The Taming

by Imogen Keeper

  It was boring.

  No one shouted or laughed, there were no drums or bare-chested dancing, no spicy food or toasts of yikseh. No dimpled regio toying with her hair.

  Through the window, the Meren Sound passed by, glittering with the city lights across the water.

  Argentus no longer felt like home. Here, she was useless. Here she had no one but her father—and Staria, until he figured out how to sell her too. She had no delusions about that. Her father saw Staria as one more way to control her and curry favor.

  She let her eyes roam the room. People stared at her. She knew they were whispering. The men seemed uniformly curious and titillated by the errant Argenti kidnapped by the Vestige. She’d avoided conversing with all of them.

  When she saw Spiro walking toward her, she had to squeeze her shaking hands. It was all wrong. All of this.

  He was undeniably handsome, but he was also undeniably not Tor.

  He wore the broad blue coat of a colonel, with black metal epaulets and crossing knife holsters, and a snowy cravat around his throat, eyes blazing that same old true blue.

  He took a low bow and held out his hand for hers.

  “Miss Merona, or is it Selissa TaKarian now?” he asked so softly she could barely hear him, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Hoarse, raspy. She sucked in a long breath. Her fault. His voice box must have been damaged by the knife. Consequences, Klymeni.

  “Miss Merona.”

  His lips curved, and she let herself imagine a life with him. Waking beside him, kissing those lips, trailing her hand along the smile lines that bracketed his mouth, raising a family, walking by his side. Her fingers fisted in her skirts.

  All she wanted to do was run. Run from the house, across the city, across the whole planet, across space itself, and go back to the man she’d left to save. She still had some yenna left. Maybe Spiro would accept Staria instead.

  “Walk with me?” he said in that low rasp that drew so much confusion from her. The guilt was there, but not regret. He’d paid for her escape with his voice, and though she felt bad for that, she couldn’t bring herself to regret her time with Tor.

  “You’ll have to pull me up.”

  “Pardon?”

  She gestured at the voluminous skirts and the binding stays. “I don’t think I can do it alone.”

  “Oh? Of course.” His grip on her hand tightened, and he tugged, then tugged harder.

  The sky outside shifted from dark gray to nearly black. Night had come to Meren. Lights twinkled on across the city.

  They walked past the sad pianist, and the crowded bar, the clusters of men in deep conversation. Her hand rested lightly on his arm. He was an imposing man, and he moved like Tor. That thought sent a slice of pain stabbing through her chest, as every thought of him did. If only they’d had one last night together.

  “The Bonding would make it so we’d love each other,” Spiro rasped.

  She glanced at him sharply.

  “I would love you,” he said, so confident and sure she almost believed it.

  “You’d know that it wasn’t real.”

  “It would feel real. Does it matter if it isn’t?” he rasped.

  “It would matter. Have you ever known someone who made your whole body come alive? Like it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, just sitting around, fighting, anything, it doesn’t matter. It’s like the world’s just bright.”

  The hard muscles of his forearm tightened under her fingers, and the shadows in the corners of his lips deepened. “No.”

  “Neither had I. Until I met him.” She squeezed his arm, and they passed into a room where men shouted at tiny green holographic ball players who raced along the wall.

  He nodded at a fellow officer, slapped another on the back, and she got the impression he was weighing her words. “You love the Vestige that way? TaKarian?”

  The hollowness in her chest grew. “I do.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “To save his life.”

  Those bold blue eyes settled on her, and she had the discomfiting feeling that he was seeing more than she’d have liked. “Your friend Malina asked me to make sure you see something.”

  He went to the wall beside the control for the sports holo. He pressed a button, and the little green men disappeared. Childers, Argentus’s most famous reporter, appeared, smiling impishly, his shiny white hair flashing.

  The on-planet feeds were so realistic, the only sign he wasn’t real was the light that came off of him.

  He smiled and spoke, and it took Klym a minute to realize he was talking about her.

