“Son of a bitch!” she murmured, staring wide-eyed at her sudden doppelganger. The only way The Beast now differed from her was the flowing live ink tattoo under his skin. As she watched, it slid from his forearm, up his arm and neck and over his forehead before sliding down the other arm.
“You like, Mistress?” The Beast asked her in her own voice.
Cassie shook her head and crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling exposed.
“How did you do that?” she demanded. When Commander Sylvan had said that The Beast was an Imposter able to take any form he wanted, she hadn’t quite believed him or understood the implications. But watching the nearly seven-foot-tall male turn into an exact replica of herself, brought the truth home.
The Beast smiled her own smile at her and then, to Cassie’s immense relief, turned back into himself again. Or at least, he turned back into the self she knew him as—his Beast Kindred form.
“It’s a talent of my people,” he said, shrugging modestly.
“I bet it’s very useful to his Slimefullness,” Cassie remarked. “You must be able to play any part he wants you to in his, um, productions.”
“There is that,” The Beast agreed amiably. “Well, except for the underwater parts.” He shrugged. “Can’t grow working gills. I mean, I can simulate them, but they won’t actually help me breathe underwater.”
“I would really like to know more about you,” Cassie told him. “You’re a fascinating male.”
As she had hoped, playing to his vanity worked. The Beast puffed up his chest and gave her an arrogant grin.
“I am, aren’t I? Well, Mistress, if you’d like, I can take you on a tour of the palace before First Meal. I’ll tell you all about myself along the way.”
“I’d like that,” Cassie told him. “Er—could you just give me a moment to get ready?”
“Sure. I can wait.” He shrugged and threw an uneasy glance at Stone, who was still glaring silently at him. “Uh, is he coming with us?”
“My body-slave goes everywhere I go,” Cassie said firmly. “But don’t worry—as long as you don’t touch or threaten me, he won’t hurt you,” she added.
“He couldn’t if he tried,” the Beast sneered, but he took another step back as Stone began to growl again.
“Just give me a moment,” Cassie told him again and shut the door firmly in his face.
Thirty-Four
“Why did you agree to let that bastard take you on a tour?” Stone demanded, the moment the door was closed.
“Because…” Cassie took him by the arm and towed her reluctant partner away from the doorway, in case The Beast was listening. “Because,” she said again, in a low voice. “We need to get close to him—need to gain his trust if we’re ever going to get him out of the palace and back to our ship! You know we can’t arrest him in front of Gozeriam! We can’t afford to blow our cover that way.”
“I don’t like it.” Stone’s eyes had a murderous red glint far back in their pale blue depths. “I don’t like you being anywhere near that fucking bastard, Cassandra. He’s a murderer and a rapist!”
“We agreed this was how it would go,” Cassie pointed out patiently. “I mean, not exactly like this, but the plan has always been for me to gain his trust and lure him out of the palace.”
“I know, but now that I see him in the flesh, I just want to rip his fucking head off!” Stone’s eyes were more red than blue now and his voice had dropped a whole octave to a menacing rumble Cassie could feel in her bones when he spoke.
“Stone!” she exclaimed, really worried now. “Are you going into Rage? Because if you are, stop. We can’t afford for you to blow our cover!”
“I don’t want him near you!” Her partner’s voice was a muted roar and Cassie thought she had never seen him so angry.
It surprised her—she never would have guessed that Stone would go into Rage for her. Kindred warriors usually reserved that kind of berserker fury for when they thought the woman they loved was being threatened or hurt. And Stone didn’t love her—at least, not as more than a friend.
“All right, all right!” she tried to soothe him. Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “Look at me. Look at me, Stone,” she commanded quietly.
At last her partner’s red eyes shifted from the doorway down to her face.
“It’s going to be all right,” Cassie promised him. “I won’t be alone with him—you’ll be with us every minute. He’s never going to touch me—I promise.”
