression intent as he struggled to refine what he was trying to pronounce. At last, he said, “Reg—EYE—na.”
Paige made a face. “You mean Regina?”
Qatar nodded. “I’m certain that’s what the guards claimed.”
Stolen Desire (Outlawed Realm) Page 9
