Bound’s heart leapt in his chest.
“Too savage?” he heard Lorelei saying. “Whatever do you…I mean, what can you be meaning by that, Countess?”
“Why, just what I am saying, my dear. The V’radors modified him to be a bodyguard/love-slave but he is being simply uncontrollable! Why, he killed two of my male slaves—simply snapped their necks like twigs! I cannot be setting such a creature loose with a good conscience. And unfortunately, the V’radors are absolutely refusing to take him back. So…” She shrugged. “I’m planning on having him put down.”
“Put down?” Lorelei and Bound exclaimed at the same time.
The Countess du’Montrive looked at both of them strangely, as though she thought their reaction was too extreme, and nodded.
“Well…yes,” she said, speaking only to Lorelei. “Of course it is representing quite a financial loss but only be thinking of the legal ramifications if I was selling him and he was killing more people. Why next time he might be killing a female! Imagine that!”
Hot words about killing an unarmed male rose to his lips but Bound had to swallow them down and remind himself he was a slave here and nothing more. He must not speak or he would “blow their cover,” as the humans said. He had to be quiet and let Lorelei do the talking. But it was hard—so damn hard when he knew his brother’s life was on the line!
“I want to see him.” Lorelei said, putting down her gold foil napkin. She had gotten most of the blue stuff off of her face and though she looked rather odd, beauty and determination still lit her lovely features.
“See him? Why my dear Gentlewoman Daniels, whyever for?” The Countess looked genuinely mystified.
“Countess…” Lorelei leaned across the table, looking at the other woman intently. “What if I told you that you could still turn a profit on this particular Kindred with absolutely no legal risk to yourself?”
The Countess looked at her suspiciously.
“How can you be making such a claim?”
Lorelei lifted her chin. “I am a member of PETOM—People for the Ethical Treatment Of Males—and I am here to rescue any unwanted males you have today, specifically your Kindred. I will be paying top dollar for this male and taking him far away with me to a different solar system where you will never be hearing from him ever again. And I am willing to sign any legal document you will be producing to clear you of any and all liability. What do you say?”
“Well…this is sounding like a good offer…” The Countess du’Montrive looked like she was wavering. “But really, my dear Gentlewoman—why would you want such a savage beast? Everyone knows a male who cannot be controlled is worthless! I have some lovely, malleable Jinoshins who have been trained in the art of female worship. They’ll spend all day sucking your toes if you so command them.”
“I’m sorry,” Lorelei said firmly. “I don’t care about toe sucking—I only want the Kindred.”
“Well…” The Countess threw down her own napkin with a sigh. “I suppose we can be seeing if he is still alive.”
“Still alive?” Lorelei’s big brown eyes widened in alarm.
“Why yes. I ordered him destroyed an hour ago. But you know my dear, my head guard is being so lazy. I really would consider replacing her if it wasn’t being such a pain to find good help…”
“Can we go?” Lorelei asked. “Can we go to see him right now?”
“Oh, very well. I am considering this meal spoiled anyway.” The Countess looked at her slave-mate. “Tingor, if you please?”
Without a word, the tall male stood and lifted his mistress over the side of the pod they were sitting in and then climbed over himself.
Bound did the same for Lorelei, his hands shaking as he lifted her. Was Torn all right? Was his Twin dead?
Surely not, he thought, trying desperately to convince himself. I would have felt it if our bond was severed by his death.
But their bond had become so very weak and tenuous lately. Would he have felt it? Bound just wasn’t sure.
Please, Goddess, he prayed, his stomach clenching like a fist as he deposited Lorelei gently on the main floor of the dining area and climbed up after her himself. Please let my brother be well! Please let us be in time!
He heard no answer and could do nothing but follow Lorelei and the Countess du’Montrive out of the dining area and into the back of the club.
