Finding the Jewel Read online

  “Oh dear now, Chloe. Didn’t Mr. Scale tell you that we’re not eating fruit today?” rumbled the refrigerator.

  “What can I have then?” Chloe asked in desperation. “Besides the protein pellets? Those are awful!”

  “Protein pellets are specifically and scientifically engineered to give you the most complete nutrition without compromising your diet,” the fridge told her. “And their relatively bland flavor means you won’t be tempted to overeat them.”

  “I’m not tempted to eat them at all,” Chloe snapped. “Can’t you at least give me some vegetables to go with them? What about some carrots?” Carrots were at least a little sweet, she reasoned and they were a vegetable.

  “Well now, let me see what I have in my drawers for you today,” rumbled “Mr. Refrigerator” in its maddeningly jolly tones. “Ho-ho-hum…I bet it’s something yummy!” it sang to itself.

  Living in the damn prison house was like being trapped in a demented Disney movie. Only instead of dressing you in adorable new outfits and serving you dinner, the inanimate objects that talked and sang to you were sadistic weight-loss Nazis there to torture you, Chloe thought resentfully as she waited for it to finish its little routine.

  Finally one of the refrigerator’s smaller glass drawers popped out revealing…

  “Brussel sprouts?” Chloe looked at them unbelievingly. “That’s what you’ve got for me? Brussel sprouts?”

  She knew they were the latest trendy super food back home on Earth—her friend Amanda even called them “the new kale”—but Chloe had never been able to stand them. She had tried them every possible way—baked, roasted, broasted, tossed into salads and shredded into slaw—they always had a strong, bitter flavor no matter what was done to them, so she had given up on them some time ago.

  She had read somewhere that some people hated brussel sprouts because they had a recessive gene that caused the small vegetables to always taste bitter—the way some people had a gene that made cilantro taste like soap. Whether she had the gene or not, she didn’t know—but she did know she hated brussel sprouts—hated them!

  Suddenly something inside her seemed to snap. This horrible house was holding her prisoner and trying to force her to achieve an “ideal” body image she wanted no part of. And all so it could make her more desirable to whatever man came to buy her! She was being starved and fat-shamed so she could be sold as a sex-slave!

  Her life was complete shit, she was hungry and tired and crampy because of her period. And most of all, she wanted some damn chocolate.

  Yanking open one of the drawers full of baking and cooking utensils she never got to use, Chloe found the perfect tool—a meat mallet. It was a heavy wooden one with metal spikes on one side for tenderizing tough cuts of meat—not that she ever got to eat anything but pellets here, she thought savagely.

  Seizing it, she swung it as hard as she could at the glass-fronted pantry.

  “Give me those Thin Mints, you bastard! Give them to me now!” she snarled. “I don’t want your fucking brussel sprouts—I need chocolate!”

  Mr. Pantry made a prim gasp of dismay but though Chloe swung the mallet with all her might, it simply bounced off the glass.

  “What is this stuff—bullet proof glass?” she gasped, swinging again. “Why the hell won’t it break?”

  In the meantime, the fitness monitor on her arm had mistaken her vigorous actions for exercise.

  “Go Chloe,” it cheered even as the Pantry exclaimed in outrage and the Refrigerator rumbled deep disapproval. “You go, girl! Look how strong you’re getting! Your arms will be skinny in no time! Yay!”

  “Shut up!” Chloe shouted at it, still hammering away at the unbreakable glass. The green Thin Mint box winked at her from behind the pantry windows, as though taunting her with the chocolaty goodness she couldn’t have. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  At last she dropped the mallet and sank to the floor, sobbing.

  “Done so soon?” the fitness monitor on her wrist asked, disapprovingly. “Come on, Chloe—don’t give up! You were burning some serious calories there, girlfriend!”

  “Leave me alone!” Chloe tried in vain—for the hundredth time—to pull the tight-fitting plastic bracelet off her arm. Its immediate response was to tighten up until it cut off her circulation and her hand turned nearly blue.

