Lauren swallowed with an audible click. “Caged like…like animals?”
“Exactly.” He nodded shortly. “By the time a female was ready to be bred, there were usually multiple males vying for her.”
Lauren frowned. “So what—she had to pick one?”
Xairn shook his head. “If only it were that simple. But the female in question never had a say in the matter—the males would decide it among themselves.”
“How?”
“A fight to the death. Sometimes as many as a thousand males would enter the battle but only one would emerge victorious to claim the female.” Xairn closed his eyes for a moment. Gods, she would think he was a monster when he was finished telling her the practices of his people. But if it was the only way to keep her out of danger he had no choice. “Then the winner would take her home and put the marks of possession on her,” he said.
“Marks…marks of possession?” Her voice was soft and uncertain. “What are those?”
“The Kindred are content to scent mark their females,” Xairn said in a low voice. “But there are other, darker marks of ownership the Scourge place on their females. Those are the marks of possession.”
“But what exactly are they?” Lauren still looked more interested than frightened which wasn’t good as far as Xairn was concerned.
Determined to drive his point home, he grabbed her roughly by the upper arms and pulled her closer, so that she was standing between his thighs, facing him. Her sweet scent drew him like a drug but he forced himself to ignore her effect on him.
“First, a collar.” He placed his hand on her neck, his long fingers spanning her slender throat easily. Lauren’s eyes widened and he could feel her entire body trembling but to her credit, she didn’t pull away. “Then a brand,” Xairn continued. “Here or here.” He touched the inner curve of her hip and the upper slope of her ass. “After that—”
“Wait—there’s more?” Lauren looked at him in disbelief.
Xairn nodded. “After that,” he continued, “She was pierced.”
“Pierced?” Her voice trembled. “Where? I’m guessing you don’t mean her ears.”
“Here.” Though the garment she was wearing was oversized, Xairn could still see the ripe points of her nipples pressing against the silvery fabric. He brushed his fingertips over them lightly, drawing a gasp from Lauren. “And here,” he murmured harshly, letting his hand drift down to brush the tender V of her sex.
Lauren gasped again and jumped back. “You…you’re kidding me.”
“I wish that I was.” Xairn sighed and ran a hand over his hair. “But all that was simply a prelude to the torture that was to come.”
“A prelude? Being caged, branded and pierced was a prelude?” Lauren shook her head. “What could possibly be worse?”
“Bonding sex.” Xairn rose and began to pace the room. It wasn’t very large so there wasn’t much room to pace but he felt like he had to move or he would go mad.
“What is that, exactly?” she asked.
“A mark that never fades—one that causes a permanent mental and emotional connection.” Xairn stopped and looked at her. “Do you want to know how it’s done by my people?”
“I…I don’t—”
“Fine. I’ll tell you.” He began pacing again. “The male would chain his newly won female to the bed. Arms and legs wide, for easier access. After various inventive sexual tortures, he would straddle her and force her to suck his primary shaft.”
“Wait—hold on. His primary shaft?” Lauren frowned. “How many, uh, shafts does a Scourge have?”
Xairn raised an eyebrow. “Don’t human males have more than one shaft?”
“One is usually enough,” she said dryly. “Are you saying you have more than one?”
“We have two. The secondary, which can be used for non-bonding sexual activity and the primary which is only for bonding sex.”
Her eyes widened. “What, like side by side or—?”
“The primary shaft sits above the secondary,” Xairn explained. “Unless it’s properly stimulated, it remains small and inactive.”
“So what…” She coughed. “What happens during, uh, bonding sex then?”
“With both shafts engorged, a Scourge male is able to fill his female completely—both front and back.” Xairn gave her a level look. “I trust you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Lauren nodded and he thought that her normally warm brown skin looked pale. “So she’s tied to the bed and he—?”
