The Diamond found the sprawled bodies on the roof. They didn’t look like any of Kott’s security team. He rifled their clothing for hard-credits, identification, or communicators. He was relieved not to see Lyton’s stylized palm-tree logo anywhere. Why had they been after Val?
Had it been ten minutes since he left Kott? Twenty? He heard nothing from the garden he could no longer see, but the ever-present wind might cover alarms. He left the bodies for the moment, walked over to the float-cycles hidden behind the turbine.
Val worked beside one. Pieces of control panel dangled from wires as he swiftly reprogrammed the vehicle.
“W-w-why t-t-target you?”
The youth laughed, leaning his forehead against the vehicle. “Lots of people would. I’m Camalian on a League planet and running around without my mask. I’m in Cedar University. I embarrass my family at least once a month. I drink more than I should. I have a thing for strays and lost causes. The sun rises, the galaxy spins, and more people hate me. Please, don’t be one of them?” he asked, his right hand drifting out again as if unsure of its welcome. He looked up at the Diamond almost shyly.
The Diamond let himself be charmed into deeper trust. “I-I’m M-M-Moro. Moro.” He forced the stammer out of his name and clasped the offered hand. Val’s warmth helped calm his own shudders. Val didn’t seem to notice the jerking, shaking contact. Because it felt proper, Moro bent and kissed Val’s fingers.
I’m Moro again, he thought. I’ll live or die, as Moro!
“Moro,” said Val, huddling against the cycle and holding the kissed hand to his chest. His pale-gold eyes softened, pupils wide and stunned.
“MORO,” SAID VAL. His thoughts added my Moro in the next second. His fingers tingled from the brush of the slave’s lips. His palms still remembered the feel of the bonder’s strong wrists, trembling in his grip. He wanted to grab them again and drink kisses from that bruised mouth.
“Oh, Valier,” whispered Cama. “Oh no. We knew about the female Potentials, and I hid them from you on your mother’s orders. I should have guessed you had male Potentials, too, from your obsessions. But not this one! I have to dull your memory of the last few minutes. Look away from him right now!”
Val ignored her, his thoughts thrilling to the echoes of a name.
Moro.
Not just some furtive itch to scratch, via the torn body of a lovely, brain-damaged slave he was already escorting to oblivion. A real person, alive and hurting. Soon to be dead.
Valier’s Moro. The rightness of that settled deep into Val’s bones and seemed to lock in place.
Then Cama whispered, “I’m sorry, Valier. It’s too late.”
VAL COULD BARELY sense her amid the wild exultation singing in his brain. Lust and joy and bitter grief, all tangled into a pain he’d never felt before. So sweet and so sharp, like kissing a blade meant for his own heart. He felt alive for the first time in years, yet never closer to despair.
Moro gave Val the impossible gift of his submission and his life. Moro needed Val to ease the way. The bondslave’s last hours must be as kind as possible. He must never know what he really was, to Val. When the man’s black eyes dulled, his warm breath stopped, and his all-too-human body burned to ash in Cama’s Fire, then Val would face the price of his own brief bliss, and the loss of a destined mate.
He’d risk it, for a few hours with Moro.
And if Moro survived, through a miracle Val wasn’t supposed to believe in?
The joy became a white-hot flame.
Then Val would keep him. A damaged whore, renamed Moro Antonin and standing by Val’s side for the rest of their lives. He could just imagine the outcry from Camonde’s aristocracy. He grinned in fierce anticipation. Maybe this would prompt his parents to make some more-domesticated heirs.
“Valier, darling, you are a little bastard,” said Cama.
“What?” Val asked, aware she’d slightly withdrawn from their linkage. “I’m your bastard, Patrona Cama. And you’ve always known it. Will you help me with Moro or not?”
“I will, Valier,” she said, and he thought his own lingering guilt saddened Cama’s voice.
MORO WATCHED OWL-BOY blink. A few heartbeats later, the youth’s near-luminous eyes narrowed. He checked his belt, fishing out an unfamiliar tool. “We have to go, Moro. Lose the robe. Your collar has trackers?”
Moro nodded.
“Will it kill you if I remove the collar? Hurt you?”
