Almost.
But the drug in the dart, like other drugs the masters of the arena used against them, had the power to render a Dog helpless. That was the one thing they all feared and Mercury knew Lo had fallen to the drugs enough times to foster a fear so complete it coated his insides like a syrupy poison.
Drake’s gaze raked over them, landing intensely on Mercury. A smirk slithered slowly into place, but his attention never wavered. Not even when his arm extended toward Lo and fired in one smooth motion. Lo slumped to the ground in a thump of dead weight. Drake’s smirk slid back off his face when Mercury failed to respond. He knew Drake well enough to know what was coming and Lo wasn’t the target of the whip-master’s rage.
Drake’s arm lowered, the hand holding the dart gun hanging against his thigh. “You know the penalty for injuring a guard.”
Mercury nodded. “Death. But you’re not going to kill me now.”
“No. You’re right. I need you alive at the end of this journey. So what am I going to do with you?” He tapped the gun against his thigh. “I could keep you unconscious. But then you wouldn’t suffer the anticipation of your death. No. That’s off the table.”
Mercury remained silent. There was nothing to say. Drake had decided his punishment long before he’d entered the cargo-hold. Mercury could only be thankful Drake wasn’t looking to target the others. Mercury had no intention of giving him any reason to hurt them. He would take whatever Drake dished out.
He heard Carn shift as if he might try to stand but he didn’t want Drake’s attention on his weakened pack brother. “And will you punish Resler for injuring the female?”
Drake ignored his taunt, walking directly to Carn’s cage. He stood there watching the wounded Dog breathe for a moment before dismissing him.
Mercury knew why Drake wanted Lo unconscious—his cage was too close, but Carn was too far away to be a threat. He almost wished Drake would put Carn out as well. It would make what was coming easier on them both.
Drake stepped in front of his cage, pulling Mercury out of his thoughts. “You’re right,” said Drake. “I’m not going to kill you, but I am going to lash some discipline into that thick hide of yours. And you’re going to cooperate because we both know there are worse things I could do to your buddy while he’s out. Things you wouldn’t enjoy watching.”
Mercury’s stomach twisted. And he could feel the twitch of muscles in his neck, where he’d locked his jaw.
Drake laid the dart gun on a nearby crate. Then he went fishing in his pocket, pulling out a flex restraint. “Step up to the front bars then turn around and reach your hands up through the top.”
Mercury warred with instincts telling him to fight, hesitating for the briefest of moments, but he’d rather take the punishment himself than see either of his brothers suffer in his place.
The plasmold of the restraints slipped over his wrists and tightened.
The snap of the cage-lock releasing echoed loudly in his ears and the grating of alloy on alloy, as the front of the cage swung wide, scraped at his guts. In that moment, nothing more than a thin strip of plasmold stood between him and freedom and he knew that knowledge would haunt him. Thin, soft, malleable plasmold—a substance perfectly designed to be impossible to break by pulling. Experience had proven that hours of pulling with all his strength might make the plasmold stretch but it wouldn’t break. Mercury had experienced Drake’s lessons often enough to know exactly what to expect. So, he stood motionless and readied himself to accept the pain.
The first strike of Drake’s whip crackled in the air and dealt a blow against his back that would have taken a human to his knees. But not Mercury. He visualized the pain rippling through his muscles and dissipating. He blew out his anguish and refilled his lungs with another deep, renewing breath of air. He waited for the next strike.
Focused as he was on the pain, he didn’t hear the footsteps.
The press of Drake’s hand on his shoulder blade broke his concentration and made his muscles jump in protest.
“There was a time,” Drake’s fingers traced lightly across his back as he spoke. “When I could count each strike I’d delivered by the scars left on your thick hide. Now there are too many. Layers of them.”
Mercury fought the impulse to pull away from the touch. The fascination in Drake’s voice crept across his skin like scurrying insects. The press of Drake’s fingers disappeared as unexpectedly as they’d appeared and he was back in position, lashing out with the whip before Mercury could prepare. The strike was poorly placed—it wouldn’t create as much of a gash—but it hurt as if it had been dipped in acid. The pain burned deep, spreading agony in a slow march in every direction.
The next two lashes faded in importance as Mercury pulled that place of peaceful resignation back around him like a familiar old blanket. Only now that he’d let the pain in, the blanket was threadbare, the pain more difficult to ignore.
The next time Drake approached, Mercury heard the footsteps, was ready for the touch. He’d added them to the things the blanket was meant to keep out.
“Why did you do it, Mercury? Why fight back now? Was it because you have nothing to lose? Do you want to go to your final hunt wounded and weak?” Drake’s hand slipped along Mercury’s ribs in a caress that made a mockery of tenderness and had his skin crawling. “Or was it the woman? Some kind of protective instinct?”
Mercury refused to answer, but he failed utterly at controlling his breathing. He couldn’t help the panting that came from both pain and rage. The pain that had been dispersed by the blanket of his meditation now worked its way underneath and gripped him in aching pulses.
“You’ve never cared much for human women before. Or did moving Hera into your group’s cell soften you up? Pretty, submissive Hera. Born and trained to please, yet I don’t think you would have risked your neck or your flesh for her.”
