Iron Dominance (3 page)

Theo
? The thought struck her like lightning. Theo was a shortened version of Theodore. Her target’s name. Inkline hadn’t given her the surname. Surely, it would be an impossible coincidence for this to be the same man. Besides, Inkline was dead, wasn’t he? Which meant her target didn’t matter, one way or the other. Professional curiosity crept in, though. Could this Theo be important enough for a nation to want him killed?

“Where is your other man? The mean-looking one?” She inched up the bed.

“Dankyo? My head of security? I sent him away to help with the crash investigation. I’m sure, if he was here, he would have told me you were too dangerous to approach. Not that I would have heeded his advice. I’ve been looking forward to your company.” He smiled down at her.

How did she reply to such talk? Dankyo would’ve been right, in a way. If she let loose in the way her ability and training allowed, she was dangerous. She said nothing—it seemed the safest choice.

“And this,” he said, turning to the other man, “is the esteemed Dr. Eastway. Your name, agapi mou?”

He mocked her again. She shot a murderous look his way and was startled to see him grin back, as if they shared a joke. She tugged again, unsuccessfully, to pull her hands from his. Instead of letting go, he moved his thumb in soft circles at her wrist.

The feeling was disconcerting, awakening a tingle in strange places.

“Claire.” She frowned, finding the pace of her breathing had quickened. “My name is Claire.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Claire.” Theo raised her hands and kissed the backs of her fingers.

Shock rendered her speechless. Her face heated. The casual application of mouth to skin unnerved her, almost more than a kiss on her lips. Inkline had accustomed her to that. She’d grown the equivalent of calluses in her mind.

“Dr. Eastway is going to use galvanic electricity to help heal your wounds. It’s safe, though not yet a widespread device. We’ve tried it on many battle wounds. Doctor?” Theo gave her hand a squeeze, then stepped aside to let the doctor take his place by the bed. He went to lean against the wall between the chest of drawers and the bathroom.

“In case you’re wondering,” Theo continued, “the other survivors have been sent onward. I can’t do the same with you because of our ridiculous law regarding frankenstructs. If I send you on, you’ll be euthanized.” He watched her carefully. “You understand? It’s too dangerous to send you on.”

She nodded.
Does he think I’ll faint or something?

She eyed him, then decided the doctor warranted more attention. Galvanic energy…electricity? Voltaic electricity she understood—it ran lights, small engines, powered some weapons. While she pondered this, she couldn’t help, every so often, flicking a look at Theo.

He bothered her.
Threatening? Maybe
. But not, she sensed, in the way she normally classified threats. Though hard muscles glided beneath the cloth of his shirt, his strength didn’t concern her as much as his aura of control.

Another glance and this time, she found him intent on looking at her. She fought down a blush, made herself look back at him for several seconds, before returning to the doctor. A mistake, there, perhaps, as left unchallenged, Theo’s regard seemed to sear the surface of her neck and face.

This, her training had not prepared her for—she was meant to obey commands, to kill as efficiently as possible, and not face down men who simply stared. She found herself having to fight off an urge to ask him what he wanted of her. Even knowing he was on the wrong side didn’t dispel this urge, though it made her more determined than ever to resist her impulse.

Although, really, which exactly was the wrong side? She’d never been asked which side she wanted to be on. In an offhand way, she’d been bred in a vat and created, like a vehicle made from spare parts—or as the other frankenstructs laughingly called the process, brewed and glued.

The doctor busied himself checking dials on the machine and setting switches. This man, doctor or not, bore a resemblance to Inkline—balding, cold in attitude. He made her want to sneak to the opposite side of the bed. Slowly, she forced herself to relax.

“Let’s see your leg.” Dr. Eastway grabbed the bottom of her dress and flipped it up, exposing the sutures on her thigh and the lower edge of her panties.

Damn him
! She hissed and stiffened. Like all humans, he thought she was a
thing
. She sat up and grabbed his hand, bent back a finger to immobilize him. Almost…almost tempted into sharp time, so she could fracture that hand, and only stopping herself in the last second.

No. Mustn’t
. That would be disastrous, to show them what she could do. “Take your hand off me!”

