It was a damn good thing he was only in this kitchen for one night, he thought to himself. He’d made an enemy for life, but what else could he do? He’d had to establish dominance and thugs like Targo didn’t understand anything but violence.
The rest of the kitchen staff were still just standing there, staring at him so he took the opportunity to address them.
“Listen up, people—I sent over the menu last night and you should have gotten your ingredients delivered this morning. Hopefully you’ve been working on them since then but I need to know—how much prep work do we have left to do?”
At first there was silence, then one of the crew spoke up.
“We have all the hezbah intestines cleaned and rinsed but they still need to be stuffed with the bile rice, uh…” he hesitated and added, “Chef.”
“Good.” Dark nodded. “You’re on that. What about the Blood root? Has it been peeled and de-veined yet?”
“Yes, Chef,” someone else said. “But we still need to parboil the gresh toes.”
“You and you—” Dark pointed at the male who had spoken and the one beside him. “Get on it.”
“Yes, Chef.” They both nodded and got to work.
Soon he had everyone in the room assigned to a task. He was a good judge of ability from being in commercial kitchens all his life and he soon sussed out the males who knew what they were doing and put them in charge of the more complicated recipes. After that, he was able to breathe a small sigh of relief. Things were running smoothly now and the dinner would come out on time.
Dark walked from crew to crew, supervising, giving instruction, doling out a very few compliments and some words of reprimand when they were warranted. Now that they had been given direction, the kitchen staff worked with a will.
Targo was working at a corner sink, peeling tubers, which was a task Dark normally would have assigned to the pot boy. But since the ex-head chef wasn’t making any trouble, Dark left him to it. They had enough hands in the kitchen to get the meal done on time and in good order—that was all he cared about.
Well, no—there was one more thing he was worried about—Anna. He wondered uneasily how she was doing, out among Gorn’s drewgs. He knew she’d been dreading this evening and she’d refused to show him the dress Gorn was making her wear, saying she was too ashamed to let him see. That didn’t bode well, Dark thought. If any of those fucking Trollox laid a single hand on her…
But he didn’t think it likely that they would. All the Trollox seemed extremely possessive of their property and touching another male’s things was a big no-no in their crude, greed-based culture. Anna might be looked over like a prize mare at a herd-beast show—something he hated to even contemplate—but she probably wouldn’t be touched at all.
She had promised to come back to the kitchen with him as soon as she could slip away. So while the stoves ran full blast and many hands sliced and diced and prepped and cooked and the kitchen filled with the unmistakable odors of Trollox cuisine, Dark kept a constant eye on the double metal doors, waiting for the moment when she would walk through them.
Goddess, he prayed, You know I don’t like leaving her alone out there. Be with her—protect her and keep her safe while I cannot.
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s my Replicant, pretty boy, as is cooking the dinner tonight. And this is my breeder.” There was unmistakable pride in Gorn’s voice as he pointed at Anna. “Come on, girlie—step up on the table and let them see you!” the left head demanded, motioning to her.
Biting her lip, Anna stepped first up on the high, heavy chair and then onto the picnic style dining table which had been covered in pure gold carvings. It was probably ridiculously expensive and would no doubt be smeared by filthy Trollox food before the night was out but for now, it was clean.
“Take off the cloak, stupid girl,” hissed Gorn’s right head, gesturing at her. “How can they see you if you don’t take it off?”
This was the moment Anna had been dreading. She hated being put on display like this! But there was nothing else she could do—Gorn owned her and he could make her life unbearable if she didn’t do as he said.
Taking a deep breath, she dropped the feathery white cloak which had covered her completely from head to heels. Under it she was wearing a sheer white dress which clearly showed her body beneath. Her breasts pressed against the thin, sheer fabric and the leather halter she wore to keep the latest spreader Gorn had filled her with was clearly visible.
“Well, well, Gorn—looks like you found yourself a prime breeder,” one of the Trollox grunted in apparent admiration.
