Iron Dominance (2 page)

She’s barely conscious. Having me looming over her must have frightened her
. Casually his gaze traveled up to her shoulder, around the curves of muscle, up to her wrist…and he imagined her with both arms tied that way.

He shook his head. “Where’s the doctor?”

“Coming.” Dr. Eastway crunched across to them, his boots slipping on the loose earth. The last few strands of gray hair straggled across his forehead, and his black medical case swung from his hand.

Though the doctor was bleary-eyed, Theo knew him to be competent and backed away to let him through.

“Ah. Hmm. She’s breathing easily, sir. Pulse strong. Color good. Upper leg lacerations plus looks like a blow to the head from the abrasions on her temple. I need to get her back to the house, sir. Ah.” Dismay tinged the doctor’s last word. He peered at and probed the skin of the woman’s neck and shoulders, then rose slowly.

“What is it, Doctor?”

But the man merely flapped his hand at Theo while shaking his head. “A moment, please.” The brusque tone was normal. An early career tending soldiers hadn’t encouraged a good bedside manner.

Having given instructions for the loading of the woman onto a stretcher, Dr. Eastway took Theo by the arm and led him to one side. “Ahem. Colonel, there’s something I should tell you about that young woman.”

“Yes? Is she going to be all right?”

“Perhaps. Most likely. Though spending the night out here has not helped any of them. I expect she will regain consciousness soon. But that is not my main concern, sir.”

“The recovery of your patient is not your main concern? Doctor, I’m more than a little confused here. Explain yourself.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “She is not a normal human. She’s a frankenstruct. A being made of cloned parts. To those who are privy to such knowledge, there are marks that reveal this. The PME are far advanced in cloning and genetics. Do you still want me to tend to her?”

“What?” Anger stirred in Theo.

“Ah.” The doctor bowed his head. Clearly he’d realized his error. “Of course, some are quite happy to allow them a degree of humanity. And such opinions are not mine to judge. However, there is, sir”—the doctor coughed—“the question of the fine for aiding or harboring a frankenstruct. I believe it is ten thousand drachma.”

Theo pressed his lips together. A trivial sum to him, but to the doctor it would mean far more. “I’ll settle any such fines if they occur. But first someone would need to report that we have committed such a…transgression. None of my men here would do so.”

The doctor blinked rapidly. “Thank you, sir. My lips are sealed, as you know, sir. I too am indebted to you for employment. I shall attend to her injuries.”

“Do so.”

From her dress this woman must be some sort of companion. Perhaps a sexual one? That the PME used frankenstructs as slaves was common knowledge, but to see one… Theo shook his head, bemused. She’d seemed so normal, so female, so very fragile. He’d wanted to stroke that porcelain-fine skin yet also to pick her up like some lost puppy and shelter her from harm. He smiled wanly.

The doctor was correct, though. Frankenstructs were illegal and to be destroyed on sight. He couldn’t do that. He’d pay the fine if he had to. Money wasn’t everything.

* * *

Consciousness melted into being like clouds blown away by a cold and malevolent wind. Every jolt and swing of the stretcher Claire lay on vibrated fresh pain through her head and along her right leg. She gritted her teeth; almost everywhere hurt. Her first mission was off to an awful start.

Through the fringe of her lashes, she watched as two gray-uniformed men carried her stretcher into the grand foyer of an enormous dwelling. By letting her head loll to one side and then the other, she could see almost everything. As well as the stretcher bearers, two other men walked behind or at her side.

“I must advise sending her to the lockup cell, sir,” said one.

The second man replied. “With the men? Dankyo, even for you, I find that appalling. The guest bedroom will do nicely.”

Ah, she thought drowsily. This is the one in charge. The owner of this mansion, perhaps? She liked him more than the other, colder one.

At eye level, though she was the one moving, paintings seemed to bob past on parade, along with statues and fancy vases.

Though it felt as if someone had played drums on her body with a meat tenderizer, she marveled at everything. The men stopped and put her stretcher down with a small bounce at the foot of a wide curling staircase. A wave of nausea welled up her throat, then subsided.

