Chained (Brides of the Kindred) (6 page)

“Oh my God…” She put a hand to her
forehead. “Why am I always getting myself into these kinds of messes? I just
wanted to keep her from hurting you—I never meant to commit Grand Theft
Slave…or whatever they call it here.”

“Too late for regrets, blondie.” Kor
stretched, working out the kinks in his muscles, and took a deep, cleansing
breath. “What’s done is done and I’m a free male, thanks to you. Don’t worry
about the hovercar,” he continued, seeing her worried look. “There are plenty
of rich mistresses around here who won’t even notice one of their cars has gone
missing for days. By that time we’ll be long gone.”

“In…separate directions?” she asked
uncertainly.

“Of course,” he lied smoothly, although he
had no intention of letting her go. He needed to make sure she was safe—and how
could he do that if he just let her walk off? No, she needed to stay with him,
at least for now.

“All right,” she said at last,
reluctantly. “I guess if you—”

Just then the door to his cell banged
open, revealing a livid Lady Pope’nose.

“I knew it!” she hissed, glaring at
Maggie. “I just
knew
you’d get up to something you little fraud! And now
you’re going to pay!”

Chapter Five

“Oh! Lady Pope’nose!” Maggie gasped,
putting a hand to her galloping heart. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking on
you.”
Lady Pope’nose glared at her. “I had a premonition that you
might try something like this. After your ridiculously soft-hearted display
yesterday evening, I knew you wouldn’t rest until you’d caused trouble.”

Maggie put up her hands. “Look, I know how
this looks and I admit, I was setting your slave free. But the way you were
treating him—”

“Is nothing to what I’m going to do to
you.”
Without warning, Lady Pope’nose strode forward and slapped her hard, across
the face. “How
dare
you?” she hissed. “How
dare you touch another
woman’s slave?”

Maggie opened her mouth to answer—although
she had no idea what she was going to say—but just then she became aware of a
low, rumbling sound in the room. Looking to one side, she saw it was Kor—he was
growling.
Even worse, his formerly pale blue eyes were glowing a hot,
burning red.

What the hell? What’s
going on with him?

“Leave her the
fuck
alone. If you touch her again, you die.” Kor’s voice was deep
and menacing, filled with the warning of a wild beast about to attack.

“Shut your mouth, slave—I’ll deal with you
later,” Lady Pope’Nose snapped dismissively. Apparently she was so focused on
Maggie she hadn’t noticed either his eyes or the fact that his collar was gone.
Pointing a finger at him while still looking at Maggie she said,
“Trab!”

“That doesn’t work on me.” Kor took a step
toward his former mistress, towering over her. “Not anymore.”

“What?” She finally looked at him and when
she did, her eyes went wide. “You fool,” she gasped at Maggie. “You removed
both his pain collar
and
his inhibitor? Do you have any idea what you’ve
done? Any idea of how dangerous he is? He’ll kill us both!”

“No.” Kor’s deep voice was deceptively
mild but his eyes were burning again, hotter and redder than ever as he stared
at Lady Pope’nose. “Just you,
my lady,”
he said to her.

“Kor, what—” Maggie began but just then a
beam of pure red energy shot from both his eyes.

Acting without thinking, Maggie pushed
Lady Pope’nose aside just in time. The skinny Yonnite sprawled on the floor and
Maggie fell on top of her.

“What is wrong with you? Get off me!”
sputtered Pope’nose.

“In a minute,” Maggie said distractedly.
She was busy looking back. On the spot where Lady Pope’nose had been standing,
there was a deep hole carved into the rock. It looked like someone had taken a
laser and blasted a trench in the solid stone. “My God,” she whispered, staring
up at Kor. Maybe Lady Pope’nose was right about him after all. He wasn’t just
big and strong and violent—he had freaking
laser beams for eyes.

“Maggie…” He took a step toward her. His
eyes had gone back to normal but she shrunk back anyway. “Maggie, what the
hell?” He shook his head. “You know that wasn’t meant for you. I’m not even
sure where it came from.”

“It came from your
eyes,
you
monster!” Lady Pope’nose spat helpfully. “I swear if I had known how truly
dangerous and demented you are I would have let them kill you!”

“You nearly
did
kill me with your constant
torture and your fucking verium,” he growled and to Maggie’s horror, his eyes
were glowing again.

