Eighty-Four
The minute they finally got aboard one of the NeverBreeder spaceships, Penny felt ready to collapse. But first she wanted a long drink of water and a shower to wash the jungle grime off herself.
“You go ahead, sweetheart,” V’rex said distractedly. He was busy in the pilot’s chair, apparently getting the hang of the new controls. “This is nothing like any ship I’ve ever seen—fucking NeverBreeders,” Penny heard him mutter to himself. “Now where in the Seven Hells did they put the Nav-com? Oh right—here it is, where nobody in their right mind would think to put it…”
Deciding to leave him to it, Penny left the blaster she’d been holding on the passenger’s side seat and walked through to the back of the ship, looking for the aforementioned drink and shower.
The NeverBreeders’ ship was extremely utilitarian with absolutely no extra frills. Clearly they only used it to grab unsuspecting “breeders” and bring them back to Yown Alpha. But they did have a rudimentary kitchen area which had a sink with a single faucet and a press button to make the water come out.
Penny washed her hands and face and drank thirstily from her cupped palms. As soon as her thirst was taken care of, her stomach growled—it had been almost a whole day since her last meal.
There was a small cupboard which held a few supplies. Penny saw a few jerky-like strips of dried meat which she avoided with a shudder. But there were also some compressed plant bars stacked there. They tasted sweet and bland and faintly grassy—like someone had mixed carrots, beets, and grass clippings and then dried them out and compressed them into hard little rectangles about the size of a granola bar.
They weren’t the best thing Penny had ever tasted, but she was so hungry she ate two of them before she made herself stop. There were still plenty left for V’rex—if he wanted to eat the plant bars, that was. Right now, Penny decided she wanted a shower more than anything else.
She went further back to explore the rest of the ship and hopefully find a bathroom—now that she had taken care of her thirst and hunger, she really had to pee. Although, to be perfectly honest, she wasn’t sure the NeverBreeders needed a bathroom. They were perfectly smooth between their legs—at least from the few glimpses she had caught. How did they eliminate wastes?
The very back of the ship was obviously a holding area for prisoners. It looked like it could hold ten or twelve comfortably—or two or three if one of them was as big as the two-headed Trollox that had died. Ugh!
Penny was just despairing of finding anyplace to relieve herself when she at last spied a tiny, recessed door that she’d missed on her way to look at the holding area. When she let herself in, she saw a strange kind of toilet that appeared to be nothing but a long tube coming out of the floor, attached to an oval head. There was also a round metal shower stall in one corner but Penny barely paid attention to it because by now she really had to go.
But how?
She plucked the hose-like device carefully from the hook it was hanging from and looked uncertainly at the oval attachment. Was it some kind of suction device? It looked a little bit like a vacuum cleaner attachment.
Experimentally, she pressed the blue button on the wall beside the hook and sure enough, a long slit opened in the oval head and it began to suck. So it was like the toilets in the bathrooms at Hell’s Gate Station, Penny thought.
But she didn’t see any of the sanitary arrangements that were on the other suction toilets. Did the NeverBreeders press this oval thing between their crotches or wherever their waste came out? Did they clean it between times? What if they didn’t? She didn’t see any cleaning materials. The awful thing was probably crawling with germs. Ugh! And she had touched it!
Suddenly Penny had the urge to wash her hands—her whole body, in fact. She eyed the tall metal shower cylinder in the corner and wondered if there was hot water available.
“Maybe I’ll just pee in the shower,” she muttered to herself, turning to place the hose and its attachment gingerly back on its hook on the wall. “Who knows how the NeverBreeders use that thing anyway?”
“We press it to our cloaca and allow it to suck the wastes from our body, of course,” a high, androgynous voice said from right behind her.
Penny screamed and whirled around to see the biggest NeverBreeder she’d ever seen standing in the now-open shower stall, glaring at her.
Eighty-Five
“Is that you, sweetheart?” V called when he heard the footsteps behind him. “I’ve got us on autopilot now, headed back to Hell’s Gate. My own ship is docked on the far end, so—”
“You will turn the ship around and go back to Yown Alpha at once,” an unfamiliar voice said behind him.
“What in the Seven Hells?” V spun around to see a NeverBreeder which was larger than most standing behind him. Worse, the bastard had one arm around Penelope’s waist and was holding a long, wickedly sharp knife at her throat.
“You heard me, breeder,” the orange humanoid said. He was taller than Penny, which gave him the advantage over her. As if the knife wasn’t advantage enough, V thought grimly.
“Let her go,” he growled, feeling the Rage rise in him again.
“No,” the NeverBreeder guard said coolly. “I will hold her hostage while you turn the ship around and set a course for Yown Alpha.”
“Never,” Penelope’s voice was low and trembling but her brown eyes were fierce. “V’rex will never do what you say!”
“He’d better…” The NeverBreeder guard slid the tip of the knife slowly up and down the side of her neck. “This blade has been dipped in the sap of the Toxic-shock vine. If I draw even a single drop of blood from your lovely flesh, you’ll be poisoned instantly, breeder. And I assure you it will not be a pleasant death.”