“Yes, indeed! She looks big enough to carry an heir to full term!” another exclaimed.
“A good choice.” Even Yark was nodding in approval. He turned to Gorn. “Tell me, how often do you breed her? Has your seed taken root inside her yet?”
“Well…” Gorn frowned and shuffled his feet a bit. “Her body’s big enough but her entrance is kinda small-like. So I’m stretching her a bit first—otherwise the seed won’t root.”
“Stretching her?” Yark frowned. “A pity you couldn’t find one big enough to accept your shaft to begin with. Now with my breeder, I started seeding her on the first day I bought her and didn’t stop until her belly started to swell.”
“Oh? And how long did that take?” another Trollox with a single head demanded.
Both Yark’s primary heads frowned thoughtfully.
“I’d say about two solar months of steady breeding—maybe a bit more,” he said.
Two solar months or more of breeding?
Anna felt like she might be sick. Somehow she’d gotten the idea in her head that Gorn would only have to do that to her—would only have to take her once—and after that the deed would be done and she would be pregnant. In her mind, it had become a one-time ordeal—something she would just have to deal with and then try to forget about. But if he did that to her every night for two solar months…
I’ll lose my mind, she thought wildly. I’ll go insane if I have to have him on top of me—inside me—over and over and over again! I can’t do that—I’d rather die!
“Yes, I was lucky,” Yark said, bringing her back to the present. “I’ve known some Trollox to have to seed their breeder every night for nigh on a solar year! But mine caught right away and she delivered a healthy heir right to term.”
“Let’s see the heir, Yark!” one of the Trollox exclaimed. The others soon chimed in.
“Yes, let’s see the reason for our feasting tonight!”
“Let’s have a look at the little prince!”
“Very well—I’ll have the wet nurse bring him down.” Yark clapped his hands and a female Trollox—distinguishable from the males only because she had long, tangled hair and drooping breasts—came running in. These were easy to see because she was wearing a long skirt but no top at all so that her long, dangling dugs were clearly visible. They hung nearly down to her wrinkled gray belly button.
“Yes, Master Yark?” she asked eagerly.
“Bring my heir,” Yark said grandly. “I’ve a mind to show him off on his banquet day.”
“At once, my Master.” She bobbed a kind of curtsey and ran from the room.
All this time, Anna had been standing on the table numbly, trying to digest what she was hearing. She wondered why the wet nurse was taking care of the new baby instead of the woman who had carried him. Where was his birth mother now? Had Yark sent her back to her home, as Gorn had promised to send Anna?
Gorn appeared to notice that she was still standing there and no longer the center of attention. He motioned at her and the right head hissed irritably,
“Get down, you stupid girl!”
Anna was more than happy to do as she was told. Stooping, she picked up the feathery white cape and draped herself in it again, feeling relief at being covered from the eyes of Gorn’s drewgs. Then she stepped down off the table and edged towards the back of the room. She wanted to go join Dark in the kitchen
but first she wanted to see the new baby—wanted to see what to expect…well, what to expect when she was expecting.
How bad can it be? she wondered as they all waited for the wet nurse to return with the newborn. Babies are cute no matter what species they are, right? It’ll probably be adorable in that so-ugly-it’s-cute way—like a Pug or a Shar-Pei. I’ll probably fall in love with it and hate to give it up to a monster like Gorn.
Then, finally, the wet nurse was back, holding a large bundle in both arms.
My goodness, Anna thought uneasily. How big can it be if it was just born yesterday? She must have it wrapped in a lot of blankets to make it look that bulky.
She couldn’t tell for sure what the baby looked like or how big it really was, however, because at that moment Yark said, “Behold—my son and heir!” and all the Trollox crowded around to admire the infant.
Anna was just backing her way out of the room, having decided that it was better to get to the kitchen and Dark while Gorn and his drewgs were distracted, when she heard her captor’s voice raised above the babble of the other Trollox congratulating Yark.