“I
should
have killed you,” Lady
Pope’nose proclaimed. “All I can say is that I overpaid for you by quite a
lot!”

“Shut
up!”
Maggie hissed at her,
elbowing her in her boney side. “You’re not helping yourself here—can’t you see
he’s getting mad again?”

Indeed, Kor’s eyes were glowing so
brightly they seemed to light up the dim room. “Maggie,” he growled. “Step away
from this murderous bitch. It’s time she got what she deserved.”

“No!” Maggie lifted her chin and stayed
where she was. “No,” she repeated.
“She may be a sadistic witch but I don’t believe in the death penalty. And
besides, I’m already committing Grand Theft Slave—I don’t need to add murder to
my list of crimes!”

“You don’t know the things she’s done. The
slaves she’s tortured and killed.” His voice was a low, menacing growl.

Maggie looked at him, trying not to let
the fear show in her face or shake her voice. “You know, that’s pretty much
what she said about you. But I came to rescue you, didn’t I? Everyone deserves
a second chance.”

“Why you—” Lady Pope’nose began but Maggie
slapped a hand over her skinny lips.

“Please, Kor,” she said, looking up at
him. “Please—I don’t want you to kill her.”

He took a deep breath and the red glow
began to fade from his eyes. “You really
are
courageous to stand between
The Demon and his kill,” he murmured. He crossed his arms over his bare chest,
which made his muscles bulge in a most distracting way. “All right, blondie.
I’m pretty sure you’ll regret it but I’ll spare her life—only because you
spared mine.”

Inwardly, Maggie breathed a sigh of
relief. “Thank you.”

“Welcome. But if you let her go free,
we’ll never get out of here. So what do you suggest?”

“Well…” Maggie took a look around and her
eyes happened to fall on the discarded pain collar and chains. “I have an
idea,” she said, smiling at Kor. “What do you say we give her a taste of her
own medicine?”

* * * * *

“I’m afraid Lady Pope’nose isn’t going to
be too happy for the next week,” Maggie remarked as they finally made their way
(very quietly) out of the huge opulent building her hostess lived in. The busy
street was quiet for once, almost devoid of traffic in the early morning dawn.

“She got what she deserved—and then some.”
Kor smiled, remembering his former mistress’s sputtered demands and protests as
he had fitted her with the pain collar and chains and poured a scoop of verium
on her head. The broken inhibitor he had folded up and put into the pocket of
the new slave pants he now wore.

Maggie had wanted to get out of the house
immediately but as the rest of the household appeared to be still asleep, Kor
had taken a moment to survey Lady Pope’nose’s assets and steal a new outfit
from the slaves’ laundry. His new pants were made of black leather and were
uncomfortably tight in places—obviously he was bigger than most of his former
mistress’s slaves—but at least they didn’t scream “escaped slave.” His new
black boots were likewise tight but the leather was stretching nicely.

“Hopefully her slaves will think she’s at
the spa. No one should find her before the week is out,” he remarked.

“They’d better not.” Maggie sounded
anxious.

“You wishing you’d let me kill her?” He cast
a sidelong glance at her.

Maggie flinched. “No—of course not!”

Kor shrugged. “All right. But the dead
don’t talk.”

“What are you, from the Mob?” she
demanded. “Were you some kind of assassin? Did you go around ‘whacking’ people
or something?”

“What?” Kor stared at her blankly.
“Nothing you just said made any damn sense.”

“I’m just saying…never mind.” Her eyes
flickered over him uncertainly and then she looked away.

Kor wondered what he’d said to upset her.
He was a warrior—he killed people. Was it really that difficult to understand?

A new thought intruded.
Maybe she’s
just upset because she’s scared half to death after I nearly blasted Pope’nose
to dust.

It was a sobering thought. Kor wasn’t sure
what the hell had happened with his eyes—all he remembered was feeling so angry
that he literally saw red. And then the blast of energy had come from him like
a shout of pure rage. He had felt like that before, when he was fighting in the
arena and he knew his eyes were said to glow when he was in a rage, but he
supposed the inhibitor had stopped anything from happening. Now he was without
it for the first time in years—what else might he be capable of?

