by Owner
“She does not appear to appreciate her rescue,” he said in the old language.
“And after all your assurances that we will not harm her,” Mack drawled.
Var did not think Mack was funny. He could still smell the girl’s fear, and felt for her. He remembered being tied, at the mercy of cruel masters as the whip split his back again and again. Var had no experience trying to reassure females. He had never needed the skill. When he rescued women, there had always been other warlords to calm them. He preferred to fight and let his brothers take care of the feelings of the women.
“This will ease the pain for a few hours and help it heal,” he told her. She had delicate skin, beautiful with a light sprinkling of spots on her face. Now that the dirt was gone, he wondered about those spots.
Her unease hit him. What caused it? Could it be because he held her hand? Var schooled his face into a mask of calm, and felt her relax. His frown made her uneasy. He had been frowning and the scars made him look – hideous. She should get used to his ugliness.
He knew the girl must be in pain, but she did not complain. Her lip was bleeding. With some salve on his thumb, he held her head and cupped her face while gently pressing the pad of his thumb against her full bottom lip. She did not bite him, in fact, she made no sound. He made every effort to be gentle as he rubbed the salve over her lips. She had beautiful lips. It hurt him to see the evidence of her mistreatment. Her heart beat so loud he thought it must be vibrating through the cave. She was such a little thing, and so terrified.
“The salve will help you heal,” he reassured her.
For a moment they froze, looking into each other’s eyes. The deep green color of her eyes fascinated him. Masses of red hair framed her heart shaped face which was perfect right down to the graceful point of her chin. Her lips were full, soft, and pink, or they would be when they healed, but he should not think about that. Var appreciated both the beauty and the softness of her porcelain skin.
Mack was right. She was pretty.
He held her to treat her other wounds. At first she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but she settled down when he told her to be still.
“We intend you no harm,” Mack told her. “Let him help you.”
After Var treated the rope burns on her wrists, he grabbed first one ankle, then the other, and applied the salve to the cuts on her feet. She was fine boned, with slender ankles he held easily in his hands. He bandaged the foot with the deep cut. It still bled. Now that she was clean, he could see the many scratches that covered her arms and legs and face.
When he finished, Var handed her a canteen of water. Then he set her down against the opposite wall of the cave. He knew Mack watched the whole thing with much amusement.
The girl studied them.
“I am Mack. This is Var. We came to rescue you. Our people offer sanctuary to the MX.”
“You may call us Warlord Mack and Warlord Var,” Var added.
Mack barely held back a snort.
The girl blinked at them in disbelief. “Sanctuary for MX,” she repeated after a pause. Her voice was soft and musical, and filled with skepticism.
“Claire is with us now, as are Destiny and Anna,” Mack said.
“How did that happen?” she asked.
“Claire came to us on an assignment and stayed,” Mack explained. “We negotiated for Destiny and paid for her release. Anna escaped and made her way to us. We rescued her from the Trade Center.”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “I do not believe you. That is not possible. The Facility guards us always. They would never have been so careless that they lost three empaths.”
“They lost you,” Var said.
She looked away and almost bit her lower lip. That she winced in pain was not lost on Var. Her split lip bled a little more.
“How long have you been away from the Conglomerate?” Var asked.
She shook her head. “The Conglomerate owns the Trade Center. If you have Trade Status, then you are part of them.”
“And not to trusted,” Mack finished for her. He grinned at Var as if to challenge him.
Var suppressed a frown. That she dared to disagree with them made him wonder at her intelligence. Then again, Mack was not helping at all. “We came for you because someone told us you were here,” he said.
“Are you the men the Facility sent to find me?”
“We are males, not men,” Mack said. “We are a different race, more than human. We came to find you, but not for the Facility.”
“For what purpose do you want MX?” she asked.
“We offer sanctuary,” Var said.
Her eyes showed an eternity of hurt when she said softly, “There is no sanctuary for MX.”
She fell silent and said nothing else as if she were lost in her thoughts.
“I would know your name,” Var said after a time.
Her deep green eyes met his. “I am Bess,” she said.
Var pulled a small vial out of his bag and approached her. Her heartbeat sped up and her fear increased. “This is for the sunburn.” He held her chin and studied her closely. “I would know who put these spots on your face.” The light colored dots sprinkled across her nose and cheek bones were a mystery to him. Why would someone mark her like that? He did not know what they meant and he could discern no pattern to them.
Bess did not answer.
“I do not like to repeat myself.”
Seeing her puzzled expression, Var said, “The marks on your face, I would know who put them there.”
“What marks?”
Mack handed Var a small mirror. Var passed it to the girl. How could she not know about the marks on her face?
Bess held the mirror up. “The freckles? I’ve always had them.”
“Freckles.” Var repeated the strange word and glanced at Mack who raised his eyebrows and the matchstick in his mouth in his version of a shrug. It was a sure sign that Mack found the situation amusing.
Var took the plate of dried fish and fruit Mack handed him and held it out to her. “If you are still hungry...”
