Those other cursory lessons, of the darker skills some men demanded—she’d written them down in shorthand and giggled with her friend, Francine. She wondered what Theo’s lesson two would entail.
Then she sank her teeth into her lip.
What have I done? I must not lose myself in this, no matter what he says. I’m a frankenstruct, not a human.
Humans always end up hurting us. Always.
Chapter Four
On the chest of drawers beside her bed, she found a book about birds. Even with one hand above her head, she could turn the pages and read. Books were one of those rare pleasures she never got enough of, a way to withdraw from the world and simply enjoy the images that played out in her head. She read it from cover to cover and then began it again.
In the loneliest hours of the night, she woke to find her breaths chugging out of her like steam from an engine. Visions of paper flipping through the darkness dominated her thoughts—of someone burying a folder deep underground, in a cave where tree roots slithered like snakes. Feet scuffled at the periphery of her vision. It took hours, or seemed to, before she succumbed again to sleep.
The nightmare stirred up the darker places in her soul. What had happened yesterday was an aberration. She’d never received anything greater than a grudging respect for her usefulness from a human. The way Lord Kevonis treated her unbalanced her. And the way she’d reacted to him was unfathomable, even ridiculous. She squeezed her thighs together, shivered. Though even now, when she recalled the weight of his hand on her back, she yearned to feel that way again. Yet was it all just to get her into his bed? Or was it something more cunning? Perhaps he knew what she was, and was playing with her, to see what secrets she might reveal?
That morning, while in the bathroom, she tried the lock on her cuffs anyway. It would be handy to know she could free herself as needed. Another couple of days and she’d be fit enough to run. The Brito-Gallic League—just the thought of being free for the first time in her life, even if she had to disguise her marks, was enough to make her hand shake.
The hairpin snapped in the lock. She cursed softly, then attempted to get her fingernails around the prong of broken metal. It slipped and rotated and refused to come out.
She slumped against the wall, held the heels of her hands against her eyes. Not good. June would see she’d been tampering as soon as she tried to relock the cuffs. She’d call in the guards from the hallway. What if trying to escape meant he sent her off for euthanasia? Sure, Lord Kevonis had designs on her and wanted her in his bed, but he wasn’t stupid. If she seemed a threat, she’d be eliminated.
She didn’t want to die.
Someone knocked at the main bedroom door, and muffled words were exchanged. Footsteps approached.
“Girl!” June sang out. “Whatcha doing in there? The colonel wants to see you!”
Pressure built behind her eyes. A colonel? Well now, wasn’t she lucky? Another hell-blasted military man, and what great timing. Theo had brought in someone to interrogate her after all. Let me into your world so I can decide what to do with you. She felt like blowing a raspberry. He was like all the other humans, willing to lie through his teeth.
She slid down the wall, bowed her head, and drew up her knees despite the fresh agony invoked in her thigh muscles. The tag ends of the stitches pricked the undersides of her arms. Damn them. She watched sourly as a thin line of blood trickled down the side of her thigh. Deep muscle aches she’d forgotten returned. The outer bedroom door banged open, and what sounded like a herd of guards tromped in.
“Where is she?” Dankyo. He was back.
“She’s locked in the bathroom, sir, and doesn’t seem to want to come out,” June grumbled.
“There’s no time for this. Get her out. Now. Take off the hinges if you must. Make sure she’s cuffed, and bring her downstairs.”
A few minutes later, the bathroom lock had been knocked loose, and two of Dankyo’s gray-uniformed cohorts dragged her out into the bedroom. She didn’t resist, much—just a few kicks to their shins for the satisfaction of hearing them yelp.
June stood to one side wringing her hands and making odd noises as if she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if it was her place.
“No more of that, girl, woman—whatever you are!” The taller guard kept a tight hold on Claire’s upper arm. She kept her face rigid. “June, there’s no time for whatever you were supposed to get her dressed in, but can you clean up the blood?”
