Chained (Brides of the Kindred) (22 page)

The corpulent Sensorian licked his lips
with a thick tongue. “It has a certain appeal, yes. The flavor isn’t for
everyone but I have been known to indulge from time to time.”

“Try this then.” Kor raised the knife.
“Taste my pain, you bastard.”

With a swift, downward motion he made a
long, cruel cut across the inside of his forearm. Blood began to spurt at once—dripping
dark crimson all over the pale floor tiles.

Maggie gasped. “Oh, no! No, Kor!” She
tried to stop him but he stepped away and made another slice. And then another
and another.

Blood poured from the wicked looking
slashes but he didn’t make a sound. He just kept cutting, his face grim—jaw
set, mouth a thin line, eyes glowing red as the blood continued to flow.

For me. He’s doing
this for me so we don’t have to do anything else. So I won’t feel guilty and
hate myself,
Maggie realized. If
only Kor could understand that watching him hurt himself for her was far worse
than anything they could have done sexually. She couldn’t stand to see his pain
and know she was the cause of it. Couldn’t bear the thought of his blood
spilling for her.

“Kor,” she begged and realized she was
crying again. “Kor, please…please don’t. Please stop!”

“Yes, by all means—please stop,” the night
porter put in. He sounded so distressed that Maggie tore her eyes from Kor and
saw that the Sensorian was looking decidedly ill. His skin had a sickly
greenish glow which didn’t go with the normal pink at all.

“Why? Had enough?” Kor held the knife over
his dripping arm, poised to slice again.

“More than enough,” the night porter said
faintly. He looked at Maggie. “I don’t know where you got your slave but the
taste of his emotions is far too rich for me. I’ve only had such strong,
complex flavors once before—in a female who had been with a Shadow Demon.”

“A Shadow Demon? What are you talking
about?” Kor frowned.

“A denizen of the Black Planet. She had
allowed herself to be possessed by him in return for certain…favors.” The night
porter shook his head. “Her eyes glowed as yours do when she was upset. And her
emotions…they were overwhelming as well.”

“Too much of a good thing, eh?” Kor
laughed harshly. “So you’ve had enough? Can my lady make her call now?”

“Yes, yes—anything you want. But we must
clean up this mess or my superior will know.” The Sensorian nodded at the
splatters of blood on the floor.

“I’ll see to it,” Kor said shortly. “Just
let my mistress make her call.”

“Go right ahead. The viewscreen is on the
far wall of my cubical.” The night porter nodded at Maggie and got off his
chair to usher her into the tiny room that was his office.

“Wait. Not yet.” Maggie ran forward and
took Kor’s large, bloody hand. “First I have to make sure he’s all right.”

“I’m fine,” he growled, but he allowed her
to examine him. Maggie felt her stomach roll as she saw the bloody slices
marching up and down the inside of his forearm.

At least they’re all
clean cuts—not jagged or torn,
she
thought faintly. And hopefully the knife he’d used was clean too. Maggie took
off the towel she’d been wearing since Kor had wrapped her in it and tried to
blot the worst of his wounds very gently with the fluffy material.

“I wish you hadn’t done this,” she
whispered as the white towel turned slowly red. “There had to be another way.”

“There was,” he said roughly. “But it
wasn’t right—it would have made you hate yourself.”

Maggie gave a jagged, broken laugh and
swiped away tears with her free hand. “And you think this doesn’t?”

He shrugged, his broad, bare shoulders
rolling. “Did the best I could. I’m sorry if I didn’t meet your
expectations…Mistress.”

“Oh, Kor…” She swallowed hard, choking
back tears. “If only…”

“Excuse me, Mistress, but if you want to
make a call it has to be
now,”
the night porter said firmly,
interrupting them. “My supervisor will be here to check on me in a very short
time. You and your slave must be finished and gone by then or we will all be in
trouble.”

“Oh—of course.” Reluctantly, Maggie let
her hands drop and stepped away from Kor. “I’ll just…I’ll call right now.”

“You do that.” Kor looked at her directly,
his eyes still blazing faintly red. “Tell them to come get you right away,
blondie. Before anyone gets hurt any more than they already are.”

Maggie turned away and ducked into the little
Hobbit hole of an office but inside she was wondering if Kor was talking about her…or
himself.

Chapter Eighteen

“Well, this is it. The next ship that
lands should be mine,” Maggie said.

“Should be.” Kor nodded, his pale blue
eyes scanning the alien horizon.

They were standing to one side of the
Grand Promenade, the long white carpet Kor had carried her down only the day
before. It was where all ships entering and leaving the spa had to land and
Ferna and Ratner were supposed to be there very soon.
Maybe
too
soon,
Maggie couldn’t help
thinking.

“Good thing I still have the documents I
went to Yonnie Six for in the first place.” She tried to keep her voice light
but she couldn’t quite manage it.