She looked at the plate, but shook her head.
Var watched her a minute longer, then returned to the other side of the cave to sit. He began to clean his whip.
She lowered her eyes and the smell of her fear ratcheted up in the small confines of the cave.
Mack shook his head in a silent ‘no’ at Var.
Var rewound the whip and laid it aside before moving behind her. He knew her shoulders and upper arms must be aching.
She did not appear comfortable with him touching her, but he rubbed her shoulders and arms while she studied Mack. She was the smallest female he had ever touched.
“Do not look to him for help. I am in charge. We will not hurt you. If you do not behave, I will have to tie you. It is best to do as we tell you.” Var laid out a pallet for her. He heard a catch in her throat and thought she might be about to cry, but no tears came. Instead, she calmed down and sat still as a statue. He heard her heartbeat speed up when he moved closer to her, but she offered no resistance when he laid a blanket across her legs. The girl was terrified of him. He hated that, but it might work to his advantage. Var wanted only to get her to safety as soon as possible. He preferred fighting to rescuing females, especially females who did not want his help.
Var sat down on the other side of the cave and talked to Mack in the old language. “I have never heard of these freckles. I would know who put those on her face. I will kill whoever did it as soon as I find them.”
Mack shook his head. “I think they are a natural marking on some like her who have the light skin. Maybe they go with that color hair. I am not sure. If the blasted com link would work, we could look it up or ask Dare for help. Of course, we cannot since we cannot communicate with anyone — Dare can find anything. I guess the marks could be an MX thing.”
He was curious about the marks called freckles. If they brought up a bad memory for her, he did not want to ask her directly. So
me victims did not want to relive the horrors they suffered in captivity.
Mack was right. Dare was the technical wizard of the warlords and his skills bordered on magical. Of course, if their com devices worked, they would have the craft pick them up and take them back to the ship. The original plan, blown out of the water by non-functioning com links called for a new plan. By now Foord would have reported to Koda that the com links were down. That is, if the com in the ship was working. Talk about a mission going sideways.
The girl looked at them as if she tried to figure out a puzzle.
Much was still unknown about the empaths. Var thought they used the secrecy surrounding them to their favor. The mystery, further enhanced by the empaths themselves, made people uneasy around them. They refused to talk openly about their capabilities. Rumors abounded amid the mystery and stories were leaked. People were left wondering how many of the myths were true. The Facility limited their education and drugged them to keep their abilities at a manageable level. A by-product of the drugs suppressed their sexuality as well as some of their special gifts. They were trained and used as tools to benefit the Conglomerate.
The empaths had been perfect slaves, except, maybe not perfect. Even with all the careful handling and monitoring and drugs, the Conglomerate finally deemed them too dangerous. The Council voted to destroy the MX just weeks ago, shortly after Koda, their Warlord Leader, bought Claire from her handler. More accurately, Koda rented her and refused to give her back. Claire’s handler, Calks, helped them get her for a substantial payment.
“She is going to fall over.” Mack’s voice was soft as he gestured to the girl with a tilt of his head. She slept sitting up, with her back against the cave wall.
“Observant,” Var said in the old language.
Mack smirked and bobbed the matchstick in his mouth. “She does not appear dangerous.”
“None of them look dangerous.” Var agreed as he moved toward her. The absence of her fear when he came near her was a relief to him, but he had no idea why it should be. He was feared by many. His visage frightened most. Between the scars he carried and his reputation as the Enforcer/Executioner for the Warlords of Kryst, fear was a frequent reaction to his presence. Var had become accustomed to the fear he inspired.
He lowered her gently to the pallet and covered her with the blanket. Var took a deep breath. The air was filled with her scent. She smelled of soap and her own scent of jasmine, but he was a warlord and knew better than to be lured by the sweet fragrance of a female. He crossed back and sat on their side of the cave where he did a good job of ignoring a smirking Mack.
Var hoped she would be easier to deal with tomorrow, after she got a good night’s sleep, food and water. He had not hurt her. No doubt he frightened her with his whip, but only to keep her from hurting herself with the knife. Surely that should earn him some good faith.
When he mentioned as much to Mack, the warrior had to take the matchstick from his mouth so he would not swallow it while the mirth bubbled up out of him.
Var frowned at Mack and then wondered why he had the overwhelming urge to get closer to the girl and spend the night within reach of her. No, it would not do for him to think about the girl in that way. She was his responsibility, nothing else.
Chapter 8
From thirty floors up, Denties could barely see the other buildings through the haze of pollution. He detested the ocher color which now represented his failure and the failure of the Conglomerate. The ocher would be replaced by dark black clouds when the plants cranked up for the winter heating.
They experimented with using a yellow-hued ore for energy, but the by-product, this disgusting mix of thick dirty yellow clouds that clung to the city, made them desperate to find an alternative energy.
The sick yellow clouds were too heavy to rise into the higher clouds. They hung low, permeating the atmosphere until everything, living or inanimate, took on the color of the choking yellow death.
