Betrayed (Hidden Worlds Book 1)

by Bethany Burke

  Although the last thing I wanted was to hear exactly what she was saying, I understood that her motivation was sincere enough. I gave a brief, sharp nod to show I understood. Matron Lena left, obviously to call Rohan, and within an instant, the room was again filled with Rohan's massive presence, with Matron Lena right behind him.

  Rohan looked at me impassively, then glanced at the Matron. "So, other than what just happened, how is our little patient?"

  Matron Lena looked at me. Her face was actually fond, which I found crazy. "Much, much better. All cleaned up and ready to go along with ye, milord.

  "Has she been told anything?"

  Lena's eyes widened. "No. Ye said…"

  Rohan shook his head dismissively. "Fine. That's just as I wanted it."

  Now that I was not feeling so threatened, I noticed a few things. He was dressed in the same way he'd been before, lacking only the linked metal vest. In its place, he wore a sleeveless, tunic-like shirt, showing massive, heavily muscled arms. His gold armbands glinted in the diffuse light, and his hair was so black it looked blue. I sat primly on the bed, desperate to keep my thighs together, trying not to squirm on my hurt bottom, trying to ignore the fact that I could actually feel the "bareness" and erect flesh between my thighs. I looked up at him.

  There was one straight-backed chair in the room, and he grabbed it, flipped it around, and sat on it, long legs opening and straddling the back. I noticed with a stab of resentment that he could sit as free and easy as he pleased without having to worry that everything between his legs (not that I would care to look at it anyway) was bare for all the world to see. His brawny arms found the back of the chair and crossed, and, resting his chin on his forearm, he eyed me over them.

  "Mistress Jen." He sighed. "Are ye having another name, then?"

  "Marin," I answered sullenly. "Jen Marin." I pressed my mouth tight and turned away.

  "Well, Jen Marin," he answered, reaching out to turn my head back to his. He held my gaze, his blue eyes hard. "I'm thinking that the two of us are having a lot to say to each other. Quite a lot." He paused. "What are you saying to that?"

  Not knowing what else to do, I nodded slowly and dropped my eyes, waiting for him to begin.

  Chapter 9

  But for a long time he didn't. Begin, that is. He just looked at me with a thoughtful, almost regretful look on his face, while I waited miserably. We sat in a silence that was broken only by the sound of my breathing, still sniffling and ragged from the painful indignities that had been perpetrated on my body. Unable to help myself, I shifted my hot bottom slightly.

  His lips twitched into a slight smile and he snorted quietly. "Stinging you, is it lass?"

  I knew what he was referring to immediately, of course. "Yes," I snapped, as bitterly as I dared.

  Immediately, my chin was grabbed and he drew my face up to gaze into my eyes. "I'm not liking that tone, Miss Jen. You'll be giving me the proper address, now and always. I'll not accept any of your sass, particularly because you're going in with my sisters and Raisa."

  "What did I do?" I cried, too frightened to think about defying him further or to wonder about this new word: raisa. My bottom cheeks ached from his last chastisement, and there was no doubt in my mind any longer that all disobedience from females was dealt with in exactly the same way on Gamma Rigel.

  He looked at me for a second, his expression impassive. Suddenly, his face softened slightly. "Yer not knowing the forms, are ye girl? Well, Suse will teach ye quick." He chuckled. "She's good for that, is Suse. But for now, it's enough for ye to know that ye address me as Lord… always. And that's when it's just the two of us. When there's more, even in the suite, you must be keeping eyes down and mouth shut, and ye'll not be speaking to me unless I speak to ye first. Ye need to learn our ways, and the quicker the better. Are ye clear on this?"

  I could summon no defiance, even when the meaning of what he had said, " eyes down and mouth shut," dawned on me, which took a few seconds. No defiance whatsoever. Just pained exhaustion. It was astounding to consider how completely I had been stripped of the position of equality that I had on Earth. Equality, nothing. Superiority was more like it. Although technically men and women were "equal" on Earth, the reality was that the women ran most everything… and the men, who everyone knew were naturally lazy, liked it that way. Maybe later I would regain the upper hand somehow, but for now, well, the memory of staring at the floor while his hand descended against my bared, offered cheeks again and again was simply too much. I nodded.