Stone took several deep breaths as though he was consciously trying to calm himself. Slowly, the red glint of Rage faded from his piercing blue eyes.
“All right,” he said at last. “All right. Forgive me, I just… I could not bear it if anyone tried to hurt you.”
He gathered Cassie into his arms in a sudden, bone-crushing hug that made her gasp.
“Stone!” she exclaimed, as her feet left the floor. “Can’t…breathe!”
“Sorry.” He loosened his grip but didn’t put her down. “Cassandra,” he murmured, burying his face in her hair. “I cannot lose you. Nothing must happen to you.”
“It won’t, Stone—nobody’s going to hurt me. Not with you nearby.” Hesitantly, she stroked his back and shoulders. She had never known her partner to be so possessive and she wondered uneasily if it had anything to do with the physical intimacy they had shared the night before. Hadn’t Stone said that it was difficult to give your body without also giving your heart? What if he had been talking about himself when he said that?
But no—he had specifically said he only wanted to be friends, Cassie reminded herself. She needed to be careful not to read things that weren’t there into her partner’s actions.
He’s just being extra protective because we’re in a strange place with a known murderer, she told herself. It’s just the Kindred in him coming out—they’re always protective of women.
She patted her partner’s broad shoulders again.
“Put me down now, Stone. We have to get ready to go—he won’t wait out there forever.”
“Very well.” With great reluctance, her partner at last put her back down. But he held her close for a minute more, searching her eyes with his own. “Promise me,” he growled softly. “Promise you’ll be safe. Swear you’ll never be alone with him even for a minute.”
“How could I be when you’re with me every minute?” Cassie asked him reasonably.
“All right.” This seemed to make Stone feel better because he at last released his hold on her.
Cassie stepped back, feeling a little like she’d been hugged by a grizzly bear. Stone was always so careful around her that she was often able to forget his immense physical size and strength. But just now she had felt it, in the panicky tightness of his hug—a vice-like grip that could have squeezed her in two if the big Kindred wasn’t careful.
It made her damn glad that Stone was on her side.
The Beast had better watch out if he wants to avoid being pulverized, she thought. If Stone has even the least provocation to pound him, he’s damn well going to annihilate that asshole!
But speaking of “that asshole,” he was waiting outside their door to give her a guided tour of the Palace. Hurriedly, Cassie ran to her carry-all cube and started pulling out an outfit to resize.
It was going to be an interesting day.
Thirty-Five
“So this is The Pit, where all the Slime-porn is filmed.” The Beast gestured to a large enclosure with clear plasti-glass walls almost like a huge aquarium. Inside was a knee-deep pool of green slime with numerous alien creatures writhing in it.
There were Slimerians like Gozeriam, Cassie saw, penetrating each other with their slime-shafts. There were also some small, mud-like people who looked more humanoid—well, except for the fact that they both had six arms. They appeared to be rubbing against each other and then pulling apart, leaving trails of slime in the air between them every time they did.
The oozing sli
me trails reminded Cassie in a weird way of the “cheese-pull” shots you saw on food videos when a grilled cheese sandwich was cut in half and pulled open to show how stringy the melted cheese was inside.
Only I guess instead of “cheese-pull” it’s slime-pull, she thought, feeling slightly ill.
There were other creatures writhing and cavorting in the slime as well, but it was hard to understand exactly what erotic activities they were engaged in, since they weren’t humanoid and Cassie couldn’t tell which body parts they were putting together. Small round camera drones hovered above each pair—or threesome or foursome or moresome, in some cases—recording their carnal activities from all angles.
“The Pit, huh?” she said, trying not to let the disgust show on her face. “Did you ever work in there?”
“Me? Only once.” The Beast made a face. “I had to fill in for a Lush-slump slug who had called in sick with a case of anal valve rot. Didn’t like it much though—that fucking slime gets everywhere.”