  “And she claims that she wasn’t abducted at all. Rather, that she went willingly to Vesta, and even that she fell in love with the man who took her there.” He winked at the screen. “But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.”

  He disappeared, and in his place stood a holo of Klym herself, dressed in the white and gold pants and belled shoes, overlooking the cliffs. She barely recognized herself, though she’d edited this image herself. Staria had held the holo-cam. The holo-Klym smiled, and her belly clenched.

  The holo version of herself spoke, and Klym closed her eyes with shame. A hand slid into hers, a soft, slender hand. Staria.

  “Did you do this?” she whispered, unable to open her eyes and see Staria’s face.

  “No,” Staria said.

  Klym squeezed her hand back.

  She opened her eyes and stared as the reel they’d created on Vesta played out on Argentus. The pink galaxy, Tor sleeping in the escape pod, the shaking, rattling landing on Araa-Ara, the waterfalls and dust, the furry trees.

  When Tor appeared on the holo, his broad shoulders, the dimple, his dark eyes with their pearly orbs, and the look on his face, she bit down on her tongue so hard she tasted blood. It was them in the bathing chamber after they’d fought. In the holo, he dragged his thumb along her ankle. She couldn’t look away. It was like watching herself fall in love, and staring at Tor’s beautiful, mesmerizing face, it was hard to even blame herself.

  “I’m not used to women like you,” he said, gruff and quiet and so uncharacteristically soft.

  It snapped to Frigorria, to the one Tor had taken himself, his arm around her, while he laughed, white teeth and dimples and his hair, and the way his throat moved.

  She knew exactly how it felt to stand with him and have his arm around her, the hot and heavy weight of it. That was before he’d taken her to Vesta, but he’d already known he was going to.

  Then they’d landed on Vesta, and the reel sped up. Laughter, and dancing and food, the gardens, the city, an endless whirl of the beauty of a planet now denied her. And Tor. In almost every one of the films, there he was, larger than life, glowing and smiling and laughing—how had she not noticed how much he laughed?

  In almost every image, he wasn’t looking at the holo-cam, his gaze was just beyond it. He was looking at her.

  “I can’t watch this,” she whispered, and tried to pull away.

  Staria held her still with a hard hand on her upper arm.

  The holo changed. Tor was there—but he wasn’t laughing. His face was murderous, his body rigid, his hand wrapped tight around Miannya.

  Pijuan was there too, his holo smaller, set back, his shoulders narrowed. “Ten thousand yenna to anyone with proof that the selissa was a fraud.”

  Her hands were shaking, so she clasped them together. No wonder Tor looked so angry. He had to have been humiliated. Was this after she’d left?

  At the back of the feed, the faces in the crowd parted, someone stepped forward. Kiava. “I knew her. I spoke with her.”

  Klym put her hand over her mouth.

  On the holo, people stepped forward. Their words were silenced, but whatever they’d said, it had been in her defense. Her heart soared. The felanas hadn’t hated her in the end. They’d stood up for her.

  Spiro glanced down at her, face unreadable.

  The holo came back to Tor, staring hard at the holo-cam feed.


  Klym’s breath hitched. It was like he was staring right at her now, and it hit her like a punch in the gut.

  Janna spoke from offscreen. Klym knew her voice well. “She loves him. She does. She told me.”

  Tor’s nostrils flared. The wind blew loose strands of his hair around an angry jaw, and still he stared hard at the holo-cam.

  “I was there when he found out she was missing in the riots,” said a man’s brittle voice offscreen. “He loves her too.”

  Holo-Tor closed his eyes tight in the whipping wind, and Klym’s throat clenched.

  He opened his eyes, staring at the holo-cam. “I love her.”

  The feed ended, and Tor disappeared.

  Childers came back on, chattering about Klym and Spiro and Spiro’s brother and his connection to Triannon.

  Everyone in the hall stared at her.

  Klym’s heart thundered. Her grip on Staria’s hand was so tight it must have hurt, but Staria didn’t say a thing. “How did you get that?”