“Fucks her,” Xairn said roughly. “Bonds her. He’s not gentle either. It takes a long, long time. And when he’s finished, if his female isn’t dead of blood loss or shock, she is his to do with as he pleases for the rest of her life.” He took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes. “Do you see now why I didn’t want to tell you? Why it isn’t a good thing that I have emotions for you?”
“God.” Lauren let out a shaky breath and sank down on the bed. “And you…” She looked up at Xairn. “Are you saying you’d want to…to do all those things to me?”
Xairn squeezed his eyes closed for a moment. Gods, how he hated himself at this moment! Himself and his whole twisted race. “Would I take pleasure in hurting you?” he said at last, looking at her. “Is that what you’re asking?”
Slowly, she nodded.
“I told you that I have no desire to cause you pain,” he said, coming to stand before her. Reaching down, he grasped her by her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She was so fragile in his hands—like a flower that could be snapped in two with one careless move. “But I have the same desire—the same need—to posses that all my people do,” he told her. “The need to claim—to mark—to own. I can never get away from it, Lauren. It’s in my blood.”
She looked up at him, her amber eyes wide with uncertainty and fear. “I get it. And if you’re trying to scare me, then congratulations—you’ve succeeded.”
“Good.” Xairn let her go abruptly and crossed to the other side of the room, putting some distance between them. He reached for the door.
“Wait—where are you going?” Lauren protested.
“Out.” Xairn threw her a glance over his shoulder. “These are close quarters. I need some air.”
“But…how long will you be gone? You’re not going to leave me here alone in this weird place, are you?” The pleading tone of her voice gripped Xairn’s heart like a fist.
“Of course not,” he said roughly. “I’m not leaving the alteration house. And I swear I’ll be back later tonight. You can have the sleeping platform—I will take the couch.” His hand was on the knob but her soft voice called him back.
“Xairn,” she said. “Please, I’m sorry you felt like you had to tell me all that but I still don’t believe you’re like…like—”
“Like the rest of my people?” he demanded. “But I am, Lauren. I told you because I needed you to see why nothing can ever happen between us. Why I can’t trust myself with you.”
“I trust you,” she said softly, lifting her chin to look him in the eyes. “Even if you don’t trust yourself.”
Xairn felt his heart clench like a fist. “You shouldn’t.” Before she could say anything else or try to stop him, he left.
It was the only safe thing to do.
Chapter Twelve
Lauren lay on the bed, curled in a ball after he left. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to think about home, about the fact that she’d be seeing her mother and walking on the warm, sandy Florida beaches very soon now.
But the images filling her mind were too disturbing.
Lauren wrapped her arms around herself protectively. God, the things Xairn had told her had been awful! And he’d spoken so dispassionately. His voice was utterly flat as he described the atrocities his race perpetrated against women. Clearly females were nothing more than property to them—to be won in barbaric contests and then marked like cattle.
But though his voice had been flat as he talked, his eyes had been b
urning. The way he’d looked at her when he spoke made it clear that each word hurt coming out. He didn’t want to tell me. Didn’t want me to think he was a monster.
Lauren sat up in bed and ran a hand through her long black hair. It felt rough and tangled and she wished for a hot bath and a hairbrush. He’s not a monster, she told herself forcefully. He’s protective and sweet and thoughtful. I know he would never hurt me.
But he’d admitted that he wanted to mark her as his—to put the ‘marks of possession’ on her. Lauren shivered. She supposed she could do the collar and maybe even the piercing—well, the nipple piercing, anyway. But there was no way she was going to let any man—no matter how much she was beginning to care for him—brand her or give her a piercing below the navel. There were lines she simply wasn’t willing to cross for anyone.
Well, she’d have to think about it later. Maybe talk to Xairn some more when he wasn’t in such a dark mood. Sighing, she got up and went to see about getting the hot bath she’d been longing for.
She was happy to find a small but luxurious bathroom with surprisingly Earth-like accommodations in the adjoining room. There was a recognizable toilet which looked completely normal except for being a startling shade of bright blue. A matching marble tub with gold taps sat in one corner and a shower stall in the same color stood across from it. There was even a plush purple robe hanging from a hook on the back of the door.
