“That was your first and only warning,” Malik told them. “Anyone who touches my Mistress will fry like a strip of bulka meat in a hot pan. Step…back.”
Reluctantly, Nikki thought, the last remaining guards stepped away from the stage. Majestically, Malik descended the steps. He had been a slave on this stage only moments before—bound and vulnerable, a part of the show she had been forced to put on to please the Yonnite crowd. Now he looked like a king—a god—with his halo of lightning crackling around him. She was in awe of him as she followed him down the steps and through the suddenly empty area in front of the stage.
“I had no idea how dangerous he was!” she heard one of the other Mistresses, who had withdrawn to the edges of the open space, say to another.
“I know! Hellenix always said he was special but to think that he had this kind of power in him! He could have fried us all at any time!” her friend replied.
“I’m surprised she dared to take him as a slave at all!” a third one chimed in. “He’s positively deadly!”
“But he’s clearly devoted to her—look how he’s protecting her,” the first one pointed out. “He won’t let the guards lay a finger on her!”
Which was certainly true, Nikki thought as she trailed behind Malik at a safe—but not too distant—distance. They passed right through the pack of guards and many of them looked at her longingly but clearly didn’t dare to grab her. Right behind them was Mistress Tacky Tangle-Skank and it was clear she was not happy with the proceedings.
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you taking her?” she hissed at the nearest guard. “Isn’t she wanted by the Sacred Seven for questioning? So why don’t you grab her?”
“You grab her, Mistress, if you’re so eager to get fried,” the guard growled, glaring at her. “Or did you not see that display her slave just put on? He’s a Volt Kindred—no fucking doubt. They’re deadly and I’m not fucking with him.”
Nikki dared to give the fuming Mistress a coy little smile as they passed and something she’d seen on her teen son’s Facebook page suddenly popped into her head.
“Bye-bye, Tacky,” she said. “Don’t hate me because you ain’t me.” Then she blew the other Mistress a kiss.
Her little remark seemed to send the other Mistress into a paroxysm of fury.
“No!” she howled. “Our whole lives, she’s gotten away with everything! It’s not fair—it’s not fair!”
She was practically foaming at the mouth as she shoved her way between the guards and made a grab at Nikki.
“Come here!” she shouted. “You’re finally going to get what’s coming to you—you do not get to win this time!”
She had Nikki’s arm in a death grip and she was dragging her towards the line of guards.
“Let go! Let go!” Nikki gasped, pulling back. But though the other woman looked skinny, she was strong. And also enraged, Nikki thought as she tried unsuccessfully to get away.
Hmm, maybe you shouldn’t have teased her like that, whispered a little voice in her head. Maybe you made a dangerous situation a whole lot worse—you think?
Suddenly Malik was at her side, looming over Mistress Tangle-Skank.
“Let her go.” His deep voice was crackling with power. “I would never normally harm a female but if you don’t take your hands off my Mistress right now I swear you will regret it.”
“No!” Mistress Tangle-Skank shook her head—her huge peacock’s tail of hair fluttering wildly with the movement, though it still remained intact and upright somehow. “No, she always gets what she wants—including you, slave! But not this time!”
Malik looked at Nikki.
“Brace yourself—you’re going to feel a shock but I’ll try to shield you from it as much as possible.”
Before she could answer, he grabbed Mistress Tangle-Skank by the arm—clamping his big hand down over the wrist of the hand that was holding Nikki. Then he grabbed the elaborate headdress woven into her hair and Nikki saw a look of concentration on his face.
Suddenly Mistress Tangle-Skank went rigid, the muscles of her face locked in the most amazing grimace and then she began to shake like someone having a seizure. It was a horrifying sight—made worse by the plume of smoke that started suddenly seeping from the top of her head—and the faint tingle Nikki felt in the arm that she was still clutching.
The minute Malik let go, so did Tangle-Skank. She dropped Nikki’s arm and sank to the ground like a load of old clothes someone had spilled from a basket, her hair still smoking.
