Condemned

by Cari Silverwood

  Or worth being bent over and fucked by.

  His anger leaked away and was replaced by sadness. Utter sadness. The bleak sort he had to contend with most days.

  “No. I disagree. I think if you have a fit you should expect someone to help you. You know, your friends. Even if I’m not one,” she added hurriedly. “It doesn’t make you lesser.”

  He rose to his feet and sat properly on the footpath edge.

  Across the road was an ancient, beaten-down skyscraper. Over the centuries, most of the high buildings had collapsed or been demolished. This one must’ve been made well. The upper stories looked deserted. He looked up, and up. Fifteen stories, maybe?

  Signs sat above the timber-reinforced doors that’d replaced the glass ones.

  Hot baths from a natural spring. Open day & night

  Fortunes told

  Gunsmith

  Jeweler

  The shadow cast by the building fell way down the street to his right. It was huge. Without big machinery, no one built those anymore.

  He felt just as ancient and big beside Avalon. The girl was little. Which, he decided, he liked.

  “Lesser. Huh. You know fuck all, girl.” He was good with compliments. Timin smiled. Yeah, he was an asshole.

  What Zo and Kon had done with her had certainly been fun. He just wouldn’t ever expect a girl to want him when he knew he was damaged.

  She stared right at him. “Well, fuck you too. I’ll think what I want to think. In some of your people’s eyes, I bet you’re a hero.”

  The mouth on her. Almost as good as his. While he was considering upending her and doing something painful to her ass, like putting handprints on it, and claw marks, she pointed at his shoulder.

  “You have my mouse-bot on you.”

  “Oh?” He peered sideways, thankful in a way for the interruption. Spanking her would get him horny and that wasn’t going to ever be a good result. Make that hornier.

  It was true. The critter was there, sitting up and preening its forepaws. Those he’d seen at work and they were not at all normal paws. Nibbles had been helping repair the weapons. No instructions, no encouragement. It just plunged at the task and did stuff. Small things like realigning cogs, welding tiny spots, undoing the tiniest bolts and screws. It had fixed things he hadn’t even decided were a problem.

  He wasn’t telling anyone, wasn’t sure what Takk would think of this.

  He might want to exterminate Nibbles. Having heard Avalon recount the history of finding Nibbles, there was zero doubt in his mind, his slightly screwy mind, as to where the mouse-bot had come from.

  “It’s fine.” Having a mouse-bot on his shoulder was his new normal.

  “But... I might want him back.”

  Timin shrugged. He wasn’t sure the creature obeyed what anyone else wanted.

  Chapter Eighteen

  At least this place was better than a barn. Something had woken her. The light coming in through the shuttered window was only moonlight. The fire in the central heater had died down though the circular chimney still radiated heat. The four mauleons were snoring, having drunk too much.

  She wasn’t sure what they’d been celebrating. The end of the war, again? Being nearer to their homes? It might be anything.

  They’d brought several bottles back with them to this lodging house, pulled all the mattresses off the beds and thrown them in this one large room before they collapsed into sleep. They still didn’t trust her, much, judging by the manacles and the long chain fastening her to a bed frame. A pity. She could’ve told them this would not stop her from escaping. Only the mountains between her and the border did that.

  For the first time ever, she’d masturbated with them surrounding her, reasoning that they weren’t going to relieve her needs so she may as well. Plus they weren’t going to wake. Probably...

  They didn’t.

  So now she slept in messy panties. Being warm was the main thing, and safe.

  She dragged her blanket closer to her body and realized what had woken her as Nibbles mounted a peak of the bunched-up blanket then ran down it toward her face. From the intensity of his golden eyes and the waving of paws, from the ducking away and running a small distance then the running back, he wanted her to do something.

  She raised her eyebrows at him and lifted her hand, to say I’m stuck here. Hopefully it was a language the bot understood. Instead he ran to the lock on the manacles, tinkered for a few seconds with his back to her. There was a series of clicks and he jumped away.

  He’d unlocked them.

