Handling the Hybrid Page 19

  Vrox was acutely aware that he was almost as exposed as his friend. He still had on the slave trousers himself but luckily he was also wearing the black loincloth over them, so at least he was mostly covered—if not very secure. Still, if things got dicey with the gelding knife, he was going to have to be careful to protect his equipment.

  Speaking of the gelding knife, he saw Mistress Tornflesh raise her right hand and brandish a short silver handle for the crowd to see. She thumbed it on with a flourish and a glowing red blade, about a foot and a half long, suddenly sprouted from it like a menacing flower.

  “This slave,” she announced, “Has displeased me for the last time! I thank you all for being present today to witness his punishment and disgrace.”

  Vrox, who had been creeping on his belly, up behind the chairs of the visiting Mistresses, saw his friend stiffen at the buzzing sound of the knife. Dannen struggled against the restraints but it was clear he couldn’t break free. In another moment he was going to be in big fucking trouble.

  Mistress Tornflesh leaned over and grabbed Dannen’s shaft in one fist. Holding it out of the way, she raised the knife, aiming for the heavy sack that swung between his thighs.

  That was it—the time for sneaking around was done. Vrox jumped to his feet and aimed the blaster at her.

  “Let him go!” he roared and fired a warning shot over her head, right through the elaborate purple and gold hairdo in the process.

  “Oh! My hair!” Mistress Tornflesh jumped up and raised a hand to her head to feel for the injured coif. Unfortunately, it happened to be the hand that was holding the laser knife, which was still on.

  As she reached for her hair, the buzzing red blade swept right through the top of her skull.

  Her eyes rolled up in her head and then, from the eyebrows up, the top of her head, including the elaborate tower of gold and purple hair with the smoking hole in the center, slowly slid off and landed on the wooden stage with a bloody smack.

  As Mistress Tornflesh crumpled to the ground, the other Mistresses began to panic.

  “Oh! Oh my Goddess—he killed her! He shot Mistress Tornflesh!” one of them shouted and then they were all screaming and running every which way.

  Vrox took the opportunity to run up on stage to his friend, who was still tied and blindfolded, no doubt wondering what the fuck was going on.

  “It’s all right, Brother,” he said roughly to Dannen. “It’s me, Vrox—gonna get you out of here.”

  “Thank the Goddess.” Dannen’s deep voice was hoarse with relief. “That female is crazy! She was going to cut my balls off because I didn’t bow to her fast enough when she said to.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that now,” Vrox said dryly. Stooping, he pried the still-buzzing laser knife from the slack hand of the dead Mistress and used it to cut his friend’s bonds. Then he stripped off Dannen’s blindfold.

  His old friend blinked, his eyes getting used to the light as he looked around at the Mistresses running and screaming. Then his gaze flickered over the supine form of Mistress Tornflesh who was missing the top half of her head.

  “What in the blue fuck is going on around here?” he demanded, shaking his head.

  “Tell you later,” Vrox said shortly. “Right now we need to get the Seven Hells out of here.”

  He didn’t even need to use the blaster again. The Mistresses were all too eager to get out of his way. And though several of them were calling to their bodyslaves to attack him and Dannen, none of the slaves was armed. And none seemed too eager to go after the two large Kindred who were armed, since Vrox still had his blaster and Dannen was now clutching the glowing knife.

  They made it to the ship unharmed and took off not five minutes after Vrox had landed in the first place.

  “Thank the Goddess you came in time.” Dannen relaxed in the passenger seat and wiped sweat from his brow. “I thought I was a goner for sure—or my balls were, at least.”

  “Glad I could save your ass—and your balls, partner,” Vrox growled. “But now I have to get back to my lady so we can figure out a way to get out of here.”

  “Your lady? What are you talking about?” Dannen frowned. “And why can’t we get out of here now and then come back later?”

  “For one thing this is a short-range cruiser—it can’t handle wormhole jumps so it would never get us back to where we parked The Lady Fair,” Vrox told him. “And in the second place, I’m afraid me crashing your ball-cutting party is going to cause some serious problems for my female, who I left back in Opulex. As soon as word spreads that one Kindred slave rescued another and somebody looks around and sees that I’m gone, they’re going to start asking some pretty uncomfortable questions.”