“A fine, big lad, so he is!” he bellowed. “Where’s my breeder? Where is she?” Looking around, he spotted Anna near the door. “Come here, girlie!” the left head demanded, beckoning for her. “Come and see what a proper heir looks like so you know your duty!”
Anna didn’t want to go among the crowd of huge, tromping Trollox. It seemed safer to walk into a herd of water buffalo or rhinos but it was equally unsafe to deny Gorn anything he asked for.
Unwillingly, she walked forward, edging around the crowd until she got to an open space where she could see what the wet nurse was holding. The nurse took notice of her and beckoned her forward.
“So you’re a breeder for Master Gorn, are you? Well come on then, my girl. Come and see the new little drewgie,” she cooed, nodding for Anna to come up to her.
The Trollox in the front made way and Anna was ushered right up to the nurse’s side. The baby was pressed against her chest, two of the heads snuffling eagerly while the third howled but Anna couldn’t see their faces until the nurse pulled back and showed the baby more clearly.
The first thing that struck her was the sheer size of the creature. It was at least as big as a three-year old human—maybe more like a five-year old. Had it come out small and grown an inordinate amount in the last twenty-four hours, she wondered uneasily? Or had it been this big when it came out of the mother to begin with? And if so, how could any normal-sized woman accommodate such a huge baby?
The second thing she noticed was that the baby was ugly—not ugly-cute, either—just horrifyingly deformed-looking. Unlike its sire, it had three distinct heads, each with their own separate necks, and all three heads looked different.
The one on the right had glowing red eyes and a face like a bat with a turned up, pig-like snout and pointed horns protruding from its boney skull. The head on the right had a long, drooping face, as though its eyes and nose and mouth had melted like a crayon in the oven. Its eyes were nearly closed and all its features seemed to sag and wobble like uncooked dough as it waved its arm sluggishly in the air.
But it was the head in the middle that was the worst, Anna thought.
At first glance, it seemed almost normal with big purple eyes and a little turned-up nose that wasn’t too far from what a normal humanoid might have. Then it cracked open its jaw to cry and Anna was horrified to see that not only did the mouth open horizontally but vertically as well. The little pinkish-gray lips split in different directions and the orifice they revealed reminded her horribly of the Sarlacc pit from the Star Wars movies—or maybe one of the Sand Worms from Dune.
“Oh!” Anna gasped and jumped back from the gaping maw which was lined with jagged, fish hook-like fangs.
“Heh-heh!” The wet nurse tittered at her shock and dismay. “That’s the naughty one, that is,” she told Anna. “It’s always so with the rare three-headed Trollox. Two is good and one is a biter. This one is always in a bad mood because he can’t be given suck!”
She fed a nipple from one pendulous breast into the mouth of the drooping head on the left and another into the pig-snouted, bat-faced mouth on the right. But the third head—the one in the middle, got none. Stretching its mouth wide to show its horrible teeth, it began to shriek so loudly Anna longed to clap her hands over her ears.
The nurse, however, didn’t seem bothered in the least.
“Now, now, young master,” she crooned to the middle head. “You know you can’t have suck with a mouthful of teeth like that! You’d bite my neeter off, so you would!” She cackled wildly as though she’d made a joke and then addressed the shrieking head again. “Behave and later I’ll give you a little rattie to gnaw on in a bit.”
“A…rattie?” Anna asked uncertainly.
“Oh, a little rodent-like,” the wet nurse explained. “I lets the biter gnaw their heads off—he loves it!”
Anna nodded. “I…I see,” she whispered. But inside she was feeling faint with disgust.
She didn’t want a creature like this growing inside her! It was a monstrosity—an abomination. There was nothing remotely cute about its sagging gray skin and the three horrible heads—nothing at all to incite her mothering instinct, as newborns usually did. All she felt when she looked at it was horror and loathing—the same feeling she had when confronted with a particularly big roach or a huge, hairy spider.
I don’t want that in me, she thought, feeling like she might puke. And I don’t want Gorn in me to put it there. I don’t want any part of this—I just want to go home!
