His stony face didn’t change. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
A slight smile played around his lips. “You didn’t throw it.”
“I may as well have.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It wasn’t personal. It was him or me.” He gestured at the building, and she climbed the steps beside him.
Tor would have loved to hear that.
“I am sorry.”
He lifted a shoulder, and the light pooled on his face, in the hollows below his cheekbones, in the lines that bracketed his mouth.
Her father wanted her to Bond with Spiro, and now he had Tor’s life in his hands.
“Spiro, will you give me your word that you’ll Bond with me if I ask?”
His eyes widened. “Strange thing to hear, from you, after the way you escaped.”
She wrapped her hand around his forearm, staring at him with all the intensity of her broken soul. “My father didn’t ask you to bring me here by accident. He wants something from me. If it comes to that, I need to be able to save Tor’s life.”
He stared back at her. “I’d have given you as much time as you needed.”
“I knew that, even then.”
After a long moment, he jerked his head in tight agreement and yanked open the door.
She hesitated on the threshold. “Will you give me one of your knives?”
With the barest glimmer of a smile, he shook his head ruefully.
She sighed. “I had to try.”
43
Just wait
“HERE SHE COMES,” Merona crooned.
Yesterday, Tor would have said he’d been angry before. Angry when Klym had locked him out of the ship. Angry when she’d disappeared in a riot and showed up with Sanger and without a mark.
No. Those had been good times.
He’d never been angry before. Never even come close.
Staring at Merona’s red face across the cell, a new height of fury raced through his bloodstream.
He stood in his corner, drooling around the ball-gag, arms loose behind his back to minimize the strain to his muscles, and thought up a thousand different ways he’d make Merona suffer.
He garbled a few times, hoping Merona would come close enough for him to head-butt, but the bastard stayed stubbornly on his side of the cell. The guards—and their rezals—stayed stubbornly trained on Tor, out of reach.
A double-tap at the door announced she’d arrived.
Klym.
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
He wanted her a thousand miles away from here.
She was supposed to be somewhere safe, watching the holo-vid. She was supposed to see it and understand that he’d loved her all along and know that he’d come for her. She was supposed to trust him and know that he wouldn’t come here without a plan, a reasonable plan. She was supposed to know he’d never risk their future without a hope in hell of success.
But she didn’t. Because she was Klym, the woman who’d handed knives to prisoners and asked them to help escape, the woman who’d taken a hover into an unknown city because she’d been lonely, the woman who’d befriended her enemies, and sold the only possession her mother had touched—because she’d done what she’d had to do. Headstrong and courageous. And she’d ruined every fucking plan he’d ever made. Every single one.
She probably thought she was coming to save him.
Where the hell did Merona have Franno? And where was Agammo with the Premier? Now all their lives rested in the hands of a man who actually chose to wear sausage-curls on his head.
But even knowing all of that, every cell in his body practically vibrated with the knowledge that she was close.
The padded door opened with an airy hiss, and there she was.
Vaniiya, he’d missed her.
She walked in with her head high, as snooty and graceful as ever in the biggest, craziest dress he’d ever seen, blonde and fancy and prissy.
And that face. He’d forgotten. Well, no, he hadn’t. He’d seen her in her holo-vid every day—but no holo, no memory, no dreams did her justice. Klym in the flesh was a rare sight indeed.
She was wearing some shiny gray contraption of a dress that left her neck and shoulders and the tops of her breasts bare, and a part of him wanted to tackle her to the ground so no one else could look at her, but an even bigger part just wanted to strip her bare and get reacquainted with all the beautiful planes of her body.
Even in the harsh, ugly light, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
She looked back at him, and everything else just disappeared. She slayed him with those eyes, every time—even now when she didn’t look even remotely happy to be here. In fact, she looked damned pissy.
He shoved off the wall.
He was breathing fast, making a ton of noise through his nose. He flexed his fists in the cuffs and shouted around the gag.
