The Breaking

by Imogen Keeper

  She hadn’t thought twice. Not so much as a breath between the second her fingers closed around the bare handle of the blade, and the minute it plunged into his back. Whatever vital organs she’d managed to hit, he’d fallen to the floor almost immediately.

  He’d fallen to the floor, immobile. A pool of blood oozed from between his lips to spread across the floor. More blood spread beneath him. The handle of the knife. Sticking up from his back like a lurid flag. And the last thing she’d seen as she left the room, his eyes, still moving.

  Him or me. Him or me. Him or me.

  He was an evil man.

  And so are these men who’ve kidnapped my mate and will return me to Utto.

  Them or me. Them or me. Them or me.

  I will do what I have to do.

  She wrapped her fingers around the knife in her hand, breathing silently in the night air, surrounded by the fragrant, glowing blue blossoms. Draped in feathered fronds, covered from head to toe, she blended in. She waited right above the place they habitually stood as they emptied their bladders.

  All she’d have to do is drop down and keep her aim true.

  A shiver of serum sickness ran along her spine. Or maybe it was fear of the new Feola. It doesn’t matter, she swore to herself. They’ll never even see me until it’s too late.

  37

  Gone too long.

  Skin fever hot.

  The metal device they’d used to shackle Ajax, whatever it was, wasn’t budging, no matter how hard he struggled with it. And he struggled until the muscles in his arms burned and his wrists chafed.

  They’d removed the cuffs no more than three times in the hours since they’d captured him, and only then so he could relieve himself. They’d kept their rezals trained on him the entire time. Always watching him. They’d taken no chances. Hadn’t even removed them so he could eat. Merely poured a protein drink down his throat to keep him from starving.

  He needed them to make a mistake. Anything to give him an opening, but so far they’d proved efficient and intelligent. Apparently, their plan was to wait Feola out. They figured she’d run out of serum eventually and come find them when she became desperate enough.

  They sat facing outward, scanning the horizon, searching for her until night fell, the temperature plummeted, and the angry black birds returned, thumping against the invisible force field with bursts of blue flashing grids. The perfumed scent of the trees wafted in the breeze.

  Then they relaxed visibly, and Ajax watched them even more closely for any opening.

  He hadn’t felt any burst of serum-induced pleasure across the Bond. Did that mean she still needed serum? How sick would she be now?

  He couldn’t help but wonder if they were right. What if she arrived, desperate and ill, and they wouldn’t even let him help her? Would they make her suffer?

  Laugher rose, clipping on a portable force-field backpack, and walked into the darkness.

  With the fire at his back, Ajax was warm enough, but what about Feola? It was freezing. Was she nearby? Huddled up shivering somewhere? Fevered and freezing? Through the Bond, he felt anxiety, fear, the same type of reaction he’d felt from her when they’d relived the horrible altercation with Rennie during the Bonding. She’d recoiled. Was she having flashbacks?

  Something was wrong.

  Tattoo noticed it too. He shifted to the edge of the circle.

  Laugher had been gone too long.

  Ajax lumbered awkwardly to his feet. With his hands behind his back, his balance was off and he had to shift to his knees and use his own weight to create momentum.

  Tattoo barked something in fast Vestigi and, moving quickly, crossed to Ajax. A hard shove in the shoulder, coupled with a hook behind the knee, and Ajax hit the ground. He shifted back to his knees, searching the darkness beyond. The guards had chosen a toilet spot not far from the camp, but far enough for a bit of privacy. They should have heard a noise if something had happened.

  Were there other predators in the night than just the birds? Feola was out there. What if the predators found her too? He yanked at the shackles fruitlessly, gritting his teeth and using every muscle in his body to try to wrench his arms apart. A wasted effort.

  Another pang of activity poured across the Bond. Grief or guilt or anguish. And his whole body went still. Anger, fear, and shame poured through him.

  She hadn’t followed his advice. She’d come for him. Fuck. What the hell was she thinking? He inhaled deeply, sending up prayers to gods he’d never called on before, and struggled harder against the cuffs.