  “Who is this female you’re talking about?” Dannen demanded. “Don’t tell me you found your soul mate in the last three days while this damn collar was shocking me within an inch of my life every time I put a toe out of line!”

  “Not my mate exactly—you know I can’t bond,” Vrox growled. “But the female I want to spend my days with anyway. Her name is Tandy—Mistress Sweetbottom.”

  “Wait a minute—is she the one who bought you? The one who put that pain collar and cuffs on you?” Dannen asked, motioning to the collar and cuffs he still wore.

  Vrox nodded shortly. “The same.”

  “What?” his partner exploded. “How could you let yourself fall for the female who took you? Are you crazy, Vrox? Or does she just have you brainwashed? What’s wrong with you?”

  “There’s nothing wrong—we made a deal that I would act like a well-broken slave and she would pay me for it,” Vrox told him. “And then, well…it became more than a deal. I’m crazy about her, Dannen—she’s fucking amazing.”

  “And you’re fucking crazy,” Dannen declared. “You can’t trust any of these Yonnite females! The minute they get you in a collar, they shock you within an inch of your life and then bend you over and fuck you up the ass!”

  Vrox could feel his cheeks heating at this—he had to admit—extremely accurate assessment. But he wasn’t about to tell his best friend what he and Tandy had shared. Dannen definitely wasn’t in the right mood to hear about it now—if ever.

  “It’s not like that with her,” he said shortly. “I told you—we made a deal and then we fell for each other. She’s going to come and live on The Lady Fair and travel around the galaxy with us.”

  “The Hell she is!” his friend exploded. “Don’t forget I’m half owner of The Lady Fair, partner, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting one of those Yonnite females set a single foot on the Lady’s gangplank—let alone come inside and live there.”

  This was a problem Vrox hadn’t expected, though he guessed he should have. It was clear that Dannen’s experience being a slave here on Yonnie Six hadn’t been nearly as pleasant as his own had been. Which wasn’t surprising considering who had bought him and the way he’d nearly lost his balls.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he growled. “After I get her. I don’t want her to get into trouble because I kidnapped a Mistress, stole a ship, and came to save your ass.”

  “Fine.” Dannen looked like he wanted to say more but they were approaching Opulex now and Vrox had to work on keeping the ship hidden by using the finicky stealth tech.

  At last they got to the Justice Hall to find an unpleasant surprise—it was crawling with Mistresses and their slaves.

  “What the fuck is going on down there?” Vrox muttered, looking at the viewscreen as they hovered to one side of the hall, just out of sight. “This place was practically deserted just an hour ago. And now it looks like everybody and her sister is here.”

  “Are those camera drones?” Dannen asked, leaning closer to get a better look. “Is there some kind of news event going on?”

  “Goddess, I hope not.” Vrox suddenly had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach—a very bad feeling.

  “Does this thing get news vids?” Dannen tapped the viewscreen. “Let�
�s get out of sight and see if we can find something out. You can’t go in blind—not in that crowd.”

  Vrox had to admit his friend was right. Taking a risk, he landed them on top of one of the tallest buildings and cut the ship’s engines so he could make the stealth drive last longer.

  As he did all this, Dannen was fiddling with the viewscreen. In a moment, a newsfeed popped into view.

  “I’m here at the site of the Justice Hall where just hours ago a new Mistress was confirmed by the Council of the Sacred Seven…and almost at once accused of defrauding the Council and charged with treason,” a perky female with strawberry blonde hair was saying seriously as she looked into the camera drone which was showing both her and the crowd around the building.

  The bad feeling in Vrox’s stomach grew as the reporter continued.

  “The Sacred Seven is going to deliberate her case but in the meantime, she’s going to be held in the Correctional Building in downtown Opulex until they can set a trial date,” the reporter continued. “We don’t expect it will take long—the Council is swift to justice when they feel they have been wronged in any way. Oh—here she is now! They’re bringing her out—Mistress—or should I say former Mistress Tandace Sweetbottom!”