For a moment, Nikki just stood there staring at her. Was the other woman breathing? She couldn’t tell.
“Come on, Mistress.” Malik spoke urgently in her ear.
“What…what happened?” she asked, as he took her arm and propelled her away from the guards who were beginning to gather around the fallen Mistress.
“I gave her the smallest shock I could, but I think the framework in her hair must be made of metal. I thought it was some kind of plastic and would act to ground my power—instead it amplified it.” He shook his head, looking regretful.
“Will she live?” Nikki cast a glance back over her shoulder uncertainly as they entered the lighted walkway that led down to the parking area.
“I hope so—I would never want to be guilty of killing a female, even a Yonnite Mistress,” Malik said grimly. “But I had to get you away from her and she had your arm in a death grip.” He glanced down at her swiftly. “Did I hurt you? Were you shocked?”
“Only a little,” Nikki admitted. “I just felt a tingle where she was touching me.”
“I can only block it out a little,” Malik explained. “If we were bonded, you would have immunity to my charge but as it is, I can only offer you minimal protection.”
“I’m glad you did,” Nikki said, with feeling. She wouldn’t have wanted to end up like Tacky Tangle-Skank, lying on the ground with her hair smoking!
They had reached the ship by now and Malik helped her in quickly.
“Well, I guess that could have gone better,” he admitted, as he settled himself, still naked, in the Pilot’s chair.
“It could have gone a lot worse, too,” Nikki pointed out. “We could have been captured and taken before the Sacred Seven.”
“True.” He nodded and sighed. “Well, for better or worse, we’re done here and we need to get out. It won’t take the guards long to get to their own ships—luckily Mistress Hellenix had a stealth mode installed on hers just last cycle.” He patted the control panel of the ship and looked at Nikki. “Are you ready to visit my home planet? Are you ready for Uriel Two?”
Nikki took a deep breath and nodded.
“Let go.”
They went.
Chapter Twenty
Uriel Two had a pretty, pink, shimmering cloud around it that Malik assured her was completely lethal.
Nikki watched in the viewscreen as the cloud—and the planet obscured behind it—grew closer. At last they stopped when the cloud nearly filled the screen.
“I can go no closer—not safely,” Malik murmured, his eyes fixed on the screen.
Nikki’s eyes were fixed on him.
After they had hopped through a worm hole to get far from Yonnie Six, both of them had taken the opportunity to change—or in Malik’s case, to put on clothing at all.
Nikki had on a long green gown which had flowing sleeves and panties to match. They showed through the long front slit in the silky green material, which seemed to be ubiquitous to Yonnie Six Mistress couture, but at least the gown (mostly) covered her breasts. Black, high-heeled ankle boots went with the gown as well as a black belt to match. The entire ensemble was considerably more comfortable than the tight black dress and bustier she’d been wearing at the banquet.
Malik looked much the same as he had when she first met him. He was back to wearing the crotchless black leather slave trousers with a loincloth to cover his shaft. But he wasn’t wearing a chastity device anymore, so the curtain of black fabric covered bare fles
h. His chest was bare too and Nikki couldn’t help looking over at him and noticing both the mouthwatering muscles of his arms and shoulders and the ridge of his shaft, just under the thin loincloth that covered it.
She knew she ought to keep her mind on their mission of getting into Uriel Two and helping Malik restore his home world, but her mind kept returning to the scene at the banquet.
Closing her eyes, she got flashes of how she’d run her hands over his big, warm body…the feeling of his thick shaft thrusting between her fingers…the phallus she had worn pumping into him and the hard little ridge pressing against her swollen clit with every thrust…the sound of his low, groans and the way he had begged her to fuck him harder…
It had been some of the most surprising sex Nikki had ever had—which admittedly wasn’t saying much, since Gary had been unrelentingly incurious when it came to the horizontal mambo. But laying that aside, what had surprised her the most wasn’t exactly Malik’s reaction to what she’d had to do to him—although she was glad he had enjoyed it rather than hating the act and hating her for having to perform it on him.