  Tattoo cursed and stalked to the edge of their force-field clearing. At his approach, the blue grid glowed like fine netting. He could barely hear beneath the clamor of the birds.

  Tattoo shouted into the darkness.

  The cuffs wouldn’t budge. Ajax scanned the impenetrable darkness.

  No response came from Laugher.

  Tattoo rounded on Ajax, eyes glinting dangerously. “Is that her? Is she here?”

  There was no way to answer that question.

  Tattoo turned back toward where Laugher had disappeared. “I’ll kill your man,” he shouted. “Show your face.”

  “He’s lying,” Ajax shouted. He may or may not be. It didn’t matter. All that did matter was that she got away from here. Some place safe. “If you’re out there, don’t listen to him.”

  Tattoo raised his eyebrows, lifting his rezal to level it at Ajax’s chest.

  There was nothing to hear but the birds.

  “You think I’m lying?” He cocked the weapon. “I will count to ten.”

  “Don’t do it, Feola. Run away. If he kills me—”

  Tattoo circled the fire. “You don’t fear bullets? Fine.” His boot kicked out, fast.

  Ajax tried to dodge it, but it still connected. A hard, blinding glance off his temple that sent him back to the ground, taking the bulk of his weight on one shoulder.

  “Five seconds,” Tattoo shouted at the sky.

  A blast echoed across the desert night, scattering birds.

  Tattoo hissed and dropped to the ground. “Fuck,” he shouted in hoarse Vestigi.

  And there she was, like an angel materializing out of thin black air, wearing a furry, gray sack. A rezal held high in her hands, just the way he’d taught her.

  Ajax blinked.

  “Drop your rezal,” she said evenly.

  Tattoo laughed. “Fuck you.” He aimed his own rezal at her face. “Drop your rezal.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Drop your fucking rezal.” Tattoo fired, and the blast flew just over her shoulder.

  Ajax hissed.

  “Drop. It. Now.” Tattoo’s voice was even and controlled.

  She glanced at Ajax and slowly lowered her rezal to the ground.

  “Arms up high.” Tattoo’s voice rang across the cool air.

  Her gaze never left Ajax’s. It was good to see her. Better than it should have been, considering the circumstances. The boiling pit in his stomach, the blurring focus receded slightly at her sheer proximity. Her eyes glittered in the firelight.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” Tattoo asked. “Take it off.”

  She pulled the gray sack over her head, revealing her bare, slender legs, the sheer white dress.

  Tattoo limped across the camp and ran his hands along her shoulder blades, down her chest, between her breasts, up her thighs beneath the dress, ignoring the building furious growls leaving Ajax’s throat.

  She lifted her chin. Her lips wobbled, but her eyes stayed bright.

  Tattoo’s jaw ticked, but he jerked his head toward Ajax. “Go to your man.”

  She didn’t hesitate, took off at nearly a run to tackle him to the ground and wrap her arms and legs around him.

  He toppled back, landing on his shoulders, wishing like hell he could hold her in his arms. “Take off these shackles,” he growled.

  “No.”

  Feola was crying. Fat tears dripped down her cheeks. He pulled them both b
ack up to sitting, so she straddled his lap. She smelled good. He couldn’t wipe her tears away with his hands, since they were behind his back, so he used his own cheeks, tracing them along her hot skin.

  Her face crumpled.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered awkwardly.

  She just shook her head. “I n-need serum.”

  Her pulse was fast. Her skin fever hot.

  “Take off these shackles, so I can help her.”

  Tattoo shrugged impassively. “I’ll turn my back when the time comes.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Tattoo laughed darkly. “Fuck me? Fuck me? You’re lucky I’m letting you help her. If I couldn’t smell how sick she is from here, I’d tie the little monster up and go find out what the hell she did with my partner.”

  Feola shuddered against him, breath hitching.

  “You didn’t use Utto’s?” Ajax whispered into her hair, feeling mingled frustration, elation, and fury.

  She shook her head. “I would have killed him,” she said, voice shuddering. “I am a monster. He’s right. I….”