Moro shook his head, a little lie. The collar hurt whenever Lyton or Kott had taken it off him. But pain was nothing to freedom. When Moro shucked the black robe and knelt again, he looked up to see the blush tint Val’s dark cheeks again. For a long, perplexed moment the younger man stared at Moro’s revealed body.
“Wha-what?” asked Moro, trying not to grin. He wasn’t ashamed, not when Val’s eagerness meant Moro’s freedom all the sooner.
“More muscle than I expected,” Val chattered, again twitching his coat to hide his newest erection. “And the way you fought! You poor daft man. Were you someone’s bodyguard? And if he treated you this badly, why didn’t you kill him too?”
Moro tapped the collar.
“Ah,” said Val. “I see.” By the way his eyes widened again, Moro guessed Val was imagining the collar’s darker implications.
Please don’t recognize me, Moro prayed silently. I don’t care what stupid fantasies you have if they let you fuck me and set me free. But I don’t want to be the Diamond ever again!
Val said nothing else. The younger man’s hands were gentle and clever as they and the new tool negotiated with complicated fastenings. Pain became white-fire glory kissing Moro’s nerves. He grew hard again himself, panting from the pleasure of this new touch. He barely whimpered when the collar lifted away.
Though Val’s body flaunted its arousal, his face was furious as he stood over Moro. He held the collar away from them both like a living, poisonous creature. “That wasn’t all you. Conditioning?”
Moro nodded again. Simpler than explaining: No, I’ve always been like this, sort of, with his broken voice.
“Give me the robe,” said Val. “I have an idea about one of the float-cycles. Can you wear anything off these morons?”
Moro found the thug closest to his own size and body type and stripped the man. He left the sodden, death-fouled undergarments. The gray cotton trousers were too big at the waist and two inches short in the leg, but the battered blue jacket and low cloth boots fit well enough. One boot held a small white ceramic knife in a concealed sheath. Moro twisted his lank hair into a single plait, pushing it down inside the jacket. It tickled his spine but masked the two open neural ports at the back of his neck. He covered his head with a knitted gray cap.
Then he stripped the other thug, just to confuse matters, and dropped the clothing down an air shaft into the industrial bowels of Vaclav 18.
Between the street clothes, boots, knife, and nearly four thousand untraceable credits, Moro dared hope again.
He thought of sending the bodies down another shaft. A dark grin quirked his lips. They’d died too close to the roof garden, by ways Kott might recognize. Murders were more common in Vaclav Sector than the authorities liked to admit. And suicides must use these towers all the time, with the casino district bleeding their last hopes and credits. He dragged the two corpses to the far eastern edge of Vaclav 18’s roof and pushed them over. His whole body ached, doing it. No alarms went off at the falling bodies, as they would in a more civilized part of Cedar-Saba.
Moro limped back across the wide roof toward the turbine.
He’d been utterly warped by Lyton Sardis and too long a killer in Michol Kott’s stable. Moro Dalgleish would never have been so unruffled by murder and misdirection. Crime on Ventana had been tipsy farmers blowing off steam on a Saturday night. Moro did not let himself think more about Ventana and murder.
When he drew closer, Val snickered.
Moro paused, still wary of mockery and betrayal. Had Val finally recog
nized him or the collar?
But Val’s lively attention focused on one cycle’s instrument panel. Without glancing up, Val waved Moro over to the sleek ten-foot-long craft. “First cycle’s ready to go. I put the collar and the robe into a cargo box in this one.” Val’s fingertips danced over the controls. “Lazy assholes who stole it didn’t even change the manufacturer’s pass codes. At least the power cells are full. I’ve told it to find the north-south artery just east of here, fly twenty-five miles south, and land in Dream Alley. The cycle will be in parts ten minutes later. Anyone looking for your collar and robe might find them in one of fifty barrio brothels.”
Just plausible enough to work, Moro thought.
Val stood. The reprogrammed cycle lifted sideways off the roof, wobbled a little, and then sank into the aerial artery between skyscrapers and shot south into the sea of light.