  Okaaaay. She held up her freed hands, squinted at them for a while to be sure, and sighed.

  What do you want? she mouthed.

  It scampered over the perimeter of snoring mauleons and away.

  Slowly, carefully, she crept to her feet then crawled to the ring of her so-called guards. She picked Kondio to crawl over as he seemed the most inebriated.

  He didn’t stir and she followed Nibbles across the floor, the creaking floor—some soldiers these guys were. She could’ve slaughtered them all. Been there, tried that. Never again.

  The door wasn’t even locked. Nibbles had already run beneath it and she continued following him. Thank goodness she had on the new fur coat they’d bought her. She’d just forgotten boots and her feet were freezing.

  Down the hallway, past other rooms, praying nobody came out and surprised her.

  At the front door, with wind whining against the outside, battering it and making it rattle now and then, the mouse-bot deviated to the left, zipping beneath another door to a closet.

  On opening it, she saw a rusted vacuum cleaner, brooms, buckets, folded cloths, shelves to the right, a couple of coats hooked on the back of the door, and to the left was...

  Gia, and a little horde of red and gray scythefox babies.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered. “You are all so cute!”

  They were squirming about her swollen teats, some feeding, some asleep snuggled into her. Gia looked up at her, ears pricked, then returned to nuzzling her newborns.

  “It’s too cold in here, Gia. What are you doing here?” She guessed the roaring, snoring, tumble of drunken males had disturbed Gia. A cupboard was less noisy.

  Kondio would be aghast. Well, he would be once he saw them, sobered up.

  “I’m the only one not pissed out of her skull, right?”

  The mouse-bot had stopped near Gia and sat up on his hind legs.

  “What to do? I can’t move you easily. You’d be okay in here if it were warmer, least until morning.” There’d been flakes of snow falling outside.

  How to get this closet warmer? Well, she realized the answer after thinking for all of a minute. There was herself.

  “Should I go wake Kondio? But then, you are happy here, and I guess I’m a portable heater.”

  She sighed and lowered herself to her knees, shrugged off the new fur coat she wore over the tunic and tucked it around Gia. With all the birthing fluids, she was messy, but it seemed a better choice than using someone else’s coat. With some cloths wedged under the door, the wind was kept out. She lay down after grabbing the two thinner coats from the door and made a moderately comfortable area next to Gia.

  “If I catch fleas...” She waggled a finger.

  Wait. Avalon sat up and stared at her wrists. She could still run. She let her head flop back on her neck, staring up at the dark ceiling.

  And leave Gia to freeze?

  “I can’t, can I? Besides, it’s not the time for it.” She lay down again, smiling at the new life before her. The mouse-bot had moved in next to the scythefox pile, though she wasn’t sure he needed warmth. Whatever powered mouse-bots—nuclear, plasma, fusion, or some hi-tech unknown—it was probably capable of keeping Nibbles warm inside an iceberg.

  Strangely, after a while the squeaks of the pups—wait, were fox babies called puppies? She wasn’t sure. Anyway, sleep piled in, weighed down her eyelids, and she slept.

  * * *

 
A boot nudged her, and she blinked open her eyes.

  “Fuck, girl. We’re supposed to get up early but not this early.”

  She blinked again and focused on Timin, smiled tentatively at him. Odd how seeing one of her captors could make her feel good. “I was helping Gia. It was too cold in here.”

  “We see that.” Kondio peered over the closet door space from behind Timin. Fitting two huge mauleons in here would violate the laws of physics. “Thought you’d fucking well run off. Now that would’ve yielded good results.” He grinned and she was sure he was imagining her being punished again. And how dare her body respond to that. It made her think of sex, the good kind, with him and Zo.

  Not that being tied up and fucked was her thing. Or was it? She was beginning to hate her mind for springing shocks on her.

  Timin was staring down at her. “Mmmm. Yeah, would’ve been. Use the box for Gia and her kits, I’ll bring this one.” He kneeled and almost effortlessly scooped her up, cradled her to his chest. From a short distance away, he scowled at her. The red-brown stubble on his jaw, the ragged waves of hair framing his face, the solid broadness of him, even his fangs where they sneaked past his upper lip, those fascinated her.

