Deceived Read online

  He hated like hell to talk about Anna as though she was nothing but a vessel for the big bastard’s seed, but that was the only kind of talk Gorn would expect or understand.

  However, it didn’t seem like the big Trollox was in the mood to be reasonable.

  “Shut your gob, pretty boy,” the left head growled. “Before I tear you fucking limb from limb! I don’t’ care that you did your job—you lost me my drewgs! If you wasn’t such a fucking fine cook I’d end you now, ‘stead of putting you in the box for the night.”

  “But—” Dark started again but the Trollox was already opening the huge black rectangle and shoving Dark, who was now completely naked, inside.

  “I’m settin’ the timer for twelve fucking standard hours, so I am,” he growled, glaring at Dark. “And thank your maker you don’t get longer than that!”

  Then he slammed the box shut and Dark heard an ominous turning of tumblers locking him in.

  “Hey! Hey!” he shouted but his only answer was the tromping tread of Gorn retreating back down the hall.

  He was locked in the box for the night and there was no way out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Anna was hiding in one of the spare rooms, hoping that he would forget about her and get busy doing something else. But Gorn found her as he always did. He slapped open the door and flipped up the bed skirts to find her cowering beneath the massive mattress.

  “You—to my room. Now!” he roared with both heads at once.

  Anna knew that when he was angry enough to get both heads working in harmony, she was in for a bad night—a really bad night. But she would only make him angrier if she resisted or tried to fight him.

  She scrambled out from under the bed as fast as she could and practically ran down the hallway to the master bed chamber with Gorn hot on her heels, his thumping footsteps echoing behind her like a giant’s in a nightmare.

  I am in a nightmare, Anna thought as she raced ahead of him, not running away but being driven to her doom. I’m like the princess being held by the ogre or the dragon in a tall tower, far away from everyone she loves. Only there’s no knight to come and rescue me—there’s only a Replicant who’s been locked away so that he can’t help me, no matter how much I scream.

  “Do you know why you’re here, girlie?” Gorn’s heads were still speaking in tandem, both glaring at her with their evil yellow and crimson eyes.

  Mutely, Anna shook her head. She was afraid to say anything—afraid to make the big Trollox even angrier than he already was.

  Gorn leaned down, pushing both of his faces into hers.

  “You’re here because I’m fucking sick of waiting for my heir!” both heads roared at once. The force of his foul breath actually blew her hair back, as though she was standing in a high wind. Anna flinched back, looking for a way to get away from him.

  “Please, Master,” she began. “I’m sorry I’m too tight! You bought me for my virginity—remember? I can’t help being tight!”

  “Well we’re going to fix your tight little cunt right now, so we are!” growled the left head. Gorn stalked over to the rack in the corner of his room and to Anna’s horror, he grabbed the largest spreader there—the one she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to worry about for weeks and weeks.

  “Master, no!” she pleaded, backing away.

  “Oh, yes, girlie—fucking yes.” Gorn came towards her, brandishing the thick metal spreader, with its cruel raised ridges and lumps. “This here is as big as my cock, girlie,” he roared, waving it at her. “We’re going to put it in you tonight, so we are! And what’s more, you’re going to leave it in all this coming week while I’m gone. That way when I come back, I can fuck you proper-like and start breeding an heir into you.”

  “Please, please…no!”

  But she was backed up against the foot of the tall bed and there was no place to go as he advanced on her. No one to help her if she cried out. She was trapped here in this hell and there was no getting out of it until Gorn had done what he wanted.

  * * * * *

  She woke some time later, lying on the floor of Gorn’s bedchamber.

  Must have blacked out—where am I? she thought fuzzily, looking around the darkened room. The chainsaw buzz of both of her captor’s heads snoring helped reorient her but she still couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

  She was aware of a dull ache between her legs but when she moved too quickly, it turned into a sharp, knifing sensation that nearly made her scream.

  Memories she wanted desperately to forget came pouring back. Gorn growling that he would breed her when he came back from his trip, forcing the huge, heavy spreader inside her and telling her she’d better keep it there or she would be in trouble. The horrible pain and invasion, the feeling of not owning her body anymore—of being just a passenger inside her own abused flesh. And the grinding pain that went on and on and on…

  Have to leave…have to get out of here.

  She wanted to get away from her captor, wanted to get to her own room where she could be alone, away from him. What if he woke up in the middle of the night and decided he’d rather breed her before he left after all? She had to get away.

  Biting her lip against the pain between her legs, she somehow managed to get to her hands and knees. The spreader was a heavy, solid thing—it felt like a block of cold, rough granite inside her. Anna thought she could feel its raised ridges and bumps cutting into her flesh as she moved but she moved anyway. So great was her desire to be away from her tormentor, that she would have born almost any pain.

  She couldn’t walk but she could crawl.

  Slowly, laboriously, she made her way on hands and knees out of the master suite and down the hallway towards the room she had claimed as her own. The hallway had never seemed longer and the rough carpet abraded her sensitive palms and knees. The spreader grated inside her, stabbing and grinding with every movement and still she crawled.