“I bet,” Cassie murmured, nodding. Behind her, she was very aware of her partner standing guard. Stone always ‘had her back’ in any given situation but this time she couldn’t help feeling he was taking that phrase a bit too literally. He was practically glued to her, so close she could feel the heat from his big body radiating against her skin.
The good thing about her partner’s over-protectiveness was that The Beast wasn’t coming anywhere near her. He stood well back, giving her partner a wary eye as he talked her through the guided tour.
They had already seen the enormous jungle room which housed the Zodor Death Porn. Bone-chilling roars emanated from its leafy green depths and thundering footsteps could be heard in the distance. There was no porn being filmed there that day due to the recent loss of the tirano trainer but the angry beasts were apparently being kept hungry in order to get them ready for the next vid-shoot.
Of equal interest was the Aqueous Enclosure, an enormous tank filled with million of gallons of water. It was divided into two sections—the smaller, fresh-water tank and the larger salt water one. In it, various aqueous aliens had been doing all kinds of underwater sexual acrobatics.
Most of them just looked like fish to Cassie, but she had seen what appeared to be a mermaid and merman engaged in vigorous coupling, which was only made possible by the fact that the merman had a penis that appeared to be something like three feet long. He had been swimming after the mermaid, who appeared to be trying to escape, and poking her from behind with the bulbous red tip of his extra-long penis.
It was a bizarre sight which left Cassie feeling uneasy. Was this some kind of rape porn? Or was it just the mating habits of the merpeople? She didn’t know and didn’t want to ask The Beast, knowing his own disgusting record of rape and murder.
Even now it was an effort to pretend to be interested in what he was saying when she mostly just wanted to shoot the bastard right between his fake-gold eyes. She couldn’t help thinking of poor Leela back on Earth and the awful things this asshole had done to her. Not to mention his victim from the snuff film…
“…the Aphrodisiac Lab,” The Beast said and she realized she had missed what he was saying because she was hating him so hard.
“Um, sorry—what was that?” she asked, as they started moving again.
“I said, that way is the Aphrodisiac Lab,” the Beast repeated, pointing to a corridor to one side of The Pit. “But there’s no porn there, so it’s not really worth seeing.”
“Oh, show me anyway—please!” Cassie begged quickly. “My, uh, body-slave was trained as a botanist before I bought him—I know he’d love to see it.”
“Uh, sure. Okay.” The Beast cast another uneasy look at Stone and then jerked his head in the direction of the corridor he had pointed out. “Let’s go.”
Cassie and Stone followed him down the long hallway, around a corner, and found themselves standing in front of another broad, glass window. This area was filled with various plants in pots. Some of them had special, colored lights focused on them and a few were enclosed in clear tanks filled with fine mist. A few of the plants had vivid, bright blossoms but others didn’t look much different from regular grass or moss or mushrooms.
“What did you say they grew in here?” she asked The Beast, eyeing the door to the lab and wondering which—if any—of the plants they saw through the window were the Pain Fruit variation of the Kindred Bonding Fruit.
“Aphrodisiacs,” The Beast told her. “Gozer—I mean, his Slimefullness—gathers plants from all over the universe that cause any and every kind of sexual response. I actually tested a new one for him recently,” he added proudly, lifting his chin.
Fury threatened to choke Cassie but somehow she managed to keep it off her face.
“Oh? And what was that?” she asked, as casually as she could.
“A new kind of extract that makes whoever takes it want pain instead of pleasure. It really works too—I was fucking surprised,” the Beast said. “Made the female I was with fucking beg me to hurt her.”
“I see.” Cassie strove to keep her voice neutral and cool. “And what did you do?”
“I gave her what she wanted—what they all want.” The Beast’s eyes gleamed and he laughed, as though what he had done to the innocent girl he’d left at the crime scene was some kind of joke.
You son of a bitch!