  “Come on now, Chloe,” it whispered as it nearly pinched her hand off. “You don’t want to get rid of me—we’re friends! I’m your best friend.”

  These words made Chloe cry even harder because they made her think of her real best friend, Amanda and her parents and her little sister—all of whom were probably frantic with worry right now. They had probably made a police report but of course no one would ever find her. She was up in a space station somewhere, high above the Earth from what she could gather from the Commercians. Nobody was going to come looking for her here.

  She would become one of those “cold cases” that no one ever solved and maybe twenty years down the road some cheesy TV detective show would feature her and say how she had disappeared into thin air, leaving only her clothes behind and no one had ever heard from her again.

  “Now, Chloe—there’s no use getting emotional,” the refrigerator said sternly. “After all, crying is hardly aerobic.”

  “Mr. Refrigerator is right,” the pantry put in primly. “If you want some of my sweet treats, you have to earn them. You’d do much better to go work out in the gym for an hour than to lie on the floor like that. Laziness won’t get you the cookies you want so badly.”

  “Go, Chloe,” whispered the fitness monitor on her arm. “Get up and keep going—remember, no pain, no gain! If you want it, you have to work it. And nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.”

  “I hate you,” Chloe whispered through her tears. “I hate all of you. Just leave me alone. Leave me—”

  Suddenly she stopped. A deep, masculine voice she’d never heard before was shouting somewhere outside the house.

  “…is it?” Chloe heard the voice asking.

  “Where is what, my Lord?” the high piping voice of one of the Commercians asked. “Please tell me how I can be of service to you. Are you here to purchase one of our delightful discounted Earth females?”

  Chloe’s heart seemed to freeze in her chest. Was this one of the prospective buyers the little blue wormy bastards were always talking about? She’d known she was going to be sold at some point but somehow she’d thought she would have more time before it happened. After all, she was still much more pleasingly plump than the ideal image the Commercians kept pushing on her. They seemed so certain no man would want her until she was thin—but she wasn’t thin yet. So how could they be thinking of selling her?

  Swiping at her eyes, Chloe rose and made her way stealthily from the kitchen to the heavy wooden door at the front of the house. Pressing her ear to the wood, she listened with all her might. It sounded like the stranger was talking again.

  “The j—j—j—” He seemed to be having trouble getting the word out. “The J-juh-juh—”

  He’s blocking, Chloe thought automatically as the Speech Pathologist part of her brain kicked in. He’s trying so hard to say the word but it’s stuck—he can’t get it out.

  “I am sorry, what do you require?” The Commercian sounded uncertain and a bit impatient.

  “The jewel,” the stranger got out at last, the word almost exploding from his mouth as he attacked it like an enemy. “I w-want to b-b-buy the j-j-jewel.”

  “A jewel?” The Commercian sounded confused. “Pardon me, my Lord, but are you speaking a new dialect of Standard? I have never heard such pronunciation before.”

  He’s not speaking some new language you idiot, Chloe thought, pressing closer to the door. He’s got a stutter. A really bad one, poor guy.

  She felt a rush of sympathy for the unseen stranger before she reminded herself that he was probably there to buy her and force her into a life of sexual slavery. Maybe she ought to save her compassion for
someone who wasn’t in the market for an Earth girl concubine.

  Still, it was nearly painful to listen to the stranger with the deep voice try to get his words out. Chloe had worked with lots of stutterers—all of them kids—she didn’t treat adults. But she knew the intense frustration it could cause when you couldn’t communicate effectively.

  “I d-d-don’t suh-suh-ee it h-here,” the stranger said. “Wh-wh-where are you kuh-kuh-eeping it? The j-j-jewel?”

  He sounded more and more aggravated and if his deep, rumbling voice was any indication of his size, Chloe thought the three foot tall Commercians would do well to try and give him what he wanted.

  But what if what he wants is you? demanded a little voice in her head. What are you going to do if this guy buys you, Chloe?

  She had no answers but she heard the Commercian speak again—his high, squeaky voice deeply obsequious.