Of course, her captor chose that moment to grab her by the shoulder and shove both his heads into her face.
“See there, girlie?” the left head bellowed, its foul breath washing over her like the putrid wind off a garbage scow. “That there is a proper heir! That’s what you’re going to give me!”
“And sooner rather than later,” the right head hissed. “We need an heir to carry on our name!”
“I…I…” Anna didn’t know what to say. She still thought she might be sick right then and there.
I thought you weren’t supposed to get morning sickness until after you got pregnant, whispered a little voice in her head. But here you are, ready to puke all over Gorn this minute—you know he’ll beat you for it, if you do!
Yes, that was true. With an effort, Anna swallowed her rising gorge.
“Yes, Master,” she managed to croak out.
“That’s right—that’s good!” Gorn bellowed and finally let her go. “Now, run along, girlie. Me and the drewgs have business.”
“Yes, Master,” Anna gasped again.
And, at last released from the horrible scene, she turned and fled.
Chapter Sixteen
Dark saw her the minute she entered the kitchen, looking like a frightened, delicate white bird in the feathered cloak.
“Anna?” He went to her at once and saw that her cloak wasn’t the only thing that was white. Her face was as pale as paper and she was trembling from head to foot. She looked like someone who had seen something unspeakably horrible—or maybe a portent of their own death.
“Anna?” he asked again, taking her by the shoulders and drawing her away, into a small alcove where some vegetables were soaking in tubs. “What is it?” he asked earnestly. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Baby,” she echoed and her face twisted into a mask of disgust. “Yes, that’s what I saw—I just saw the baby. Only it doesn’t look like a baby—not a normal one, anyway.” She looked up at him, meeting his eyes at last and her own soft blue gaze was filled with panic and revulsion. “It’s horrible, Dark—horrible! I don’t want Gorn putting something like that inside me! I don’t want to…to give birth to a monster.”
“You won’t!” he said firmly. Gods, the baby Trollox must have been worse than he’d expected it might be. Not that any of the Trollox were going to win a beauty contest anytime soon but from the look on An
na’s face, it must have been truly horrifying. “I won’t let that happen to you,” he promised her, looking intently into her eyes. “I swear it, Anna—I won’t.”
“I don’t see how you can stop it—I don’t see how anyone can.” Her voice was low and hopeless. “He’s going to do that to me—he’s going to hold me down and fill me with his horrible seed and plant a monster in me. I’d rather give birth to a million spiders than a thing like that!” she exclaimed, looking up at Dark, her eyes wild with fear an disgust. “I’d rather give birth to a litter of rats or a nest of poisonous snakes!”
“Anna, baby…” Dark sat her down on a low stool by the soaking roots. “Look, we’re going to have to talk about this later,” he told her. “But for now, just please believe that I would never let him hurt you.”
“Don’t you understand?” she demanded. “He’s already hurt me! You’re too late, Dark! I dreamed about you for months but you came too late!”
Her statement startled and horrified him on several levels. Had she really been dreaming of him for months, just as he’d had a dream of her? But even more important, what was she saying?
“What do you mean?” he demanded, his hands tightening on her shoulders. “You told me he hadn’t done that to you yet—that he hadn’t raped you, Anna!”
She looked away and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “He hasn’t. Not like that. Never mind—you wouldn’t understand.”
Dark wanted to tell her that he understood rape better than most. What else but rape could what Mistress Hellenix had done to him be called when she “gave him the rod” as they said on Yonnie Six?
But now was not the time or the place to go into it. Though he had tried to take Anna to a somewhat private place, the alcove was open to the kitchen and he could see the curious glances Yark’s kitchen crew were throwing at the two of them.
“Here,” he said, reaching for her hands. “Do me a favor, would you? I really need these tubers scrubbed. Take this…” He found a rough-sided soggah-sponge and pressed it into her right hand. “And scrub this.” He placed one of the long, dirty pink tubers into her left hand. “Can you do that for me?”
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