Her eyes landed on him, her brows drawn together. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Ughh rrrhhhgggg iighh rruuugghhh ruuuuu.” He tried shouting behind the ball-gag, but nothing but growls came out. It had been funny when he’d been just fucking with Merona, but not anymore.
He crossed the room, wanting to pick her up or kiss her or hug her, throw her out the door, anything. But he couldn’t do shit, so he just stood there, looming over her, glaring down, reminding her who she belonged to, his chest heaving, hoping she’d read the truth in his eyes.
I have a plan. You’re ruining it. Get out of here.
Merona watched them.
Spiro too. Tor sent him a long, scathing look. The fucker shouldn’t have brought her here. She wasn’t supposed to come.
No one spoke.
Klym gazed at him, her whole body shaking, just quivering like she was about to blast off.
“You shouldn’t have come, you stupid man. You’ve ruined everything.” Her face crumpled. Her hands came down to settle on his hips, and she touched her forehead to the center of his chest.
He couldn’t even hug her.
She was the one who shouldn’t have come here. He garbled that at her, using his knees and shoulders to herd her into the corner, where Merona couldn’t get to her. And because it was something he could do, he dropped his forehead to hers and leaned against it, so close that his ball-gag bumped against her chin, and their eyes were only an inch apart.
Merona cleared his throat. “Step away from him, Klymeni.”
She just blinked up at Tor, and his whole heart twisted.
“Now,” barked Merona.
Another slow blink of long, black lashes over wet, silver eyes, and she ducked low to escape him, and moved around him.
Tor grunted behind the gag, but they all ignored him.
“I’ll let him go, Klymeni. But you need to agree to Bond with Spiro.”
Her chin up, face as elegant and regal as ever. “Why do you hate me?”
Merona straightened. “I don’t.”
“This is hate, Father. What you are doing, right now. Forcing me to Bond with the wrong man. And this is the second time.”
Merona’s eyes, so like his daughter’s, widened, and he stared at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. His gaze roved along her face almost hungrily just for a moment before it hardened, and he looked away, his eyes settling on the wall. “I’m doing this to protect you from him. The Bonding will remove any doubts you have about Spiro.”
“Look at me.”
Merona slid his gaze back to her, then past her again.
“You can’t even do it. Can you? All you see is my mother.”
Merona’s face twisted at the word, his lips peeling back in a snarl, and for the first time, Tor felt bad for him. He couldn’t imagine what he’d become if he lost Klym and had to raise a daughter who looked exactly like her all alone.
“I know that.” Merona’s face turned red. “You’re stubborn and rash and contrary.”
Under any other circumstance Tor would have laughed. The man kn
ew his daughter. But she was also sweet and kind and brave.
“And what? Mother just did whatever you told her to do?”
A ghost of a smile whispered across Merona’s face. “No. But with the Bonding, we understood each other. You’ll have that with Spiro.”
“I could have it with Torum.”
Merona’s brows lowered, his teeth baring. “I’ll see you both dead before I permit that. You choose, Klymeni. I will not see the memory of your mother destroyed by having you Bond with the enemy that killed her.”
Klym wiped at a stray tear. “Did she love me?”
The room was quiet for a long time, Merona staring at the floor, breathing through pinched nostrils, until finally, he looked up and held his daughter’s gaze. “Yes.”
She stared back, and some silent communication happened. Something Tor couldn’t begin to understand, but the rigidity left her spine, her shoulders just sagged.
“I’ll do it,” she said softly. “Give me your word you’ll take Tor to his ship and let him leave, unharmed.”
“No,” he screamed, but all anyone else heard was gibberish. He shook his head, shouting louder, but she shook her head tightly. Ruining the plan again.
Tor bucked at the cuffs, garble-shouting, but no one even looked at him.
Klym shook her short hair around her shoulders, and he realized he’d never even told her he liked it, hadn’t touched it. Had barely touched her since she’d been lost in the riot.
