Branded Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 3)

by Cari Silverwood

  No one except the whores would accept an Underdecker as their man. He let his fingers trail where the blue sometimes showed in his scars and swung his attention to the guards.

  Kill them and he’d be running with Gio, would have to find cover and a way back to his rooms that was outside surveillance. Don’t kill them and once they saw she was human – chaos.

  Quietly, he brought the bag to his lap, snuggled his hand onto the grip of his Allod 51 – quiet mode, with twenty rounds of shoom-adapted bullets in the magazine. He aimed through the bag. Who first? Tre or Druig?

  And when?

  Druig held the accuator controls. Tre had lost his clinical dedication to duty. From his lustful expression, he was close to coming before he even touched her. He lowered himself to his knees behind her, grasped his cock and squeezed it. Nothing mattered to him anymore except the cunt he’d zeroed in on.

  He would’ve shot them immediately but in the distance, beyond the end of the alley, two more Omrad guards strolled. His gun was silent but not invisible. The men would make noises as they died and fell. Movement drew the eye.

  His client waited, head down. Tre parted her ass cheeks.

  Gio wasn’t loving this. Neither was he.

  If he waited they’d pass by. It’d be safer, though Tre would get to fuck her. Not a problem, surely, at all. Just a client with another man fucking her.

  Druig clicked the control and Gio squealed and arched again, head thrown back in instant ecstasy. He’d swear he saw liquid squirt from her, spraying over the Tre’s cock.

  Wait.

  He should wait. Another twenty seconds and the others would be gone.

  Tre swung back his hips, ready to thrust inside.

  In that heart-punching moment, Ryke knew he’d never let another man in her.

  The first bullet tore through Tre’s throat; the second punched a sizzling blue hole in his forehead. Before he could collapse, another two thumped into Druig’s chest and head. Both men crumpled. The accuator switched off and Gio plummeted into the dirt with a stifled grunt as the air left her chest. Her arms and legs twitched spasmodically for a few seconds.

  In some women, that setting fogged the mind. The accuator was addictive too.

  “Fuck...fffuck. More?” He heard her raspy whisper before he clamped his hand over her mask.

  The other two guards turned at the small commotion, peering into the alley. Little noise had been made but the movement would’ve triggered them.

  They ran in, drawing their guns and he shot them both, watched them topple and roll, skidding forward on their face and back.

  Voices were raised out there, in the crowd. They’d been spotted.

  He aimed precisely. Another shot in each man’s brain to be sure of death, then he reached down to Gio, dragged her upright.

  The back of the alley was adjacent to the landship’s skin, the armored lower hull. It was a dead area, unlighted, littered with junk and bins, and would interconnect to the back of this whole market. It was the perfect way to get to where he needed to be – the Underdeck.

  Nowhere else would let him hide so readily, because almost no one ever went to the Underdeck voluntarily. The nearest hatch was at the edge of the market’s dead area.

  More shouts said someone was alerting others and likely heading this way.

  “Quick.” He ripped the mouth cover away – she needed ample air to run – tugged on the leash, and barked, “Run if you want to live!”

  The forgotten people lived in the Underdeck and they never left except for mandatory military service. After that you were returned to your place of origin with little or no public thanks. A certificate, a medal, a once-a-year ceremony, some fancy gourmet beverages sent down for veterans. You died there. Except for him. He, Ryke, had found the one way out.

  Of course, they were the heroes of the swathe. They were also the untouchables. Now, he was going back.

  They pattered along, dodging obstructions, scattering debris with their feet. When she yelped and began limping, he wished he’d given her sturdy shoes.

  “Move!” He snapped the leash, sent it jerking like a snake.

  She shot him a sideways glare but her pace increased.

  Go. Go Go. He slid around the last curve, leaped a crate with Gio in synchrony and kicked away the sodden paper and rusted cans disguising the hatch. Metal rattled hollowly. If they were seen entering this, things would go badly.

  The rust-brown engraving in the floor in the middle of a circle was all that would remind anyone who knew of these as to what they were – emergency hatches into a place for the condemned.

  He went to his knees and pressed his palm to the center. Seconds passed. Nothing lit up, nothing gave away that he’d unlocked it, except for a solid click. Inside the hatch was a mechling brain that stayed dormant until someone awoke it.

  “Hello, old friend,” he murmured as the hatch spun, whirring. When it ceased to spin, he grabbed the now-visible handle and hauled it upward, swinging it on the large hinge and revealing an opening. The rungs of a metal ladder led into darkness.

  “Come.” Again he tugged her leash.

  Wide of eye, mouth parted, she clicked her tongue then turned and wriggled into the hole until her feet found the ladder.

  The sounds of pursuit were still distant. They’d make it.

  He stopped her and unclicked the leash from her neck, tucked it into his coat, then followed her in.

  “Close now,” he whispered.

  The hatch closed silently, spun again a few inches above him, then locked with three final clicks. Soft light sprang on, showing Gio below him, paused white-knuckled, hands wrapped over the rung.

  The ladder continued down another thirty yards or so. They’d built in a safety zone between the lower decks and the Underdeck. Just in case something bad happened, like the engine cores exploding.