  Spiro’s boots shifted on the floor. “I didn’t. Your friend Malina sent it to the reporter.”

  Klym shook her head. “How did she get it?”

  The people across the hall started moving again. Someone turned the feed back to the ball game, and little green men roved the walls.

  Spiro didn’t say anything.

  Staria turned on Klym, eyes wide, jaw dropped, mouth curved in an awed smile. “He came for you.”

  Klym rounded on Spiro. “He’s here?”

  Spiro nodded.

  “He’s on Argentus?”

  Again, Spiro nodded.

  Why were they smiling?

  Fury settled low in her belly.

  “You need to go get him,” Staria said, turning to Spiro with wide, almost-scared eyes. “Where is he? He’ll be killed immediately.”

  “He’s been arrested,” Spiro said, those bold blue eyes digging into Klym’s. “By your father.”

  41

  A ball-gag. Seriously?

  SOMETHING SLAPPED AGAINST Tor’s cheek insistently.

  Tor tried to talk, but his tongue didn’t work.

  More slapping.

  He tried to listen, but the only sound he heard was someone breathing through pinched nostrils, and the pounding of two hearts.

  He sniffed. Man-sweat. Antiseptic too. Subterranean maybe.

  More slapping.

  His eyes came into focus slowly.

  A pair of eyes that looked disconcertingly like Klym’s in their warm, gray color stared at him, from a face that looked nothing like hers. Up close, her father’s face was a mess of dark pores and red veins. He’d looked paler and grayer in the holo-feed. In life, he was just as hard, with a blunt jaw and broad, bulbous nose.

  Klym’s mother must have had a hell of a face, because she’d gotten nothing from this guy but her eyes.

  Tor started to say something, but something that felt like a ball-gag was in his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but it wouldn’t budge.

  His arms were tied behind his back, and he was lying on his side in a white-walled room on a metal floor with a drain in the center. That was never a good sign.

  What was it with the Argenti and tying him up? It was uniquely insulting to be on the other side of cuffs. He’d strapped assholes in to them too many times to count, and now here he was, tied up again. He’d known this would happen—Franno had warned him—but the ball-gag was a surprise.

  One of the armed Guarda came forward and took a knee beside Tor, patting him down, removing his rezals and knives, and with an oily glance at Merona to make sure he couldn’t watch, he slid Klym’s pearls out of Tor’s pant pocket and slipped them into his own.

  Tor glared at him, blasting silent promise his way. He’d get those pearls back, and he’d see this man’s blood.

  A single light hung from the ceiling behind Merona’s head, casting sharp shadows on his face.

  “Oh good. You’re up.” Merona stepped back, and the light hit Tor’s eyes, making him wince.

  He shouted a few blunt curses, including a handful of detailed ideas of what he’d like to do to Merona’s corpse with the ball-gag, but it came out as nothing more than garbled grunts.

  “Oh, good, you’re moving again. I was starting to worry about your dosage. Big bastard like you, we gave you a double.”

  Tor glared at him, did the shouting-behind-the-gag routine again for affect, and spent some time pulling on his arms experimentally. He knew handcuffs. All bounty hunters knew handcuffs.

  He slid his thumb up and found the distinct rounded faceplate sitting just above the heel of his hand. Naphas.

  His favorite type, produced on a Fringe Colony called Naphalli. Practically a piece of art. It required a thumb print from the owner to open them. The only way he was getting out of them was if he killed Merona and got his thumb into just the right position, he incapacitated Merona and got his thumb into just the right position, or Merona set him free.

  Of the three options, the final one was the most attractive, since manipulating the body of a grown man, behind his back, with his arms tied, was one shade shy of impossible.

  His legs were free, though.

  Which was probably proof that wherever he was, Merona didn’t think there was a chance in hell of Tor breaking free. He wiggled his toes, wondering about the lasting effects of whatever drug he’d been given.

  At least they hadn’t taken his boots. They should have. He would have.

  He garble-shouted some more, just to see if he could get a rise out of Merona, and pulled himself awkwardly to a seated position.

