Chapter 30
Getting used to the jolting gait was the main need, Sawyer decided. Throwing up inside the bug wasn’t a highly rated exercise, as space was limited, as were cleaning supplies and water. Everything was a bit scarce. That included women, pet food, people food, and armaments for the warbug itself.
Osta gave a rousing speech in the central common area of the warbug – what had once been the planning and navigating section of this vehicle, Sawyer guessed. The salvaged map was on the front wall, behind where Osta stood. It was a printed, yard-wide map with the brown stains of time spotting its surface.
Once the speech was over, he went over to look more closely.
The map detailed the site of an ancient missile base. Rumors said the swathe had been lost in the same area. They also hinted at dark and mysterious deeds that’d brought down the four landships of that swathe. No doubt these rumors had fed Osta’s desire to find the site.
Had a DRAC missile brought down the swathe? Four ships?
Four was a small number. The Scavs thought the current swathes used to have fewer landships also. Either way, this dark and mysterious bit of the legend gelled a heavy feeling in his stomach.
Having seen him speechify – Osta was definitely seven feet tall, with the presence of a statesman when he needed it. If nothing else, his appearance and manner drew men to trust him. That he’d resurrected the warbug also spoke volumes – what Osta said, Osta did.
As he went to leave the common room, the lanky Roka stopped him at the door.
“Osta wants to speak to you at the command room. Up front.” He jerked his chin toward the corridor that led forward.
He’d not ventured there, had assumed it was a no-go zone.
The command room was a wide cockpit with a panoramic view of the jungle ahead. The glass was murky and scratched and divided by metal struts into rectangular in-sloping sections. Of the six seats, three were occupied, and one of the men was Osta. He swiveled and gestured Sawyer forward. Though the man stayed seated, his height meant he didn’t lose any magnetism.
“Sir.” Sawyer mildly bowed his head.
“Sawyer, the man from Earth. Thank you for coming so promptly.” The growl of Osta’s voice was rough enough to cut trees. “So you freed your slave?”
“Yes, I did.” His skin prickled alert.
“Her uncle cheated me. Zarr killed that agreement anyway. I’d look weak to let her go. I’ve changed my mind.”
“I only freed her so I could get rid of her murdering ways. I free her, show her the error of her thinking, get her to kneel for me again.”
“I don’t think she’ll do that, do you?”
No answer seemed best. Where was Osta heading with this?
“This is what we will do, Sawyer. If she’s not become your slave again, by the time I no longer need her services to repair mechs and their like, I will claim her as mine. I think this is fair? I don’t want her running about free.”
“Negotiable?”
“No.”
A little stunned, he paused before answering. Rock and a hard place, here. “Then, I’ve heard you, sir.”
“Good. I expect obedience from men in my warband.”
After small talk that meant nothing and he barely registered, he left the command room. The only words he had registered: “She’s been given jobs by the armorer, adjusting weapons. No bullets allowed, of course. Be careful if you go near her, though. You never know what might happen.”
Damn him. The metal corridor hummed and rattled as his boots hit the floor in a vicious cadence.
Osta would claim her, if he didn’t manage to do so.
He didn’t go straight to where she was but close though. Anger was not always his friend.
He shifted his shoulder on the metal jamb of this side entrance, resting bruised muscle. Like a sailor getting his sea legs, the erratic gait of the craft meant bumping into things had taken its toll on him. Now he knew when to sway away or when to brace himself to avoid the shock from when a warbug foot hit ground.
These three-yard-wide side doors were left open most days. Sometimes birds or an insect flew in, but there wasn’t much to be concerned over unless it started raining hard. The warbug body stood around twenty yards up in the air, and the only enemies who’d want to, or could, take it down were miles away.
Rain was possible today. The air smelled moist, oppressive. The sky was rumbling and the cloud cover a rough purple and gray.
Freeing Ari was having untoward side effects.
Had he been right to do it? Theoretically, yes. He didn’t want Ari to end up dead, or himself. Osta’s little addendum, though...that was disturbing.
The woman with the bruises was dead, and those bruises had said strangulation, loud and clear. He’d tried to find out more after boarding, but no one was talking.
No man was perfect, but strangling his bedmate went off the scale.
The man was fighting dirty with his demands. Aerthe wasn’t survivable as a lone mercenary, traveler, whatever. Life was rough and deadly, and he needed the Scavs as much as they needed him. More possibly.
How else was he going to get access to the Mekker information unless he tagged along and helped Osta? To get inside the Royal Swathe and their ship’s systems...he needed JI for that too.
In the next gap down – there were two doors in each side of the warbug – Ari was handling long guns, a few different ones, and aiming out at the landscape.
A glimpse of female arm then her legs swinging outward as if she was kicking them in delight at something...that was kinda cute. Fifer, the armorer, didn’t seem to be with her.
There were nine female Scav warriors on board among eighty-six people and one JI. Only a few female slaves and none of those would be touching guns. And then there was Ari.
He shoved off the doorjamb and walked along the linking corridor.