  Wise, he supposed, and yet another way to emphasize the differences between below and above. He didn’t want to have to stay here. He had concerns if he returned above also.

  Every king had his own lawgiver and no one had ever told him what became of the old one. His best guess? Continue on if you were good enough, be killed if you were not, or if you’d angered the new king.

  If Ormrad found out Ryke had killed four of his men and escaped with the woman they sought, he’d be angry. He might be the next king.

  Problem.

  “Go down,” he instructed. “All the way to the end.”

  Once a year he came back, visited. He became Ryke the Underdecker. These weren’t sentimental or ornamental visits. He did it because he needed to. Descending to the Underdeck brought him to the old world, where things were cleaner, clearer of purpose. He came closer to being the man he could be proud of.

  Last time his brother had been heading for the top of the heap – Overmekker of the UD. Death and frailness brought the leaders down faster than up above. The King often ruled for decades. Here you died fast, lived fast. He wondered if his brother was still alive. Soon, he’d know.

  The biggest personal and current problem Ryke had with the Underdeck was a very big one. Slaves weren’t allowed. The duties were too crucial for the landship to allow slaves to handle the work. And so, theoretically, they’d want to kill Gio or send her back up. If he gave way at all, he would lose her to protocol. Therefore, he must be firm. Only his unacknowledged King’s Own Lawgiver authority could give him an edge over the law and the duty of the Underdeck. Proving who he was might be difficult, since even his brother didn’t know what he did above. He had one good idea, a little unorthodox but unorthodoxy was an essential part of his job.

  He flexed his fingers, feeling the stiffness where the KOL sigil was implanted in his palm.

  Down below you lived for the rules, you died for the rules. Even the rebel followers of the Aerthe Prophecy knew this. Only here could you rebel and still want to obey.

  He smiled grimly. His mother would’ve been proud of the religion her death had triggered.
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br />   Chapter 11

  Her suit was soon swimming with sweat because the temperature in this ladder well was tropical. Climbing a ladder like this, when her brain was fried and she wore a mask and a butt plug, was more than uncomfortable, it was dangerous. Gio’s hands and feet slipped several times.

  The lights glowing at the bottom and a number on the opposite wall softly illuminating the ladder were all that let her see how far she might fall. A small square of metal, at the midway point, was the only place to rest.

  “Stop hurrying. There’s no one chasing us anymore.” His mild voice was incongruous.

  She’d seen him shoot people. Pop, pop, pop. Same as in the blood-snack room. Was he on drugs or so incurably heartless that he could kill several men and then be calm enough to sound as if he’d been taking a stroll before coffee and cake?

  “Good.” She leaned her forehead on a rung, barely feeling the metal through the mask. There were locks at the back of this. She would have to wait for him to remove it. If he fell to his death and she didn’t, getting it off her head would be a basket of fun. So would exploring this place. Wherever it was.

  “Where are we?”

  “The Underdeck.”

  The under what? “And that is?”

  No answer.

  She began to descend again but slower, watching where her aching feet were going, testing each rung then moving on. Sweat trickled across her brow then into her eyes, and she blinked to clear her vision. How many had he killed? She wasn’t certain because that accuator had blown her mind. Her swollen clit and pussy throbbed in remembrance. Those baboons on Earth with the big red bottoms had nothing on her.

  The suit seam crept into her slit and rubbed and slipped about.

  If he clicked the controller accidentally, turned that thing on, she’d fall and probably not feel the pain when she hit the bottom and died.

  What a plus.

  What if she deliberately knocked his feet? She sneaked a look upward. If he fell, she’d be knocked off too. Or he’d recover and do worse things to her.

  Maybe it was time to give up her dreams of making good and helping more people than she’d hurt.

  Her foot slipped again and she gasped as she swung on her hands but managed to regain the rung. She reached the square of metal at the halfway point, rested a few moments, and continued down.

  Time to give up her dream of somehow returning people to Earth. Gio touched teeth on teeth, not quite grinding, thinking lots of swear words. She might be the only human left on this world considering this and even though she was the only one with a chance of achieving it – because no one else had seen how a portal was made, maybe it was time.

  To give up.

  Her feet touched bottom and she crumpled into a heap next to the ladder, hands propped on the floor.

  Sadness flooded her.

  “Come.” He urged her to rise and Gio managed to follow, though she limped and left a bloody footprint. Something had cut her as she’d run. No wonder she’d almost fallen from the ladder.

  Time to give in.

  She shivered even after Ryke unlocked each padlock and peeled away the mask, then stripped off his coat and offered it to her.

  “Put it on, Gio. Do up all the buttons. Where we go, I need you clothed decently.”

  What was this? Her exhausted brain ticked up a level.

  “Hmmm.” He examined her and must have found her wanting, his nose crinkling. He adjusted the coat so the upturned collar covered her neck. Then, to her shock, he knelt and wiped the blood from the base of her foot with a cloth. “Only a tiny cut.” Was that reassurance? “Don’t speak to anyone we meet. Be good.”

  She nodded jerkily and followed him through a rusted, rivet-constructed door that must not have been opened for years from the way it protested and the fall of the rust flakes. She was a bedraggled mutt following her master.

