“Well…it suits you. They, uh, certainly made you handsome.” Her soft blue eyes flickered over his face and then back down to her hands and he could see a blush blooming in her cheeks.
“Thank you.” Dark was touched by her shy compliment. For the past five years when he’d been held as a slave, he’d been pawed over by Mistress Hellenix and her friends who had often commented on the sharpness of his features and the length of his shaft. Such treatment had left him feeling objectified…dirty. But Anna’s soft voice and shy blush seemed to warm his heart. She was a slave, just as he had been and he yearned to rescue her.
But first, he had to gain her trust.
“You’re very beautiful yourself, Anna,” he said gently and truthfully. He wanted to reach out and touch her again—maybe just brush his fingertips along the soft skin of her cheek. But he sensed this wasn’t the time for touching, no matter how he longed to do it.
He expected her to blush again and thank him or maybe stammer and go all tongue-tied but Anna surprised him.
“No, I’m not,” she said flatly, shaking her head. “I’m not beautiful at all. I’m too big—too ‘pleasingly plump’ as my mom used to say. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”
“I…don’t understand.”
Though she was taller than most of the human women he had met on the Mother Ship, Dark thought she seemed the perfect height. Since he was seven standard feet tall himself, it would have been difficult to communicate with a much shorter female. And as for the “pleasingly plump” part, well—he didn’t understand the objection there at all. An Elite was the most beautiful kind of female—almost all Kindred agreed on that, though Twin Kindred had a special fetish for them.
“No, you wouldn’t understand.” She sighed. “You’re just a Replicant—no matter how human you act.”
“Actually, I am made to look like a Kindred—a Blood Kindred,” Dark said, trying to stick as close to the truth as possible. His Dark Healer heritage had given him his gift/curse but the Kindred DNA always bred true and except for his black hair and bronze eyes, he had the build and musculature of a true Blood Kindred.
“A Blood Kindred?” she looked up at him in interest. “My stepfather, Brex, was a Beast Kindred. My mom met him when he came down to Earth to advise them on some kind of demolition—he’s a munitions expert,” she explained. “I was fifteen when they got married and then we all moved off planet for his work and well…here I am.” She shrugged as though this was the entire explanation of how she had ended up a captive of the horrible Gorn.
Dark sensed there was more to this story—much more. But since Anna had chosen to gloss over it, he decided to leave it alone.
“You are from Earth, then?” he asked.
She took another bite of bread and nodded.
“Mm-hmm. Originally. I haven’t been home in a long time though.” Her blue eyes went wistful. “Wish I was there now.”
“I’m sure you do,” Dark said softly. He wondered if she was going to cry—he could feel her grief and loss hovering between them like a rain cloud about to burst. But somehow Anna mastered herself and sniffed back her tears.
“Well…thank you again for the bread,” she said and nodded down at her plate, which was empty except for crumbs. “I can’t believe I ate it all. I guess I’d better get going now.”
“Wait.” Dark had to stop himself from putting a hand on her arm to keep her with him.
“What is it?” She was hovering on the edge of her chair, about to leave at any minute.
“Wouldn’t you like another slice?” he asked her. “And to tell me what you want to eat tomorrow?” He nodded at the e-clip. “I’m ordering ingredients for delivery now.”
Anna sighed. “Yes to the second piece of bread—it’s probably the carbiest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth but at this point I don’t care—I’d front-load carbs by the handful if I could get them. After all, it’s not like anyone will ever see me again to care how I look.”
Her fatalistic words bothered Dark.
“I see you,” he pointed out. “And you look like you need feeding—which is my job. Please tell me what you want—I only know a few Earth recipes but I’ll try to make anything you desire if you just describe it to me.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what you make me—Gorn won’t let me eat it. He wants me to only eat that horrible Trollox food.” She shuddered.
“Leave that to me,” Dark said firmly. “Whatever you want, tell me. It may not look like the dish you ordered when it gets to the table, but it will taste like it.”
“So you’re going to make a whole separate dish for me and then camouflage it to look like Trollox food?”
Dark nodded. “That’s the idea.”
She looked at him incredulously. “But…why? Why would you go to all that trouble?”
Because I saw you in my dream, he wanted to say. Because you called to me, even though you don’t know it.
“I like a challenge,” he said instead.
Anna shook her head. “I imagine cooking Trollox food is already a challenge.”
“It’s pretty basic cuisine, actually,” Dark remarked. “Lots of organ meat and body fluids. Blood, bile…sputum…that kind of thing.”
“Ugh!” She made a face, her little nose wrinkling up in a way that made her look damn near adorable.
“Sorry, but it’s true.” He grinned wryly, forgetting for a moment to act like a Replicant. “It’s not exactly the tastiest food in the quadrant but it’s not that hard to make either.”
“Well, I don’t envy you your job,” she remarked. “How do you stand the smells?”
He shrugged. “You get used to it. In my old restaurant—the restaurant I used to work at, I mean—we had ventilation hoods that sucked it away. Here I just keep the lid on the pots as much as possible and open a window. The smell of the plants coming in is nice.”