  "Say it, lass."

  "I understand you… Lord." It felt awkward on my tongue.

  He continued to regard me. Finally, he sighed heavily. "I'm not even knowing where to start with ye. I've never… never thought…" His voice broke off, and I suddenly realized that, in spite of his absolute confidence in "handling" me physically, he was still somewhat flustered and confused. I could see why. If my assumption—that he actually knew more about who I was and where I'd come from than I had originally thought—was correct, he was probably as shocked to have me here as I was to be here.

  Finally, he sighed again. "Have ye figured out any of what has happened to ye?"

  I nodded slowly. "The… execution," I still could barely say the word, "was a… fake, wasn't it?" His expression darkened and he seemed to be waiting for something. "Sir," I amended quickly.

  "Yes. Do you know why?"

  "Because of the implants. Because you understood about Earth, about…" I paused, not knowing how to phrase it, "…everything, I guess. You didn't really think that sky-birds…" He shook his head slowly, before I even finished the question, his mouth twitching into a slight, rueful smile. "And you didn't want anyone watching to know anything about you?" My voice trailed off. That couldn't be right. Everything about this society and culture could be observed via remotes, cameras and microphones that were dropped from a ship to the surface of the planet. These devices were so tiny that the inhabitants of Gamma Rigel could never detect their presence. In fact, not only could the inhabitants be observed, but in fact they had been already many times. But maybe Lord Rohan didn't know about remotes…

  "No, lass, not exactly. We could have simply let you into our city, and you could have gone on with your wee watchers in your head. But first, we need you and your friend, and then when you started shooting off your mouth…"

  "Christy is alive?" I interrupted.

  His lips pressed tight and the answer was an instant too slow in coming. "Aye, but…" He stopped.

  "But what… sir?"

  He licked his lips and his hand found his top lip and pushed back his mustache as he thought. "There was an accident, lass. When we were taking out the watchers… What were ye calling them?"

  "Implants"

  "Implants." He murmured the word, trying it. "Aye. Well, we got yours out right enough, but when the physician was taking out your friend's, one of them exploded."

  "What?" I breathed the word. "Exploded? How? Why?" I wondered frantically if the word had changed meaning somehow.

  "Ye don't know anything of them, do ye?"

  There was no reason to tell anything but the whole truth at this point. "No. We… Christy and I were tricked. Completely. Neither of us knew we were implanted or that we were to be left here. We set down, and the Primo—"

  "Primo?"

  "The… leader of the ship. I guess you could call him a captain, maybe? Anyway, he suggested that Christy and I go for a walk, just to stretch our legs, he said. When we came back, the ship was gone. Christy was the one who figured out we were… implanted." In spite of myself, I felt my throat swell and hot tears itch and burn at my eyes, and before I knew it, I was sobbing. "How could they do this to me? How could they leave me here? This isn't supposed to happen. I'm a Citizen. I have rights. I…" My sobs grew so hysterical, I could not even go on.

  Without hesitation, Rohan rose out of his chair, flipped it around and sat again. With one quick sweep of his powerful arms, he pulled me onto his warm
large lap. "Here, now, hinny. Here now. It's not so bad."

  I felt so wretched that the incongruity of my position was not even important. Here I was, cradled in the arms of the man who had just spanked my bottom so hard it still stung. Yet, all I could do, when he drew me into his massive chest, was lean my head limply on his shoulder. I could never remember being in such a position—physical contact like that on Earth was discouraged, even with children—yet all of a sudden, I felt so exhausted, it was as if I could stay there for a long time. Worse, I felt as if I somehow belonged here. He waited quietly, shockingly patient, his hand even finding my short hair softly, almost absently, while I sobbed against his rough shirt. "Not so bad?" I sniffed, when my sobs had abated. "I'm stuck here, aren't I? Forever."