Chapter Two

The doctor froze. She’d snared his hand and looked likely to break it off at the wrist.

Striving not to smile at the man’s predicament, Theo pushed away from the wall. He’d hoped the doctor wouldn’t be quite so prickly.

“Dr. Eastway, Claire seems to be disconcerted by your bedside manner.”
The wounds in her thigh are deep. This needs doing
. “Perhaps, Doctor, if you could instruct me? Claire, release him, please.”

Claire stared at the doctor, anger evident in the rigid lines of her body. She glanced across at him, frowning. Slowly, she opened her fingers and let go of the doctor’s hand.

“Thank you for listening to me. The doctor is a treasured member of my staff. It would have been a pity to have to punish you over something so trivial.” He bowed his head a fraction and was glad to see the slight widening of her pupils.

Something stirred within. It was as if he’d been handed a gift all wrapped in pretty white paper. And this gift had such interesting skills—she’d immobilized the doctor very efficiently. Curious that. Why would a sexual companion have need of such skills?

The doctor snorted, massaging his fingers. “Yes, I can show you how it works. I must admit ministering to this particular patient holds little allure for me. The dials are set. It only requires placement of the electrodes around the wound.”

On the other side of the bed was a dressing table with a delicate chair. He’d look less threatening if he sat, so Theo went around and snared the chair, deposited it next to the bed after swinging the galvanic machine out at an angle. The whole time, Claire observed, as if he were a snake about to strike.

He held up his hands, palm outward. “Are you agreeable, Claire? I’ll place these electrodes. I promise you, this is for the best, though it will hurt.”

She didn’t react when he mentioned pain. Instead she looked at his hands, then at June, who’d sat impassively in her chair throughout the commotion.

“Would you rather June do this?”

When she shook her head, choosing him, it pleased him. She was, after all, a young and beautiful woman. But it was more than that—the differences between her and the women from his social circle intrigued him.

The facts in the senate report he’d read had added up to frankenstructs being human. Yet someone had messed up the final summary, and the law had been passed declaring them inhuman. It reeked of legal shenanigans or bribery. Whatever the reasons, the law was wrong. Claire was human. He’d stake his life on it.

What the report hadn’t said was that frankenstructs were feisty and likely to bite your nose off if you looked at them the wrong way, or that they knew Greek as well as English, or indeed, that they were beautiful.

The chair withstood his weight, only creaking as he sat. He’d put it midway down the bed. Her thigh stretched before him, her dress again covering her modestly—though the thin white material left little to be imagined, the way it flowed over every contour and into every crevice.

He’d have to get more clothes sent up for her. Which brought to his mind the vision of her taking off the dress, then her underwear. Claire, naked, would be a wondrous sight, especially with some vivid red stripes to set off the alabaster skin of her luscious bottom. The curves of her breasts showing at the low V-neck of the dress hinted at tantalizing ripeness. From what he’d felt while carrying her, beneath the clothes was a toned yet well-rounded body.

She’d not been immune to his touch. The little signs of her body had betrayed her excitement—the widening of pupils, the fast pulse, the tensing of muscles. Perhaps, though, some of it had been fear? Not that he’d been unmoved himself. No perfume or makeup, yet she smelled and looked like a delectable woman. With his arms under her, he’d wanted to lean down and kiss that full mouth, to feel her whimper beneath him.

“Are you done looking?” A blonde lock fell across her eye, and she tossed her head, switching it away. “I think I can manage this placement of electrodes. Show me.”

That she’d try, he didn’t doubt.

The doctor stepped up and spoke. “No. You can’t. The cuts aren’t where you can see them properly. Here, sir.” He handed one electrode to Theo. “A row along each cut, please. Five a side should do it. Make sure each goes in full depth.”

The electrode tip was a tiny pin; from there the wire trailed to the machine.

Theo showed the tip to Claire. If he let her try to do this, the chances were she’d mess up the placement, and it wasn’t worth the risk. Her cuffed hands hovered at her waist, ready, he felt sure, to lunge and grab the electrode if he did something she disliked.