Just wait, he tried to say. Just wait. The Premier is coming. They can’t kill me. If they kill me, Vesta will retaliate. Just wait. The Premier saw your film. Everyone saw your film. Just wait.
Sweat poured down his cheeks, and his voice went hoarse from screaming behind the gag, but none of it did any good.
She stared up at him, letting him blabber, unmoved by his bellowing. “Coming here was the stupidest thing you could have ever done.”
He stared at her, breathing hard around the gag. He shouted at her.
Just wait.
“I hope I remember. All of it. Even the birds and the beans.” She leaned up to press a kiss against his jaw. She smelled like that damned elusive tropical fruit. He breathed her in.
She smelled like sunshine, flowers and that fucking fruit. How had he not recognized it? Levidicus! That was the name of the planet, he suddenly remembered. He and Jasto had spent a week hiding in that jungle, watching for their perp. They’d gorged on the fruit. It had been the best thing he’d ever had, and it had kept them alive that week. The thought brought the memory so strong of Jasto laughing. She smelled like a week he’d spent laughing in the sun with a friend, completely free.
And then she was gone. Her soft hair left his cheek.
He opened his eyes. She was trying to get away.
“Let’s go, Spiro,” she murmured.
He shouldered her back, pinning her to the wall with his body, shuddering at the contact of her warm, soft breasts mashing against his chest. Don’t do this. It was a whimpered garble now. Just wait.
The noises that came out of Tor at that were beyond human. The guards flipped their safeties off, leveling their sights square on him.
Spiro leaned against a wall opposite, arms crossed, tracing his thumbnail along his fore-teeth.
Tor screamed at him behind the mask, garbled threats, nothing that made any sense, because none of this made any sense, and Spiro met his eyes, bright blue.
Klym tried to shift away from him, but he snarled and shoved her back into the wall with his hips.
Spiro sucked in a breath, and the hand left his mouth, lowered to his weapon belt.
Klym pushed at him harder with sharp elbows.
Stay there. Just wait.
But Klym never listened to him even when he could talk, and she never did what he wanted her to do. She turned to Spiro, her eyes full and wet. “You promised.”
She tried to shove him away, but he didn’t budge.
“You promised,” she shouted at Spiro.
“Let’s go, Vestige,” said Merona, and a guard prodded him in his flank.
Tor rounded on him and came face to barrel with a rezal, and while he was distracted, Klym got away, her slim hand left him, and so did the fruit.
The pearl thief pressed down on the pre-trigger, and the tip gleamed orange as it gathered energy to form a blast. “Let her go,” said the guard.
She crossed the room to Spiro and didn’t look back.
44
This isn’t what was
supposed to happen
“TAKE ME TO YOUR home, Spiro, please,” Klym said, and Tor’s whole body froze, every bone in his body rebelling against hearing his own godsdamned wife begging some other man to take her to his home and fuck her.
There weren’t enough curses in the universe and none of them came close to addressing the load of bullshit piling up around them.
He was losing his voice, and his screams behind the gag sounded like barking.
The pearl-thief guard shoved him in the general direction of the hallway, and it was perfect, a thing of beauty. Tor couldn’t have orchestrated better timing. Time slowed, and thank Vaniiya, because this was battle-rage and in it, he didn’t even have to think.
He’d make good his promise to see blood.
The pearl-thief guard put his hand on his upper arm, leaning in with his oily beetle-black eyes, the rezal held steady in his other hand, and he made a mistake. He got his face just close enough.
Tor reared back, put all his weight straight in his core, and slammed forward with the top of his head. The guard was just the right height too.
The hardest part of Tor’s skull, right at the top of his forehead, collided with all of his substantial mass in a head-butt that landed square in the pearl thief’s nose.
His hands flew up to his nose as he staggered backward.