June wrinkled her mouth. “Sure, I don’t know what Mister Dankyo thinks he’s doing. I can tell you now that Lord Kevonis won’t be happy. Here, let me brush her hair as well.”
“Just the leg, June. Been told to bring her straightaway.”
June grunted, and something shifted in her face, relaxing so the creases became less deep. “Let her go a bit, Harry. Can’t you see she’s scared?”
Scared? She wasn’t scared…much. Claire made sure nothing showed. Made herself hard as steel. Be nothing. Say nothing. These people were no better than any others.
Nevertheless, Harry’s grip loosened. “Here, let June clean that.”
With a wet cloth, June carefully wiped away the blood.
The gentleness of her touch confused Claire. One minute Dankyo was instructing them to haul her downstairs like a piece of luggage, yet these two, Harry and June, were being nice?
“Come on, love,” said Harry. “Can you walk down the stairs?” The corners of his mouth curved up, barely—as if he was unsure if he should smile.
Shocked, Claire stared. She’d grown accustomed to Lord Kevonis’s forward ways—after all, he had designs on her body, but were his men insane as well? Nobody smiled at frankenstructs.
In a large niche halfway down, beside a turn in the stairs, a sculpture caught her eye—two naked figures. A man, his hair like coiling serpents, embraced a voluptuous woman, her back arched, and the head of his erect phallus peeked out between their bodies.
“That’s a nice piece of art,” said Harry, at her shoulder.
She’d been standing there slack-mouthed for several seconds. Art? Flustered, she averted her gaze and continued on.
She was led through folded back timber doors to a balcony tiled in granite and suspended at man height above the outside gardens. Theo sat in a wide rattan chair, leaning with one elbow on an armrest and talking quietly to Dankyo, who stood at his shoulder.
Dankyo, as always, somehow radiated both impassiveness and threat. But it was Theo who drew her eye. She’d not seen him at a distance before. His wide, sprawled pose brought to mind pictures of kings ensconced on their thrones—about to dispense justice, declare war, or with regally raised eyebrow, receive the obeisance of a slave.
Her senses pricked to a higher level. Her skin seemed made newborn, so she felt every featherlight movement of the air. The fragrance of flowers came to her. They twined and dangled from the high trellises enclosing the balcony. She judged Theo half a head taller than Dankyo, though he was leaner, with that strong Grecian nose dividing his face. Black stubble shadowed his chin. Those short bristles had rubbed against her fingers and felt exciting and raw. The curls of hair on his forehead reminded her of the sexually aroused man in the sculpture she’d passed on the stairs. Heat flushed her cheeks.
On the long table before Theo were platters of food wafting delicious smells across to where she waited, swaying slightly, between the two guards. Breakfast was overdue.
Dankyo looked up and came to her.
She glanced uncertainly at Theo, frowning. Where was this colonel who wished to see her? Then Dankyo drew near, stopping half a yard away, with his fingers tapping against his blue trousers.
She’d seen a tiger once, outside the fence of the training camp, and its walk was like Dankyo’s, all spring-laden power and casual ferocity.
“Have you checked her, Snow?” asked Dankyo.
Harry stiffened to attention. “No, sir! Uh, sir, for what would you like her checked?”
Harry Snow.
She filed that away along with June’s name. Knowledge was power.
Dankyo’s nose wrinkled, but he simply shook his head and walked around her. His hand snaked out, and he grabbed the manacles, raising her hands.
For the first time she saw mirth in his eyes. “She’s been poking at these. Have you been trying to escape?”
She smiled thinly back, determined not to show he was hurting her arms.
“Dankyo,” Theo drawled. “Leave her be. Unless she’s a danger to me, let her sit.”
“She’s tried to get the cuffs off, sir.” Dankyo swung around. “Perhaps it might be safer for you to dine alone? I can take care of her.”
“Ah, Dankyo. I know your maneuvers too well. Safety is important, but I would rather speak to her myself. Claire.” He crooked a finger.