“Are you certain of this, sir?” said Dankyo. The badge on his gray uniform announced him head of security. A house that needed a head of security—such ostentation spoke of wealth or paranoia or both. He looked…formidable.

Dankyo moved with grace despite his bulk. She narrowed her eyes further. To be discovered secretly observing him… She suppressed a shudder. He radiated danger.

“Yes, Dankyo,” spoke the other, whose name she’d yet to hear, except that all addressed him as sir. His deep voice possessed an alluring rightness, a surety that whatever he said would be obeyed. Even the simplest of his words compelled her to listen.

This man had told the doctor to minister to her at the crash site, despite knowing she was a frankenstruct. His words had been peculiar enough to stand out from the painful throb of the merry-go-round of colors and sound inside her head. That any human would bother to do this for her was incredible.

She crushed the hope that bubbled up. Stupid to think he might care. Always there were reasons. Nothing came without a price, though usually the reward came after the task was done and not before.

“The telegraph has come back, sir,” said Dankyo. “There’ll be an army escort meeting us at Hoskitt in two hours, then an airship to New Baskerton. The survivors will be deported back to Merica. There’s no point in putting her in the guest room. She can go with the men.”

“She’s not going, Dankyo. Be damned if I’m going to let the bureaucrats decide her future.” Anger lent a hard edge to the words. “You know as well as I, they’ll order her euthanized before they’ll let her be deported. It’s official policy. Take her up.”

The stretcher wobbled under her and was raised in the air, tilting.

Euthanized. She knew what that meant: death.

Once she was well, she’d escape. It was her duty to. Where to, though? A notion crystallized.
Here I am, by myself. No Inkline. What if I go somewhere else and not back to the PME
? Like a dog chasing its tail, the idea went around and around.
What if?

The headache stopped her pinning that crazy notion down. Later, though. She needed to figure this out.

On the floor above they took her into a room bigger than the one her entire training squad had slept in. A four-poster bed of brushed silver and bronze dominated the floor next to a set of four timber doors. The bronze and green stained glass in the middle section of the doors matched the green drapes of the bed and the bronze poles holding up the bed’s canopy. Everywhere was opulence.

Claire forgot to pretend unconsciousness and opened her eyes wide.

“She’s awake, sir.” Dankyo’s brown eyes glittered. “This room is not secure. A child could abscond. As your security advisor, I insist on some means of ensuring this…frankenstruct is still here on the morn.”

His master sighed. “Your suggestion?”

“I’ll arrange something, sir.”

The men placed the stretcher on the bed then indicated she should roll off onto the bed. Gray-uniformed, with
Security
written on their shirt pockets, these must be Dankyo’s men.

“Come on, love,” the taller, heftier one muttered.

She winced as she shifted to raise herself on her elbows. Her red dress rode up, revealing three rows of black silk sutures on the outside of her right thigh. The room swam, turning the cream-striped wallpaper into a sea of milk.

“Here.” Two warm muscular arms slid under her. One at her shoulder, the other just below her bottom—scooping her up and moving her onto the emerald satin bedspread.

“Sir!” Dankyo said.

“Calm yourself, Dankyo.” The words were spoken from mere inches away. “She doesn’t bite. Do you?”

Clear iron gray eyes stared down at her, though when she met his gaze, they darkened. She stared back. A shiver ran through her.

He frowned as if seeing her for the first time, and she wished she’d been able to hold back that shiver. It made her feel…vulnerable.

As her eyes slowly closed a shadow passed above, and something gently brushed across her forehead. His fingers, she realized. The touch of his warm skin against hers felt good, and the place inside where she kept herself coiled and ready to fight relaxed, soothed by the rhythm of his fingers. Blackness rolled in. Her last thoughts chased her down into the abyss.
Escape. Soon
. Though for some reason she couldn’t remember why.

* * *

The next day, she was left alone in the room apart from a burly woman with a face like a wax gargoyle that had squatted too long in the sun. Dressed in a floral gown, her brown hair in a bun, gargoyle woman occupied a leather easy chair, every inch of it overflowing with her flesh. Whenever Claire needed to move from the bed, the woman would scowl and grumble, only to heave from the chair and trundle over with the handcuff keys in hand.