  The camera drone zoomed in on a lone figure with creamy brown skin and long, curly black hair. She was being marched out of the Justice Hall and over to a waiting air car by a cadre of armored Rothian guards. Though she was meant to be in disgrace, she held her head high, her brown eyes flashing.

  Vrox felt his heart squeeze in his chest.

  “Fuck, no!” he groaned.

  “Is that her? Your lady?” Dannen peered at her. “She’s a looker, I’ll give you that, Vrox. Looks like some of the Earth girls I saw last time I was aboard the Mother Ship.”

  “She’s in trouble and it’s all because of me,” Vrox growled, his hands squeezing into fists on his thighs. “I have to get to her!”

  “Partner, you’re not getting anywhere near her with those Rothians in the way,” Dannen said flatly. “They move slow but there’s no getting through them—they’re built like Selbian battle tanks.”

  “I know but if I don’t get her—if I don’t at least try…” Vrox shook his head. “You don’t understand, Dannen—she probably thinks I abandoned her! She thinks—”

  “As you know, if you’ve been following our newsfeed from the first, Mistress Sweetbottom had a very dangerous Kindred slave who escaped just before her deception was revealed,” the reporter said from the viewscreen. “And I’m now getting reports that he attacked a prominent Mistress at her country home outside Opulex. And…” She pressed a finger to the curling plug inserted in her ear and her eyes widened. “Oh dear! And apparently he killed her. Oh, that’s terrible! Please—if you see this male slave, report him at once! He is armed and very, very dangerous!”

  A picture of Vrox with a scowl on his face flashed up on the viewscreen causing the real Vrox to curse fluently.

  “Goddess damn it—I didn’t kill her! She cut the top of her own damn head off reaching for her hair with that fucking knife in her hand,” he snarled.

  “Doesn’t matter what really happened—what matters is what they report,” Dannen remarked. “Vrox, we’ve got to get you out of here now. Every Mistress and slave with a nose for news is going to be hunting you down. And you’re not exactly inconspicuous you know.”

  Vrox had to admit that as a seven-foot-tall hybrid with mismatched gold and blue eyes, he wasn’t exactly going to blend well with the natives. Still, he hated like hell to leave Tandy and it wasn’t like they could get far in the short-range cruiser he’d stolen. It might get them into orbit around the planet but it wasn’t built for interstellar voyages.

  “Where can we go?” Dannen asked, sounding desperate. “Everyone is going to be looking for us!”

  Suddenly, Vrox had an idea.

  “Tandy has family on the other side of the planet,” he told his friend. “I don’t know if she told them about me, but I know she was going to call her mother and send her some money. If we can find them, maybe they can think of a way to help.”

  “Sounds like a long-shot to me,” Dannen said skeptically. “Do you even know their name?”

  “I only know Tandy’s last name is Sweetbottom.” Vrox raked a hand through his hair and blew out a frustrated breath as he watched Tandy being put into the back of an armed air car. “It’s not much but it’s all I have.”

  “Well, anyplace is better than here,” Dannen pointed out. “We need to put some distance between us and Opulex and the other side of the planet sounds like as good a place to start as any.”

  “You got it.” Vrox fired up the engines and took the little ship up and up, straight into orbit. But as the Justice Hall and the crowd around it got smaller and smaller, he felt as though he was leaving his heart behind.

  Hang in there, Tandy—I’ll come back for you, little girl! I swear it! he thought and wished she could hear him, wherever she was. Wished he could have gotten to her in time to take her with him and get away…

  “Vrox—why is that button flashing?”

  The little ship had just achieved low orbit around the planet and his partner’s worried voice dragged him out of his sad reflections. Looking down, Vrox saw that one button on the instrument panel was indeed pulsing a deep, ominous red.

  “Don’t know,” he grunted. “I just stole this ship a little over an hour ago—I didn’t exactly have time to read the instruction manual.”

