Fallen Star (10 page)

But everybody always left ... everybody.

Her breath rushed out on a sob then refused to return. She couldn’t catch her breath, she couldn’t breathe. Panic engulfed her. Her breath returned in a rush only to leave her on a scream. “Sobehk!” Tears burned down her cheeks. “Don’t leave me!”

Somewhere at her feet she heard hurried footsteps. Her heart leaped with hope.

“Isabeau?” The voice wasn’t Sobehk’s.

Disappointment slammed her back down. She swallowed past the ache in her throat. “Who’s there?”

The footsteps moved to her side. His scent was rich and vaguely familiar.

“
Sehnbay’syr
Tah. Are you all right?”

Oh, right, the master-surgeon
. “Where’s Sobehk?” She twisted in the harness and winced against the pain stabbing her skull.

“He’s recovering from surgery.”

She stilled. “He’s alive?”

“Very much so.”

“Thank the Maker.” Every drop of energy washed out of her body and she collapsed into the harness’s embrace.

A cool hand pressed against her face. “How do you feel?”

Like shit
. Fallon groaned. “Do you have anything for a headache?”

“Just a moment.”

Fallon felt something press against the inside bend of her elbow. There was a slight hydraulic hiss. Her headache faded. She sighed in relief. “Thank you. Can I see him?”

Tah took a deep breath. “Are you hungry?”

Fallon opened her mouth to say “not really,” and her stomach seized up on her. She bucked in the harness, trying to fold in half, and moaned. She was starving. Blood and hell, hunger never hurt this bad! She panted for breath. “Now that you mention it, do you have any deep fried bovines on you? Preferably a whole one?”

The master-surgeon chuckled dryly. “I have
A’syr
Mohr with me. He’s brought you some dinner.”

Fallon sniffed. Something smelled warm, meaty, and delicious. Her stomach gurgled in demand. She blinked into the darkness. How was she supposed to eat like this? “How come it’s so dark in here?”

Tah’s fingers brushed her arm. “It is not dark. You’re temporarily sightless.”

Fallon frowned. “You blinded me? What for?”

The master-surgeon’s cool hand grasped her fingers. “Blinding is standard procedure for all
rehkyt
in processing.”

“Oh ... When can I see Sobehk?”

Tah removed his hand and clothing rustled. “Tomorrow you will be brought to medical to speak with
A’syr
Sobehk.”

Fallon’s felt a sudden chill. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, you are not.” Tah’s voice came from the vicinity of her feet. “You were quite obviously acting on your impression.” He sighed. “However, there are ... complications.”

That didn’t sound good at all. “What complications?” And what in bloody fury was this damned impression thing they kept mentioning?

“Eat your dinner and be good, Isabeau. Everything will work out just fine.” His footsteps receded.

Fallon took a breath to call him back.
What complications, damn it?
She groaned instead. “Why can’t somebody just give me a fucking straight answer around here?”

Someone chuckled. “Hungry?” The masculine voice was at her left ear.

Fallon jumped. She didn’t recognize the voice.
Oh, that must be
A’syr
Mohr.
He was the one with the food. She relaxed. “Starved, but ...” She frowned and tugged at her bound wrists. “How am I supposed to eat like this? I can’t even see!”

He chuckled. “I’ll set you upright so you don’t choke.”

Fallon blinked. “Okay.” Upright would definitely be an improvement over being flat on her back ... and defenseless. She waited for him to do something about whatever was binding her wrists so she could sit up.

The rig vibrated and the whole thing moved until her feet were in the direction of the floor.

“Better?”

“Uh, sure.” She sucked on her bottom lip. Oh, yeah, what an improvement. She was upright, but still bound hand and foot. Oddly, she didn’t feel quite so defenseless.

“I’m putting the food to your lips. Open and swallow.”

Something pressed against her mouth. She opened and a cube of something juicy and delicious was pushed in.
Food at last!
She attempted to chew, but her teeth wouldn’t let her jaw move side to side. Her fangs overlapped, keeping her jaw locked in one position. She tried again and stabbed her bottom lip.

“Don’t try to chew it!” Mohr chuckled. “Swallow it.”