The other guard shouted, swiveling, his shiny head catching that single swaying overhead light. Tor swung around with his booted foot to catch his knee, the guard dropping to the floor.
It wasn’t going to get him free, but that wasn’t what Tor wanted.
He just needed time. Agammo should have already been here.
He stormed Merona, breathing hard, got in his face, glaring for all he had, snarling.
Merona just glared back, rezal squarely at Tor’s chest. “Stop.”
Tor stood between Klym and her father, breathing hard.
The pearl thief, with his broken nose, was panting against the wall. He’d gotten to his feet and collected himself. Blood poured down the bottom half of his face, staining his teeth.
Klym came up, her sharp little hands digging into his flank, and shoved her body between him and her father, pushing at the rezal with her hand. “You swore not to hurt him, Father. You swore.”
“And you swore to accept Spiro.”
Tor shook his head back and forth. Not in a hundred thousand years was that happening. They would have to kill him first and separate the limbs. Even dead, he’d come back and haunt them. She was his.
What the fuck was it with Spiro anyway? He shouted that, enraged, his tongue jamming up around the stupid rubber ball, but nothing useful came out.
He rounded on Spiro, a man he’d seen in action enough times to have learned to respect back on the ship, and his face went hot with all the muffled shouting. He had no idea what he must look like, but he had to believe it wasn’t a pretty sight. His face had to be so red it pushed into puce or maybe blue, and he had to have veins bulging everywhere.
Klym thought he bellowed too much. She’d seen nothing.
This wasn’t bellowing, this was battle-roar, primitive rage from a Prime with a threatened mate. He filled his lungs and flooded the room with his fury. It echoed and resounded in everyone’s eardrums, making them unbalanced and confused. It showed on their faces. Sound could make anyone crazy. Even Spiro’s face finally registered a degree of irritation. It played out all over his face. One of the guards flinched as if in pain, and Klym threw
her hands up over her ears.
It was the only thing he could do other than loom with the promised threat of retaliation and reminder that if they shot him, they had better not miss, because they got one shot. He’d savage them with knees and elbows and feet if he got even the slimmest shot.
“Stop,” Spiro roared, in a voice that sounded like broken shards of glass clattering across concrete. The sound of a broken voice box. It almost hurt to hear. It was broken, and not even for a second did Tor feel guilty. He’d throw a knife at his throat again a thousand times because even though he hadn’t known it at the time, that man’s voice had given him Klym. It had brought him here.
“Stop,” he rasp-roared again.
Finally, Tor stopped, and in the aftermath, everyone blinked, shaking their heads with surprise.
Spiro touched a hard hand to his throat as if it hurt, and when he spoke, his voice was raw. “I didn’t give my word to force her.”
Klym turned to stare at Spiro, her face registering some strange blend of relief and mistrust that Tor didn’t really understand.
Merona’s weapon lowered, just for a second, and only an inch before he retrained it. “She just said she’d take you.”
“She’s your daughter, sir.”
Merona’s face darkened. “She will be happy once you are Bonded. That’s how Bondings work.” He ticked the weapon back up. “They make you happy.”
Tor shouldered his way in front of Klym.
Spiro lifted a shoulder. “Then we’ll all have to be miserable.”
Thank Vaniiya, a rational person in the room. Tor let his shoulders drop and sent a grateful garble Spiro’s direction.
Spiro tugged his own rezal off his belt and leveled it steadily at the floor. “Let’s everyone just lower our weapons.”
Merona shifted to their left, tightening his grip on the handle of his rezal.
Spiro stepped between them. “Don’t make me point my weapon at you, sir.”
For a long moment, silence stretched. The stink of sweating men and blood filled the air. Hearts beating, the guard with the busted nose breathing around the blood, Klym with her fruit-scent filling the air with her own desperate sadness.
Merona glared at them all, his finger tap-tap-tapping along the shaft of the rezal. “Then I’m taking the Vestige for questioning.”
The Taming Page 27