* * * * *
Lorelei’s heart was in her mouth as she followed the Countess out of the red fur-carpeted dining area and into a warren of hallways at the back of the Fren and Chulk. They twisted and turned back and forth, the Countess walking unhurriedly ahead of them, her high-heeled boots tap-tap-tapping on the scuffed wooden floor with maddening regularity until Lorelei thought she was going to scream if the other woman didn’t hurry up.
She resisted the urge to push the Countess out of the way and go running ahead, looking for Torn herself. For one thing, she had an idea that such an act of rudeness would turn the other woman against her completely. And for another, she wasn’t at all sure where they were going. The back of the Fren and Chulk was like a maze and she could easily see herself getting lost and never finding the Dark Twin—or her way out for that matter.
So she held onto her patience grimly until at last, to her relief, they finally came to a large, open area at the end of the winding hallway. It looked like a storage area—there were boxes and barrels of dry and wet ingredients for the kitchen and cleaning supplies stacked in a corner. But the main focus of the room seemed to be the large, metal cages which were scattered around.
There were all kinds of males in the cages—one with pale blue skin and pointed ears, another with long blond tresses and the gorgeous, androgynous face of a Tolkien elf, and another who bore a more than passing resemblance to the Incredible Hulk except he had purple skin instead of green. But where was Torn?
“There! My Lady, there!” The cry seemed ripped from Bound’s throat and he raised his hand and pointed with a trembling finger.
All alone in a cage that was well distant from the others was a towering, dark shape with shaggy black hair and the burning green eyes of a demon. A low, angry growl was coming from his mouth.
Standing in front of the cage was the same tall woman who had escorted them into the Fren and Chulk in the first place. She was pointing what was clearly some kind of weapon between the bars at the figure.
“No! NO!” Lorelei gasped, running towards the tall woman, who must be the head guard. “No, stop what you’re doing! Put down the gun—or rifle—or whatever it is! Put down that weapon and don’t shoot!”
“What?” the woman turned her head, frowning a little but she didn’t lower her weapon.
“Put it down,” Lorelei insisted. She rushed forward, her arms out, thinking she might tackle the tall guard and take her to the ground.
The guard swung around so that the long weapon—it definitely looked like some kind of rifle—was pointed right at Lorelei’s face.
“What is the meaning of this? What do you want?” she demanded.
Lorelei stopped abruptly, her heart skipping a beat as the woman’s finger tightened on the trigger. Was she going to die here? Was this the end?
“Yallah, you fool—be putting down that ash-rifle at once,” the Countess du’Montrive exclaimed in obvious annoyance. “Never aim a weapon at a guest! I cannot believe I have to be telling you this!”
“But my Countess,” the tall guard protested. “I was only for to be obeying your orders and killing this Kindred.”
“He is not to be killed—not yet, anyway,” the Countess said sharply. “Now get away, Yallah. I’ll be ringing for you later if I am needing you.”
With a sullen look on her face, Yallah slunk away, taking the long, lethal-looking ash-rifle with her. Lorelei wondered if it was called that because it incinerated people. Maybe all that was left after you shot someone was a pile of ash?
The thought didn’t bear thinking of. Instead, she turned her attention to the huge, wild-looking Kindred in the cage. He was huge—well over seven feet tall, Lorelei was certain. His long, dark hair was shaggy and unkempt and his deep green eyes, ringed with pure black, burned with hatred. Their effect was intensified because someone had put lots and lots of black eye makeup all around his eyes, hiding them in shadows that looked almost like a mask.
The prisoner’s chest was bare but instead of being smooth, like Bound’s, Lorelei could see a patch of crisp, dark curls between the flat copper disks of his nipples. He was just as fit as Bound though—his broad chest and long arms were heavy with muscle and his abdominals rippled as he growled—yes, growled—through the bars of the cage.
