Hers To Cherish (Verdantia Book 3) (28 page)

Tok merely grinned and patted the head of the woman who knelt beside him. “Little slaaf, please fasten
Dominus
Narr into the cuffs. Go behind him. Don’t interfere with my aim.”

Intelligent, deep blue eyes glanced up to hold his ever so briefly. She nodded silently and did as he asked
, buckling the cuffs around Narr’s ankles and wrists so tightly Narr grimaced, then she stepped away and stood with head bowed.

“What to do with you,
Dominus
? Not hard, I think.” Tok removed a razor-edged knife from the wall, and systematically cut the clothes from Narr’s body
.
“I would be very still,
Dominus
. This blade is very keen and detail work is not my forte.”

When
Tok had reduced Narr to complete nudity, he chuckled and bounced Narr’s penis on the blade of the knife. “My limited intelligence says you won’t miss an appendage this...insignificant.”

Narr gasped as Tok cut a shallow slice into the base of his organ. Tok focused intently on Narr—so intently that the light touch on his arm startled him. He turned and looked down into the deep blue eyes of the
slaaf
who had bound Narr into the bondage X.

“Please,
Dominus
?” The beauty ran her hand down his arm to the knife and took it from him. Something in her tone made Tok turn. Every woman in the room was on her feet, eyes intent on the bound figure of Narr
.
Tok bowed and stepped back.

“Sisters?” the woman commanded.

In voiceless silence, each woman crossed to the walls where the tools for the torture of living flesh were arrayed, selected one for themselves and then glided toward Narr. Now their vacant eyes held expression and the malevolence made even the thick, swarthy skin of the Khlossian crawl.

“Release me and I’ll make you the wealthiest man on your planet. Whatever you want, name it. Khlossian...you are a male...don’t let them do this. You’re a male, just like me, Khlossian!”

Tok shook his head slowly. “I’m nothing like you.” The blue-eyed
slaaf
looked at Tok with an unspoken question. He nodded and smiled in return. “No need to make his death pleasant or quick. Take your time.”

She bowed her head in obeisance. “As you command,
Dominus
.”

Tok turned and left the chamber, closing and locking the
soundproofed doors. Even so, Narr’s muted screams followed him down the hallway.

When he got back to the CP lab, he drew his gun and entered cautiously, scanning for any threat. “
Angelica?” he rumbled when he saw no one. “Come out, little female.” The door to a cabinet along the wall cracked open and then Pansy slithered out onto the floor. She grasped the cabinet handle and pulled herself to a standing position.

“Steffania is here, Tok.” Pansy hopped over to a CP unit. She depressed the white button and the lip released. “I stopped the program running and she is conscious,
but not able to move. Narr used a muscle paralytic. It should wear off in a few hours, but she is helpless until then.”

Tok walked over
and carefully picked Steffania up. “Did you find her clothes, little female?”

Pansy nodded.

“Dress her quickly, and then we must go.” Tok rumbled in a soft laugh. “I will be your mule.”

“What is the plan?”

“We have ten minutes until the LFP battleships and cruisers start a full-out invasion. My people will land just outside the perimeter fence on the east side by the gun towers. We will meet them there.” Tok paused and shrugged. “Hopefully Narr’s guns will be occupied with the LFP.”

Ramsey regained consciousness and lay
motionless for a few minutes, trying not to vomit from the spike of pain rending his skull in half. He was reluctant to open his eyes but he needed to know where he was. Last thing he remembered was...
oh, gods
...
Steffania.
He cracked his eyelids a slit.
Shit, the light.
He held his hand up to shield his eyes. He lay in a bed in some sort of med-bay. A force cuff shackled his other wrist to the bed frame.

“Doc, the Verdantian is conscious.” A
young male voice sounded close to his left and he rolled his head to see. He made out an LFP naval uniform before he closed his eyes in surrender to the pain. An involuntary groan left his lips.