“You’re bluffing,” V growled though he was desperately afraid the NeverBreeder wasn’t. He was barely holding back the Rage which threatened to overcome him—it wanted to fall like a red curtain over his vision when he saw his female being threatened. But he had to think now, had to act rationally if he wanted to get Penelope out of this alive…
“I assure you, breeder, that I never bluff,” the NeverBreeder said sharply. “Now set the course and then the two of you will be locked safely in the hold while I pilot us back to the Compound. Once we are there, the Glorious Leader will know how to deal with both of you.”
“No!” Penelope’s voice rose to a sudden shout. “We’re never going back there—never!”
She twisted in the NeverBreeder’s arms suddenly and jammed her elbow into his midsection.
The guard made a sound like “Whoof!” and doubled over as her blow knocked the breath out of him. Before he could get it back again, V sprang at him, grabbing the long silver knife from his hand and punching the NeverBreeder square in the face. Then he pulled out his blaster and shot, vaporizing the bastard’s head.
The headless body fell backwards, the legs in their silver jumpsuit still twitching.
“Oh my God!” Penelope’s voice was low and shaky. “Oh my God, oh my God!”
“It’s all right, sweetheart!” V re-holstered his blaster in the belt holster he’d taken from one of the dead NeverBreeders in the jungle and went to her. “Everything is okay,” he told her, wanting to reassure her.
“I…I’m not sure that it is.” Penelope shook her head. “I…I feel so dizzy, V’rex.”
“It’s just shock. Here, let’s get you sitting down.” V started to reach for her and then realized he was still holding the NeverBreeder’s knife in his other hand. He started to toss it aside and then he took a closer look at it.
Running down the wickedly sharp blade was a single drop of crimson blood.
Eighty-Six
“Fuck!” V’rex was looking with horror at the NeverBreeder’s knife. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Penny asked faintly. She was getting that breathless feeling again—the same one she’d had when they first entered the Deadly Jungle, before every
thing had gone gray and far away. “Why…why can’t I breathe?” she asked, her voice coming out as a gasp.
V’rex dropped the knife and lifted her chin to examine the side of her neck.
“The fucker wasn’t lying, I guess.” He sounded grim. He touched her neck carefully and his fingertips came away bloody. “He barely scratched you but the blade must have been poisoned, like he said.”
“Oh, no!” Penny exclaimed, but her voice came out in a breathless gasp. “Does that mean you’ll have to…to…sting me?”
“Afraid so, sweetheart.” He looked like a man who was about to make himself do something he really, really didn’t want to do. “Still, we’re out of the jungle now,” he muttered, sounding like he was talking to himself. “Maybe that will help.”
“Help what?” Penny tried to ask, but her throat had closed almost completely by now. She tried to suck in a breath but it was like breathing through a straw. Frantically, she clawed at her throat.
Can’t breathe—can’t breathe!
“Hang on, sweetheart—I’m hoping this won’t hurt you this time,” V’rex murmured.
And then he was pulling her into his arms and Penny felt the blunt, fiery probe of his stinger skewering the tender side of her neck.
At once, she was on fire! The pain she’d experience the past two times he’d stung her was nothing to this. This was a burning everywhere—her nerves, her flesh, even her very bones were being incinerated in the most horrific agony imaginable!
This is Hell—I’m in Hell, Penny thought. Her throat opened up at last and she sucked in a double lungful of air and expelled it in a shriek of pure torture. She couldn’t even form the words to ask the big Hybrid to stop stinging her. All she could do was writhe and shriek while she burned and burned and burned…
And then everything went dark as her body and brain overloaded from the pain and she fell down the blessed well of unconsciousness.
Eighty-Seven
V despised himself. As he held Penelope’s limp body in his arms, shame and self-hatred rose in him so strongly it made him physically ill. He had felt the unbearable pain his sting had caused her and it was as though he had stood by and watched himself carve her flesh with a knife while she screamed.
He wanted to throw back his head and howl, to tear out his hair or cut his own flesh or perform some other kind of self-flagellation to atone for the agony he had brought to his love.
Though he knew what he had done was necessary to save her, he still wanted to die. To cause such horrible pain to the female he loved was almost unbearable—the Kindred side of him wanted to end things.
It was the Kru’ell One half of him that kept him going—kept him from harming or killing himself after he had committed what felt like a physical assault on the woman he loved.
You did what you had to in order to save her, that half of him informed V. And if you kill yourself for it, who’s going to pilot her safely home? She still needs you, V—even if your sting is painful to her now. She still can’t get back to her home world without you.
The dry, practical voice in his skull saved him from doing something he would have regretted later—if he even lived to regret it. Carefully, he laid Penelope in the passenger’s seat, which was only a little too small for her, whereas the pilot’s chair was way too small for V, having been built for NeverBreeder dimensions.
He watched her carefully and saw that her breathing was no longer labored. Well, thank the Goddess for small favors! His sting might be agonizing to her now, but at least it still did its job. She was cured of the poison…though V was afraid she might have a permanent aversion to him personally when she finally woke up.
Not that I’d blame her, he thought grimly to himself. He had to find out what had happened—why her body was reacting so badly to his sting and his lust-honey.