  At last, she reached her own room. There was no way she could get up on the bed but she managed to crawl around to the small space between the bed and the wall. Tugging on the cover, she finally pulled it down on top of her.

  She wrapped it around herself and huddled in a ball. The spreader inside her was cold…so cold. It seemed to steal her heat, to chill her from the inside out like a fist made of ice lodged inside her. Even the warm blanket didn’t help very much. But it was all she had. Dark couldn’t hold her or help her tonight—he was locked in the punishment box. She was all alone with no one to comfort her.

  Hot tears welled from her eyes and she thought, I just want to go home! Mom, Brex—I miss you so much! I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to your warning. But haven’t I been punished enough now? Please, I just want to go home…

  But there was no one to take her home. No one to help her.

  Feeling more alone than she ever had in her life, Anna cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Twelve hours after he had been shoved into the punishment box, the huge black rectangle split open, spilling Dark out onto the floor.

  A tortured sound, half groan, half gasp, came out of him and for a long moment, he could do nothing but lie there. The time he’d spent in the box had been a season in one of the Seven Hells—worse than anything Mistress Hellenix had ever done to him—worse than anything he had ever endured before…

  At first Dark had thought the dark confines of the box were only meant to make him claustrophobic. And it was extremely tight inside. The ceiling was less than a foot above his head and he didn’t even have room to turn around because his shoulders were too broad. The best he could manage was a kind of half-crouching position and there was no way to get really comfortable.

  Twelve hours in a pitch-black, tight space was going to seem like an eternity and Dark knew it. Still, he settled himself to wait—what else could he do? But soon it seemed that the inside of the box was getting hotter.

  He shifted uncomfortably, telling himself that it was just his imagination�
�probably the inside of the box was just warm because of his own body heat. But then it began to grow warmer and even warmer. Dark started sweating and there was no way he could deny that the box was actually heating up. Did Gorn mean to cook him in here? Was that the big Trollox’s plan?

  Never should have let him put me in here! I have to get out—have to get out!

  Panic clawed at his mind but Dark didn’t give in to it. He felt methodically over every inch of the box, looking for a release mechanism—or even a crack of some kind.

  But he found nothing and soon he had to stop because the metal the box was made of got too hot to touch. Hissing in pain, he pulled back his singed fingertips and concentrated on keeping any part of himself from touching the walls of the box.

  He was dancing from side to side, his bare feet being scorched from the metal of the box’s floor, and sweating profusely by this time. Drawing the hot, moist air that was circulating inside the box into his lungs was like breathing tepid soup.

  Goddess, he thought. Goddess, I’m going to die in here! I can’t breathe and it keeps getting hotter and hotter…

  “Let me out of here!” he shouted hoarsely. “Let me the fuck out!”

  But no one heard and no one came—no one cared but Anna, he realized. And she was helpless to do anything. A new thought came to him—was Gorn hurting her while he was trapped in this fucking box being roasted alive? Was he doing unspeakable things to her while Dark was locked away, unable to save her?

  He had a horrible feeling that he was. That even now the female he cared for was in terrible pain and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Gods, he never should have let the Goddess-damned Trollox put him in here! Now he would die—burned to death or just killed by heat exhaustion—and Anna would be left all alone. She would—

  Suddenly the heat began to dissipate.

  Dark took a deep breath and realized that cool air was circulating through the narrow confines of his prison. Thank the Goddess! Not just cool air, either—it was positively frigid—an icy blast that seemed to come from all directions at once.

  At first it felt good against his bare, overheated skin. Then, as the sweat dried and froze into ice droplets all over his body, it no longer felt so nice.

  Dark wrapped his arms around himself and shifted from side to side, just as he had when the box was too hot—this time trying to keep warm. As the icy wind continued to blast him from all directions, he tucked his fingertips into his armpits but there was nothing he could do about his freezing feet and toes. They seemed to be going numb and he was worried about the possibility of frostbite.

  Goddess, now I’m going to freeze to death! Whoever invented this fucking box was a sadist! Don’t know how long I can stand this!

  The only good thing was that the fake skin-shield he wore seemed to be insulating his equipment—at least he didn’t have to worry about getting frostbite on his shaft and balls. But every other part of him from the tips of his ears to his nose to his fingers and toes felt like they were going to fall off.

  Dark’s teeth chattered and he wondered how long he’d been in this fucking torture device. It felt like hours. How could he stand a whole night like this? Was the box going to freeze him to death?

  But just as he was losing all feeling in his extremities, the box began to warm again. Soon it was hot—then red-hot. Dark was forced to go through the whole cycle again, feeling as though he couldn’t breathe, scorching and burning and nearly passing out from the heat…until suddenly it got cold once more.

  After the fifth time the dark, cramped space went from burning hot to bitterly cold, there was a clicking sound near the top of the box, just over his head. A mechanical voice said, “The time elapsed is fifteen standard minutes. Time remaining, eleven hours and forty-five standard minutes.”

  Then it clicked off again.