  “Shh.” For the thousandth time, he tried to reach for her, to comfort her. Instead, he just curled his neck around hers. “It’s okay. Shh. I’d have done the same thing. You did nothing wrong, Feola.”

  Her legs tightened around his waist, arms around his back. She lifted her lips to his, clinging to him like a shaking, feminine vine. Shame speared through him. This was so fucked up. She’d had to bloody her own hands. That was his job. Her sweet, soft tongue pressed against his, and instantly his body was primed.

  Panting, moving awkwardly, he scrabbled across the dusty earth, closer to the fire to warm her. Her hands tugged at his clothes, and again his bindings thwarted him. “Feola, I—”

  “Shh,” she whispered into his mouth. “It doesn’t matter if he sees. We’ve done this in front of a thousand people. I need you. Now.”

  He nodded against her. Tattoo was as good as his word, walking to the edge of their camp, facing away. Ajax squeezed his eyes shut, grunting when Feola rocked her hips over the painful hardness of his cock.

  Another hideous lesson from Utto—enjoy the good moments. Feola had lived for the first beautiful, hot sip of eeffoc in the morning, or the feel of sliding into cool sheets after a long day, a long soak in the bath while Utto was gone. She’d learned to linger on the pleasure of those little moments, because far too often, when they were over, Utto had brought bad moments.

  Eeffoc, cool sheets, hot baths—none of them accounted for a speck of a glimmer of an inkling of the sheer pleasure she felt as she wrapped her arms around Ajax’s big, warm body. She buried her face in his neck and breathed him in.

  She tightened her thighs around his waist, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses against his skin. Salty and sweet and perfect. Ajax. He always smelled like heaven.

  His body offered all the escape she sorely needed. Her whole body shook in the aftermath of fear and adrenaline. Her vision swam, and her ears thundered, and there was just one thing she needed. This one man, Ajax, hard between her thighs. No one else mattered.

  “These fucking shackles.” He squirmed under her. His rumbling voice, a salve on her scattered nerves, rippled down her spine, sending all the heated nerves quivering and twittering with glee.

  He dragged his mouth along her neck, and she leaned back, giving him access, loving the feel of his hot tongue over her sensitive flesh. Her nipples burned for him.

  She was panting like a rabid animal in his ear, too confused with lust to do anything but writhe atop him. She needed more. Had to get closer. Dropping to his shoulder, she rocked against him, and her gaze landed on the Vestige man, with his black eyes glittering in the firelight.

  She knew those eyes. She’d seen him before.

  Ajax’s teeth grazed her neck, and rational thought fled.

  She shoved her hands under his shirt, shuddering when her hands connected with the skin of his chest. She found his nipples, and he cursed in her ear, bucking against her, thrusting his cock against the heated flesh between her thighs.

  Vaguely she was aware of the Vestige turning around.

  She stroked her hands lower, finding Ajax hard and solid as steel. He trembled. Her big strong man, shaking in her arms. She circled her thumb over the bead of moisture on the head. When his eyes rolled back and he bucked in her grip, the muscles and tendons in his neck standing out in deep shadows as his lungs heaved, she matched his panting breaths.

  She guided him to her entrance, lifting her hips, sucking in air as he found his way inside.

  It was strange, moving on top of him, setting her own pace. Maybe the Vestige man had turned around, maybe he still watched them. He could certainly hear. She didn’t care. He’d already seen it anyway.

  Her dress hid everything behind her, so at least, this time, he couldn’t see her bottom.

  Their lips found each other again, but they were too far gone to focus. Mostly they just breathed together, mouths open, gasping as she moved her hips over his. I love you. She wanted to say it. But didn’t.

  His eyes flashed open, gleaming. Maybe he heard her anyway. “These fucking shackles.”

  She rose over him, crashing down. I love you.

  He smiled. “Again.”

  “No. It’s your turn.” She lifted her hips, circling above him, hoping he’d say it first so she could say it back.

  He winced, trying to inch closer, get back inside. “Gods, you feel good.”