That’s where Drake was wrong. He would have, still would, risk everything for Hera. Not because she was special to him, but because she was mated to Carn.
Crack. The next lash took him completely by surprise. It pulled all the air from his lungs. Crack. Fuck, he had to focus. Crack.
With each new lash Mercury channeled the pain into a moan pitched well below human hearing, so low that each one sent vibrations through his body and into the metal floor of the cage. Finally, he managed to drown out Drake’s words and regain control. It was too late to stop the pain, but he could still keep his head high. Control his breathing.
Hide his agony.
Everything but the pain and his need for control faded away.
Distantly, he heard the clink of the cage door closing and he realized the lashes had stopped.
A yank on his hair tugged his head back. The movement sent spikes of pain through his shoulders and made him see spots. As his surroundings came back he smelled blood. His blood. The feel of it slick on his back and wet as it soaked into the waistband of his pants.
Drake’s breath puffed hotly against his ear. “I may be losing you and your merry men, but there will be others to train. It could have been your pup.” He jerked hard, snapping Mercury’s head back. “Owens wanted you to breed the bitch. He was even willing to sacrifice three good fighters to get them out of the way for you, but you had to screw it up. And now that Hera’s proven completely useless, Owens has promised to give Hera to the trainers.”
A different kind of pain hit Mercury deep in his gut and there was no way to control the gasp that accompanied it. He heard Carn’s whimper, like the ghost of a sound.
Drake chuckled cruelly. “That’s right. Hera is our fuck toy now…and our whipping girl.” He released his hold on Mercury’s hair and shoved his head forward. “At least that’s one bonus.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Not only had he failed his brothers, he’d been the cause of their deaths. And Hera alone in the care of the trainers—nothing could be more wrong.
Samantha woke, not with a start, but with a slow sense of dread. She uncurled hersel
f from the small nook where she’d drifted off. Since Drake had left, she’d felt obligated to stay in the med-bay until Resler came around. He was a jerk, but even a jerk deserved the consideration of being told about his injuries.
As she stretched, a dull, grinding ache shuddered through her belly. Her head pounded and she couldn’t fight off the urge to cringe away from…stars knew what. She didn’t see or hear anything, but she felt something.
Samantha signed onto the med-bay terminal and did a remote check of the logs.
Nothing but nominal readings.
Listen to your gut, kiddo. Her father’s voice whispered in her mind as she looked at the log. He might not have been much of a dad, but he’d been a good mentor. She let her fingers fly over the screen and started a more comprehensive sensor sweep running.
As the data scrolled up the screen, she searched for something, anything, that might explain what her gut was trying to tell her. Another wave of…whatever… washed over her, just as the reading jumped out at her. The signal detection sweep showed something in the sub-audio frequency range. An intermittent, low frequency burst. It had occurred several times in the last fifteen minutes. She couldn’t have heard the infrasound, far below her hearing range, but somehow she’d felt the vibrations carried through the ship’s skeleton.
She pulled it up as a waveform in one pane then arranged the raw sensor data in another. If the signal had been in the audio range, she’d have said it was an amplified vocalization. An incredibly loud moan.
The disorienting feeling hit her again she had to work to keep herself upright as she checked the read-out and tracked the signal to its origin point… in the cargo-hold.
The sound of her own boots echoed ominously as she strode down the corridor. She felt as hollow as the pale corridor sounded. She didn’t have any expectations for what she would find, save one: it wouldn’t be good. This trip seemed to be one bad thing after another. The hatch to the hold stood open and the crack of noise that shot toward her didn’t call up any immediate images. The wave of discomfort that chased after it added nothing to her understanding. Neither fit neatly into any of her boxes. Not mechanical. Not a normal ship noise. Not something against the hull.
She reached the hatch and froze. The smell of sweat and something sharper clung to the air. Drake stood in front of Mercury’s cage. His hands were on the bars and she heard the lock engage. He’d had the cage open. Why? Then she noticed his whip, hanging from the loop on his belt. The leather glistened wetly.
Her heart stopped.
Drake stepped aside and it was so much worse than she’d expected. Mercury hung from flexgrips pinning his wrists to the top of the cage. Slick, red blood coated his back. Defeat and defiance etched into the stiffness of his body. If she’d arrived a moment earlier she’d have tried to stop Drake, but he’d already stopped and there was nothing she could do to undo it.
Drake released the grips. Mercury dropped to his knees then lowered his chest to the floor in silence.
Drake’s voice broke her concentration. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine for now.” He grabbed her arm to turn her. “I know what he can handle and I know what I’m doing.”
Because he’d done it before.
All her doubts winked out of existence. No one should have to suffer the abuse Drake had carved into Mercury’s back. No one. No human. No alien. No animal.
Resistance or no resistance, she would do whatever it took to free Mercury and the others. Whatever it took.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Dove
Earth Alliance Beta Sector
2210.155
Samantha stepped into the cargo-hold an hour later than usual. She’d wanted to be doubly sure that Drake and Resler were sleeping. They’d been traveling for ten days and visiting the cargo-hold had become a nightly ritual.