If there was one thing they needed on this bug, it was weapons. The green laser gun thing, whatever it was, had expired – a pretty showpiece and nothing more. This craft was more than a hundred years old. Mothballed and preserved, which was why it was mostly functional. No weapons left functional, though. If a Mekker ship came upon them, they’d be shot down and transformed into a pile of twisted metal and bodies.
He turned the dogleg into the room that lay beside each of the doors. The wall handholds and the anchor points said maybe these rooms had been used for boarding parties. Like pirates on a pirate ship? The side gun turrets between the doors were silent and defunct. However it was they’d waged war, it hadn’t worked against the Mekkers.
Her jagg, Martha, lay next to Ari, watching her every move, eyes twitching, body sprawled like an orange furry sock monster with too many legs and a head like a sideways stretched cat’s. Enough teeth in that mouth to turn a log into wood chips.
“Hi there.” He clicked a wall strap to his chest harness – most wore those when they were rubbernecking out these doors. He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms.
Hadn’t bothered with the harness in the last door but he had a feeling Ari might want to kick his legs out from under him. Though she was sitting, she had her harness attached. The long guns beside her were hooked up by straps to the wall behind her, a few yards back – with enough slack in their straps so she could shoot and manipulate them.
No answer.
“Can’t do this on a table?”
“Nope. This is better. Since I’m free to go where I choose.”
If only she knew.
She lifted a gun as if to shoot at something they passed. Tree? Bird? Cloud? No bullets, so it was for show. Or he guessed it helped her calibrate?
The trees were thick but many feet below the warbug – if they hadn’t been, sitting in this door would be too dangerous. Animals scampered and galloped out from under the warbug’s feet as each of them thumped and crashed through the undergrowth. The crushed and snapped-off trees behind them showed their path. Leaves shaken loose littered the air with a green-b
rown rain.
“You sure you hit anything?”
“Are you mocking me, Sawyer?” She lowered the gun, laid it across her lap and looked at him. Took his breath away. Those yellow and green eyes...still beautifully different.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
That she didn’t flinch meant an iron-hard control of will.
He nodded, more in acknowledgement of her attitude. “No. I’m not.”
“They won’t give me bullets, but I guarantee I mostly hit what I aim at. I’m recalibrating some of these for the armorer...before you ask.”
“And yet you didn’t hit me.”
“I could’ve.”
“So you say.” Casually, he allowed his gaze to drift over her. “The pants suit you.”
Small talk wasn’t his forte.
She grunted lightly and resumed her pretend shooting, now and then adjusting the gun with small tools tucked into a satchel beside her.
The pants suited her because the light beige cloth followed every soul-rending curve of her thighs and calves, all the way to where they tucked into her little tan boots. He tended to drool over women’s legs...and over what she had in her cream-pink shirt too...and the curve of her earlobe. Things like that.
At the right angle, every piece and particle of her could turn him on.
That he’d voluntarily given up his rights to her body gnawed at him. No other sensible choice, apart from beating her into submission, and that hadn’t worked.
Osta thought he’d have her? No. Even more a no if he killed women for sex or otherwise. It wasn’t really possible physically, anyway. He doubted Osta would listen to his stories about Ari’s anti-Viagra powers.
If he let Osta have her though... Yeah, wasn’t going to happen.
“Why’re you talking to me, Sawyer? You can’t do anything to me now. Remember?”
Brave in spades. After being ass-up before him on many occasions, with that ass welted from his punishment, while he checked her hole for wetness.
She’d found this employment so easily. The Scav armorer trusted her. Maybe she did know her guns?
“Did you come to apologize for how you treated me then?” She pulled the trigger. Click.
“No. What did you hit?”
“That tree branch.”
His jagg, Arthur, slinked up to him and lay down, antlers twitching as it watched Ari adjust small settings.
The creature had grown again and was close to St. Bernard size in height, though longer and with more teeth at the bitey end. He wasn’t sure what it was living on. The one marking that set it apart from Martha was a row of bright blue spots along its body. It opened its Cheshire cat mouth and grinned teeth.
“You want me to apologize for something Aerthe people have done to each other since the year zero? That you did to me? Slavery is ingrained here. Neither of us is blameless.”
She puffed out her lips, swiped away a stray twist of hair where it fell before her eyes.
Sawyer turned to face her more fully. “I will admit I went too far. I let my anger guide me, and then...then I found I liked spanking you too much.”
A blush crept across Ari’s face. “And that’s an apology?” She leaned over the gun laid across her lap and looked grumpy. He had this urge to kiss away her grumpiness, and he wondered at his sanity.
“An admission.”
“Huh.”
Watching her sitting there with the sun flaring in her white hair, there was a need to simply put her in his lap and hold her. Not because of love... It came to him that, out of all the time he’d spent on this world, he’d no one he could hold. Skin to skin. Her scent, her weight on him, mere closeness. Having someone to hold had power.
He’d never realized that before.
“I have another admission but first...open your hand.” He fished in his pocket, loosened his safety strap, and lowered himself to sit next to her. “Have this.”
He placed the bullet in the middle of her palm and ignored how she’d squirmed away from him.
“A bullet? Ominous.”
“I decided I wanted to start this off with truth.” This being their future relationship, which he hoped would be a longer one than she envisaged it to be.