  Bedraggled and cowed.

  Then the door opened fully...

  Nothing could have surprised her more than the vista of rolling fields and sunlight. Nothing except maybe arriving at a beach on the Caribbean or finding Santa Claus.

  The light warmed her, straightened her spine, fed her muscles.

  Far above was a layer of suspended lights and above that an irregular ceiling of patched metal and holes. A few ladders and poles led there.

  This wasn’t quite as she’d first seen it. The field was enclosed by distant walls though the area was huge. There were trees but they were small and also distant. The sunlight was overhead lighting. Hydroponics? Except beneath her feet seemed something like soil.

  This room must span the width of the entire landship.

  She followed as Ryker walked between tall plants bowing with red seed heads.

  To one side, at regular intervals, she spotted umbrella-shaped round windows that showed countryside sliding past outside the landship.

  Windows?

  These were an anomaly. She’d never heard of such hull weaknesses being allowed. Her brain ticked up another level and would likely have hummed if it were possible. It struck her that her brain was bubbling over already with a subtle background of mechling thoughts. Far more of those than she’d felt in the levels above. Mostly they were untranslatable, but the strength disturbed her. More of them? Or a different type of mechling?

  “What do they do here?” she asked softly. Producing food was top of her list, but if so, why the quarantine of this level beneath hatches?

  “Shhh. No more talk.”

  The crop swayed and twitched in places where no humanoid walked and it whispered of mechlings. Were they hiding in the crop?

  Give up? Was I doing that? Hell no. Whatever was here was novel and there might be possibilities.

  Something odd was here. Please let it be good – let it be a good oddness.

  She limped onward, tugging up the coat collar. He wanted it so, yet another anomaly. He concealed her body, her state of dress, and even her neck.

  These factors were so damn important.

  Wait though, she had to wait. Need more factoids.

  The first man they encountered, in faded gray dungarees, was sent running with a message and he soon returned with another man trailing behind. This one had dark hair and eyebrows, his face square, his demeanor that of someone used to giving orders. At first he waited yards back as if afraid of what he saw. Ryke waited too and finally the stranger approached, hand out for Ryke to shake.

  “You’re early, brother. You weren’t due for half a year.”

  “Yes. I have a small problem, Badh.”

  “That one? Her?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s a slave, isn’t she? You know that’s forbidden and illegal. Either leave her here to be executed, let her die, or...

  “Or I get dispensation from the king to keep her here?”

  “There is that. Never considered it, but you could try. A...you intend trying, don’t you?”

  Their conversation continued but she was reeling. Slaves were illegal here. Illegal or dead.

  This man, Badh, was his brother. He kept sneaking appraising looks at her so his eyesight must be bad. Or he couldn’t believe Ryke had dared to bring a slave? She was the dregs of what that cat dragged in. Blood leaking between her toes again. Coat borrowed and barely concealing her slave collar. Hair plastered to her forehead and her shivering as if she had some disease. Her lip felt swollen, her ass definitely was, and she might just fall over soon.

  Today had been too much of everything.

  This man though... She stared back. He was blue in parts. Etched blue. She’d thought her eyes wrong, but squiggly lines rode every exposed part of him. Since he wore mid-length white sleeves, a tan shirt, khaki-colored pants, and boots, that left his lower arms, face, neck, and scalp, in her view. His hair was shaven and there the blue crept jaggedly up through his skin. When he blinked she saw how his eyelids bore the color in trickles.

  These marks were a bolder version of what she’d seen in Ryke’s facial
scars.

  His eyes met hers in the frisson, the clash of sexual tension, any woman knew well.

  Ryke wound a hand in her hair and drew her close. “You want to see my proof of ownership?”

  “I do.” Badh ignored her now, as if the actions of his brother were nothing out of the ordinary.

  Rivalry, brotherly rivalry, and she was the focus. This amused her and there was something terribly wrong with that.

  “Then let’s go.”

  They walked through the crops in single file with her in the middle and she had no idea where Ryke was headed, though they weren’t aiming for the side of the landship. Toward the stern of the ship, she guessed. In the blurred distance, a wall of gold, red, and ivory metal climbed. The intricate design on the structure came into focus as they advanced. Many yards to the left, a circle of railings guarded a hole in the floor. Though curious, she couldn’t deviate from where she was led.

  Perhaps it was the coat that made her feel protected and revived her natural inquisitiveness.

  Perhaps it was that she had hope again.

  A place without slaves? Something here was so delicate slaves could not be trusted to care for it?

  They halted before the metal wall. The doors were double and grand in art if not size, for stars and a bestiary of unknown animals decorated the scarlet metal. The handles were ivory wings with feathers. Though scratches showed on the surrounding wall, they were otherwise a perfection of embossed reptilian scales. At the top the wall seemed to merge with the distant ceiling.

  “Here.” Ryke tapped a flat circle on the doors, split in half by where they divided. “This is the entry plate.

  “Yes.” Badh folded his arms. “You plan to open these? They’ve been closed since the king decided it was unsafe to visit the Underdeck. A century at least, by rumor.