No, what had surprised her most of all was the fact of her own dominance. All those hot, naughty things she had growled in his ear—the way she’d asked him if he wanted her to fuck him. Not to mention the way she had fucked him, using the strap-on phallus as though she’d been wearing one all her life. Nikki had never dreamed she had that in her—the will to dominate and even more surprising, the ability to enjoy dominating.
Not that she suddenly wanted to become a dominatrix—absolutely not. But she’d liked the sense of power it gave her to be in control for once. To penetrate instead of just lying there on her back, bored in the dark, while she was the one getting penetrated.
No doubt about it, the wild things she’d been doing the past few days were far outside her comfort zone but somehow she’d been able to roll with the punches. All things considered, Nikki felt kind of proud of herself—especially for being able to perform so well during the banquet. After all, strapping on a dildo and sexually dominating a huge Kindred warrior was a big step for someone who had never even had sex with the lights on before.
Though if she was being honest, she knew that Malik had been the strong one during their switched-around-sex.
How difficult it must have been for a man like him—a warrior—to submit to being a slave? And not only that, to submit to being fucked in front of a bunch of strangers for their entertainment? Nikki knew from experience how fragile the male ego could be—the fact that Malik was confident enough in his own masculinity to open himself to her that way made her think he was one of the strongest and most emotionally intelligent men that she had ever known.
And that wasn’t even touching on the subject of his strange, otherworldly abilities.
She remembered with awe the lightning wreathing his nude body as he stood like a god on the stage and faced down the entire cadre of guards. To think, he’d had that power inside him all this time and still he chose to let himself be subjugated and used as a slave! All to serve the higher good—the greater purpose of finally getting to restore his home world. How often he must have wanted to fry Mistress Hellenix! And he could have too—but he restrained himself.
Nikki was in awe of that level of self-control and self-sacrifice. Truly the big Kindred was the most amazing man she had ever met—and it wasn’t just because he could shoot lightning from his fingertips either.
It’s also the reason you need to keep your mind on why you’re here and help him as much as possible, Nikki lectured herself. It doesn’t do any good to sit there mooning over him and thinking about the past—no matter how amazing it was. You need to get down to business and help him get his world back.
And after that, they would go their separate ways, she supposed. Still, maybe after his world was restored and she and her boys were settled someplace else they might somehow get together? After all, the unconventional sex they’d had seemed to deeply affect Malik too. Nikki couldn’t help remembering the strange energy that had somehow flowed between them and the way he had told her if their positions had been reversed it would have been bonding sex, which seemed to be a really big deal for the Kindred…
No, you’re fooling yourself, Nikki told herself. Don’t be stupid—the two of you will never be together. Just get on with the business at hand and try to leave the past in the past.
“So,” she said aloud, trying to take her own advice. “What next?”
“Now we hail the Knower and wait for it to answer.” Malik was already busy with controls. “When it parts the kill-field, we’ll land and you can ask for a tour of their SOR manufacturing facility. We’ll need to get all the way inside it so I can get to the Knower’s main processing core. Then, once we’re there, I’ll deploy the device the Time Warden gave to me and—” He snapped his fingers. “Everything will happen at once.”
“What do you mean, ‘everything will happen at once’?” Nikki asked, frowning. “What exactly is ‘everything.’?”
“Well—” Malik began but just then there was a beeping from the viewscreen at the front of the ship and a soft, gender-neutral voice spoke.
“Mistress Hellenix of Yonnie Six, you are granted access to Uriel Two, home of the Knower. Welcome to my realm.”
Suddenly the sparkly pink layer between their ship and the planet dissolved and the way forward was open.
“Oh,” Nikki half-whispered. “I guess we’d better talk about this later.”