  “Oh, the jewel. You must mean the jewel of our collection—of course, my Lord. Right through here.”

  Chloe heard the wooden door unlocking and had just time to thrown herself back from it before it banged open and the biggest man she had ever seen was suddenly standing right in front of her.

  He had long, wild black hair which fell to his shoulders and lightened to blondish-brown tips at the ends. A close-clipped black beard and mustache framed full, sensual lips and a cruel white scar bisected one arched, black bushy eyebrow. His size was enormous—he was seven feet tall at least—and his shoulders were so broad they completely filled the doorway. He was dressed in black leather and his right hand was encased in some kind of silver metal glove that made his fist bigger than Chloe’s head.

  But more than his size or his clothing or his hair, it was his eyes that drew her attention. They were gold—a pure, liquid gold that looked like someone had melted down a wedding ring and poured it into his irises.

  When he turned those eyes on her, Chloe felt her heart stop dead in her chest for a moment. They were mesmerizing…and deadly. His golden gaze was simultaneously the most beautiful and the most frightening thing she had ever seen.

  “Beast Kindred,” she breathed. “You…you’re a Beast Kindred. You have to be.”

  Slowly, he nodded but he didn’t say a word.

  He just stared at her.

  Chapter Four

  The gorgeous little female was staring at him like he might eat her up alive, Tark thought. If her eyes got any wider they would swallow her pretty, plump face entirely and then both of them would be lost because he couldn’t drag his gaze away.

  For a moment he forgot entirely why he was there as his eyes traveled up and down her luscious little form, from head to foot and back again. Gods, this was the last thing he’d expected to encounter—she was stunning and what the Twin Kindred called an “Elite”—which meant a woman whom the Goddess had blessed with extra bounty in the curves department.

  She was short and small and she looked soft in all the right places and her long, tousled hair was the most unusual shade of pale pink. Tark had never seen pink hair before but on her, he liked it.

  Her dark blue eyes were red-rimmed, as though she’d recently been crying, and she was wearing a strange lacy black garment which showed her full breasts and tight pink nipples and fell to her plump, nicely rounded thighs. There were dimples around her knees and her fingernails and toenails were painted the same pale, innocent pink as her hair which was fucking adorable.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Hadn’t he dreamed of a female with pink hair? He was certain that he had but he’d passed it off as some kind of impossibility. Now here she was, standing before him—the girl of his dreams.

  “As you can see, my Lord,” the blue worm behind him gabbled obsequiously, “Chloe is indeed the jewel of our collection. “She is a bit, um, plump by her people’s standards but any male of discerning taste can see her possibilities. Why with only a few more weeks on a starvation diet, she will be more than acceptable.”

  Starvation diet? What was the fucking worm talking about? The little Elite was perfect, just as she was. She was exactly the kind of female he had grown up longing for and admiring from afar.

  Exactly the kind of female you’re never going to get if you don’t get your damn stutter fixed, whispered a stern voice in his head.

  That got him going. Since the jewel he was seeking wasn’t anywhere in the space station, it must be located here in this construct where they were keeping the girl.

  He nodded shortly at the Commercian, hoping the little blue bastard would leave him alone for a few minutes so he could search.

  “Do you wish some time alone with Chloe?” the worm simpered at him. “Of course we ask that you not try the wares sexually before you buy, but you can certainly have a look. Chloe…” Its high voice became sharp. “Strip off your outer garments and show this gentleman what he will be getting if he buys you.”

  “What? No!” The little Elite wrapped her arms around herself, hiding her breasts, and edged away from Tark as though he was the one who had ordered her to strip.

  The look in her eyes—half frightened/half defiant—moved Tark. It pissed him off that the damn Commercians would make this gorgeous little female afraid of him.

  “N-nuh-no!” he got out at last, giving the blue worm behind him a sharp glare.

  “Oh? You do not wish to see the wares?” The Commercian sounded confused. Just then, there was a chiming sound behind them, in the space station. “Oh!” it exclaimed. “It seems there is another prospective buyer at our door. I advise you, my Lord Tark, to make up your mind quickly if you wish to bid on this little female. You may soon have competition.”