For a time, they thought they had a solution to their energy problems. But then the slaves in the Scadalokann underground who mined the thick yellow stuff began to sicken and die from the fumes of it. Denties knew the slaves working the mines died an agonizing death. His medical adviser, a coward, stressed that.
That loss left the Conglomerate with the only viable option to capture more slaves to work the mines. They found many societies willing to trade people to pay their debts to the Conglomerate.
But then his citizens began to display the same symptoms. The loss of their citizens created unrest within the Conglomerate. Unrest could lead to rebellion.
Then he’d heard of the stones. They were called krystiles and were being traded on the black market. These krystiles produced energy that was clean and safe. Investigation revealed that a barbarian society, conquered before his time controlled these krystiles. That they dared to trade on the black market infuriated him.
That the krystiles, the only clean and efficient energy source in the known societies, had been wasted on barbarians soured his stomach and caused him many sleepless nights.
His society had used up all their own energy sources. The yellow ore was dirty and wreaked havoc with their resources. Their climate changed and land which had provided plenty of food ceased to do so. The climate change resulted in a scarcity of clean water. Their farm lands had been ravaged.
The Conglomerate took over the farms. It had not helped that the people in control had no knowledge of farming or managing resources. They had gone from a society of plenty to a society on the edge of starvation and failure in two decades.
The Conglomerate took action. They were noted for taking action. Armies were sent out to the known societies and whatever was needed, was simply brought back. He grimaced as he thought of the term those lesser societies used to refer to it, The Great Destruction, they called it.
That term angered Denties. They were the superior race and the lesser societies should understand that the more advanced would always take what they needed for their own survival. If the lesser societies did not like that, they should have improved themselves.
The krystiles were supposedly clean energy. One krystile could power an entire city for several years. And the problem? The problem was that these krystiles belonged to a society of barbarian mercenaries. When the Conglomerate sent out armies to loot what they needed, they saw no energy traces from the Kryst society. The army had taken what they needed, women, food, children, and able-bodied men to be used as slaves, but they had missed the energy krystiles. The barbarian society appeared to be backward and Conglomerate experts said they were just emerging from their own stone age.
There was only one explanation. The people of Kryst had tricked the Conglomerate. Somehow, they kept their technology and the energy that propelled it, hidden. How dare they! And now, he had a problem.
The Conglomerate was in danger of failing. If he could not maintain the elite, they would soon find a leader to give them what they wanted or at least promise it to them. Denties shuddered with the thought of what a catastrophic failure of the Conglomerate would mean. They ruled many societies. Most consisting of people who were unable to manage for themselves. Inferior, all of them, yet the Conglomerate depended on these lesser people for food, clothing, materials and manufactured goods that allowed their society to flourish and their elite to live a lavish lifestyle.
He needed the krystiles from the barbarian society. That should be his primary focus. However, the Facility responsible for the MX program lost control of the empaths after the Council voted to abort that program. The Empath program should never have begun or at the very least, it should have been ended years ago.
They made such a mess of ending the empaths that Denties had to get involved in that, too, when he should be devoting all his attention to the energy issue. He retrieved the bottle of antacid from his desk. Imbeciles made his stomach hurt.
Chapter 9
Pain awakened Bess the next morning. Her body and feet hurt and the one they�
��d dug the piece of wood out of was throbbing. The warlords. Did that really happen? She opened her eyes to find the scarred one, Var, awake and gathering up belongings. He was the scariest looking person she’d ever seen. Yesterday’s all too real events came rushing back to her. She was now the captive of the warlords. They also told her they were taking her to sanctuary. She racked her brain for everything she’d ever heard about warlords. Could she believe them?
Bess tried to receive from Var but got nothing. She read most humans with ease since coming to this place. Her empath ability was useless on him. Mack said they were not human, but something else. The other possibility was that perhaps he maintained tight control over what he did feel. As a warrior, that would be a valuable skill.
She might be too overwhelmed from yesterday’s events to receive from anyone. Bess felt off. She was not her usual self. The ordeal of the slave line had left its mark on her, physically as well as psychologically.
Watching Var, she realized he was beautiful in his own way. With his attention on his chore, she took the time to study him. His forehead held faint lines, probably from frowning. The blue of his eyes was startling from under his strong brow. They were definitely his most striking feature. He had a straight nose and his cheekbones were sharp as blades that narrowed to his chiseled, square jaw.
He had full, sensuous lips that did not belong on that fierce face. His blond hair was beautiful. He’d braided it and it hung over one shoulder down the front of his muscular chest. He reminded her of a picture of a wolf in the Facility library long ago. His visage went well with his obvious strength.
She stared at his broad, heavily muscled shoulders. He wore a vest over his leather harness. The vest opened in the front, revealing a washboard of muscles down his torso. His arms were beautiful. She could not take her eyes off his body and wondered what it would feel like to trace her fingers along those defined muscles. So many wounds on his body, but there were a few places left unscarred and she imagined the skin there to be smooth.