Something had been done to one of his arms, Lorelei saw—it was coated in silver and a heavy black glove covered the fist. It was strapped securely to his side by a broad band of some metallic black fabric that looked made to withstand a lot of abuse. But only having one hand free didn’t make the prisoner any less menacing. He apparently didn’t need the silver arm to kill or maim and the wild look in his eyes said he was ready to do both.
Staring at the metal arm strapped to his side, Lorelei thought about how Bound had said the V’radors modified their victims. Had one of his arms been removed and replaced with an artificial one somehow? If so, what else had they done to him? She would have to get him someplace where she could try to interface with whatever AI system had been added to him before she could find that out—if this was the right guy.
He was so wild-looking, Lorelei had to glance at Bound to be certain.
“Bound?” she said in a low voice. “Is this really him?”
But Bound had eyes only for the male in the cage. He came forward, reaching a hand towards the bars, his intense blue eyes filled with shadows and pain.
“Brother?” he whispered. “Torn, are you well?”
The wild man in the cage—or wild Kindred, Lorelei supposed she ought to call him—roared in rage and threw himself at the bars. His hair flew around his face and his eyes burned out at them, seeming to promise terrible things if only he could get his one free hand on them. Even his scent was wrong, Lorelei thought—it smelled musky and dark—like a cornered animal prepared to kill to protect itself. He reached one long arm through the bars and swiped at Bound, just barely missing the other warrior.
Bound stood back, his eyes suspiciously bright.
“He…he doesn’t even know me,” he murmured in a low, broken voice. “My Lady, I cannot reach him—even through our bond, which is nearly gone.”
“Oh, Bound…” Lorelei put a hand on the big Kindred’s arm, wishing she could ease his pain. How awful to have finally found his brother after all these months of searching and now the other male didn’t even recognize him.
The Dark Twin in the cage roared again and made another grab through the bars with his free hand. All of them stepped back hurriedly and the Countess du’Montrive tsked and shook her head sadly.
“Do you see what I mean, my dear? This one is being much too savage to save. Best you should look over here at my lovely Jinoshins and let my head guard do what she must to end this wretched creature’s life.”
“No!” Lorelei said quickly. “That is…I’m still interested, my Countess,” she said quickly. “I’ll pay your price and sign your paperwork but I must have him—I must,” she emphasized.
“I’m more than happy to be getting him off my hands,” the Countess said, frowning. “But how will you be getting him back to your ship, my dear? He’s quite wild and uncontrollable, as you can see.”
Lorelei was stumped. How would they get the huge, angry Kindred back to their shuttle? The cage was much too large to fit in their little ship so simply keeping him confined was out of the question. She thought hard.
“Do you have any kind of sedation?” she asked at last.
The Countess frowned.
“I have some light doses we use, mostly when the males first come in, but we’ve already been trying that. Nothing is seeming to affect that brute.” She sighed. “When they brought him in, the V’radors swore that he had been programmed to imprint on a single mistress but he certainly hasn’t done so with either me or any of my guards.”
A light bulb went off in Lorelei’s head. Those shadows around his eyes—they aren’t eye makeup at all! They’re nanites. And nanites mean a touch-interface!
“Imprint on a single mistress?” she asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. “Has anyone—either you or any of your female guards—touched him at all? I mean, skin-to-skin contact?”
“Well, no my dear Gentlewoman!” the Countess exclaimed. “I mean look at him. After he was killing the two male slaves none of us were wanting anything to do with such a beast. We had all we could do just getting him into his cage and that was with one arm strapped down.”
Nanite-driven touch-interface, Lorelei thought again. It was a technology so new on Earth that she’d barely had any time to study it before the new laws had been passed, banning it. She was almost certain the black shadows she saw around the huge Kindred’s eyes were nanites—tiny machines which were supposed to work with the AI interface. But for some reason, instead of doing their job and helping the AI and organic parts of their host to communicate seamlessly, they were all gathered around Torn’s eyes.
Something wasn’t right with them and the way they were working inside his big body. But if what the Countess had said about the big Kindred imprinting on a single mistress was true, maybe Torn could be put back into some kind of balance simply with a touch.