“Mmm.” Kor simply nodded again in that
maddeningly stoic way. He had already told her he wasn’t coming with her—not
that she’d expected him to after last night. But still, the idea of parting
from him was dragging on her like a lead weight.

This is a good thing,
she told herself, trying to cheer up.
You need to get
back to your job—your mission. Need to get to Gaia and start cataloguing and
studying all those new alien plants and animals.

But try as she might, she couldn’t find
the excitement and curiosity she’d felt even a day before when she thought of
her six month mission. All she felt was a dull ache in her heart when she
thought of leaving Kor and never seeing him again.

She wondered if he felt the same way but
it was impossible to tell. Since the savage cutting scene last night, he’d been
almost completely silent. But the red splotched bandage that wrapped around his
forearm spoke more eloquently than any words could have. Clearly he cared about
her, at least a little or he never would have wounded himself for her
sake—right?

I don’t know. I just
don’t know…

“I wish you’d talk to me!” she burst out,
unable to help herself.

“Talk to you?” He raised an eyebrow at
her. “What is there to talk about?”

“Your feelings for one thing.” Maggie
couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice. “First you said you wanted to
come with me to Gaia and then you changed your mind. Why?”

He shrugged. “Decided it was better to put
some space between me and Yonnie Six and it sounds like Gaia isn’t far enough.”

Maggie put a hand on her hip. “That isn’t
the real reason you’re not coming with me—admit it.”

Kor had been standing there beside her,
his arms crossed over his broad chest, his eyes on the sky. Now he suddenly
rounded on her.

“The real reason? You want to talk about
the
real
reason?” he asked in a low, angry voice.

“Well…yes.” Maggie lifted her chin,
forcing herself to meet his eyes.

“You
know
why, Maggie.” He looked
at her so intensely it made her feel naked. “I don’t go where I’m not wanted.”

“But you
are
wanted,” Maggie
protested.

“For what? To be your friend? Your
bodyguard? That isn’t enough for me and you damn well know it. I want more—are
you willing to give it to me?”

“I…” Maggie didn’t know what to say. “Kor,
we barely know each other and I’m engaged. We can’t just—”

“That’s what I thought.” He turned away
from her and went back to scanning the horizon. “I see a ship coming down—it’s
time for me to go.”

“What? Just like that?” Maggie couldn’t
keep the hurt out of her voice. “Aren’t you going to wait and say goodbye to me
when I leave?”

“Goodbyes are bad luck,” he said shortly.
“We never said goodbye on the Blood Circuit—it meant you’d never see the person
you bid farewell to again.”

“Oh,” Maggie said softly. “So you think we
might…might meet again someday?”

He turned his head and gave her a cool,
distant stare. “The odds are about a trillion to one. The universe is a hell of
a big place and we’re going in two different directions.”

Maggie bit her lip. “I see. So what do you
say instead of goodbye?”

“Good luck. And may the Gods protect you.”
Kor nodded at her briefly and turned away. Slowly, he paced down the white
carpet, leaving her for good—walking out of her life forever.

“Kor!” Maggie couldn’t help it—his name
was torn from her lips.

He paused and for a split second she
thought he might come back. But he simply lifted one hand and gave her a brief
wave without even turning his head. The next second he had turned off the
carpet and lost himself among the ornamental white trees on either side of it.
A second after that, he was gone.

Maggie couldn’t help herself—she burst into
tears. To think that after all they had been through together he could leave
her so easily! How could he be so cruel? So heartless?

And how could she stand to be without him?

She was still crying twenty minutes later
when the spacecraft, which had been making a very slow descent, finally landed
at the end of the Grand Promenade.

Maggie wiped her streaming eyes on the
velvety red sleeve of the outfit she was wearing. It was one of the more modest
ones Lady Popenose had packed which meant it at least covered her breasts and
crotch. Also, it was stretchy which was good considering the other woman had
the anatomy of a toothpick.

She cleaned her glasses on the soft red
material too, wishing she had a spare pair. Between being dunked in the pool
and all the crying she’d been doing lately, the lenses on her current pair
seemed to be permanently smeared. When she put them back on and got a closer
look at the ship, though, she frowned.

That doesn’t look
like a Kindred ship.
In fact, what it
looked like was the long black hovercar which had brought her and Kor to the
spa in the first place. Had Ratner and Ferna switched ships or were they
running late? Maggie began to get a very bad feeling as the door slid open and
a skinny, familiar looking man jumped out.

Is that…it can’t be
Jonas, can it?

But sure enough, the next person out of
the long black ship was a thin, familiar shape. Maggie was standing well back
from the end of the carpet but she knew Nola Pope’nose when she saw her. And
even if she hadn’t seen her, Maggie would have recognized her shrill,
commanding voice anywhere. She ducked quickly behind one of the ornamental
white trees that lined the carpet and watched the scene playing out.

“Well? Come on, Jonas—don’t take all day!
You know you have to carry me down the Grand Promenade,” Lady Pope’nose snapped
at her cringing slave.