“Okaaay.” Ari nodded slowly, mouth screwing up. “Talk.”
“You won’t like this, hence the bullet.” Hence... sometimes his speech seemed weirdly formal when he spoke in the local language. “I freed you, but it was a lie. I always planned to get you back...” Couldn’t help how he said the next words because they thrilled him, they were him. “On your knees. Mine. It’s what I want.” And her, he thought, hoped, that deep down maybe she wanted it.
“What the –”
He could almost see her teeth grind. “Let me finish. It was a lie, but I did it to get rid of this hate between us. I wanted things calmer. Less drama. I was angry when this began. My anger tends to linger. However, my plan backfired.”
“Too late now though. You’ve freed me.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Not so. Osta declared that even if you didn’t come back to me, he wants you as his slave. He’s the default. Refuse me, you go to him.”
She bowed her head, clawed a hand into the front of her hair, twirled that bullet between her fingers. “Gods... Sawyer.”
His name from her mouth jarred him.
The warbug stomped onward, smashing trees.
“I see why I need this bullet. I should shoot you?”
He shrugged.
“I didn’t before. See that nest out there. Red blob?”
Methodically, making distinct click sounds, she loaded the bullet into the pink long gun in her hand – a string of yellow flowers and bees swung around the barrel as if denying the weapon’s deadliness. She raised it and sighted.
Between the branches of a tall tree a quarter of a mile away, a dome-like nest of translucent web glistened. A large red blob was embedded off the side. A long shot for anyone. He really did not want to imagine the size of the insect that made that.
“Sure.”
She pulled the trigger. Blue whizzed outward, spinning, then vanishing. Seconds later the red exploded, legs were flung outward, many more than eight. The blob fell from the nest, legs frantically clutching at nothing.
Great shot. “I hope we aren’t aiming to go past any of those creatures.”
“Now do you see, asshole? I could’ve killed you. I chose not to.”
He nodded, thinking on that.
“There’s something else you won’t want to hear. Remember Osta’s slave the other night?” Maybe she didn’t. She had been wasted. “He killed her. Strangled her.”
And silence killed the moment.
She drew a loud breath.
“That’s supposed to make me run back to you?”
It had crossed his mind.
“Not that easy.”
Yet not that easy implied it was possible, and she hadn’t shot him. He wondered if she saw the slips she’d made?
“I didn’t think so.” If it were, maybe he wouldn’t be doing this, pushing himself, putting himself out there, baring a bit of his naked soul. Sitting next to her, he could smell her, see the small hairs on her neck. He didn’t plan to date her, just to let her see he wasn’t a demon. He’d claim her back, eventually.
He made to rise.
“Wait. There’s a message I got about the jaggs.”
Martha’s antlers and eyes tweaked, as if she knew they talked about her.
“Oh?”
“Yes. Yours ate something she wasn’t supposed to – someone’s pet vican. Didn’t even spit out the bones. There’s not enough food here for them. We have to supervise them hunting daily off-ship and...” She actually smirked. “You need to feed yours some blood. Your blood.”
“Why?”
“Without that, the bonding lessens between you and her. Without the bonding they can become pure predators and, in a tight situation like this, if they starve, they might eat people. I didn’t know this eit
her.”
“A small detail.” Eating people? Jesus. “My blood?”
“Yours. Cut yourself, let your jagg lick the blood. I’ve done it already.”
He stood and unclicked his harness.
“Do it weekly. Consider this my revenge.”
He almost snorted at that comment, but he strolled off, clicking his fingers so Arthur would follow. Discretion was the better part of valor. Leave her thinking.
Owning a jagg was like having Jaws for a pet. A muzzle would’ve been nice.
On Ari too. His balls tightened at the thought of her sitting with a muzzle wrapped around her face, big eyes looking up at him.
Damn.
If he shot Osta, that’d get rid of the opposition. Pity the man seemed a good leader. If he murdered slaves, his warriors had decided it was a minor discrepancy in an otherwise spotless record. Said a lot about Aerthe.
Chapter 31
No wonder they’d not given her bullets...
She’d just talked to Sawyer like a normal person, almost, apart from thinking about really shooting him. She’d lied about that. It had been tempting.
Ari heaved in a breath. The darkness grew, the last sunlight flitting through trees, raindrops plopping on leaves below and zipping past her eyes. A few cool drops patted onto her knees.
What was she going to do? Tired, so tired of being conflicted, of not having a safe place to run to. Like she had with Uncle? Her cubicle of a room, either at his estate or inside a vehicle as they caravanned from place to place? She’d been a hermit.
A happy one, she reminded herself.
A hermit without a big, hairy man with an atrocious haircut sitting beside her, making her almost suffocate herself trying not to breathe hard and let him know he aroused her. Was it because of all he’d done to her, or was she merely attracted, or some sort of other emotional reason she just couldn’t understand?
Men had never done that to her before.
Training, he’d tell her it was training.
Which was dung. She frowned.
Okay. Admittedly, it was also exciting.
Him training her. Remembering... Sawyer taking over, making her, using her, and sex.
Fuck, she was already missing sex.
Claimed Possession Page 21