“Yes, the garden outside is really pretty. It reminds me a little of where I used to live on Earth—it was a place called Florida.” Anna’s eyes grew soft as though she was remembering a cherished place she never expected to return to. “It was a sub-tropical climate, so everything grew wild everywhere—it was always so green.”
“Maybe we could go out to see the garden together,” Dark suggested, before he thought about it. “I mean, to enjoy the plants,” he added, rather lamely.
She gave him a sharp look. “If you were a real guy I’d think you were trying to get me alone, you know?”
“I’m sorry if I offended you.” Dark shook his head. “I just…haven’t been here long and I would like to see outside the house.”
She seemed to consider for a moment.
“All right—I’ll go with you,” she said at last. “But only because you’re a Replicant and you don’t have the, uh, equipment to hurt me.” She nodded down at his crotch. “And we can only go when Gorn is away like he is now. He gets really, really angry and thinks you’re trying to get away if he catches you outside the house.” She pointed to her bruised cheek and sighed. “Even though there’s nowhere to go.”
“He hit you?” Dark had suspected as much but now he felt the rage rising in him and his fangs sharpening at the confirmation of his guess.
She laughed harshly.
“This? This is barely a love-tap. You should see what he does to his sex bots—the Replicants he buys just to fuck.”
The word sounded ugly and cynical in her mouth but Dark could see the pain and fear in her blue eyes as she spoke.
“What does he do to them?” he asked in a low voice, though he thought he could guess.
The cynicism dropped away from her face, to be replaced by naked fear.
“He kills them—rips them apart,” she whispered, as though the words were almost too horrible to say. “I’ve seen him do it—it happened to the last Replicant I tried to make friends with.”
She jumped up suddenly and began to back away.
“Wait—where are you going?�
�� Dark asked. “You haven’t told me what you want to eat tomorrow.” He tapped the e-clip meaningfully, hoping to coax her back but it was clear she was past coaxing.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said, her eyes wild. “I shouldn’t be making friends with you. It will only make it harder when Gorn gets angry at you and…and…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry—thank you for the bread.”
“But—” Dark rose from his chair, one hand held out to her but she was already backing away.
“Sorry!”
And then she ran, the metal door swinging behind her as she disappeared. Dark swore softly under his breath. She was gone and there was nothing he could do about it. If he went after her, he would only scare her. He just had to let her go and hope he could get her to come back and talk to him some more at a later time.
Running a hand through his hair in frustration, he sank back into his chair. He knew it wasn’t reasonable but he wanted desperately to know Anna better. How could he get her back?
The e-clip brushed his hand and, looking down at his food order, he knew he had his answer. What had drawn her to him in the first place? Food—good, nourishing food that he had made for her with his own hands. Anna’s body was starving on the disgusting diet of Trollox fare…and her soul was starving for companionship as well—he could tell that from talking to her. Had she really tried to make friends with one of the Replicants? How lonely she must be!
Dark wanted to nourish her—both her body and soul. Once again he knew it wasn’t rational—this need to comfort and protect and nourish—he had only known her for a day, after all. But he couldn’t help it—the dream he’d had of her seemed to have produced an instant connection—an instant attraction. Or maybe it was that he saw so much of himself in her—that he saw his own struggle with slavery and abuse written in her soft blue eyes and he wanted to save her.
It struck him that no matter what Gorn had done to her, she was still fighting. Still surviving when another, weaker female, would have tried to kill herself or just laid down and died. But Anna was still here—still trying even though she thought her circumstances were hopeless.
She’s a survivor—like me. The way I was when Mistress Hellenix owned me and Creek, he thought. And just like him this girl was bent…bent but not broken. Dark wanted to heal her and maybe, in so doing, heal himself.
Well—he would start with her body first, he decided. He could worry about the rest later. Now what should he prepare her for first meal tomorrow…?
Chapter Seven
Anna ran to the farthest bedroom again—which she considered hers, though Gorn had never assigned her any particular space as her own. Since the Trollox was gone, she dared to lay on top of the bed instead of under it.
Trollox beds were huge and heavy and very high to climb into. She felt like Goldilocks trying to get into Papa Bear’s bed as she hoisted herself up the side and slid under the heavy, smooth sateen sheets. Then she lay there, shivering. It never quite got warm enough in this house and though the voluminous black robes her captor insisted she wear covered her from neck to ankles, they were thin and not very substantial.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Dark—then she thought about him anyway. What was it about him? Why did she feel so drawn to him? Was it the strange dreams she’d had?
There’s nothing about him—he’s just another Replicant. And as soon as Gorn gets angry at him, he’ll pull him to pieces like all the others, she told herself.
But she couldn’t stop thinking of him anyway.
He made that delicious bread just for me.
It didn’t seem like the kind of thing a Replicant would do. But there again, he had said he was a new kind—a new model of Replicant. Maybe whoever it was that manufactured them had put some kind of advanced artificial intelligence in him so that not only could he cook but he wanted to cook and enjoyed taking satisfaction in watching people eat what he made them. He had certainly seemed to like watching her eat the delicious purple spice bread.