“Yes, Mistress!” Jonas knelt in front of
her and Lady Popenose clambered awkwardly onto his back and wrapped her skinny
arms around his neck.

“Hurry!” she commanded.

Jonas stumbled to his feet and began
staggering down the Grand Promenade, clearly struggling even with Lady
Pope’nose’s light weight. It made Maggie feel a little better about the fact
that he’d had a hard time carrying her back on Yonnie Six. Still, maybe Lady
Pope’nose weighed more than she looked.

She’s got to be
carrying at least fifty pounds of pure meanness on that skinny stick body,
Maggie thought. Then she realized what she was doing—she
was just standing there waiting while the woman whose slave she had stolen—the
woman she had chained up in her own dungeon—was coming toward her. True, she
was hidden behind a tree but not very
well
hidden—it was time to beat a
hasty retreat.

Just then, Lady Pope’nose looked up and
somehow saw Maggie—maybe because her velvet red dress stuck out like a sore
thumb in all that white. Their eyes locked for a split second and then Lady
Pope’nose began to howl.

“That’s her! That’s her, right there!
Guards of the spa, come get her! Jonas, hurry up!” And she began to flog the
poor slave with some sort of a whip or flogger Maggie hadn’t seen earlier. She
had the confused impression that Lady Pope’nose might have pulled it out of her
elaborate hairdo but she didn’t know for sure—nor did she want to wait around
to find out.

“Hurry
up!”
Lady Pope’nose
insisted, beating her poor, laboring slave even harder. “She’s going to get
away!”

At her urging, Jonas broke into a
staggering run—a ridiculous sight with Lady Pope’nose still clinging to his
back riding piggyback style and whipping his skinny buttocks with her short
tasseled flogger.

Maggie only had a second to watch,
however, because her numb brain had finally unfrozen and was instructing her
legs to turn and
run.
Whirling around, she kicked off the impractical
high heels that went with the red outfit and began to sprint as fast as she could
through the slender white trees.

As she ran, Maggie couldn’t help looking
over her shoulder. It occurred to her that if the other woman would only
dismount, she might catch Maggie with no problem. After all, she was
considerably thinner and she had much longer legs. But apparently it was
beneath Lady Pope’nose’s dignity to set foot on the white carpet herself. She
just kept flogging poor Jonas and screeching in his ear like some demented
jockey in a race for sickly horses.

She won’t get
down—I’m going to make it,
Maggie thought.
I’ll
find Kor and explain what’s happened. Surely he won’t be gone yet—he was
looking for the perfect ship to steal—one that wouldn’t be missed for a long
time. He’ll take me someplace safe and we can try to contact Ferna and Ratner
again from there.

Just the thought of seeing him again—of
spending even a little more time together—lifted Maggie's spirits. She felt
lighter than air as she sped through the white trees, casting the occasional
glance behind her. Everything was going to be all right. Everything—

Her thoughts were cut off abruptly when
she ran headfirst into something big and extremely solid.

“Ooof!” she gasped and fell backwards onto
her butt. The impact was so sudden and hard all the breath was knocked out of
her. Even worse, her glasses went flying off her face and landed somewhere in
the grass.

What the hell?
Maggie thought, dazed and dizzy from her collision.
Did
I run into a tree? And where are my glasses?

“Excuse me, Mistress.” The deep, grating
voice from above her made Maggie look up. Without her glasses she could only
see a blur—but a large, imposing blur. Oh dear—that was no tree she had run
into.

“What…who are you?” she demanded. “What do
you want?”

“My name is Captain Beblax, head of
security here at the spa. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me,” the
blur informed her.

Maggie’s heart sank. Was this it? Was she
really going to get caught just when she was almost out of here? It didn’t seem
fair or right. She hoped that Ferna and Rater might still show up and help her or
maybe that Kor would come crashing through the trees to sweep her away in the
nick of time. But the only one who arrived was Lady Pope’nose, still astride
the puffing, blowing Jonas.

“That’s her!” she cried shrilly, obviously
speaking to the blurry guard. Finally she slid off the exhausted slave’s back
and stalked around to point at Maggie. “The one I told you about when I called.
She stole my slave and my identity—not to mention my
clothes
. Why, that’s
my best afternoon dress and she’s stretching it out! She must be punished!”

“I only stole him because she was about to
kill him,” Maggie said desperately as Captain Beblax hauled her roughly to her
feet. “Look, I can’t see anything without my glasses. Could you at least hand
them to me?”

“Oh, you mean these?” To Maggie’s
surprise, Lady Pope’nose extended one skinny hand holding her glasses.

“Oh, uh, yes—thank you.” She reached warily
for them but Lady Pope’nose jerked them back and dropped them on the ground.
There was a sickening crunch and Maggie felt her heart sink.

“Oops!” Lady Pope’nose said sweetly. “What
a pity, my dear—I seem to have stepped on your oculars.” Then her voice turned
hard. “Bring her to the security office. We have much to talk about…and much to
do.”