Mercury and Carnage both lay quietly. Mercury turned to watch her, stretching his body as he shifted, no trace of lingering stiffness or pain in the fluid movement. He’d healed incredibly fast and with nothing more than a sealer sprayed over his shredded back. As he got to his feet, she swallowed hard. He had a way of making every move mouthwateringly sensual.
Carnage kept motionless in a tight curl in the back corner of his cage, looking impossibly small for such a big man. Diablo huffed rhythmically as he gripped a bar running across the top of his cage and pulled his body up again and again in a slow, relentless rhythm. He couldn’t get his head between the bars, so he tipped his head back, raising his chin to the bar, at the top of each motion. His lean musculature stood out in sharp relief as he lowered his body, then bulged with effort as he pulled up again. Tiny beads of perspiration made his skin shimmer with the movement.
She gave herself a mental shake and looked away. She was there to feed them, not ogle them. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
Undaunted by the lack of response, she set her pack on the floor then dug out the rations.
Since the night after Mercury broke Resler’s leg she’d been sneaking in ration bars. With everything else she was doing, her conscience wouldn’t be pricked by breaking her word to Drake. She didn’t understand why the caged men had gone back to acting as if the cargo-hold was a words-free zone. If she was going to help them she needed to gain their trust. At least they were eating.
She tossed an unwrapped protein bar first to Mercury then to Diablo, who stopped his exercises to stand near the front of his cage to catch the offered meal. She still kept well out of his reach. It was better, she reasoned, not to tempt him.
“Sorry, it’s just rations again, but they’re easier to get out of the supply stores and less likely to be missed.”
Diablo’s gaze tracked her as she moved to stand in front of Carnage.
“Carnage?”
His chest rose and fell, but not even a muscle twitched in response. It felt wrong to toss his food on the floor, but she didn’t have time to consider other options. She needed to get to work.
Normally she brought her sandsilk and paints to work on, but tonight was different. Tonight she would set her plan into motion. Samantha pulled the tools she would need from the hold’s tool locker then popped the cover off of the secondary access panel for the environmental controls. It was only meant to serve as a backup if the primary access became inaccessible, so nothing was in easy reach.
Holding a small circuit tuner, she slipped her hand between two fiber assemblies, brushing against them gently and with care. She didn’t want to wreck the whole system.
There. The circuit buzzed against her fingertips as she worked the tuner into position then adjusted the phase, just off spec. Bracing her free hand on the wall next to the access, she turned her head and reached for where the next circuit board should be, stretching and twisting and working by touch. Good thing she had small hands.
Mercury fought the urge to ask Sam what she was working on. Sam. That’s what they called her. It didn’t fit. Nothing about her made sense to him. He lay on his back, chewing his protein bar and listening to the tiny noises she made, the in and out of her breathing.
In the cage beside him, Lo went back to his pull-ups. He hadn’t heard Carn move, so he probably still lay in the corner of his cage where he’d been, unmoving, all day. Mercury’s concern for his brothers multiplied with each day they spent headed for death and away from Carn’s mate. He’d tried to convince Carn that Drake had lied about Hera’s fate, that she was too valuable as a breeder, but how could he convince him of anything when he wasn’t convinced himself. Hera had been with them for half a year without conceiving.
With nothing he could do to help them, his mind turned back to Sam. Every day she came. Normally, she would spread a piece of shimmering blue cloth across the floor, lay on her belly, and apply some type of coloring to the material. She’d said it was the only area big enough for the task, but her explanation was as thin as new ice. He’d warned her away, but still she sought them out and put herself between him and his enemies.
He’d tried and failed
to believe she could be a temptress like the one who’d betrayed Lo. But the more he thought back over her actions the more he had to accept that her actions had shown her to be something he’d never expected to encounter—a woman who put his welfare and that of his brothers before her own.
He knew she wanted him to speak to her but he’d long ago developed a habit of talking to humans only when absolutely necessary. They always found a way to use his words against him. He’d accepted that she wasn’t like the others, but some small measure of sanity warned she might be just as dangerous.
Dangerous, because he’d begun to look forward to her visits. Dangerous, because he’d begun to trust her presence. Dangerous, because thoughts of fucking her had become as automatic as the breathing.
Her voice softened when she directed her words to him. Females did such things to signal a willingness to mate. The thought tightened his muscles with eagerness. A frustrated growl rumbled in his chest at the unwanted response. Each night she came added to the agony of wanting that made his body ache more surely than any beating. If this was what Carn felt when Hera was near—
“Drake complained about his dinner again tonight.”
Her voice broke into his thoughts. The sound of the whip-master’s name on her lips angered him. He growled and she laughed. A sound that curled inside him and made him shiver with need. He wanted to feel her laughter against his skin.
“This time he actually had something to complain about. I made sure to overheat his meal. It was probably rubber.”
She always made a point of mentioning the whip-master. It always made him growl. He suspected she did it just to hear him respond.
“I’ve been doing a bit of research.” The clank of her tools against something inside the panel accompanied her words.
Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs Book 1) Page 5