Finding the Jewel Page 4

  Chloe felt a surge of pure panic go down her spine. What would she do if the big Kindred didn’t buy her and she was stuck here in the weight loss house for the next six months without even the occasional plain chicken breast to look forward to? She would go crazy.

  “Hey,” she said urgently, daring to reach out and tap the huge warrior on the shoulder—only it was more like she was tapping him on his back—there was no way she could reach his shoulder because he was so tall.

  “Wh-what?” he demanded, looking down at her.

  “Could you maybe not stand on the scale?” Chloe asked, trying to make her voice sound decisive instead of timid. “That damn thing determines what I get to eat every day and it thinks you’re me. Now it’s threatening to keep me on a diet of pellets and water because it thinks I gained a hundred pounds so if you don’t mind—”

  The Beast Kindred looked down at the scale he was standing on for a moment, his golden eyes blazing. Then he lifted one enormous black boot and stamped down hard. A crack appeared in the scale’s crystal read-out square and the black metal casing bent sharply. The shrill, nagging voice began to run down like a record playing too slowly.

  “Chllloooeeee,” it droned at her. “Nothing buuuut proteeeeein pellets untilllll you looooose all that weeeeeeeight.” Then it stopped abruptly and didn’t say another thing.

  The big Kindred looked at her and nodded his head sharply as if to say, “There—problem solved.”

  “Ha!” Chloe couldn’t control the shout of laughter that burst from her lips. How often had she dreamed of breaking the scale? But the damn thing had seemed practically indestructible. Now this huge warrior had proven the opposite—her mechanical tormentors—the weight loss Nazis—were breakable after all.

  “Thank you!” she exclaimed. “You have no idea how often I wanted to do that!”

  He grinned at her once—his smile a flash of sharp, white teeth in his dark face—and then moved out of the bathroom and headed back down the stairs. Apparently whatever he was looking for, he hadn’t found it in the top part of the house.

  “Hey!” Chloe rushed to follow him. She was beginning to like this huge, alien warrior, even though she knew he was probably extremely dangerous. Still, he hadn’t threatened her in any way. In fact, he seemed completely focused on finding something else—although what she couldn’t tell.

  She found him in the living room, tossing the cushions off the couch and feeling everywhere down inside like a man searching desperately for the TV remote.

  “Hey,” she said again, daring to touch his elbow this time. “Hey, what are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it.”

  He frowned for a moment and she saw the thoughts flicker across his face. He was debating whether it was worth trying to tell her—trying to get the words out—as opposed to just continuing the search himself. Finally he took a deep breath, screwed up his face and said, “J—J….” He shook his head in frustration and tried again. “L-luh-looking for the j—j—j—.”

  He was blocking again, Chloe saw. Trying so hard to get the word out that his throat was locking up on him. He knew exactly what he wanted to say but there was a wire crossed in his brain, making it nearly impossible to get it out. Nobody really knew what caused stuttering—although functional MRIs of stutterers’ brains showed that both sides of the brain were trying to send messages at once when they talked, as opposed to just the left side which was normally responsible for speech. But whatever the reason, stress certainly made it worse.

  She knew from experience not to try and finish his sentence for him or to tell him to “spit it out.” Listening to a stutterer could be a frustrating experience—but not nearly as frustrating as it was for the person who was trying so desperately to get their thought across. She waited quietly, giving him her whole attention and not allowing her eyes to slide away in discomfort or boredom as he struggled to get the words out.

  “J—J—” The big Kindred’s golden eyes narrowed and blinked rapidly as he tried again—J was obviously a hard sound for him. It just didn’t want to come out.

  “St-stone,” he said at last. “P-puh-precious st-stone. Have you suh-seen it?”

  His voice was a deep rumble which would have been very pleasant to listen to if he wasn’t fighting so hard to get the words out.

  And after all that effort, I can’t even help him, Chloe thought regretfully.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve been living here for over a month and I haven’t seen anything like that.”

  He started to turn away, obviously frustrated.

  “Hey—” She put a hand on his arm again, drawing his attention back to her. “But I’ll help you look,” she told him. “I don’t know where the Commercians might have hidden your jewel but I’ll help you look for it.”