  She felt her body prickle awake to the allure of this male.

  Stop that, she told herself. Two is enough.

  “How’d you get the lock undone? It’s supposed to have been unpickable.” He grumbled that out then turned, backing out of the closet and heading up the hallway toward their room.

  “I picked it.” She shrugged. “I am a thief.” She wasn’t telling on her mouse-bot due to not being sure what the mauleons would think.

  “Hah. A thief who should have woken us. Kondio was frantic, running about like a female, squeaking, where is she, where is she?”

  The falsetto tone must have carried because behind them, Kondio muttered a denial.

  “And you never thought to just wander out the door instead?” It was a genuine question, though said quietly, as if Timin barely thought it mattered. He did. She did too. Lying was sensible, and yet a need to throw the truth at Timin surfaced. She struggled a second then gave in to her natural inclination to spit in the face of the expected.

  “I was going to, but Gia needed me.”

  His chuckle sounded a little dark. Menacing even.

  Before they reached the door, Zo and Takk appeared in it. They ducked aside to let Timin and her through, then Kondio with her coat over his shoulder and a box full of Gia and her kits. The scythefox seemed content to be carried and barely moved when the box was placed before the heater.

  “She’s good. They all look healthy. I think I will have to leave her here to recover. There’s a relative of Timin’s down the road.” He opened the window to the central heater and stoked the fire, sending sparks flying.

  “Yes.” Timin warmed his hands. “My grandpa will take care of her until you can come back for her.”

  “The mountains would stress her.” Takk studied the squirming box of scythefoxes. “We should’ve thought, realized how close she was. But this one.” He swung to look at Avalon. “Where was she?”

  “With Gia, keeping her warm, getting her new coat dirty too.” Timin grinned down at her and seemed unwilling to put her down.

  Then again, maybe it was safer up here in his arms. Takk looked disgruntled, red-eyed, and tired, and was scrubbing at his blond mane where some hair had come loose from the many braids. Not a promising sight.

  She buried her nose into Timin’s forearm and found she was mouthing the cloth of his sleeve while peering over the top of his biceps. As if he could shield her from Takk’s wrath. Not that she was a coward. Timin just had this gorgeous scent that rose above the lemony one Zo was so adamant about spraying on her. It was a masculine smell, and again she chided herself. Two is enough.

  However, what if. What... if. She peeked upward with one eye.

  And he was looking down at her dubiously. His nostrils dilated and he said softly, “I smell you. I swear I do. What are you?” As if she were some new creature never seen before on this planet.

  “I’m just me.”

  “She’s a bitch in heat. Come.”

  Takk was referring to her? Indignant but too content to say anything, she only thought bad things at him.

  He plucked at Timin’s shirt. “Bring the filthy girl. There’s blood and birthing fluids on her shirt and the new coat. We’ll wash her and the clothes at the hot baths underneath the old skyscraper. Bring everything. Zo, you take Gia and the kits to Timin’s grandfather.” He frowned at her. “Girl, you’ll likely be wearing someone else’s clothes the first day’s ride through the pass. Put her down.”

  Timin grunted and refused, turning aside. “I’ll bring her to the baths. It’s easy enough to tell Zo where Grandpa’s house is.”

  Which was how she ended up being carried by Timin out the lodging house and down the street, with her dirty coat laid over her, while the others followed with the florses. Zo headed off in another direction. The wind whipped at her ears and she shivered and hugged herself, trying to somehow burrow deeper into the mauleon’s hold.

  Her toes were turning to ice, and she drew up her feet.

  At least this time it would be a hot bath. The only nearby problem, as far as she could see, might be Timin. He looked determined and annoyed, though annoyed was probably his default expression.

  The best action seemed to latch onto his arm again through his clothes and suck.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Once through the main doors and with the coins deposited to pay for the baths, Timin maneuvered himself and Avalon down the short hall. He liked carrying her and she seemed to enjoy it too. There were several doors with signs. He shoved open the swinging door to BATH 3 using his elbow then stepped in sideways. A wave of heat assailed him.