  “Hello? Hey, can you hear me?” Dark shouted, but he knew it was useless. He was pretty sure the voice was just a feature of the box—perhaps the worst torture device of all. It was letting him know that what had seemed like an eternity of torture had, in actuality, only been fifteen minutes.

  And he still had eleven hours and forty-five minutes to go.

  I can’t do this, he thought despairingly as the box began to heat up again. Goddess, please—I can’t.

  But there was no answer and no help as slowly, the box began to warm…

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Now, twelve hours later, Dark lay panting on the floor, his head hanging low, his body trying to recover from the constant torture of the cycles of too hot and too cold he had endured over and over and over again. He was trembling and sick and he wasn’t completely sure, now that he had finally been released, that he would live. He was also horribly thirsty but he felt like he might be sick if he tried to eat or drink anything and anyway, getting up to find water would take more strength than he had at the moment.

  Just going to lay here, he told himself. Just going to lay here and recuperate for a minute. Just going to—

  And then the world went black and he was out.

  When he woke, an unknowable time later, Dark thought he felt a little stronger. Maybe his body had been able to snatch some much-needed rest while he was out. Or maybe his natural Kindred resilience was simply helping him recover. For whatever reason, he was able to get to his feet and gather his clothing, though he didn’t put any of it on yet.

  Staggering down the hallway, he found a small fresher adjacent to the Fuck room, where several of the red-haired Replicants sat quietly in chairs, as though waiting to be used.

  Seeing their long, auburn hair made him think of Anna. He would have to go looking for her as soon as he could. Feeling worried, he staggered into the shower and rinsed off the sweat that had poured from him during the heat and then frozen to his skin during the cold, over and over, all night long. He kept the water exactly lukewarm and drank thirstily as it poured over his skin which had alternating patches of burns and frostbite.

  Luckily, Kindred healed extremely quickly. Now that he was no longer in the punishing environment and he was finally able to hydrate, Dark’s body began to repair itself almost at once.

  By the time he stepped out of the shower he felt more like himself. He was still weaker than he liked but he was able to get dressed and walk upright, rather than staggering down the hall.

  He took one last glance into the Fuck room and saw the three red-haired Replicants still just sitting there.

  Anna, he thought again, his concern for her returning and growing even stronger. Where was she?

  Dark went looking for her, hoping and praying that his awful premonition of the night before had been untrue—that he would find her whole and well—untouched and unmolested by Gorn, who, at least so far, seemed to be gone this morning.

  “Anna?” he called hoarsely. His voice was still healing from the cries of pain and the curses of anger he’d been shouting all night in the damn box. “Anna, where are you, baby?”

  A soft sound—a cross between a moan and a sob—met his ears.

  “Anna?” Dark ran down the hallway, his strength returning at the sound of his female’s distress. The sound was repeated—it seemed to be coming from the bed chamber Anna usually used as her own but when Dark opened the door, he didn’t see her anywhere.

  “Anna?” he walked into the room and noticed that the bed covering had been pulled off of the sleeping platform. Dreading what he might find, he edged around the side of the bed and looked down.

  Anna was there, wrapped in the bed covering with only her head sticking out. Her face was as pale and bloodless as paper and for one heart-stopping moment, he actually thought she was dead. Had Gorn killed her and then left her here, discarded like a broken toy? Rage and pain began to fill him. He would find that two-headed son-of-a-bitch and kill him…slowly.

  But then Anna stirred and her eyes fluttered open. They were filled with a dull misery and for a moment she just stared at him, as though she didn’t k
now him. Finally she whispered, “Dark?”

  “Yes, baby—it’s me. I’m back.” Relief made him weak in the knees. He knelt beside her as well as he could in the confined space and tried to take her in his arms.

  But the moment he put his arms around her and tried to move her, Anna cried out in pain and struggled against him.

  “No,” she begged. “Please, Dark, don’t. It hurts!”

  “What hurts, baby? What did that bastard do to you?”

  He started to remove the blanket that covered her but Anna grasped it tight and held it to her chest.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, Dark—I don’t want you to see. It’s too humiliating.”

  He could feel the pain and shame coming off her in waves and he was sorry that she still felt the need to be so careful around him.

  “Baby,” he said softly, “Whatever it is—whatever he’s done—you can show me. I won’t judge you, I promise.”

  She bit her lip uncertainly.

  “Because you’re a Replicant?” she asked at last. “Because you can’t judge me?”

  Because I love you! Dark wanted to say but he knew he couldn’t. Replicants couldn’t truly love or care for another person. And it seemed that the fact that she thought he was one, was still the only reason Anna trusted him. He wanted so badly to tell her the truth about himself…and yet he couldn’t. Not now. Not yet.

  “Exactly,” he said at last. “Because I’m a Replicant. So come on, baby—let me see.”

  Reluctantly, he thought, she allowed him to draw the blanket down, uncovering her body.

  She was still wearing the transparent white gown which had been slit down the middle by Targo’s kitchen sheers. But now some of the white, translucent fabric was stained a rusty-reddish brown.