  He snorted. "Here is not so bad, lass. At least we'll not be sticking little things in your head that can kill ye, like as not."

  I fought down the inclination to snap that they seemed to have an incredible proclivity to "stick things" in me elsewhere… and then the sense of what he said came to me. "Kill me? What are you talking about?"

  "Are ye knowing how those implants work?"

  "Well," I sniffed, "I know that there's one transmitter in the ear and one behind the eye and everything that the person sees, or hears, is automatically sent to the ship." I sat quietly, leaning into his broad chest, the masculine scent of him in my nose. The skin of his upper arm, over the thick muscle, was surprisingly warm and smooth under my hand. I was calmer now, and suddenly, in spite of the comfort I was feeling, I became horrified that I was still on his lap. In addition, as he had pulled me onto his knees, my tunic top had pulled up in back, and because the split trousers could not stay completely closed, part of my bare, hot bottom was resting directly on the fabric of his rough trousers. However, I could see no way to reach under myself and adjust the clothing without drawing attention to it—and to do so would require me to lift my hips, causing the front of the tunic to rise and the front of the trousers to open, which would possibly expose my shaved, still throbbing, sex. So I sat motionless, hoping he was unaware of it, hoping if I didn't move, he would somehow just not… notice I was still on his lap.

  "Aye. But are ye knowing what makes them work? Powers them, I'm guessing you could say."

  "No." I shook my head. I didn't know. In fact, I'd never even considered the question. "A little power cell, maybe?"

  "No," Rohan shook his head. "Now, I'm no scientist, and I'm not really understanding everything they told me. But you know that in the body, messages are transported to the brain by electricity? Pain, by example?" He lips twitched, and he chuckled just a little at that comment, which baffled me for a second, and then I realized he was openly amused by all the pain that had been transmitted to my brain just recently.

  I was struck by an incredible sense of disorientation. He knew about electricity? Was I really sitting on the lap of a giant barbarian discussing neural activity in the brain? A giant barbarian who had just finished laughing over the fact that he had abused me? Horribly, I was. "Well, I'm not a biologist, but yes, as I understand it, tiny amounts of electrical activity between neurons is how… everything works."

  He nodded solemnly. "Well, lass, as they're explaining it to me, the same electricity is what's powering those little implants. If you die, if your heart stops pumping, they stop working."

  I remembered once hearing about someone who had an implant that kept his heart beating, and it had worked the same way: by drawing electrical power right out of the surrounding cells. Then the actual meaning of what he said hit me. "But I'm not dead. So how did you… they… get them out?" I remembered they'd covered my face with a dark cloth before they'd put me in the guillotine. "I mean, even if my eyes were covered, wouldn't the techs onboard the ship hear the physicians talking, whatever, during the surgery?"

  "Well, that's just the rub of it. We knew that. We knew that they wouldn't stop working unless ye were dead. So we… killed you."

  "What?" I drew my head back and gazed into his blue eyes, so close to mine. "What are you talking about?"

  "Do ye remember when we put ye in the blade?"

  "Yes."

  "Did ye feel the stick in your wee bum?" Although basically horrified at the casual question… I was getting extremely tired of everyone thinking about and talking about and doing things to my "wee bum"… I was nevertheless so desperate to hear what he was explaining that I did nothing but nod wearily. "It was a med… a drug. Enough to kill ye. We basically had to stop your heart."

  "Why?"

  "Because we had to stop the electricity for long enough to get the implants out."

  "Why?" My head was reeling. They'd stopped my heart… and brought me back? "Why couldn't they just leave them in?"

  "Because you'd started to spill your guts, lass. And the last time this happened, the man was dead in front of us in five minutes."

  I was lost. The last time? A man? And Rohan still had not told me what he meant about Christy's implants exploding, or where Christy was. "There was someone else?" I queried weakly. "A man?"

  "Eight years ago."