Lauren was glad to shed her scratchy silver-blue muumuu and put on the robe instead. It fell to her knees and felt as soft as feathers whispering against her bare skin. Then she turned to the tub and twisted one of the gold taps.
To her dismay, instead of water, a thick stream of what appeared to be bright pink oatmeal started pouring from the gold spout between the taps.
What the hell? She twisted the other tap but that only made the pink oatmeal flow faster. Already the bright blue tub was more than half full of what looked like psychedelic breakfast cereal. It was like the Quaker oat man had taken a dose of LSD and then decided to cook up some new flavor. Shocking strawberry, maybe.
Lauren twisted the knobs this way and than but with no result other than to completely fill the blue marble tub with the thick, viscous stuff. At last she got them turned off and stood there, her hands on her hips. The steam rising off the shocking pink oatmeal actually smelled pretty good—kind of flowery—but there was no way she was getting into it.
She was just going to try the shower instead when she heard a soft chiming at the door of the guest suite. Could it be Xairn coming back to continue their conversation?
Wrapping the plush purple robe more tightly around herself, Lauren ran to open the green door. She was disappointed, however, to see that it wasn’t Xairn. Instead, a creature which looked very much like a crane, completely with long, skinny legs and a feathered orange crest on its head nodded at her from behind a bulky black cart.
“Yes?” she said politely, keeping a firm hold on the door.
The creature said something in a strange, burbling language and nodded at the cart with its long orange beak.
“I’m sorry,” Lauren told it. “I don’t speak…whatever it is you’re speaking.”
The crane-thing raised one arm—it did have arms, not wings at least, Lauren noted—and tapped a small silver box it was wearing around its neck. When it spoke again, the burbling somehow became English.
“These are your evening comestibles, courtesy of Master Slk.”
“Oh—dinner!” Suddenly Lauren was famished. It had been hours and hours since her last Kindred food cube and her stomach was rumbling. “Great.” She nodded eagerly at the tray with its domed metal cover. “Bring it in.”
The stork-thing maneuvered the rolling cart into the small room with some difficulty, squeezing it between the bed and the couch. Then, with a flourish, it raised the lid from the tray and made her a short bow.
“Oh, uh…wow.” Lauren’s enthusiasm faded quickly. The food on the tray looked strange and smelled even stranger. There was a mound of blue stuff that stuck together rather like rice except the grains were four times as big. Beside it sat a thin cut of what appeared to be ivory meat marbled with olive green streaks. And to finish the meal, there was a goblet filled to the brim with something that looked like clear, watery Jell-O. It jiggled in a most unappetizing way when Lauren poked it.
“Only the finest comestibles for the guests of the House of Slk.” The stork creature sounded extremely proud to be serving her green streaked meat, giant blue rice and whatever the drink was.
“Thank you.” Lauren smiled weakly. “Um…what is it?”
“Thenolian slugs from the Serba region,” the stork said, pointing to the blue rice. “The prime cut of a venga’s brain pan,” pointing to the meat. “And your libation is purified slime from the wounds of a tren.”
“Uh…slugs, brain and slime? That’s what’s on the menu?” Lauren tried not to sound as horrified as she felt. God, this stuff made the weird Grieza worms from the Kindred food cubes look positively delicious. Suddenly homesickness washed over her so strongly she had to gulp back tears. All she really wanted was a thick slice of her mom’s meatloaf and homemade mashed potatoes with brown gravy. Instead she got this. She knew she probably ought to be grateful—obviously this was the O’ah version of a gourmet banquet. But it was all she could do not to retch at the sight of it.
“As I said, only the best for the guests of Master Slk,” the stork repeated, interrupting her dark thoughts. “Oh, but I almost forgot the most important part.”
“There’s more?” Lauren said weakly.
“Of course. Dessert.”