The handcuffs must’ve been Dankyo’s idea. One of her wrists was kept cuffed to the right hand pillar of the bed, and when she needed to go to the bathroom, the woman locked her wrists together. It made everything difficult, her arm cramping at times with it stretched over her head, and no one, gargoyle woman included, seemed to care that going to the bathroom was a laborious affair. She’d examined the cuffs. An ordinary pair she would stand a chance of picking, but these had some strange clockwork mechanism on each side. Still, a hairpin she found wedged at the back of the bathroom cabinet might be useful.

The little white dress they’d given her was already marked with blood. A bad color for concealment too.
One mistake from them is all I need. Once my leg heals, I’m gone. But where to? Have I got the guts to desert? I can’t stay here.

She remembered something about the Brito-Gallic league—how they hated the PME. Perhaps she could pass as human there if she was careful with how she dressed, at least until she figured out if frankenstructs were legal.

Yes. To the west, then
. She breathed out slowly. Settling on a goal had eased the tightness in her chest.
To the west.

The late-afternoon sun streaked in through the glass doors, and Claire was halfway to the bathroom. The outer door banged open, and two guards trundled in a trolley bearing an engine of some sort with wires at one end, a crank at the other, and ridges of machined metal going halfway to the ceiling in layers like a steel wedding cake.

What the
… Horrible images crammed into her head—sharpened steel, blood, pain—the paraphernalia of torture.

She stumbled. Her injured leg caved, and she went to one knee, with her cuffed hands on the floor just stopping her from completely toppling over. Fiery spikes screamed up her leg. She stifled a gasp of agony. The room hazed.

“Here now.” Quick solid steps approached her. Someone picked her up like a child and held her against their broad chest—the muscles and the scent of a man. Blinking to clear her vision, she let her gaze travel up to his face. The gray eyes she recognized.

“Good afternoon,
agapi mou
.”

That confused her even more. Had he just called her
my love
in Greek?

She screwed up her mouth. “I’m not your love. Put me down.”

A smile tweaked the corners of his lips. “So you can fall over again? I think not. Where do you wish to go?”

She reined in her instincts—striking at his eyes would get him to drop her…and then she’d likely be shot.

Squirming didn’t loosen his grip and only sent more pain spearing through her thigh. Fuming, she weighed her alternatives.

Very well. If he wants to carry me, that’s his problem.

“Finished thinking? That scowl does not become you.” He quirked an eyebrow.

This time she took a longer look—black wavy hair, a strong yet proportionate nose dividing his broad face, and black stubble on his chin. Her heartbeat accelerated.

“I was headed to the bathroom.”

With that he swung slowly around, took her to the bathroom, nudging open the door.

Alone in the bathroom, with the door closed behind her, Claire felt tremendously relieved, as if she’d barely escaped a trap. That a man had touched her without her permission grated on her nerves, though he’d not done anything. She’d be more careful in future. Try to keep out of his way.

Except when she opened the door, she found him waiting.

“I can get back to the bed myself.”

“Stubborn, aren’t you? No. I’ll carry you.”

And he scooped her up again. She couldn’t evade him, not with her leg injured and her wrists cuffed. The trolley with the strange machine awaited her at the bedside, as did an elderly man with thin gray hair. His neat suit and the stethoscope protruding from his jacket pocket marked him as a doctor. If this man carrying her hadn’t made her nervous already, the machine surely would have.

She said a mantra to get her pulse rate down.
Why would they treat me as nicely as they have, only to torture me?

“Perhaps if we exchange names, you won’t feel so shy about being carried?”

Shy
? She turned her gaze from the man holding her, to the machine, and back.
What is this device?

“My name,” he said, maneuvering around the machine and lowering her to the bed, “is Theo Kevonis. I am the owner of this house and the adjoining lands. I was at the airship crash, and I helped rescue you. I must tell you how glad I am that we did that.” Very polite, but he hadn’t let go of her wrists. The grip was loose, as if he barely knew he held her, yet when she pulled away, his fingers tightened and kept her cuffed hands there.