  “You talk too much.” She slammed her hips down, taking him deep inside.

  He stopped talking after that. They both did.

  Sleep was impossible.

  Feola’s brain refused to relax.

  The big Vestige man Ajax called Tattoo allowed her to lay her tunic on the ground as a pillow. When she pointed at the blankets, he only shrugged, a strange look lingering in the shape of his dark eyes.

  She draped the blankets over Ajax’s body, trying to help him get as comfortable as he could with his arms behind his back.

  “Can you not at least move them to be in front?” she asked Tattoo.

  “No.”

  He crossed to crouch in front of her. “Hands.”

  She sighed but held her hands forward. He dropped the shackles around her wrists. They were unmovable. She couldn’t imagine how Ajax had tolerated his posture for so long. He tied their legs then too.

  Ajax didn’t complain, but from the way he shifted, he was angry.

  Tattoo then stomped away from camp, down to the river. From his shouts, she knew he’d found his partner. They returned a few moments later, the partner red in the face, furious and shouting abuse at them. But he didn’t touch them. They spoke in Vestigi for a while, the guy she’d hit with the butt end of her knife showing the other one his head, where she imagined he bore a great big throbbing bump, a mark from her attack.

  Tattoo said something too low to understand. Laugher laughed, his teeth flashing, and somehow, he seemed almost handsome for a moment.

  Frowning, she wiggled back so her body pressed closer to Ajax. She was warm enough with Ajax’s big body behind her, his legs spooning into hers, and the fire against her front, the blankets around him, but she was all too aware of the dark eyes across the dancing flames. And every time she shut her eyes, she relived it. Falling through the night air, the knife in her hand. The thud as she landed on his back.

  In the morning, the two Vestige left them some privacy, and they took care of any lingering serum concerns, which was awkward with both of them cuffed.

  Bodies pressed close, she brought her lips to Ajax’s ear in the post-coital rush, speaking in the quietest of whispers. “I have an idea.”

  Ajax straightened, shaking his head, clearly preparing to argue with her.

  “He still doesn’t see me as a threat. Not like he sees you, or he’d have tied my hands behind my back.”

  Ajax shook his head, the motion bumping against her cheeks.

  “Just follow my lead, okay?” Sh
e struggled to her feet without the use of her hands.

  “Feola, wait.”

  “Hey! Where are you? M—M—Mr. Vestige?” She whirled toward the trees where they always peed, not wanting to look too closely in the direction of the men who…. She came face to face with Tattoo.

  He raised a thick, black brow.

  “I have to pee.”

  The brow didn’t move, and neither did he.

  Feola lifted her hands. “Can you uncuff me so I can pee?”

  Nothing.

  “Do you want me to pee on my dress?”

  He stared for a long minute.

  “I’ll smell if I do.” She shook her hands at him.

  His jaw hardened, but a moment later, he pressed his thumb to a flat, black square on the top of her shackles, which glowed blue for a second before the metal circles that wrapped her wrists popped open. Interesting.

  “Thank you, er… what is your name?”

  “Torum.” The way he said it, the r rolled together in a thick, viscous sound she couldn’t quite produce.

  “Torrrrum.” She tried. “Thank you.” She turned to the other one, the one she’d hit. “And yours?”

  He laughed but didn’t answer.

  Torum jerked his head in the direction of the trees. “Stay in sight.”

  She did her business in the partial cover of a small tree, with her back to Torum’s glowering face, refusing to permit the pang of humiliation at having to pee in public view.

  When she was done, she came right back, presenting her hands for the shackles like an ideal prisoner. “Thank you, Torum. Ajax needs to pee now.”

  Both Vestige men looked at her warily. She just smiled as Ajax lumbered to his feet. The expression of relief on his face when the shackles loosened brought tears to her eyes. He winced, rolling his shoulders.

  Torum’s face was indifferent.

  When Ajax came back, he offered his hands politely for cuffing, earning a suspicious scowl.

  38

  No tears in these eyes.

  She was scaring Ajax. Whatever her plan, he really didn’t want her to see it through.