Just remembering the taste of the bread made her feel warm and cared for. Anna knew it was silly to feel good that what was basically a robot cared about her comfort but she couldn’t help it—the idea that Dark had baked the bread just for her and had enjoyed watching her eat it warmed her heart.
She sniffed her fingertips, reliving the heavenly scent that still lingered there. But the bread hadn’t been the only thing that smelled good.
Dark—he smelled good too, she admitted to herself. Sweet, like cinnamon and sugar but under that was a darker spice—an exotic alien one she’d never smelled before but instantly wanted more of. Something dangerous. Something addictive.
Anna frowned. The rest of the Replicants didn’t smell like that—they didn’t smell like much of anything at all. There was a certain artificial blandness, like wet plastic, that hung around them if you got close enough to smell it, but other than that…nothing.
She didn’t like that smell—it was soulless. Not human or humanoid in the least. Maybe it was the result of some chemical treatment or maybe it was just that they didn’t have sweat glands like a regular humanoid did. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t very attractive. And it was nothing like Dark’s addictive cinnamon-sugar-and dangerous spice scent.
Anna frowned. Was he really a Replicant? He didn’t look like one, didn’t act like one, didn’t even smell like one. In fact, he seemed completely real—like a real person. A real Blood Kindred, she supposed, remembering the glimpses she’d gotten of his short, sharp fangs when they talked. How could he be one of the fake androids that Gorn had running his house?
Then she remembered Dark opening his trousers and showing the smooth expanse of sexless skin between his legs. The memory made her shake her head at her own foolishness. He had to be a Replicant—just a really good one, maybe. She bet Gorn had paid an arm and a leg for him.
Maybe, just maybe that would make the huge Trollox more careful with his new chef. She knew Hisser, the right head, was always complaining about Growler wasting money by “breaking” the Replicants he bought too quickly. And so far both heads of the massive Trollox had seemed to like the food Dark made them.
Maybe it would be safe to make friends with him, after all. However long she had to be friends with anyone.
Anna nibbled her lip and curled tight in a ball, feeling the cold metal of the new spreader inside her shift at the movement. It was like a thick, rough icicle in her channel—one that never melted. It had hurt so much when Gorn put it in, she’d barely been able to keep from crying out. Only knowing that sobs and tears would earn her a vicious beating had kept her quiet.
The spreader felt much too big but she knew it wasn’t the largest one. That one Gorn was saving until he was almost ready to breed her. He’d told her often how he would have to shove himself all the way inside her in order to plant his seed. Supposedly the largest spreader—the one as big around as a muscular man’s bicep—was the size of the Trollox’s shaft.
Anna shuddered and a wave of nausea came over her at the thought of having her captor that close to her—actually inside her. She still didn’t understand how she could become pregnant by a whole different species of male but when she’d asked timidly, hoping to reason with her captor, Gorn had told her that Trollox seed “could sprout in any vessel.” Anna supposed that meant that his DNA was strong enough to combine with her human DNA and either mutate it or overcome it.
She wondered if the baby would have two heads.
No—no, don’t think about it! Don’t!
She pushed the thought away and went to live in the past—remembering her mom and Brex and her friends back on the Aka’ja mining station. And then even farther back to Earth—to sunny days on the beach…the crashing of the surf…the cry of the seagulls always looking for food—the greedy things would swoop down and steal a hot dog bun or French fry right out of your hand if you didn’t watch them! And then there was the smell of salt in the air…digging her toes in the sand…watching t
he sun set on the water…
Putting herself in the past always helped. At last, with a little moan of pure exhaustion, Anna fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
The next day she stayed in bed as late as possible. She didn’t have to go to breakfast or lunch, thank goodness. Dinner was the only meal Gorn insisted she attend. So she mostly spent her days flitting around the house, trying to stay out of the big Trollox’s way when he was home and examining the strange alien furnishings and decorations when he wasn’t.
She had once heard war described as moments of sheer terror interspersed with long stretches of stupefying boredom. That was what life in Gorn’s house was like. She’d had a shot of translation bacteria when she and her mom stopped on the Kindred Mother Ship, before they moved to the mining station with Brex. So she could understand and even read alien languages. But there was nothing to read here—not even a magazine or the back of a shampoo bottle.
Either the Trollox had no written language, or Gorn was just completely incurious about any kind of intellectual pursuit like reading. Anna believed either or both was possible. Her captor was a brute and a bully with a sly kind of cunning that came mostly from the right head, Hisser, but he had no real intelligence. The idea of either head settling down with a good book wasn’t just impossible—it was laughable.
So she wandered around bored or hid and prayed he wouldn’t find her. It was like a never-ending round of terror-filled hide-and-go-seek that wore her nerves to the snapping point sometimes.
Today she put her ear to the door and listened to her captor’s heavy tread around the house. She almost went back to hide under the bed or in a closet when she smelled something strange…something good.
She sniffed. What was that? It smelled a little like an omelet—maybe one with exotic ingredients like truffle oil or something. But exotic or not, it smelled delicious.
Holding her breath, she eased the door of the bedroom open ever so slowly, so it wouldn’t squeak, and peeked out into the hallway outside. There was no one there but the smell got stronger.
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