“Dessert?” She wondered what in the world it could be. Probably some kind of pie made of alien bug intestines if the rest of the meal was any indication.
“Dessert. A sweet confection eaten at the end of the meal,” the stork said, as though reciting a memorized definition. “We have no such thing in our culture, of course, but Master Slk told me that you do. He commanded me to bring you this.”
With another flourish, it produced a small platter from a lower level of the cart and thrust it right under Lauren’s nose.
Her first instinct was to recoil but before she could, a rich, familiar aroma assaulted her nose.
“Chocolate?” She looked down at the small platter and saw a thick, fudgy brown rectangle sitting on it. “A brownie? Is that a brownie?”
The stork nodded, its orange feathered crest rustling. “Master Slk said I must ask your pardon for it. He saw your liking for such confections inside your mind and commanded me to make it for you. He says to tell you he did not wish to pry, only to please.”
“Tell him he’s forgiven.” Eagerly, Lauren picked up the delicious looking brownie and raised it to her lips. She was almost afraid to try it for fear it wouldn’t taste as good as it looked and smelled. But another whiff of the heavenly, chocolate aroma did away with her hesitation. Carefully, she took a small nibble from one corner. The rich, delicious and, best of all, familiar flavor exploded across her tongue and she took another, larger bite. And then another and another.
Before she knew it there were nothing but a few fudgy crumbs left on the small platter. She looked at them in dismay—how in the world had she managed to inhale the brownie so quickly? Guilt poked at her—she should have saved half of it for Xairn. It was certainly a hell of a lot better than those horrible cardboard Poptarts he’d grown up eating on the Scourge Fathership.
I’ll make it up to him, she told herself, licking her fingers. I’ll make him some of my Deep Dark Devil’s-food cupcakes as soon as we get home.
In the mean time, she was beginning to feel warm and sleepy and content. Though she’d been wishing for a bath earlier, that somehow no longer seemed like a priority. Now all she wanted to do was lay down and sleep.
“I trust it was to your satisfaction?”
The stork’s voice startled her. It had been standing as still as a statue, watching her polish off the brownie, and Lauren ha
d almost forgotten it was there at all.
“Yesh, it wash…was d’lishious,” she said and frowned. Why was she slurring her words? And why was the room swaying around her? She tried to take a step and fell. Luckily she landed on the bed, which was just beside her, but she was lying at an awkward angle with one arm pinned under her and her other hand dangling limply off the edge of the mattress. “Wha…wha’s goin’ on?” she slurred, trying to look at the stork. Her eyes kept crossing and there appeared to be two of him in the room. If it was a him—she realized she didn’t even know.
“The effects are temporary,” he/it said, coming toward her. “And regrettably necessary. I must finish my assignment before Master Xairn comes back.”
“Wha ‘signment?” Lauren asked but her voice sounded weak and slow.
“This.” The stork took a firm grip on her hand—the one dangling limply over the edge of the bed—and raised what looked like a massive pair of red metallic fingernail clippers.
“Wha—?” Lauren started to say and then there was a muffled snap and she felt a sharp agony at the base of her little finger. My finger! Oh my God, he cut off my finger!
But though she was freaking out inside, she was now completely paralyzed. There was nothing she could do but watch as the stork applied some clear gel to the bloody stump of her finger and then sprinkled it with strange pink granules.
“There. Rest now,” it said, nodding at her.
How am I supposed to rest? You cut off my freaking finger! But despite her horror and the sharp ache in her hand, she could feel her eyelids closing. Have to wake up! Have to find Xairn, tell him…warn him…
But then her eyes closed and the world was eaten by sleep.
* * * * *
Xairn wandered the house for awhile, looking at Slk’s gallery of art and oddments. Vrr had had quite an impressive collection and his son had added to it. Many of the displays were alive and a good number of them were obviously Slk’s work. His talent at DNA recombination was plain to see, which Xairn supposed should make him feel confident.