It was a rash promise but there was something about the big Kindred that touched her heart. Maybe it was the way he had come back to sentience just for her, or the way she had just claimed him as her own, but she wanted more desperately than ever to save him and get him off this awful planet.
Judge Thoughtgood frowned.
“I tell you what, Councilor,” she said to Imani. “I will give you a short trial period. You may take the Kindred male back with you to wherever you’re staying for the night. Then, come back with him to court this time tomorrow. If you’re still unharmed and he seems lucid, I’ll make a further ruling then.”
It looked like the best offer she was going to get so Imani nodded.
“Thank you, your Honor. I appreciate your clemency.”
Judge Thoughtgood frowned.
“You won’t be thanking me if he rips your throat out in the middle of the night, Councilor,” she said dryly. “But I’m willing to at least allow you to try to tame him. Listen to me, though…” She raised a finger and narrowed her eyes at Imani. “When I say keep him with you, I mean he must be with you at all times. You’re not to leave him alone for an instant—not even to go into another room. Do you understand?”
Well that was going to make having a shower tonight interesting, Imani thought. But she had no choice.
“Yes, your honor,” she said firmly. “I understand and I am willing to undertake the risk and responsibility in order to take J’are home with me.”
“Very well.” Judge Thoughtgood nodded, an expression of grudging respect in her blue eyes. “I hope I’m not making a mistake here, Councilor. But you seem like a very determined young woman—I respect that.”
“Thank you, your honor.” Imani looked up at the big Kindred, who was still held in place by the chains attached to his collar and the bolts in the floor. “Could you please have the guards unchain J’are so I can take him home with me?”
At a nod from the judge, one of the Horvath guards came forward and started to unlock the chains. But the moment the scaly lizard man came close, J’are’s eyes flashed and he bared his teeth, showing his fangs again.
Imani frowned. She had heard reports of how badly the Horvaths mistreated prisoners under their care. They were a sadistic, cold-blooded people who enjoyed torture. She didn’t need the guards triggering J’are again and forcing back into his feral state.
“Stop!” she exclaimed, frowning at the guard. She held out her hand. “Give me the key. Let me do it,” she demanded imperiously.
The lizard man looked at her dubiously and then up to the judge who nodded her head.
“Give the Defender the key, guard.”
With a shrug of his scaly shoulders, the Horvath guard dropped the key—a smooth metal disk with a burnished copper stud sticking out in the middle—into Imani’s palm.
“You pressss it to the locksss,” he explained and then took a step back.
“Thank you,” Imani said stiffly. Then she turned her attention back to J’are. “All right now. All right,” she murmured in a low, soothing voice. “Come down here please—I can’t reach you way up there.”
The big Kindred relaxed his defensive stance at once and bent towards her. Imani pressed the round disk to the locks that ringed his pain collar. One by one they popped open and the chains slithered, clinking and clanking to the floor, where they lay in piles like defanged snakes.
“Good.” Imani caressed his cheek again. “Excellent, J’are.”
As soon as she got him home she had to get that shiny black stuff off of him, she thought. It felt slightly tacky to the touch and had a strange, unpleasant chemical odor. But despite that, she didn’t want to draw away.
“That’s good, J’are. You’re free now,” she told the big Kindred.
“Not free yet,” he rumbled and nodded down to the thick leather harness which strapped his arms to his body and kept his hands and wrists bound in front of him.
“Judge Thoughtgood?” Imani looked up at the judge who was watching with a wary expression on her face. “May I please have the key to J’are’s harness as well?”
“You may have it,” the judge answered. “But you may not use it until you get the Kindred back to your own domicile and the doors are safely locked,” she added firmly. “This male is far too dangerous to roam around unrestrained. And I want him locked up in that harness again when you bring him back into court tomorrow. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your honor.” Imani nodded respectfully and looked up at J’are. “Sorry, big guy—I’m afraid you’ll have to wear it just a little while longer until I can get you home. Okay?”
Slowly, he nodded.
“All…right.”
“Okay.” Imani stroked his cheek again. It occurred to her that she was touching him way more than was proper between an attorney and her client. But it seemed to calm him down and besides, she found she liked touching the big Kindred—even if he was covered in some kind of weird black tar-paint.
One of the Horvath guards handed her another kind of key—this one a slightly larger disk which was hung on a metal chain.
“Wear thisss clossse to you,” he hissed at her. “When you wish to use it, pressss it to the locking mechanism by his wristssss.” He nodded at the thick manacles which extended from the heel of J’are’s big hands all the way up his forearms.
“Thank you,” Imani said stiffly. She took the harness key and slipped it over her head. Then she looked at J’are. “All right—are you ready to go?”
“Not without a leash! And the remote to his pain collar!” Lady Bittlebum spoke up for the first time. She gave Imani a withering look. “How in the world do you expect to control the beast otherwise?”
At the sound of her voice, J’are’s eyes blazed and he turned on the lemon-haired Mistress with a low growl.
“No, no!” Imani said quickly. Reaching up, she captured his chin and pulled gently but firmly. “Look at me, J’are,” she said urgently. “Don’t pay any attention to her—just look at me.”