Val nodded approval at Moro’s clothes. “Better. Wait. You’re still somewhat a mess. Here, let me.” Before Moro could protest, the younger man pulled a foil pack from a small bin on the remaining cycle. One rip and the scent of herbs and alcohol stung Moro’s nose. “Close your eyes. Don’t breathe for a few seconds,” said Val, scrubbing cosmetics and filth from Moro’s face.
The collar was gone, but pleasure still teased Moro at the touch of Val’s fingers.
He resisted the urge to kiss the heel of Val’s hand as it crossed his lips.
“All done,” Val whispered too near Moro’s face, his clean, warm breath tickling Moro’s lips. “It’s meant for removing engine oils and bug splats, so I thought it would work on face paint. Dear darling Cama. Moro, you’re beautiful.”
Ah, the obsession begins. Moro wondered if he should warn Val. Maybe Camalians could better resist whatever dark curse made Moro irresistible to all the wrong people.
Moro opened his eyes. Instead of staring hungrily at him, Val had already shoved the used wipe back into the cargo bin and swung onto the cycle. Val patted the seat behind him.
“Hold on tight,” he said. “We’re going north!”
“C-c-careful!” Moro growled, frustrated at his trembling body and voice. “W-will m-m-more f-find y-you?”
“Hmm,” said Val, frowning, hands pausing on the controls. “I haven’t had a real assassination attempt in a while. If those two found me tonight, they had to have tracked me. But why park the cycles up here in the first place? They couldn’t know where I’d end up.” He shook his head. “We’ll make for the Camalian Embassy. We’ll need to stop once. To, er, you know. Sex. If you’re not infected when we reach the embassy, they might not let you in.”
Moro’s bad luck. Now Val was nervous as a virgin again. But this would be only the second encounter Moro had chosen for himself in years. Sex with the little Camalian would not be difficult.
Even a hundred miles between an uncollared Moro and Vaclav Sector would give him a chance to hide. He had clothing and credits now. Not enough money to flee off planet, but enough for an isolated, private room in a cheap automated hotel. Enough to bribe robotic safety monitors to look the other way, and give him three or four critical days. Personality-capture devices worked only on the newly dead, not on rotting brain tissue.
Moro shifted, feeling the dull, throbbing pains inside him. Had Kott damaged him deliberately? Perhaps trying to buy Moro time in an infirmary after Lyton Sardis collected him? Without medical attention, sepsis might set in, and the Camalian’s attentions would only exacerbate it. Moro would have to be careful not to reveal how injured he really was. He’d seen that death take other slaves but never Kott’s. The bondmaster had always been careful with his expensive fighters and medics.
Where was Kott right now?
Though Moro couldn’t see the rooftop garden from this spot, every instinct told him Kott was there. Lyton was probably with him. Moro scrambled onto the seat behind Val and locked his arms around Val’s chest. “G-go! N-now!”
The float-cycle lifted over the edge of the roof and then dropped into the northern artery. Moro buried his face against Val’s shoulder. Night dissolved into glittering speed, and more memories he wished he could burn away.
Eleven
AT EIGHTEEN YEARS old, Moro stumbled out of a dim transport as bright winter sunlight dazzled his eyes.
He stood in front of the gray stone ruins on Levi Halloran’s upland farm. It had been a mild winter. Snow lingered only in the shadows of the golden-brown grassy hills, and the afternoon air felt more brisk than bitter.
Lyton Sardis kept one strong hand on Moro’s right arm, leading him forward to one of the low table-stones. On the stone waited a flat, dark green disc half the width of Moro’s clenched fist.
“Touch the disc, Moro Dalgleish,” said Sardis, his voice husky. The gun still pressed into Moro’s side.
“No,” Moro said, making his peace with the gun. “It’s something important to you? Touch it yourself.”
“Har, har,” said Halloran behind Moro. “Rich man’s afraid to, I think.”
Then the gun didn’t matter at all. Moro attacked the paunchy, balding farmer he blamed for the downfall of Ventana. Halloran easily blocked Moro’s untrained punches. Moro screamed, “Rot in hell!” Then Halloran’s big fist smashed him down.
“Think you’re too good for everyone, you mutant punk?” Halloran had sneered, kicking Moro in the ribs. “Wagging your tail for Jost Ventana and his pretty girlfriend just so you could have a fine house and a free life once the crèche kicked you out?”