He sighed. “The parts on this machine aren’t easily replaced. I’m going to secure your hands to the headboard until this is done.”

Anger flared in her eyes. “No.”

“Think. I have several men out there who take my orders. I could have them hold you down. Or we can simply give up, and you’ll have to heal at your own pace and maybe risk infection. Galvanic healing works, but it will be painful this first time. I’ve seen the doctor have to restrain men, veteran soldiers, to get this done. Choose.”

He banked on that intelligence he’d seen in her. She wouldn’t want his men holding her, and that left—

“Very well.” Slowly she put her hands above her head.

So tempting, to watch the rise and shift of her breasts. No. This wasn’t easy for her. It had to be done and he’d do it without sidetracking. A pity though. When hadn’t he thrilled at the idea of a woman restrained to the headboard by cuffs? Mentally, he shook his head at himself.

He stood. “June, the key, please.” He caught the tossed key, unlocked the cuffs, and relocked them with the joining chain threaded behind the metal lattice of the headboard, feeling the trembling of Claire’s muscles as he did so.

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He carefully folded back the dress, just enough to see the three sutured wounds. Puffy, red, maybe some infection starting, and fresh blood leaked where falling had jarred the edges. The cuts were about six inches long. He’d forgotten the extent of the injury. Still, one treatment would do wonders.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

The first electrode pierced her skin, and she grunted at the pain, jerked on the cuffs. He watched her expression, waiting a moment until he saw her nod.

“Good girl.” That drew a glare.
Touchy
. Jabbing her infected wound with a pin was okay, but calling her “girl” made her look as if she wanted to stick something sharp into him? Curiouser and curiouser.

As the doctor handed him electrodes, he slipped the pins, equally spaced, under the skin at each side of one laceration. “Doctor. Turn it on, please.”

Green current sizzled for a minute across the first wound. He shifted the electrode tips, treated the second, then the third cut. Apart from gnawing her pretty lip and a few sharp intakes of breath, Claire didn’t move.

She rose in his estimation yet again. None of the ladies, or likely even the lords he knew, would have borne this so stoically. Before he released her hands, he brushed the lock of hair from her brow. “Well done.”

The startled, bemused look she shot him pierced his heart as surely as an arrow. His blood thumped fiercely. Here was a puzzle he wished to solve. A man’s touch unsettled her? He’d thought her a sexual companion. The more he saw of her, the less likely that seemed. Who and what was she?

* * *

The next day he returned to administer the galvanic treatment. The doctor, irked by all the goings on, begged off attending, though June stayed as a chaperone, sunken in her chair, observing without interfering.

Claire lay on the bed wearing a blue dress this time—one a little shorter than the red, with fabric as sheer as his housemaids could discover among the archive of clothes. A small trick—he wasn’t completely deaf to Dankyo’s arguments. Claire might be a woman, but her casual application of a fingerlock on the doctor spoke of some training. Escaping would be a damned sight more difficult in a flimsy dress. As an added bonus, this way he could admire her form without being too obvious.

During this treatment he left his hand on her thigh while he studied the wound. Her breasts rose a little quicker when she breathed, her lips parted, and the tiny hairs on her legs stirred in goose bumps.

Why this delightful reaction? Ah. Of course.

His fingertips had strayed a half inch under the dress and were only three, four inches from the apex of her legs. He slowly withdrew his hand, then casually laid it on her ankle, watching her as he traced circles with his thumb on her warm skin. Though she shifted her leg an inch away, when he put his hand back, she did nothing, as if hypnotized by the stroking.

The faint aroma of arousal came to him. She was wet. Desire had caught her up the same as him. His nostrils flared. She felt their connection. Manners said that he shouldn’t take this further unless she assented, yet even so he let his fingers drift around her ankle and loosely hold her there—the first step of possession.

She would give that assent to him, and once he gained her permission, he didn’t plan to do anything less than give her the most thorough ravishing any woman could experience.

Chapter Three

On the third day, he knew the pain would be light enough that he didn’t need to fasten Claire’s hands out of the way. When he strode toward the bed, she put her uncuffed hand above her head, joining the one already fastened there.