Cassie bit her tongue to keep from saying it out loud. She couldn’t help remembering the multiple stab wounds on the victim’s body and the way her head had wobbled loosely on her neck… She wished she could arrest The Beast right now and slap him in handcuffs but unfortunately, that would blow their cover. Also, he wasn’t their only mission, she reminded herself. They needed to get the snuff film and kill the Pain Fruit plants before they could go.
“Who works here in the Lab?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject. “Can we get a look inside?”
“I’m afraid not.” The Beast shook his head. “There’s no admittance unless one of the lab techs or scientists is in there to escort you. Some of those plants in there are really valuable—and some can be fucking dangerous.” He nodded through the glass window.
“Oh, really? Like what?” Cassie asked.
“They got ginna plant in there—the plant itself doesn’t do anything but one single seed will give a humanoid male a hard-on that lasts for a solar month. Also, y’claw blooms. One sniff makes just about anyone unbearably horny for an entire day. Of course, afterwards they’re suicidally depressed for a year, but you get some really great performances out of them before the crash.”
“Why does Gozeriam need aphrodisiacs at all, though?” Cassie asked, frowning. “I mean, he’s assembled the greatest porn actors and actresses from all over the galaxy, right? Yourself, included,” she made herself add, nodding to The Beast.
He puffed his chest out. “You got that right, beautiful.”
Stone growled and The Beast took a step back, eyeing the big Kindred warily.
“Easy, Stone.” Cassie put a hand on her partner’s arm and turned back towards The Beast. “As I was saying, Gozeriam has all these excellent actors, so why the need for performance-enhancing drugs and substances?” she asked, honestly curious.
“Well, because—Gozeriam likes honest, authentic passion in his porn. In fact, he insists on it.” He shrugged. “To him, there’s nothing worse than bad porn or porn that doesn’t make the watcher feel.”
“Really?” Cassie couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. Once again she was reminded of Frank Yarrow back on Earth. Just like the sleazy porn producer who lured innocent girls by promising them they would be doing
“art-house” type films, Gozeriam fancied himself a true artist. Which was probably why he wrote some of his scripts himself, she thought, looking down at the transparent sheet The Beast had given her.
She wondered uneasily what kind of scene the Slimerian had written and what she and Stone would be asked to do together. Neither of them had gotten a chance to look i
t over yet.
“Well, are you hungry yet, Mistress?” The Beast asked her, raising an eyebrow. “We should probably head towards the humanoid Dining Hall if you want to get a bite to eat before you have to hit Wardrobe and get ready for your first performance later on today.”
“Oh, you think we’ll be performing today?” Cassie couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. Of course, Gozeriam had intimated that he might want them to start “acting” immediately, but she had hoped that she and Stone would have more time before they had to jump back into their respective roles as Mistress and body-slave porn partners.
“Hell yes, you’ll be performing, Mistress.” The Beast shot her an incredulous look. “You think his Slimefullness stayed up all night writing a script for you to just sit around on your juicy ass doing nothing?”
Stone growled again and Cassie frowned.
“I think it’s better if you don’t talk about my, er, anatomy like that in front of my body-slave,” she said stiffly.
“Sorry.” The Beast shrugged and eyed Stone. “Come on—the Dining Hall is this way.”
“Thank you.” Cassie followed him, trying to think of a way to change the subject. “Tell me—can you really look like anyone at all?” she asked, deciding that a narcissist like The Beast would probably enjoy talking about himself.
“Hell yes.” He tilted his head arrogantly. “Any living being or thing—you name it—I can be it.”
“Then I have a question,” Cassie said, frowning. “If you can so perfectly disguise yourself as anyone else in the universe, why would you get a living ink tattoo?” She nodded to the tattoo in question, which was currently making its restless way around the back of The Beast’s neck. “I noticed when you er, became me, I could still see it,” she went on. “Is it visible in every form you take? It seems like it would be a dead giveaway if you were trying to pretend to be someone else.”
The Beast scowled, his jaunty, arrogant smile slipping for just a minute to be replaced by a sullen sneer.
Playing Their Parts: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 19