Though suspicion narrowed his dark brown eyes, Dankyo stepped aside to let her pass. “Of course, sir.”
Theo regarded first Dankyo and then Claire as she walked to him and halted before his chair. He had his feet planted in that wide-based manly way. As if he brushed her with the softest of feathers, she felt the drifting path of his gaze upon her skin. It annoyed her. He’d said she was human, yet he looked at her as if she were a thing. Her mouth twisted.
“What is it?” he asked.
She hesitated. Thinking it was one thing, saying it, another.
Theo relaxed back into the chair. “Tell me, Claire. Now, please.”
“You look at me as if I’m an object.”
He nodded. “I don’t think you’re an object, Claire. I’m looking at you that way because you’re a desirable woman.”
She hoped desperately that the somewhat strangled sound in her throat hadn’t carried.
He barely spared her a glance. “Dankyo, you know I gave instructions as to Claire’s apparel at breakfast. Fix that and the cuffs. And, Claire…”
“Yes?”
“No more escape attempts, please. I have your best interests in mind. If you abuse my hospitality, I can’t say where that will lead exactly, but it won’t be anywhere nice. Understood?”
He expected her to honor such an agreement? How quaint. If he was going to suddenly shift from showering her with compliments to veiled threats, that was fine with her. It affirmed what she’d dreaded. She was only a convenience to him.
“Understood.” Perfectly understood.
“Dankyo. Fast as possible, please. Follow my orders next time.”
She would have grinned at Dankyo’s discomfort, but it would have been stupid to rile him further.
“Harry.” Dankyo gestured. “Carry her.”
To her amazement, she was carried swiftly back upstairs over Harry’s shoulder, and the cuffs were removed. She was allowed to bathe, albeit with June watching every move and two guards outside the door. Twenty minutes later, she was clean and dressed in a yellow silk calf-length dress, her hair combed and loose over her shoulders and her hands resecured with a set of padded cuffs. A quick examination confirmed the same locking mechanism.
The house guards escorted her downstairs and into a rattan chair at the opposite end of the table from Theo. Dankyo, as before, stood beside him.
A trio of sparrows flitted across, inches above the table, chasing each other with loud indignant chirps before zipping out through the dense wall of flowers to the open air. It was so beautiful, so peaceful, and if not for the four attending house guards and Dankyo, it would have been an intimate and hidden affair.
Yet, this was so wrong. This was a breakfast for the rich and idle. She didn’t belong here.
Chapter Five
At the other end of the table, Claire looked around at the table setting, the birds, at anything but him. Theo frowned. He drummed his fingers on the white linen tablecloth next to the senate report and the broadsheet from New Baskerton. Today’s paper, yet, after all these days, it held no news of the Pancontinental Mexican airship. Which meant someone high up was keeping it under wraps.
Spiro, his manservant, backed onto the balcony, pulling a serving cart laden with freshly cooked sausages, poached eggs, mushrooms, and bacon. Tilting an eyebrow he waited for instructions, all attentive in his starched white pants and shirt.
“The lady first,” Theo said.
The graceful line of Claire’s neck drew his eye lower to where her breasts swelled above the bodice of the yellow dress. A petite chin, curved and kissable mouth, a turned-up nose. With her straw blonde hair feathering her shoulders, she looked as pretty as the little doll his sister, Mari, used to play with. Only this doll he wanted to play with—really wanted. He shifted in his chair, rearranging trousers that were suddenly uncomfortable.
Then why am I sitting here merely having breakfast with her?
Right now, Claire looked bewildered as she surveyed all the food piled high on her plate. While Spiro served him, she picked up her fork and knife and tried to cut the food. The linking chain of the handcuffs clinked against the edge of the plate.
The contrast of the circlets of metal against a woman’s skin never failed to get his blood humming. A delectable woman, restrained at his breakfast table, one of his favorite scenarios. He imagined clearing the balcony of staff, stripping her, laying her naked across the table. Those pretty white wrists lashed above her head, legs spread wide for him. His member pressed hard against his pants.