“Indeed.” Malik nodded and took a deep breath. “Time to go home,” he murmured as he took the ship through the opening that had been created. “Time to see what has been done to my world.”
“Do you think the Knower has changed it in some way?” Nikki asked as they moved towards the planet.
Malik shook his head. “I have no way of knowing. After the broadcast it sent out, showing the gas attacks and the subsequent deaths, it never sent anything again. There may be some technology that can penetrate the kill-field to see what is happening but if so, I have not had access to it.”
“I guess we’ll find out, then,” Nikki murmured.
There was a bit of natural cloud cover that they couldn’t see through but once the ship dived through it, the face of the planet was revealed. Nikki caught her breath as they flew closer.
She’d flown in an airplane before and she remembered how the Earth looked from high up—the way the land and water melded into each other and the way the different patches of cultivated and inhabited land were squared off with patches of wilderness. This was especially evident when flying over Florida where there was so much verdant green growth in every place where it hadn’t been cut back. Even in the heavily urban areas there were still little patches of wilderness that mostly consisted of tangles of vines and weeds and trees.
There was none of that on Uriel Two.
Though she searched, Nikki couldn’t catch a single glimpse of anything green or growing or really, any colors except for white, silver, and gold. There were impossibly tall towers and spires and futuristic looking structures but they were all empty. Everything looked shiny and sterile and extremely clean but there were no signs of life anywhere that she could see.
No vehicles moved down the wide, neatly swept streets, no pedestrians walked on the sidewalks or looked out of the windows of the sleek, soaring apartment buildings. There appeared to be shopping districts but no one to shop in them, parks with benches surrounding clear, splashing fountains but no one to sit in them, museums and libraries with no one to visit them.
The whole place was empty.
She glanced at Malik and saw a stricken expression on his face.
“What is it?” she murmured. “Worse than you thought?”
“It’s…unrecognizable.” His voice was low and hoarse as he scanned the viewscreen with its view of the clean, sleek, empty city—a city which appeared to cover the entire planet.
“How so?” Nikki inquired softly, feeling that he needed to t
alk about it.
“Well, aside from the fact that it appears to be completely uninhabited, nothing here is familiar. All of our wild places and hallowed trees…gone.” He shook his head. “I knew the Knower wanted to kill every humanoid on the planet but I had no idea it would also rid my world of every shred of greenery.”
“Your people were big into nature then?” Nikki asked softly.
“We revered it.” Malik’s voice was tight. “We believed the natural places were sacred to the Goddess. And now look…” He waved a hand at the viewscreen. “All our sacred groves have been uprooted, our mountains have been leveled and our beaches have been filled in. There is nothing left but this sterile, blankness. This empty city. Why has the Knower done this?”
“I don’t know.” Nikki shook her head. “It doesn’t seem to make sense. Why make a whole city if you killed all the people who might have lived in it?”
“I thought when we came through the clouds that I would see the remains of what I left behind,” Malik murmured. “I thought I might see the bodies of those who had died in the gas attacks or at least their skeletons scattered where they had fallen. I was prepared for that but this…” he shook his head. “This is somehow worse.”
Nikki agreed with him that there was something deeply creepy about the big, empty city. It was like the entire planet had been turned into a high-tech ghost town. What the hell was going on here?
Before she could even begin to answer that question, the quiet, gender-neutral voice which could have been either male or female spoke over the viewscreen again.
“Greetings Mistress Hellenix. You are cleared for landing at the Main Housing of the Knower. Follow the flashing beacon to find your landing platform.”
The voice faded and suddenly Nikki saw something winking in the viewscreen.
“Look—there!” She pointed at a light which was flashing in the corner of a tall building with a large, flat roof. It occurred to her that it was a good thing it was a cloudy day here on Uriel Two. Without the cloud cover above, the light of the setting sun glinting off all of the metal structures would have been blinding and they never would have seen the beacon.
Twisted: Brides of the Kindred 23 Page 27