Maybe.
“He needs to imprint,” she said to Bound, who was still staring with longing and pain at his brother, raging in the cage. “He needs a female’s touch—I’d bet my life on it.”
Which is exactly what you’re about to do, whispered a grim little voice in her head.
“Are you sure, My Lady?” Bound looked at her hopefully.
“Not one hundred percent, no,” Lorelei admitted. “But we’re about to find out.” Darting forward before she could lose her nerve, she reached for the huge Kindred who was still reaching through the bars of his cage with his free arm.
She had been meaning to just touch his arm but the Dark Twin was too fast for her. With a snarl, his huge hand grasped her wrist in a vise-like grip and squeezed.
For a moment Lorelei felt the small bones of her wrist grinding together and she was certain the big Kindred would pulp her arm as easily as a man squeezes the juice out of an orange. She was dimly aware of Bound shouting and the Countess wringing her hands but they didn’t concern her now. Her focus of attention must be the massive Kindred in the cage.
Pushing down the pain and panic that threatened to engulf her, Lorelei looked into the black-ringed emerald eyes and spoke clearly and slowly.
“Torn,” she said in a soft but carrying voice. “Look at me. I call you by your name. I claim you. You’re mine.”
The relentless, grinding pressure on her wrist suddenly eased and the green eyes went wide. Then the black shadows gathered around them began to dissipate, leaving the big Kindred’s face clear. A line of black moved down his shoulder and the length of his muscular arm to suffuse the hand which was holding Lorelei.
The nanites, she thought distantly. They’re coming.
The black reached his fingertips and she felt a slight tingle as they tasted her through his skin. Then they rushed back up his arm, their work done.
“Mistress,” the prisoner whispered hoarsely. He dropped heavily to his knees, his hand still lightly gripping her wrist. “Mistress, I am yours.”
Lorelei felt a rush of relief. Thank goodness she wasn’t going to die or lose her hand and arm after all! Her guess had been right and her gamble had paid off.
She looked at the big Kindred, still gripping her wrist with a look of mute devotion on his lovely, wild face.
“It’s all right, Torn,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke the muscular forearm with her free hand. “Everything is going to be all right. I’m going to take you home.”
She looked at Bound who was still in some kind of shock and then at the Countess du’Montrive who was staring in open-mouthed wonder.
“Wrap him up,” she said, smiling a little. “I’ll take him.”
* * * * *
For so long Torn had known nothing but rage—nothing but fury. A red mist clouded his vision and everyone around him was the enemy. Inside him, the tiny voices buzzed in his brain, insisting that everyone must die—that he must kill and kill and kill until none were left, until all of them were gone.
The voices tormented him—were a constant, buzzing torture because they didn’t belong. They wanted to take him over—to remake him just the way his right arm had been remade—reshaped into a weapon…
“You will lose yourself,” the Captain of the V’radors had buzzed, his voice coming from the silver grating in his throat—his mouth had been modified beyond the capacity for speech. His eyes were nothing but two staring, blinking lights and all his limbs were mechanized as well. “You will lose yourself and become perfect in the process.”
“You’re one ugly son of a bitch, aren’t you?” Torn spat at him, fighting the plasti-steel straps that held him down. But it was useless—they were too strong to break, especially the one around his new arm.
“Consider yourself lucky that you have been chosen to be a love-slave as well as a protector,” the Captain said. “Or you would have had more modifications.” He sighed, a strange, hollow sound coming from his throat. “Females find too many body-mods unattractive for some reason. So we left your pretty face…” He reached out a metal claw to caress Torn’s cheek. “Oh yes, such a pretty one…You’ll be the prettiest of us all.”
Torn yanked his head to the side to avoid the metallic caress.
“Get away from me, you sick bastard! I’m not one of you, even if you did cut off my arm and replace it with a fucking prosthetic!”