Yes. A breathtaking thought to start the day with. Now all he had to do was get her to agree to such arrangements. He had a feeling that would be difficult—she had a ton of feistiness and anguish all bundled up inside her. No wonder, though. Spiro’s voice brought him back to reality.
“Sir? Will that be all?”
“Yes. You may go, Spiro. You also, Dankyo.” He gestured in dismissal. “And the four guards, please.”
“That may not be wise, sir.” Dankyo flicked a look at Claire, his eyebrows scrunching together. “You don’t know what she is capable of.”
“True, but she’s at the other end of this table, and she’s cuffed. I think that is sufficient, don’t you?”
“Ah—” Dankyo’s mouth writhed as if he struggled for words.
“Go. That’s an order.”
When the balcony was clear, he rubbed his brow. Damn. Why was he so tongue-tied? What was there to converse about with someone who had no family? What would it be like to be her? Lonely, surely?
The senate report on frankenstructs detailed their assembly from cloned parts—a deliberate ploy so the PME could say they weren’t human and thus use them like any other piece of manufactured equipment. They credited a Dr. Frankenstein with the breakthrough. A straight clone would be irrefutably human. Such a clever technicality with such sad results for someone like Claire.
Something should be done, but what exactly?
He had access to higher echelons of power. Dammit, he was a higher power, if he chose to get involved. Politics meant doing. This would be a fitting first foray. Note to self: fix this ASAP.
A small portion of egg flew from her plate and landed on the table next to a little vase of peonies. She put down the cutlery, her hands disappearing beneath the table, and stared fiercely at the plate as if it held something poisonous.
When he cleared his throat, she glanced up at him, and just for a second he saw the smallest line of watery reflection at the corner of one of her eyes. A tear. Lord.
Dankyo might think him mad. Common sense said to keep his distance. Yet the memory of her body under his on the bed called to him far more than any sensible decision. He’d already pushed this further than he should have. Common sense could go hang.
He cleared his throat again, put his hands to the edge of the table, and shoved back his chair. As he walked up, bearing his plate, her amber eyes grew rounder and darker until he thought he might fall into them and never emerge.
“May I?”
He indicated the cane chair at the corner, next to her. When she nodded he lowered his plate and sat, so close that if he put his elbow down and laid his forearm flat, he’d have h
is hand in her meal.
Nicely close. If it bothers her, all to the better. He might not want to hurt her, but a bit of anxiety added spice.
“You’ve not told your man, Dankyo, have you? That you’re courting me?” She scowled, then held up her wrists and shook them, jangling the metal. “And why these, here? Is it so you can laugh at the way I cut up my food?”
“As to your first question, no, I’ve not told him yet. I will. As for those, I don’t trust you enough to take them off.” He settled his shoulders in a comfortable spot against the chair.
The aroma of sausages reminded him why he’d moved. He took up his knife and fork and eyed her plate. You didn’t cut up someone’s food without asking. Not in polite company.
“Would it help if I cut up your food?”
She pulled back, eyeing him. “Perhaps. Where is this colonel? I was told he’d be here.”
That was sufficient for him. He started cutting. “I am the colonel. It was my Air Corps rank. Some of my staff like to use it still.”
“I see.”
She watched while he sliced, as if she’d catch him doing something wrong. He kept going until her entire plate of food was in smallish pieces, then speared a piece of sausage with her fork and held it up.
“Here.”
Hesitantly, she brought her hands up and took hold of the fork, her fingertips brushing against his where they wrapped about the utensil. The touch blazed a path to his groin. Her fingers were so slender and delicate. He didn’t let go completely, curling one of his over the top of hers and trapping them there.
He held his breath, fascinated to watch the shift of emotion across her face. Her nostrils widened, a blush crept onto her cheeks, and those gorgeous plump lips separated slightly in arousal…and from something so simple.
Iron Dominance Page 4