“Give him
twenty milliliters Colusol for nausea and ten of Dortrol for pain.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ram felt pressure on his upper chest and heard the distinctive
schlott
of an inoculator. A hand patted his shoulder. “Should be feeling like a human in a minute or two, fella.”

Ram lay as still as possible and waited for the drugs to kick in. “What happened?” He didn’t recognize the croak as his voice.

“You held an 88K to the head of Lieutenant Commander Garner and demanded he set the ship down while interphazar cannons pounded your ass. Since Sergeant Luv’elle didn’t want to die like that, he hit you with a pulse emitter. You took a full stun.” The male voice paused for a moment. “They make us experience that in boot camp. The hangover will make you puke your guts.”

“Where am I?”

“Med-bay, aboard the LFP cruiser
Foray
, outward bound to Verdantia.” Again the hand patted his shoulder. “Relax and enjoy the ride, buddy. As soon as you can walk, I’ve orders to escort you to the brig. After the stunt you pulled on the away team on the transport shuttle, Capt’n doesn’t trust you.”

A couple of hours later, Ram knew that his cell was four steps by six steps and if he stretched out diagonally, he could do pushups.
A narrow cot lined one wall with a flip down sink and commode in the opposite corner. A clear force field gave him a view of the other side of the corridor but otherwise all he saw was metal wall plate, rivets and grey paint. Since the view of the other side of the corridor was metal wall plate, rivets and grey paint, he didn’t have much variety.

He decided after
four days that he had died and lived in some metal-walled version of the seven hells. The worst part was not the boredom. It was his imagination. Over and over he remembered the firefight and agonized over Steffania’s fate. Had she hidden until the LFP invaded? Had Narr captured her? Ram imagined what Narr might do to her – and he had an excellent imagination. The scenarios he envisioned gutted him. What if Narr mind-wiped her?
Hell’s breath, I hope Tok got her out.
But, the GAPS agent had his own agenda and no matter how kindly he viewed the Verdantians, he’d put that first.

During the endless nights,
when Ramsey
could
sleep, he dreamed of her. In unconscious sleep, his body sought her place in the bed next to him and he awakened when he crashed into the cold metal deck. As he lay on his back staring at the ceiling only the vibrating throb of the deck reminded him he was aboard the
Foray
and not enduring some hellish afterlife. Not much difference at this point.

He swore to himself as soon as he got to Verdantia
, he would beg, borrow or steal a ship and go back for Steffania – and hope and pray that she remained the tempestuous, volatile beauty with whom he had fallen in love. And he did love her. He knew he didn’t deserve her. He had no illusions about that. But he was too selfish to care anymore. Whatever it took, he was keeping her and he’d move heaven and hell to make her happy.

As he lay in his bunk day after day, a cold anger built within him toward Ari DeTano
. It almost rivaled his hatred of himself for insisting Steffania accompany him. The Verdantian High Lord should never have sent
any
woman to a planet like Vxloncia.
Never.
Ramsey made himself another promise. Ari DeTano would suffer some of the pain Ramsey Melborn DeKieran felt.

Ramsey had been working through martial exercises
to keep fit when he noticed a cessation of sound and vibration. The engines had stopped. He straightened from the one-legged crouch he had been maintaining when the same orderly who had been bringing his meals stopped in front of his cell.

“We have docked at the Verdantian port of
Arkodaenia. We’ve been instructed to hold you for High Lord DeTano.” The young man created an opening in the force shield and passed a shaving kit to Ram. “Thought you might want to look like something other than a space renegade for that interview.”

“Thanks.” Ram nodded and took the wrapped items. “How long?”

“Before DeTano is here?”

Ram nodded.

“Not long. We transmitted our ETA when we left Vxloncian orbit. Lady Alessa DeAlbero has already disembarked. She wanted to thank you in person but your medicos hustled her out so quickly there wasn’t time. So, on behalf of Lady DeAlbero, ‘thanks’.”