“Because I wouldn’t wag for you?” Moro said and flinched away from a second kick.
“No,” said Lyton Sardis, stepping between Halloran and Moro. “I don’t want him damaged. Not if he’s useful.”
Halloran hauled Moro upright. “Get this over with, Sardis. He’ll fail, and he’ll join the others. Just not right away,” he said, fondling Moro’s ass. “Cunts are more my thing, but I’ve plans for this.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Sardis. He and Halloran forced Moro over to the table and dragged Moro’s right hand onto the disc.
It looked like dark-green jade, carved in incomprehensible patterns. Three vertical grooves accepted his middle fingers. The disc vibrated slightly, opening under his touch. The disc folded out like a beetle’s wings, revealing an inner layer. More jade carvings around a central matte-black circle only an inch across.
As he touched the blackness, Moro’s fingers went numb.
“Yes,” Lyton Sardis breathed in Moro’s ear. “It wakes to you!” And the director of Rio Sardis reached out a shaking hand to caress the depthless black spot.
The disc shut instantly, moving under Moro’s touch until it was only a circle of carved stone. Sardis slammed Moro’s hand back down on the disc, but it didn’t respond.
“So can I have him now?” asked Halloran, cracking his knuckles.
Moro, dazed by the feel of the disc, looked past the table-stone to finally recognize what lay in the long, dry grass between the taller stones.
Three bodies with open eyes, open mouths, some leaking blood.
All dead. Old Sasha Case, twenty years blind and widowed, the warm heart of the bonders’ crèche. Rianta Indusarya and her little brother Meek, almost as pale-skinned as Moro. Rianta had dyed her brown hair black like Moro’s in some odd crèche sibling solidarity. Rianta was nude. Blood streaked her thighs. She’d turned thirteen the week before.
“No,” Moro whimpered.
“No,” said Sardis, taking Moro by the arm again. “He’s going off-world with me.”
“He failed!” snarled Halloran, blocking the way to the Rio Sardis hover transport. “You promised him to me!”
“It opened for him once. It will do so again,” said Sardis. “I have more use for him than I do you.” Sardis raised his other hand. Moro heard the sizzling crackle of pulse fire as the Rio Sardis bodyguards slaughtered Halloran in front of him.
“Your first lesson, Moro,” said Lyton Sardis, guiding a shocked, pliant Moro into the transport and sitting beside him. “You
are mine now. No one touches you without my permission. The brute left marks,” said Sardis, caressing Moro’s face. “I’ll have them healed when we get on the ship.”
Two impassive, heavyset male bodyguards sat facing them. The third sat up front, beside the driver. None of them looked directly at Moro.
Sardis’s hand trailed across Moro’s split lip, down his throat and chest.
Moro shrank back against the soft leather seat. Automatic bindings clamped over his arms and legs. Something snapped within him. “Don’t touch me, you cheating bastard!” he growled, fighting the restraints, even angrier than he’d been in the courtroom facing down a bribed judge. “I know you and Levi doctored the original charters. I know you stole control of Ventana illegally. Why? We have nothing you’d want! I swear I won’t rest until—”
Sardis produced a sharp little flip knife, its outer case ornately engraved and inlaid with black diamonds. He opened the knife and pressed the flat blade against Moro’s upper lip.
To Moro’s sudden silence Sardis said, “Hush. Or I’ll do something about your gorgeous voice. Behave, and this life won’t be awful. You will share my bed and stand at my right hand. When I am satisfied that you know your place, I will free you, marry you, and make you my heir in Rio Sardis. More wealth and power than a Ventana bonder boy ever dreamed.”
“W-w-why?” Moro stammered, confused.
“Ventana yielded its greatest treasure today. You. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted. If you prove yourself mine beyond all doubt.”
“I’m not yours. I don’t want you,” said Moro, not looking at Sardis.
Sardis slid his free hand down Moro’s chest to his groin. Resting it there, warm and still. “Liar. You respond to my bindings, to my knife, to me. Jost Ventana and Demetra Carson would never have been enough for you. Did they know that? Did you ever tell them what you are?”
To Moro’s startled shame, his body proved it with a traitorous erection surging against Sardis’s hand.
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