Unbound (11 page)

Silence was her answer. He didn’t even bother replying.

Unable to stand the sight of Romir’s despondence, Asrial stared instead at his prison. Now that she knew what it was, its semblance to an erect phallus was appalling. “This is barbaric. There has to be some way to free you.”

One thing she had learned with the
Castel
: nothing was perfect; everything broke down, no matter how well made. Even stars died. Whatever the Mughelis did to make Romir a djinn, it could be broken. And somehow, someway, she’d do just that.

The numb look she got in return shouted his doubts. He’d lost all hope of ever escaping this coil. Despite the measure of freedom he’d attained, he’d resigned himself to remaining a djinn forever.

Unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable.
Her horror flared against the sinking helplessness, transforming it to fury and commitment.

“We’ll free you, whatever it takes.”

Sure, the Spirit of space didn’t play fair. But right then and there, she wanted happily-ever-after. If she couldn’t have it for her parents nor for Amin, she wanted it for Romir.

 

 

Astonishment overwhelmed
Romir’s
shock at the news of the Mughelis’ defeat, flooding the emptiness in his heart. Asrial’s outrage alone would have stunned him. But the determination on her face, as if his enslavement were a personal affront, confounded him.

“You do not know what you are saying.” She could not have considered the implications of such a commitment. He had tried to unravel the weave both from outside and after his capture from inside. If indeed thousands of years had passed since his enslavement, how could she hope to free him?

Asrial caught his face between her hands and rose to her toes. Leaning into him, she stared into his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll free you, however long it takes.”

Supremely conscious of her small breasts pressed to his chest, of her palms on his cheeks, he could not tear his gaze from the burning intensity of her determination. Such foolishness, but her will seared him, demanded he live. Demanded he believe.

“Surely there’s some way to break this . . . binding.”

“There is. If the flask shatters, the djinn can no longer be summoned.”

“You go free?”

“No, merely that the djinn fails to respond to the vyzier. It was never proven conclusively, but the best guess is, the djinn is lost in the mists—or perhaps he dies.”

She gasped, the whites around her irises widening. “I don’t want to kill you! I meant reverse it. How did they do it, anyway?”

Romir closed his eyes against the memory and the fierce demand in hers. From the heights of lovemaking to the depths of shocking revelation to the distant impossibility of hope, the shifts demanded of him numbed the mind.

“I do not remember what the Mugheli vyzier did. Just pain.” Such pain that it became his entire world and everything else faded to white. He did not know if he had ever known the weave and had simply chosen to forget or if the pain had ripped it from his memory. The only favor the gods had granted him was that his skill lay in battle weavings, which precluded his power being used to make other djinn. But because of that, he could not answer her question.

“When it was over, I was djinn and tied to that.” He flicked a hand at the ordinary-seeming flask that was the bane of his deathless existence.

“But you’ve escaped.”

Had he ever been so hopeful? The earnestness in Asrial’s voice only drove home the extent of his enslavement. He had no hope. Even now he did not know what whim of the gods had granted him this measure of freedom. Should he ever return to the gray mists, it was likely he would lose that much. He had not escaped.

“For the moment. As you saw, my prison may draw me back at any time.” It never changed: he had been helpless against its pull, his essence sucked away despite his struggles.

Asrial gripped his shoulder. The bite of her fingers drew his attention to her. She met his gaze without wavering, the amber chips in her brown eyes glinting bright, her determination unshaken despite what he had said. “How do we keep you out?”

He explained what he suspected. It would be easy for her to return him to his prison, but he could not—would not—force himself upon her. He also did not want her in ignorance of his purpose: he would be using her to remain free.

Asrial smiled,
relieved that maintaining Romir’s freedom could be that simple. “So you just need sex?” It was a temporary measure, but it would do for now.

“Just sex?” he repeated, staring at her with wondering eyes. The display of emotion was more life than she expected to see in him at this point.

Perhaps a little distraction would be good. His face had been so blank, his body so still, she wanted to make him react, to do something to break through that mask. To see the silver passion that had burned in his eyes when he’d taken her.

“To keep you out of there.” She played her fingers across his bare chest, thrilling to the broad sweeps of golden muscle. His dark nipple hardened to a tight nub as she circled it, wonderfully responsive to her touch. His chest rose, muscles flexing as she traced them downward. Her fingers snagged on the waistband of the pants once again hanging low on his narrow hips.

Really, she should have realized long ago that he couldn’t have been an ordinary grounder nor an escaped pleasure bod. His pants were unlike any style she’d seen in the Rim. His body and posture weren’t those of a pleasure bod. And she’d never asked him how he’d come to be on Maj. Maybe she’d turned a blind eye to the indications because that meant getting involved.

“It’s no problem if it’s sex. That’s easier than extracting a chunk of dazjanite, for example. Or murder.” She stuck her tongue out at him and winked.

Romir shook his head, pressing his lips together as he fought back amusement. His hair spilled over a shoulder and down his chest, the motion snagging her eye. He’d used his hair on her before, but she’d never taken the time to appreciate it.

She took a strand, twining it through her fingers, drawn by its unusual length. His hair hung to mid-thigh with not a kink to mar its fall. It marked him as a grounder, and yet there was something alluring about that extravagant curtain of blue black framing such broad shoulders. “Was long hair the fashion for men, in your day?”

He touched the strand spanning the gap between them, his brows giving a twitch of surprise. “Not for all men, only weavers. By my time, long hair was as much a symbol of our ability as our badges. We grew our hair long because we could.” He shook his head. “Such vanity. It was because of this hair that the Mughelis captured me, instead of killing me outright. If I had cut it, they would not have bothered.” His expression turned distant, his thoughts going where she couldn’t follow.