Ramsey grunted
and asked the same question he’d asked the orderly every time he’d seen him. “Any news?” He kept hoping to hear that Narr had been shut down and Steffania was on her way home.

The young orderly
eyed him with sympathy but shook his head. “’fraid not. Sorry. Still no Vxloncian updates – which we’ve heard at any rate.”

Ram held up the shaving kit. “Well
, thanks for this.”

The young orderly grinned. “Anytime.”

Ram had his back to the force shield while he shaved off the remnants of his beard. He heard a low buzz and then a familiar voice.

“Good job getting back with Lady DeAlbero. Here is your pardon
, signed, as promised.”

Out of the corner of his eye
, Ramsey saw a scroll bounce on his bunk. Ram splashed water on his face, wiped it with a towel and then threw the towel into the sink. He propped on the rim of the basin then straightened and turned.

Ari DeTano had released the force shield and was the only thing standing between Ramsey and freedom.

“Have you heard anything about Captain Rickard?” Ram eyed Ari and watched DeTano return his examination. Ram suspected DeTano read as much from his face as Ramsey read from Ari’s – nothing.

“You look like hell, Lord DeKieran
. No. No word. I’ve been in contact with the LFP. They have implemented a planet-wide search for Captain Rickard. We will find her.”

Ram grunted in acknowledgment. He took the rolled cylinder off the bed
and stowed it carefully in the inside pocket of his jacket. He stepped to within a few inches of DeTano and drove the full force of his body behind a punch to the man’s face. Ari staggered back until stopped by the corridor wall. He crumpled down the mental plate to a sitting position and put his hand to his jaw.

“Hells, DeKieran. What the fuck?”

“That was for Steffania. You should never have let her step foot on Vxloncia.”

Ramsey mindlessly shouldered his way through
ship crewmen as he left the
Foray
and tromped down the gangway. In another few steps, he would blend with the thousands milling through the busy port of Arkodaenia. Determination to find the port master and hire a ship to return to Vxloncia spurred him on as if it were a matter of life or death. For him, it was. He had promised his vixen he would come back for her and he was going to keep his promise. What he would say to her when he found her was another matter entirely. How could he convince her he couldn’t live without her? He had left her behind to face almost certain death – or worse.

“
Verdantian. In your haste to leave Vxloncia, you left some valuables behind. I retrieved them for you.”

Ram stopped dead and turned
. The huge Khlossian leaned against a nearby wall and grinned at him. Ram’s preoccupation had been such that he’d walked right by the behemoth.
How could I have missed him?
He choked out the words. “Where is she?”

Tok aimed
a kind look his way. “Sorry, Verdantian. Not here. She and the little female, Pansy, are in a CP-recovery center on Talleo IV.”

“A
recovery center? Was she...?” His worst fears flooded him and a weight settled in his chest.

Tok straightened from the wall. “Narr dumped her into a CP bed, but she hadn’t been there long before Angelica—she whom you called Pansy—disabled the program. Come. Your port-master is tired of my empty ship taking up valuable slip space. And I am tired of haunting every arrival gangway in this piss-ant, backwater port. Let’s go get your woman.”

As Ramsey followed Tok to his ship’s docking slip, he swiped the heel of his hand at the suspicious moisture gathering in his eyes.
Shit.
His relief unmanned him. “Tok?” The Khlossian grunted but kept walking. “Did you get Narr?”

Tok’s grinding chuckle resounded in the air. “A good story, Verdantian.
You will enjoy it and it’s best told over a bottle of spirits. Come.”

The past three weeks, shoe-horned with Tok into what amounted to a personal runabout, strained Ramsey’s frayed disposition. But his gratitude to the behemoth was such that he held his temper and his tongue under vicious restraint. It made for some stilted conversation, but Tok never lost his affable manner. Though the days stretched ten years long, they finally arrived on Talleo IV.