  Then it bustled off, leaving Tark and the little Elite alone. She didn’t say a word but she didn’t have to—the way she was staring at him mistrustfully said it all, he thought unhappily.

  Well, he wasn’t there to worry about her feelings—he had a jewel to find.

  * * * * *

  Chloe was certain the huge Beast Kindred was going to lunge at her the minute her captor was gone. Instead, he shoved past her and went up the stairs as though he was on some kind of mission.

  Normally she would have stayed the hell away from a seven foot tall, golden-eyed, dangerous looking alien male who might want to buy her and make her his sex slave. But curiosity motivated her to follow him. What was he up to?

  She tiptoed up the stairs behind him but she shouldn’t have bothered trying to be sneaky because her wrist band started cheerleading the minute she started climbing.

  “Yay—stairs! I love how motivated you are today, Chloe! You’re going to be so thin and gorgeous—”

  “Shut up,” she hissed at it. “God, can’t you ever just shut up?”

  Of course, the fitness monitor paid no attention so she wrapped her left hand around the speaker part of it, trying to muffle its cheerful idiocy as she looked for the big Kindred.

  She found him in the bedroom, digging around under her bed as though he was looking for something. Apparently he didn’t find what he wanted because next he shook out the sheets and covers and after that, he lifted the huge, heavy mattress right off the box springs with one hand, as though it weighed nothing at all.

  “Hey!” Chloe exclaimed indignantly, forgetting to be afraid of him when he let the mattress fall askew across the bed. “You’re making a mess! What are you looking for, anyway?”

  He just glared at her and continued his search. When he opened the closet, it started talking to him at once.

  “Ready to get dressed, Chloe? It’s about time, lazybones—the morning is almost over! Now, how about this hot little number?”

  A metal rod extended from the closet. A short red dress with spaghetti straps was dangling from it. Without even trying it on, Chloe could tell it was much too small.

  “It’s going to be a tight fit,” the closet acknowledged, as though reading her mind. “But just try it on and imagine how gorgeous you’ll look in it after you’ve lost some of those extra pounds.”

&n
bsp; Oh my God! Chloe wanted to die. It was bad enough that the Beast Kindred guy was gorgeous and huge and imposing and she was wearing nothing but an obscenely skimpy baby doll nighty. Now the damn closet had to start fat-shaming her in front of him? Would the humiliation of the weight loss house never end?

  “Shut up!” she told the closet but the Beast Kindred was already grabbing the metal arm the red dress was hanging from. Casually, as though he was breaking a bread-stick, he twisted off the long metal arm and threw it to one side. Then he dived headfirst into the closet, searching with the same single-minded intensity he’d shown when he was tossing the bed.

  Chloe just stood there gaping at him. How had he done that? The metal arm was at least three inches thick and solid metal. She probably could have done pull-ups from the thing—if she could do pull-ups that was, which she couldn’t—and not even have bent it. But the big Kindred had just ripped it off and thrown it aside like it was nothing.

  He must be strong—incredibly strong. Which also equals incredibly dangerous, she told herself. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from following him when he abandoned the closet and stalked into the bathroom.

  Without looking where he was going, the big Kindred walked in and began searching the ledge over the sink which held an assortment of ornamental fake flowers. As he did so, his massive booted feet came to rest on Chloe’s nemesis, the scale.

  “Chloe!” it wheezed as the Kindred’s full weight came to rest on it. “What has happened to you? You are up over one hundred pounds in less than an hour!”

  “Shut up!” she snapped at it. “That’s not me standing on you—it’s a Beast Kindred warrior and he’s like, pure muscle. Can’t you tell the difference?”

  But the scale didn’t seem to be getting the point.

  “Did you get into Mr. Pantry’s sweet treats?” it asked accusingly. “You’re never going to get thin at this rate, Chloe. By my new calculations you will need to spend at least eight to ten hours a day exercising and eating nothing but protein pellets and water for the next six months to lose this excess weight you have gained.”