Fallon shifted it to the side of her mouth. “Swallow it? Whole?”

“Yes. Your teeth are not designed for chewing.”

“Huh ...” She struggled to chew what she had in her mouth then finally gave up and swallowed it. It lodged in her throat like a rock then something in the very base of her throat seemed to close around it, crushing it smaller. It passed into her stomach with ease. She sighed in relief. “So what
are
my teeth designed for?”

“Biting.” Another morsel of food was pressed to her lips. “Open.”

Biting? Great ...
She opened and swallowed. Eating swiftly developed into a new kind of torture. She couldn’t chew and she couldn’t wipe her chin when it dribbled. For some reason, the dribbling annoyed the piss out of her more than the inability to chew.

“You’re scowling.” A soft cloth swiped across her chin. “Is something wrong?”

Fallon turned her head away from the next bit of food and licked her lips. “Why am I tied up like this? Why can’t I see?”

Footsteps moved away then returned. “All the
rehkyt
are blinded and harnessed. It’s for their safety.”

“I wasn’t before.”

“But you should have been on your arrival.
Rehkyt
are not supposed to see their captors.”

Fallon turned toward his voice. “It was kind of hard to avoid seeing him. He tracked me for three days.”

“So I heard.” A warm moist cloth landed then slid across her shoulders.

She jumped and her heart thumped in alarm. There wasn’t a damned thing she could do to avoid it. She heaved a sigh in defeat.

The cloth skimmed across her breasts. “Most targets don’t even know they are being stalked until they’re taken. We blind them at capture and set them in harness before we begin processing. You, on the other hand, were dosed by your taker before you arrived.”

“Among other things.” Fallon shivered with the visceral memory of being taken over the saddle of Sobehk’s glider. Illicit heat stirred in her belly. “I understand the rig ...” She was a prisoner after all. “Why the blindness?”

“
Rehkyt
are blinded to avoid accidental impression.” Mohr’s hands drifted up to the metal band of her collar. “They’re allowed their sight when they meet their masters for the first time.”

Fallon shivered slightly. “What in bleeding fury is ‘impression’? I keep hearing it, but I don’t get it.”

Mohr sighed softly and his fingers lifted from her throat. “Impression is the physical dependency a
rehkyt
has for their master.”

Fallon stilled. Physical
dependency?

His fingers slid down her arm to the straps around her left wrist. “We blind
rehkyt
because they will often imprint on the first person they see when they complete processing. The procedure makes them emotionally unstable and imprint-vulnerable. Compare it to hatchlings that will claim the first thing they see as their parent.”

Fallon shook her head. “But I’m not a hatchling, I’m a human!”

“You are
not
human.” Mohr snorted. “You are
rehkyt
. A creature designed specifically for carnal pleasure.”

Carnal pleasure, my ass ...
Fallon set her teeth. She’d heard enough. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re quite welcome. Are you ready to sleep?”

Fallon frowned. “I don’t know if I can ...” A huge yawn interrupted her. “On second thought ...”

Mohr chuckled. “Sleep well and sleep deeply, Isabeau.”

Fallon smiled sourly. “I’ll do my best.” Her augmentations buzzed just a tiny bit.
Was that the collar?
She was sucked under before her thought completed.

* * * * *

There were people talking.

Isabeau started awake.

“Oh, sensitive!”

“The chart says feral.”

Hands stroked her arms.

She jumped.

“That would explain her reactions.”

Hands closed tight around her upper arms.

“Relax. No one’s going to hurt you.”

They unfastened her and pulled her from the harness. The metal floor was warm under her bare feet.
Hot damn!
Her hands were tugged together at the base of her neck.

“Keep your hands there.”

Fallon’s augmentations locked them in place. She groaned in disappointment and stretched. She was still utterly blind, but at least she was out of the rig. “Am I going to see Sobehk?”

There was a shared chuckle. “Not just yet.”

Abruptly they switched languages.

Fallon sighed. If they didn’t want to talk to her ... well, fine. Her translator had a hard time understanding their language, but the bulk of it came through pretty clearly. It wasn’t anything momentous. They were chatting inanely about people and places she didn’t know. Thank the Maker she had done some tinkering with her programs or she wouldn’t have picked up a word.