  Takk was already here, boots off, looking at a rectangular pool shrouded in steam. The ceiling was high, the walls a varnished and peeling dark timber, and water poured into the stone-tiled pool from a pipe protruding from the opposite wall.

  The two big steps surrounding the pool were tiers to sit on after bathing, he decided.

  An electric light dangled from above, one made in the shape of a tentacled being. Had to be an antique. He recognized the wriggly-armed species the light was modeled after as being from off-planet. It would be from before Quarantine.

  The power waxed and waned, and he prayed it wouldn’t fail them. Like all recently made machinery, generators were created small to avoid being targeted by the battle sats.

  “Communal baths.” Takk began to unbutton his shirt. “Guess we’re the only ones stupid enough to be here this early.” He eyed the girl. “You can undress her. Beware of the claws.” He winked.

  Captain Takk making a joke, about a girl?

  Carefully he deposited Avalon on her feet and her coat slid off her, landing on the tiles. Those feet were still bare. Someone would’ve put her boots in the packs.

  “Where’s Kon gone, sir?”

  “Outside with the florses, tying them up. He’ll bring the packs in. Wouldn’t do to have anything stolen.”

  “Okay. We should get a light in here of our own. Just in case that fails.” Briefly he nodded at the light. “So, female, I’m to undress you?”

  “I can do it.” Blushing, she stepped backward, waving her palms. “Besides, aren’t I cleaning my clothes first?”

  “No.” That calculating stare made Timin wonder about the captain’s motives. “After we have a soak your clothes will get done. I need to leach out the beer and wine from last night.” Takk’s shirt came off, then pants, and he tossed them toward the entrance.

  Do her or him first?

  Her. He grabbed at her hand, caught it, tugged her closer. Though her feet dragged, she came to him.

  He’d seen her naked before and undressed by others but doing it himself was different. As with any woman, getting them nude was a new experience every single time. Or so he recalled from past exploits.


  Except she was not the same as those others.

  What did he really want from this? What did he believe was the right thing to do?

  Did it even matter?

  Takk waded into the water. “There’s something I need to tell you about her.” He nudged his chin in Avalon’s direction. Lazily, she popped up a skeptical eyebrow.

  Ready, steady, go with the bratty comment. She remained silent, strangely so.

  All those smart comments she’d made sitting beside him on the footpath, and he’d wondered if she was faking it, saying things just to make him feel better. Hard for him to swing around to accepting that heroes could be flawed, could have seizures, could fall into weakness. He pulled a face, remembering how she’d seemed to believe her words.

  “Zo already told me. While you were drinking the bottom out of a flask of wine, he told me.”

  Cupping his hands, Takk splashed water over his face then sank to sit on the bottom of the pool. “He did? What did he say? So you know she’s dangerous?”

  The water lapped at his waist and through the ripples Timin noted the captain’s engorging cock. He wasn’t immune to Avalon’s desirability either.

  “Dangerous...” An odd word to use for her. He studied Avalon while feeling her fingers, the softness of her hand, the bones inside. She looked as if to be drifting, mesmerized by his touch. “She’s a huleon who is also what he called an efsana. I wouldn’t call you dangerous.” He took her other hand in his.

  Even when addressed directly, she only swayed her hips, her eyes alight. That was desire he saw in those lovely pools of blue, in those hips. He went to his knees before her, shuffled her leggings and panties to knee level, and kissed her mound. Between her legs, her cunt lips were visibly swollen. He didn’t need to touch her there to see how wet she was.

  “Well, now.” Timin kissed her again, heard the subtle hiss of her inhalation, felt the press of her body to his mouth. If he swallowed now, was that enough to be a taste?

  “Yeah, that’s it. Efsana.” Sighing, Takk leaned against the edge of the pool. “Damn, this heat feels good. So, what are you doing with her then? As if I can’t predict.”