Because if he couldn’t sting her without causing her pain, he couldn’t bond her to him. And now that they were finally free of the Compound and the cult that had held them both captive, that was all V wanted to do.
Eighty-Eight
Penny woke on a much different starship—a more luxurious one than the utilitarian craft of the NeverBreeders by far. She was strapped into a plush chair covered in some kind of black suede and the instruments blinking in neat orderly rows around her were sleek and silver and very high-tech.
“What…where?” She blinked, sitting up more fully in the plush chair. Someone had draped a warm blue blanket made of some ultra-soft material over her and she pushed it aside as she looked around.
“In my ship, in the dock at Hell’s Gate,” a familiar voice said.
Looking around, Penny saw V’rex sitting beside her in the pilot’s chair, which was also made of the same plush black suede. He was dressed as he had been when she had first seen him in the Lucky Lounge—in tight black leather trousers and a black leather vest that showed his massive arms and golden tattoos. He was sipping something steaming out of a large, thick mug but he set it carefully down in a holder beside him in order to lean over and look at her more closely.
Penny flinched away—she couldn’t help it. Her last memory was of the horrible, burning agony of his sting and she felt like she’d rather do anything than endure that again.
V’rex must have seen her flinch because he drew back, a grim expression on his face.
“I’m sorry I had to sting you again, sweetheart,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “It’s just…you were poisoned by that fucking NeverBreeder’s blade and you couldn’t breathe—”
“I know,” Penny said quickly, drawing in on herself. “I understand. You…you did what you had to do and you saved my life…again.” She cleared her throat. “For which I am so, so grateful. But V’rex please—please promise me that you’ll never sting me again. I…I don’t think I could take it. It was so painful.”
She shivered as she remembered the awful burning agony—the feeling of being consumed by flames until the darkness had eaten her vision.
The big Hybrid went very still and she saw his eyes widen for a moment. He swallowed convulsively and she suddenly feared that she might have hurt his feelings.
I shouldn’t have said anything, Penny scolded herself. But the pain had been so bad. She’d heard of women fainting in childbirth, but she’d never experienced an agony so dreadful that it caused her to lose consciousness before.
It was like the intense pleasure the lust-honey was supposed to cause had been turned on its ear so that it forced the worst pain imaginable through her nerve endings instead. Just the thought of going through it again was more than she could bear.
Still, the look on his face…
“V’rex,” she said, reaching out a hand to him. “Look, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I know I sounded ungrateful just now. It’s just—”
“No.” He held up a hand to stop her. “No, you made a request of me and I will answer honestly and without malice.”
His words were so strangely formal that Penny wasn’t sure what to think. But his next action surprised her even more. He slid out of the captain’s seat and went down on one knee in front of her like a man about to propose marriage.
“V’rex—” she began, reaching for him but he captured her hand in both of his and looked earnestly into her eyes.
“Penelope,” he said. “From this day forward, I swear on my honor as a Warrior that I will not sting you or attempt to bind you to me in any way. I will respect the request you have made of me and let you walk your own path in life while I walk mine. And never shall our paths meet.”
“What?” Penny didn’t know what to make of this. Why was he being so formal and what did he mean about their paths never meeting? “Are you…are you breaking up with me?” she asked haltingly, and then wished immediately she could take the words back. “I mean, not that we were ever together,” she said quickly. “Not for real, anyway. Of course, we had to pretend in the Compound because if we hadn’t, they would have recycled us, but—”
/> “All pretense is over now.” The big Hybrid’s voice was low and hoarse and his words were still strangely formal. “You are not mine and I am no longer yours. I Forswear you, Penelope.”
For some reason, his somber words and the look on his face made Penny want to cry. Whatever had happened between them, it seemed like it was a kind of breaking-up ceremony. And even though she’d been telling herself from the beginning that the big Hybrid wouldn’t want her anymore after they got out of the Compound and he was no longer breathing the Spice, it still hurt dreadfully that he was basically casting her aside.
At least he did it in person, whispered a sad little voice in her head. Not like Garret who just texted you, “It’s over,” out of the blue one day…
Penny knew that she was about to cry and she didn’t want to do it in front of him.
“Could…could you point me towards the bathroom?” she asked, her voice thick as she tried to hold back her tears. “I, uh, still really need a shower.” She nodded down to the tattered blue toga which she was still wearing to excuse her sudden exit.
“Of course.” V’rex nodded. “It’s down the main corridor and on the right, past the food prep area. And the door right beside it is your room. You should find some clothes that will fit you on the bed. I have a replicator on board so I made some for you while you were out.”
“Th-thank you,” Penny somehow managed to get out. And then she was up and running blindly down the corridor towards the back of the ship as the tears stung her eyes.
Eighty-Nine
V’rex felt her pain as he Foreswore her—it echoed his own—a deep, aching emptiness in his heart that could never be filled by any other female.
But it couldn’t be helped.
In asking him never to sting her again, Penelope had been, in essence, asking for her freedom from the connection they had formed at the Compound. And though V’rex would have been more than happy to continue honoring the vows they had taken there, he couldn’t deny her request.
Stolen: Brides of the Kindred 25 Page 38