Hands caught hold of her upper arms and tugged.

Now what?

They marched her out of the room and down the hall. She was turned to the left and they entered a room that smelled strongly of water and soap.
A facility?
She heard a hissing spray and then hot water spilled across her. She yelped in surprise and jumped under their hands.

“Watch it! Don’t let her fall.”

“I have her. Get the soap.”

Hands and cloths moved over her entire body, cleaning every last finger and toe, and everything in between. It smelled like there were only two of them, and she only heard two voices, but it sure as damnation felt like there were a lot more. And she couldn’t move a bleeding inch to avoid them!

Something was smeared in intimate places only to be rinsed away, taking intimate hair with it. Tubes went in to clean areas that had never seen cleaning before, triggering bodily functions of the most embarrassing kind.

One of them chuckled. “I don’t think she likes this.”

“Think not?” The other snorted. “She’s only been growling since the water started.”

Fallon stiffened.
Growling?
There
was
a low-grade rumble in her chest. She stopped it, but it took effort.

They stilled.

“Does she have her language downloads?”

“Not according to her chart.”

One of them leaned closer to her ear. “Pet, would you like your nipples pierced with pretty little rings?”

My nipples pierced?
Fallon jerked back, not that it did any good.

“Well, well. Someone has a talented translator.”

Fallon winced.
Shit ...
She shouldn’t have moved and given away that she knew what they were saying. But, damn it, it was freaking hard to hold still. It was like something had scoured away every drop of self-control she ever had.

The other one chuckled. “Relax, pet, this is only a bath. Wait till they send you to the groomers.”

“Don’t scare her! The poor thing is a nervous wreck already.”

Fallon scowled.
Poor thing, my ass. Get close enough for me to bite you, and I’ll show you a nervous wreck!

Her attendants continued bathing her with a disgusting amount of humor. She was moved this way and that as they scrubbed, pinched, prodded, and inserted oil-slicked fingers into embarrassing places.

They scrubbed her dry and rubbed some kind of scented cream into her skin, their strong fingers massaging her sore muscles. If it hadn’t been so damned humiliating, she might have actually enjoyed it. They buffed her finger and toenails and trimmed her hair. For some odd reason her hair seemed to be longer than just to her shoulders. From what she could feel, the stuff had grown long enough to reach almost the middle of her back.

When they finally headed out, Fallon was exhausted.

They walked down the hall and through a doorway. She smelled her own scent and cleaner. They had cleaned her room while she was gone. She did not want back in the harness, but she wasn’t given a choice.
Fucking control collar.

Someone walked in. It smelled like Mohr.

Fallon rolled her eyes. It was getting to be a serious pain in the ass identifying people by their body odor. Damn it, she wanted her sight back.

“Well, now, that is much better.” It was Mohr, all right, and he sounded insufferably cheerful.

“Thank you, we do try,” one of them said dryly.

“Were you aware that her translator is picking up Skeldhi?”

Fallon ground her teeth.
Tattletale
.

“Really? How interesting.” Mohr didn’t sound cheerful anymore. “I wonder how much?”

“From what we could tell, quite a bit.”

“I see.” Mohr sounded positively annoyed.

Fallon felt a completely irrational sense of triumph. She bit down on her lip trying to hold back a sudden smile, and almost pierced herself with her fangs.

Mohr moved to Fallon’s side. “Go to sleep, Isabeau. Now.”

The command brought a sizzle through her augmentation. He’d used the damned collar.
The shit ...
Fallon had time to take another breath and sleep sucked her under.

Chapter Nine

Fallon awoke stiff and fuzzyheaded for no good reason whatsoever. Her nose barely had time to register that Mohr was in the room with her, when she felt something being unplugged from her data jack. Swiftly and efficiently, he unfastened her from the rig. Groggy and blind, Fallon was shoved onto her feet and her hands pulled to the small of her back.

“Keep them there.”

Her arm augmentations jolted slightly, locking her hands in place.
Damn it.
She groaned. There was a nagging bruise in the middle of her chest that she couldn’t rub because her hands were trapped behind her.