  Merona’s bushy gray brows lowered. He ignored Tor’s noise. “Did you touch my daughter?”

  Tor nodded vigorously and shouted some more behind the gag.

  “Did you take her virginity?”

  Tor garbled, loud noncommittal nonsense.

  Merona lifted his own shiny, spit-polished black boot and gave Tor a steady kick smack in the sternum.

  Tor fell back with it, but lifted his right leg and hooked Merona behind the knee, dropping him to the ground.

  Tor twisted, getting his leg up into position, to do a boot-drop right on his face, but Merona was fast. Especially for his age.

  He rolled into his drop and surged to his feet before Tor could sweep him again.

  Tor did his best to make a laughing sound behind the gag. Mostly it came out like he was grunting.

  “Send in a pair of guards,” Merona called out to whoever was watching them on camera.

  Merona rose, dusting off his hands, and sent Tor an irritable look. “Try anything like that again, I’ll break your nose. With that gag, you can suffocate slowly on your own blood.”

  Tor had made that same threat a few times. Empty. No one bothered to tie up a guy and ball-gag him just to let him die like that. But he tried to look appropriately cowed.

  A few moments later, a white door at the back—one without a handle—opened, and in came two armed guards.

  Knives and rezals but no swords. A big part of him had wondered if they’d already moved him to a space base somewhere. If he was still on Argentus—Klym was close. Franno hadn’t been entirely certain that they wouldn’t ship him straight to one of Merona’s ships to cover their asses. It had been the weakest part of the plan.

  If this were a base, though, they’d be packing swords, and the rezals would be sheathed. He blew a long stream of air out of his nose. Everything was going perfectly according to plan. He just needed the Premier to show up and confirm that the leaders back on Vesta had solidified the peace in time.

  Tor just needed to delay. A well-aimed kick to the solar plexus or the neck would put one of them down. Maybe he could even get lucky and kick them both, but irritating them too much could get him killed.

  Merona smiled and leaned against the wall, arms crossed, like he was waiting too, but what the hell was he waiting for?

  They were supposed to be taking him off to torture him now.

  Tor shou
ted behind the gag, but no one paid him any attention. Not even when he made his way to his feet and backed himself in the corner of the room. Those rezals just stayed trained on him.

  He shouted at Merona.

  Merona waggled his eyebrows at him. “Be silent, Vestige. Klymeni will be here soon with her future-mate. And you will help me force their Bond. Did you seriously think I would let my own daughter defect to Vesta? Bond with an enemy barbarian?” A smile stretched across his face. “I saw her holo-vid. She thinks she’s in love with you. But she’ll forget all about you in the wake of a Bond with Spiro. Which I didn’t have a hope in hell of forcing her to accept—until you showed up. So, thanks for that.”

  42

  I had to try

  KLYM STARED UP at the massive building that housed Central War Command, where Spiro had just parked. “They have him there?”

  Spiro’s blue eyes were grim. He had to be thinking the same thing she was. No Vestige warrior, no Vestige regio, was walking out of there alive.

  Her eyes burned. “He shouldn’t have come here.”

  “No,” he said, the acerbic turn of his mouth intensifying. “He will surely die.”

  The very idea was unthinkable. A universe without Tor couldn’t be allowed to exist. It would be flat and dead and gray, with no dimples and laughing and fighting. No.

  Tor would not die. He could not die. She refused to accept that as a viable option. Even if she had to sell her soul, she would not let him die. She chewed on her lip.

  “My father sent you to the ball to bring me here, didn’t he?”

  Spiro inclined his head.

  “Then he has something in mind. Something specific that he wants.”

  Spiro made a noncommittal face.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  He blew out a long breath. “I can guess.”

  “You and me?”

  It had to be that. And if that was what he wanted, there might be a way to get Tor out of there alive.

  “I think so.” The quiet of the street, and the cool water, underscored the rasp of his voice.

  Klym’s stomach twisted, imagining what her father was going to force her to do. “Your voice, does it hurt?”