Asrial cursed her curiosity for waking yet another unhappy memory. She just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

The
Castel
emerged
from Jump on the outskirts of the approach lanes, far enough to be safe. The Eskarion Ring flashed steadily in the distance, the interstellar trade’s heart disgorging ship after ship with each scintillating pulse. The enormous structure was the Xerex sector’s gateway to the Inner Worlds, connecting the Rim to the Cyri sector, and the main booster of Xer and Cyrian wealth. Rings gave a corporation virtual control over interstellar trade in the sectors where the Rings were located. The cost of construction was more than any planetary government could justify.

As they got closer, a galaxy of lights became visible on the far side of the Ring—the inbound traffic headed for the Inner Worlds awaiting their turn. More light flashed farther out, ships headed toward one of the Ring’s satellite stations that flourished around the Ring catering to the transit traffic.

Romir leaned toward the screen, lips parted, staring with unabashed wonder at the endless flow of galactic trade. Never had he looked more like a grounder than now.

How would he react to the sentients on the stations? Space held an odd assortment of races. Except for Tehld with their telepathic hive groups, most larger ships had mixed crews. Perhaps a word of warning was called for.

Asrial commed the Ring’s admin to add the
Castel
to the inbound queue. They gave her a slot three days hence by Ring standard—not great, but she’d had longer waits. It was better than the alternative. With only the
Castel
’s jump drive, she couldn’t hope to reach the Inner Worlds in her lifetime.

She changed course to head for Eskarion 14. Of the nine stations in the Eskarion constellation on the Rim side, it had the best mix of low docking fees, cheap food, and good security. There were cheaper docking bays on some of the other stations, but the ships patronizing those usually had crews that were . . . less than aboveboard. With her hold full of Majian relics, she preferred not to throw temptation in their path.

The approach to Eskarion 14 was the usual orderly chaos as cargo ships, traders, and personal craft converged on the sprawling station. Time and expansion had added to the original structure, obscuring the three-ringed cylinder favored by the designers of the iBor corporation. All the rings now sprouted irregular arms that stretched more than the cylinder’s length.

A bay was immediately available, allowing Asrial to dock without undue delay. While the
Castel
wasn’t as small as those sleek one-man ships, it fitted inside without difficulty, unlike the larger traders that required an outside slot with external hard points and boarding tubes.

Even before the bay door was sealed and the clamps and linkages were green, her focus had shifted to the supplies she needed.

The stations operated around the clock and always on “daytime.” The commercial levels hadn’t observed night cycles for as long as Asrial could remember. With all the ships passing through, their shipboard clocks set to different times, there was no lack of people wanting to buy something, and the stations were organized to sell it to them. Downtime was lost profit for the conglomerates that owned the constellations.

But before she could tackle replenishing her supplies, she had to do something about Romir. She considered his appearance carefully as she shrugged into her jacket. “You’ll draw attention if you walk the station dressed like that.”

It would be a pity to hide that chest, but only pleasure bods showed that much skin. She’d rather not spend her time fending off offers for his services, but the alternative would be to leave him on the
Castel
while she bought suitable attire. While she accepted that he was a djinn, the thought of leaving anyone alone on her ship turned her stomach.

“How should I dress?” Romir’s calm acceptance of her decision only underscored the difference between him and most men of her acquaintance. His demeanor made the back of her neck itch. Pleasure bods were similarly complaisant.

Using the comp, she accessed the station net to check the clothes shops. She could have something delivered, but the fees for the service made her wince. “I think something like that.” She settled on an ordinary pair of pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and boots—typical spacer gear and entirely unexceptionable.

She turned to him to gauge his size and stared.

Romir was now garbed exactly as the figure on the comp’s screen, the loose pants he’d worn nowhere in sight. He ran a hand over a sleeve, smoothing down the bland, gray green fabric. “Better now?”

“Well,” she temporized, trying to act as if nothing unusual had happened, “if you can do something about your hair, it’d be perfect.”

Grimacing, he gathered the long tresses and plaited them into a thick, elaborate braid that ended halfway down his back—he still wouldn’t pass for a spacer, but he was no longer quite so obviously a grounder. “I can alter my garb but not my hair. Part of my limits is this form. I cannot change so much as a strand from when I was made djinn.”

Asrial stared at the result. Except for his dark skin, he looked just like any other spacer—at least from the front. “That will do.”

Leaving the
Castel
with a man by her side felt strange. She’d been alone for so long that she didn’t know how to treat Romir. More than acquaintance, not quite crew, less than family.

He watched her check and double-check the telltales of her security, confirming they were online and functioning properly. “Is there a problem?”

She flushed, embarrassed by her display of paranoia but not so much that she stopped. After all, the contents of the hold were sufficient justification. “Not really, just cautious.”

Lockdown confirmed, they headed out, Asrial finding unlookedfor comfort in his companionship. A woman alone, even one who could defend herself, was always at risk, especially in the Rim. By his mere presence, Romir reduced that danger.

First, she needed a comm console to message Amin. He’d need the catalog of the contents of the
Castel
’s hold to contact interested buyers. If there was sufficient interest, he would arrange for an auction, and that required some travel time, since auctions included personal inspection of the goods by the buyers or their representatives. She used to handle those arrangements herself, but now that he was acting as her agent, she had to concede a portion of her independence. His pride was at stake. Anyway, she found she liked not having to handle that bit of business. Amin was also able to keep track of the market for relics while she was in the Rim; he could get a better price for her finds.