  I nodded. Gamma Rigel years were shorter than Earth years, about one fifth shorter, if I remembered correctly. So that made it six Earth years, which corresponded exactly with the last monitoring mission.

  Rohan continued speaking. "He apparently was not just left here like ye. He was trained for it. Like ye, we knew he was not of us, and we captured him… threw him in the jail. Didn't know what to do with the man. He kept saying he'd hurt his head and couldn't remember, and finally, since we had no reason to keep him locked up, we just let him out. But we kept an eye on him. Couple o' months later he came to me, saying he had something to tell me. Seems he'd given it some thought and liked the way o' life here. He started to tell me he was from Earth… and all about the little watchers… implants… in his head. Then he was saying that there was a station here on the planet…"

  "A station?"

  "Where they watch from."

  "What?" I breathed, going cold.

  He shifted his legs, and reached out a long finger to tip my face up to him. His blue eyes gazed into mine. "Ye aren't knowing of it?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  He pressed his mouth tight but didn't comment on that. I could sense that he was disappointed—obviously he had been hoping that I would have information on this—but felt immediately that none of his frustration was aimed at me. "I was thinking as much. Anyway, as soon as he said it, the man… well, the man's head was going off right in front o' me." He swallowed hard. "I'll be telling ye lass, I've seen enough in battle, but this… This was like nothing I've ever seen. One moment the fellow was speaking to me plain with a smile on his face, and the next his head was…" He paused and looked down at me, as if he were considering providing me with more details and then stopped, obviously thinking better of it. "Well, anyway… Once ye started saying the same things, we knew ye had to be stopped. I'm sorry if it scared you, lass, but we had no choice. It was the only hope."

  Rohan's face darkened and even though I knew at once that no negative emotion was aimed at me, I couldn't hold his gaze. I leaned back against his chest. "That they would do such a thing to lassies, I couldn't believe…" I could feel the muscles in his shoulders tighten and ripple under my cheek. "We had to stop you from talking… and get those wee buggers out of your heads before they could kill you. And so we had to kill ye… stop your brains… before they could decide to blow ye to kingdom come." Rohan had stopped; it was clear he was not going to go on. I knew enough about biology to piece together at least some of the details that Rohan had not wanted to share with me. And then I remembered Rohan's face as he had come into the suite to get us. He'd looked incredibly grim. No wonder.

  "But they might have anyway." The flat whispered statement came out of my mouth before I could stop it. My heart was absolutely racing, and a graphic picture intruded on my mind… a vision of sitting with Christy in the ornate suite… and watching her
head explode. Why would it have been Christy, I asked myself suddenly. I was the one, after all, who had started to tell Rohan everything. Would I have known? Would there have been a moment of excruciating pain? My stomach churned and I shuddered.

  "Aye." He nodded slowly. "But I was guessing that they only killed the other man when they could see that he was about to tell us too much… way too much. If we could stop ye from talking, we were hoping that they would just let us go on and do their job for them."

  He was correct, I guessed. Having heads explode would be less than ideal, if it could be avoided. If those above thought that we were going to be executed anyway, they would probably be content just to let it happen… and write us off as another failed experiment. But then what had happened to Christy? Rohan had said her implant did explode. My mind was racing frantically, trying to make sense of all this astonishing new information, when an incongruity struck me. "How did you know how the implants functioned? If the other man was, well, killed, I mean."

  "We recovered the one that goes in the ear. Only the one in the eye explodes. And mostly we're guessing on the rest of it." He pressed his mouth tight. "And not all of our guessing was right, it seems."

  The desire just to… give up was suddenly overwhelming. I was a professor, a well-educated woman, working for tenure at a respected University. My life had been interesting and fulfilling, but simple, my classes, my research, my little dog, and the occasional night out with friends. Going on an interplanetary research mission was a somewhat unusual, but by no means unique bonus in an otherwise normal life. Most competent scholars in history or sociology or anthropology could expect to go at least once in their lifetimes, if they wanted to. A scholar went out, did his project, and returned to the envy of his friends.