  “Well you better find it and read it fast,” Dannen said. “It’s flashing faster now—and what are those words scrolling on the command panel.”

  Vrox squinted at the green letters squiggling across the screen. As a Kindred, he was incredibly quick to pick up languages but though he was now fluent in spoken Yonnite, he had never much studied the written version.

  “Damn it, I don’t know,” he growled. “But I think it’s fucking bad.”

  An alarm siren began blaring in his ear and more buttons on the control panel lit up. Then, just as suddenly everything went dead.

  “Seven Hells,” Dannen muttered in the darkness behind him. “Did the whole damn ship just die?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Vrox was pushing and pulling and pounding on the instrument panel but all in vain. The little ship he’d stolen from Mistress Featherbrain had apparently been unable to take the strain of breaking through the Yonnite atmosphere and it refused to respond to anything he did.

  “What do we do?” Dannen asked as they floated in the deathly black silence. “We’re in big trouble if we don’t get out of here soon—the oxygen won’t hold out for long.”

  “I know.” Vrox closed his eyes and cursed his fate—wishing once more that he could have gotten to Tandy. But then all three of them would be in this deadly position instead of just himself and Dannen. No, she was better off where she was but Gods, how he wished he could hold her just one more time…

  “What are we going to do?” his partner asked again.

  Vrox blew out a breath. “Well…what kind of terms on you on with the Goddess?”

  “Why do you ask that? You think we’re going to die?” Dannen’s voice was flat in the darkness.

  “It’s a distinct possibility,” Vrox admitted. “But I was asking because I think the only thing we can possibly do in this situation is pray.”

  “Pray?” Dannen gave a harsh laugh. “I didn’t think you were a religious male, Partner.”

  “Both of us better get religious really fast,” Vrox growled. “Because one way or the other, we’re going to be talking to the Goddess—either in this life or the next.”

  He just hoped it was this life. He didn’t want to die without seeing Tandy one more time.

  Please Goddess, he prayed, Just let me see her—just let me hold her one more time. Please!

  Twenty-Two

  “Tandy, what’s this they’re saying about your slave killing Lady Tornflesh?” Tandy’s mother’s eyes were wide as she looked
at her from the viewscreen. “Is it true?”

  “I don’t know.” Tandy paced her cell—a Spartan affair with a stained stone floor and rusty bars that separated her from her mother’s face on the viewscreen. She was allowed a single vid call and, though she didn’t really think she could help, she’d called her mother. Mainly to say goodbye since the penalty for defrauding the Council of the Sacred Seven was death and things weren’t looking too good for her right now.

  “But is he really that savage?” her Mother persisted. “How can you want to be with such a man?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I want to be with him or not—he clearly doesn’t want to be with me. He ran off the first minute he got a chance,” she said bitterly. “You were right, Mom—males can be cruel and false. Goddess, I can’t believe what an idiot I was!”

  She hated to make her mom even more upset but she couldn’t help it—the tears she’d been holding back for hours suddenly came out in a flood. It wasn’t so much the situation she was in that broke her down—although it was certainly bad enough—it was the fact that Vrox had abandoned her and had probably never cared for her in the first place. Unable to help herself, Tandy put her hands over her face and wept.

  “Oh Tandy, honey, please don’t cry!” her mother begged. “We’ll hire you the best lawyer money can buy! Just hang in there—we’ll send you the right one. I promise!”

  Tandy sniffed, her tears drying up abruptly and leaving a dull, throbbing headache in their place.

  “Forget it Mom,” she said, shaking her head. “You and I both know if the Council decides I’ve defrauded them, they’ll ask for the maximum penalty. And they’ll move fast, too—the news vids are saying I might be sentenced as early as tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!” Her mother put a hand to her pale throat. “But that’s so unfair! How can they just—”

  “Time’s up.” One of the Correctional Facility guards came over and reached for the viewscreen.

  “Wait, please!” Tandy said earnestly. “I love you, Mom!” she said desperately. “And Daddy and Remy too—please let them know I said so. And don’t come to speak for me—I don’t want you getting into trouble too!”