Slowly, the big Kindred turned back to face her.
“She likes pain,” he said simply. “Being with her hurts.”
Imani felt as though he was squeezing her heart with his words. She had a sudden flash of what life with Mistress Bittlebum must have been like. She’d been the first one to own J’are after the kind but eccentric Lady Hownow, who had apparently treated him like a son. Then her niece had come along and introduced him to the pain collar and who knew what other torture devices the Yonnites used on their male bodyslaves?
It must have been terrible for him to go from a home where he was loved and cared for to a place where he was constantly shocked into submission.
“It’s all right,” Imani told him, stroking his cheek again. “She can’t hurt you anymore. She’s never going to hurt you again. No one is—you’re mine now.”
As she spoke those words, she felt the truth of them. She wasn’t just saying the words—she really was claiming the big Kindred as her own. Somehow he had gotten under her skin and she wanted nothing more in the world than to keep him safe.
J’are’s blazing green eyes looked into hers for a long moment.
“I’m yours now,” he repeated in that hoarse, deep voice of his. “Yours and not hers.”
“Mine,” Imani agreed. “Come on now—you’ll be all right. Just focus on me. Stay with me, all right?”
“Yes.” He nodded slowly. “I’ll stay with you.”
“I must agree with Lady Bittlebum, Councilor,” Judge Thoughtgood’s voice cut in again before Imani could take the big Kindred’s hand to lead him away. “You’ll need the remote to his pain collar to keep him under control. And you cannot take him out without a leash—it simply isn’t proper.”
Imani wished she could argue that she wasn’t afraid of the big Kindred and thus didn’t need to use the pain collar. And also, putting him on a leash was dehumanizing. But right at that moment, she just wanted to get out of there before the judge changed
her mind.
“All right,” she said evenly. “Give me the leash and remote.”
Another Horvath guard stepped forward and handed her a long black leather leash and a small black rectangular box that looked like a mini TV remote.
Imani took them but when J’are saw the small remote in her hand, he at once began to growl.
“No, no—look at me. Look at me,” Imani told him, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “I’m not going to use this,” she said, showing him the remote. “I promise—not even once. I have to take it because they won’t let me take you with me otherwise. But I’m not going to use it.”
Slowly, his green eyes cleared and the animalistic rage leaked away. He frowned.
“You swear by the Goddess?”
“I swear,” Imani said firmly. She tucked the remote into the front of her bra, since she had no other place to put it. “See? Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Mmmm.” J’are agreed, but his pale green eyes were fixed on the tops of her breasts, cupped snugly in the white lace bra.
Uh-oh… Imani wished she had some way to cover herself, but she couldn’t exactly put her blouse back on at the moment—she would risk offending the judge.
She tried to ignore the big Kindred’s interest and turned her attention to the leash instead. She didn’t like using it on him but again, she didn’t see any way around it.
“I have to put this on you now,” she told him. “I’m sorry, J’are—I don’t want to but I have to.”
He nodded with surprising acceptance and lifted his chin, baring the thick black collar with its metal rings. Imani wished she could take that off him as well, but she knew better than to ask. She would have to see if there was some way to remove it once they got back to her hotel room.
She clipped one end of the leash to the front ring of his collar and held the other end awkwardly. It seemed so strange to be leading a grown man on a leash like a dog, but there was no way around it—not here on Yonnie Six.
“All right, now we’re ready to go,” she told J’are.
“I’ll see you here this time tomorrow, Councilor,” Judge Thoughtgood said, drawing Imani’s attention away from the big Kindred for a moment. “And remember, you are not to take his leash and harness off until you are safely in your residence. Am I understood?”
“Completely, your honor,” Imani said, nodding at her. Then she looked at her new charge. “Come on, J’are,” she told him. “Let’s go home.”
Ten
She was the One and she had come for him, to Claim him. So many nights dreaming of her—dreaming of her warm brown skin and big dark eyes. So many nights seeing her luscious curves when he closed his eyes at last to the torments of the hole and was able to drift away for a few precious minutes of sleep.
J’are followed her willingly. He was aware that his feral side was still more than halfway in charge—his senses on high alert as long as they were out in the open. Seeking danger and finding it, when he saw the Horvath guards (Gods damn them to the Seven Hells and let them burn there for all eternity!) and the Cruel Mistress who had first shocked and hurt him.
But even with danger all around, she was unafraid. The feral part of J’are wanted to fight—wanted to kill the guards who had harmed him, wanted to hurt the Cruel Mistress the way she had hurt him. But she said he must not and the sentient part—the thinking part—also said not to. So he listened and followed her out of the cold, echoing room full of danger.
Followed her out into the open and away from all the bad people towards home.
Eleven
Imani hadn’t arrived at the legal building until late afternoon and the trial—if you could call it that—had taken several hours. By the time she and J’are emerged onto the sidewalk outside the tall black building, twilight had fallen.
The big Nightwalker Kindred looked like a vast shadow in the deepening gloom—all except his eyes, which glowed eerily in the gathering darkness. He didn’t seem too happy to be so close to the heavy traffic, still whizzing by.