“That ‘fucking prosthetic’ as you call it, can punch through solid plasti-steel or stop a moving vehicle in its tracks,” the V’rador buzzed. “Be grateful for it, Kindred. It will help you protect your Mistress once your conditioning is complete and the Thought-eaters have had their way with you.”
As he spoke, the thick, black, oily liquid began oozing its way through the tubing that was thrust in the vein in Torn’s left arm.
“The Mind-biters will take your past and leave room only for your future. You will remember nothing when they are done.”
“No!” Torn swore, his voice hoarse with determination even as the nanites found their way into his bloodstream and began to invade his body. The V’radors had many names for them but there was only one thing Torn called them—fucking parasites. “No, I won’t forget!” he shouted. “You can’t take my memories from me! My past—my brother!”
“It will be eaten. All of it eaten,” the V’rador Captain intoned. “The Memory-seekers will find and destroy everything that is not needed.”
“No,” Torn had insisted. “No!”
But even then he had felt the nanites at work in him, already crowding into his brain like unwelcome guests, jostling eagerly like patrons at a buffet—eager to eat him—eager to change him into something the V’radors could sell…
As long as he could, Torn fought them—fought with all his might to think on his own, to keep his own free will. But the voices—the nanites—would never give up. He clung to the only thing he had left—his Twin Bond—to try and keep his sanity. But they even ate away at that.
What twin? You have no twin—you have no brother, they whispered and buzzed in his brain. Thoughts and memories were taken from him, nibbled away bit by bit as though by hungry insects. Each day he remembered less and less, each night he felt the bond grown weaker.
Until at last, he couldn’t even remember his brother’s name or face or the fact that he had a brother at all. There was nothing left but the red rage and the need to kill.
He wanted to die…wanted to kill…wanted to burn the whole universe to ashes if only it meant an end to the constant buzzing, the constant gnawing inside his brain—a brain that was not wholly his anymore.
And then she came.
He didn’t recognize her at first but when he touched her the buzzing abruptly stopped. For the first time in months, ever since the V’radors had injected him with the thrice-damned nanites, there was silence in his mind. A blessed peace—a calm so unusual that at first Torn didn’t know what to do. He was no longer used to being alone in his own head—to hearing only his own internal voice.
“Torn, look at me,” the female said. “I call you by your name. I claim you. You’re mine.”
He felt something inside him shift—something so huge he knew it would change his life forever. It was as though his heart had been on the wrong side of his body all of his life and someone had suddenly put it back into place—the right place—at last.
Then the nanites were back but instead of buzzing and gnawing, they hummed in perfect harmony.
Her, they sang—a song so sweet, so seductive that Torn could not ignore or deny it. His vision cleared and he looked at the tiny female whose wrist he held in his hand. Her—it’s her! She claims us! We are hers.
An Elite, whispered a thought in his brain—one of the few uneaten memories he had left. And the nanites sang, Mistress!
“Mistress,” he whispered aloud and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to serve her—to be always by her side and never be parted from her. “Mistress,” he said again, falling to his knees before her. “I am yours.”
And he meant it with every fiber of his being—both the artificial AI part and the original, organic part of his brain. For the first time since the damn nanites had been injected, he felt them working in sync with him instead of nibbling and gnawing away at his consciousness, trying to erode his personality. For the first time he felt at peace.
“It’s all right, Torn,” the Elite murmured, calling him by a name which seemed like it should mean something. “Everything is going to be all right. I’m going to take you home.”
You are my home, he thought but did not say. He was too overcome to speak again. He let his eyes talk for him, tracking her every movement, never wanting to leave her lovely full-figured form. Gods, her curves were so lush! And she had claimed him—he was hers. They were together now and they would never be parted.
Together forever.
He knew it was true because the nanites sang so sweetly and because his own heart told him so.
Together forever, Mistress. Forever, he swore. I’ll never leave your side. I promise.