But even more troubling than the situation
with his eyes was the fact that he had let a prospective kill escape. True, he
had never killed females—it was always males that he fought in the arenas of
the Blood Circuit—but he had been more than willing to make an exception in
Lady Pope’nose’s case. The bitch had done nothing but torture and taunt him the
entire time he was in her care and revenge had been the uppermost thought on
his mind. But one word from Maggie and he had softened, allowing his evil
former mistress off with no more than a week’s punishment. Why?

Was it because he didn’t want Maggie to be
afraid of him?
Was
she afraid
of him now? He cast a sidelong look at her and saw that she was looking at him
too. She looked quickly away.

“You all right?” he asked roughly.

“Um, fine. Just…just nervous,” she said
and gave a jagged little laugh. “I’ve never been a…a criminal before.”

“Take it from me,” Kor said dryly. “It’s
not so bad unless you’re caught.”

“I don’t
want
to be caught!”

“As long as we put enough distance between
Pope’nose and us, we’ll be fine,” he said, taking her hand. He was pleased when
she allowed it and didn’t pull away. “We just have to steal a car and get
off-planet.”

“What?” Her eyes widened and she yanked
her hand out of his. “I told you, I’m not going that far with you. I just need
to get to the chasm and then we can go our separate ways.”

Kor frowned. Fine, she wanted to leave—why
should it bother him? Except it did—a hell of a lot. He still wanted to keep
her with him at all costs. Not that he would let her know that.

“All right,” he said, stalling. “Say that
we part ways right now. How do you feel about that?”

“I…I feel fine.” Maggie lifted her chin.
“After all, it’s not like we really know each other. Not like we—”

“Dreamed of each other night after night?”
Kor asked softly. “Not like you risked your life to save me?”

“I…” She looked down, biting her lip in a
most distracting way and then pushed up the oculars which kept sliding down her
adorable little nose.

Oh yeah—there was no way in all the Seven
Hells Kor was letting her go.

“I’ll let you go on one condition,” he
told her. “If you can tell me the way to the chasm. Prove you know the way back
and I’ll leave you here and now and we’ll never see each other again.”

“I…um…” Maggie frowned. “That’s hardly
fair. I’ve never been in this city—never even been on this
planet
—before
yesterday.”

“Exactly.” He crossed his arms over his
chest. “So tell me the way. You know what—no,” he continued. “Just point in the
general direction of the chasm so I know you won’t get lost. That’s all I’m
asking.”

“Fine.” Maggie threw out an arm, pointing
down the long street outside the huge, opulent building they had just exited.
“It’s that way.”

“Yes.” Kor nodded, trying to suppress a
smile. “Yes, it is.”

“See, I told you I know where I’m going!”
Maggie sounded so triumphant he hated to burst her bubble.

“It’s that way as long as you don’t mind
circumnavigating the entire planet to get there,” Kor said.

Her face fell. “You mean…”

“The shortest route to the chasm is
that
way.” He pointed in the exact opposite direction she had. “But I’m afraid it
leads through the prosti and porno district. I don’t think you’d be safe going
by yourself, blondie.”

“How do you even know all this? Yonnie Six
isn’t your home planet, is it?”

“No. But the Blood Circuit stops here.
That’s how Lady Pope’nose saw me the first time. She watched me kill six males
in a row in one match—it’s the reason she bought me.”

“You killed…six men in a row?” Maggie’s
voice was weak.

Kor shrugged. “I killed for a living. I
was a slave tied to the Circuit—winning matches made my master credit. Losing
them meant losing my life. I wanted to survive.” He hoped she could understand
but from the uncertain look on her face, she didn’t much like what she was
hearing.

“I—” she began but just then a voice
interrupted.

“Excuse me? Lady Pope’nose?” someone said.

“What? Where?” Maggie looked around her
wildly until Kor took her hand, more firmly this time, and whispered,

“I think it’s talking to you.”

“It?” She faced forward again and finally
saw what he was talking about. “Oh,” she said weakly. “What
is
that?”

“My apologies, Lady Pope’nose,” said the
alien creature, coming forward. It had eight waving tentacles and a bulbous
head covered in blue and green blotches. Its mouth appeared to be a shiny
purple beak but it lacked a nose as far as Kor could tell. He couldn’t see its
body very well because it was wearing a stiff black uniform with shiny gold
buttons but it moved with the boneless ease of a creature more suited to water
than land.