He whined uneasily as an especially large vehicle whooshed past, flattening Imani’s skirt and blouse(which she had put back on as soon as she left the courtroom) against her body with the force of its passing. If he had been a dog, she thought, his ears would have been flat back and his tail would have been tucked.
“Come on now, J’are.” Imani could feel the tension in the leash as she tugged it gently. She was well aware of the awesome physical strength on the other end of the black leather strap she was holding. If the big Kindred decided he didn’t want to go where she was leading, he damn well didn’t have to. There was absolutely no way she could force him because she was not going to break his trust by using the remote to the pain collar, which was still tucked into her bra.
The phrase Got the tiger by the tail popped up in her mind. Yup—that was pretty much what this amounted to. She had a huge, only semi-sentient beast who had killed five people on the end of a leash and it was nearly full dark outside. How was she going to manage to get him home?
At first she tried hailing the Yonnie Six equivalent of a taxi or an Uber, but the traffic was whizzing by much too quickly for anyone to stop. Or maybe the drivers just didn’t like the look of the huge, bound male who was covered in black gook from head to foot. What was that stuff on J’are’s skin anyway and how hard would it be to get off?
Well, that was a question for when they got back to her suite at the Luxx—if they could even find a way back, that was, Imani thought grimly. She wished she had arranged for a ride to pick her up, but she’d been in such a hurry not to miss the court date that the idea hadn’t even occurred to her. She sighed.
Well, maybe she would have better luck finding a ride back where the last driver had dropped her off before court. It had seemed to be some kind of a drop off and pick up zone. Unfortunately, it was across the street.
“Come on, J’are. I know you don’t like the traffic but just try to bear with me, okay?” she said coaxingly. “I promise we’ll be home soon and then I’ll get you a nice bath and a yummy supper? All right?”
She realized she was talking to him like he was a pet or a tired child, but it just seemed natural to do that when his more animalistic side came out. Back in the courtroom, he had almost seemed lucid for a moment. But now that they were out in the busy street with the Yonnite vehicles whizzing by and the stink of alien exhaust rising in the night, he seemed to have reverted to his feral state.
Imani just hoped he didn’t start growling again. She didn’t know how well she could calm him down now that the light was gone from the sky. Did Nightwalkers get even more feral at night? She wished desperately that she had more information on his kind of Kindred, but the sources that talked about Nightwalkers had been few and far between.
Basically once the Kindred High Council had determined that the offspring of the Kindred males with the Nightwalker females resulted in such terribly dangerous and unstable children, they had shut off any further cross-breeding and quarantined the planet. Imani wished they had sent some scientists to do further study on the small, remote world. If she ever got back home to the Mother Ship, she would certainly recommend it.
“Come on, J’are. Come on,” she coaxed, tugging gently on the leash. She led the big Kindred back the way she had come, down the sidewalk and over to the base of the cross walk. J’are came willingly enough and they climbed the long, winding stairs that led to up to the raised bridge together.
Imani was beginning to think everything was going to be okay because the big Nightwalker was following her lead beautifully. They walked together over the whizzing traffic which looked like blurred lines of light below in the darkness. But when they got to the middle of the bridge, J’are balked.
There was no warning. One minute they were walking along and the next minute Imani was pulled up short because the big Kindred had stopped moving.
She tugged at the leash but it was like pulling on a steel beam.
“J’are?” she
turned around to see that he was standing stock still in the middle of the bridge. His pale green eyes were glowing as he looked intently into the darkness at the other end of the bridge. A low growl was rising from deep in his chest. He looked for all the world like a dog or wolf who senses danger ahead.
“J’are?” Imani said again. Her heart was suddenly pounding. “J’are, what is it? What do you see?”
She didn’t expect an answer—not a verbal one anyway—but the big Nightwalker surprised her. Without looking away from whatever he was watching at the other end of the bridge he growled out,
“Free…me.”
“What?” Imani put a hand to her rapidly beating heart as she saw that he was holding out his manacled wrists. He wanted to be let loose from his harness—which was something Judge Thoughtgood had specifically forbidden. Then again, she had also wanted to put the big Nightwalker to death. But still, doing what J’are asked would be violating a court order and Imani had never done that—never even dreamed of doing it—for her entire legal career.
Still, the low growl rising from the big Kindred’s throat was raising the short hairs at the back of her neck. Clearly J’are was seeing something she couldn’t—sensing danger that was still invisible to her. She remembered her best friend’s dad—the one who rescued wolfdogs—saying you should always trust your dog’s instincts. He often said most of his animals had better common sense than any of the people he knew.
Of course, J’are wasn’t really an animal but he certainly seemed to have the instincts of one. Abruptly, Imani made a decision.
“All right,” she said, getting out the key to the manacles, which still hung around her neck on the thin chain. “All right, I’ll set you free but you have to promise not to get into trouble.”
J’are made no answer as she unlocked his harness. He simply shrugged his broad shoulders, letting the loops of leather fall to the walkway.
“Okay, we can’t just leave this here. The judge will expect to see you wearing it again in court tomorrow.”
Unleashed by the Defender: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 5