  He studied her with those molten gold eyes for a long moment, then nodded. Good, he would at least accept her help. Why that should be important to her, Chloe couldn’t tel,l but somehow it was.

  “Come on,” she said to him. “Let’s go through the rest of the house. You haven’t even seen the home theater or the gym yet. Maybe it’s in there somewhere.”

  The two of them searched high and low, though Chloe wished she had a better idea of what she was looking for. She would have asked for more information but after seeing how hard it was for the big Kindred to get a simple sentence out, she didn’t want to put him through it again. He had one of the worst stutters she’d ever heard and that was saying something, considering her degree and the work she did.

  They had just finished tossing the home theater room—which had an exer-cycle instead of a comfy reclining seat because vigorous exercise was required to make any movie she picked play—when Chloe heard the voice of the head Commercian again.

  “Right this way, my Lord,” it squeaked. “We have another prospective buyer here today but you will be given equal opportunity to bid on our lovely little prize female.”

  “Exxxxcellent,” burbled a voice that sounded like someone talking underwater.

  To Chloe’s horror, another male slithered into the room—and slithered was the right word for how he moved.

  The new buyer was every bit as big as the Kindred beside her but he was shaped like a cross between an octopus and a squid with green, slimy, mottled skin and unblinking eyes as wide and yellow as lanterns. A bald, bulbous head sat on top of a wide body which billowed around him like the bottom half of a sea creature and instead of arms and legs he had…

  “Tentacles,” Chloe breathed in pure horror. “Oh my God, he has tentacles!”

  Had she thought the big Kindred looked alien? This new monstrosity made the huge warrior look like the boy next door! Without thinking about it, she took a step back, trying to put space between herself and the slimy monster.

  “I sssee you were not lying,” the new buyer hissed. He had a mouth full of long yellow teeth that looked like some kind of modified, sharpened tusks to Chloe. “Ssshe isss indeed mosst tasty-looking. I have always wanted to bed a biped and thisss one is quite lush.”

  “Please…” Chloe found her voice at last. She looked at the wormy blue Commercian standing to one side of the new buyer. “Please—you can’t sell me to him—uh, it—uh whatever this is! We’re not even the same species. There’s no way we would be, uh, compatible.”

  Not that she wanted to be compatible with this monstrosity.

  “Be quiet, Chloe,” the Commercian said sharply. “You must not denigrate our buyers! You would be lucky to be bought by the estimable Lord Globber, who is a Slimerian of the highest order.”

  “Lord Globber the Slimerian?” A hysterical laugh rose in Chloe’s throat and came out as a choked, awful noise. “What kind of a name is that?”

  “It issss the name of the one who will be your lord and massster, girl,” the new buyer declared. “The one who will bed you nightly and teach you the meaning of pain and ssssubmisssion.”

  Chloe felt sick. Visions of tentacle rape porn c
ame immediately to mind, especially when the slimy new suitor slid over to her and raised one mottled green appendage, covered in tiny gray suckers, as though to stroke her face.

  “No!” she gasped and started to jerk away but the big Kindred was there before her. With a low growl, he grabbed the seeking tentacle in his right hand—the one with the metal glove on it—and squeezed.

  “No,” he said, speaking clearly for the first time since Chloe had met him. “No. Mine.”

  It was a very caveman-like statement but Chloe was grateful and glad to hear it all the same. The big Kindred could drag her around by the hair and talk in monosyllables all day as far as she was concerned—it was better than being sold to Lord Globber of the slimy, rapey tentacles.

  The new suitor made a garbled noise of pain that sounded like someone screaming underwater and gargling mouthwash at the same time. The head Commercian came quickly forward.

  “Now, now,” he said in his high, squeaky voice. “Lord Tark, I beg you will not hurt Lord Globber! The two of you are gentlemen and must settle this matter by bidding on the girl. Agreed?”

  The big Kindred scowled but finally released the slimy tentacle. Lord Globber drew the mangled appendage back towards his billowing body with an angry hissing sound.

  “You’ll pay for that, Kindred,” he snapped. “I own the entire Gontrex sssstar ssssystem. You’ll never outbid me!”

  “Excellent. Excellent.” The Commercian rubbed several of his thin blue hands together in apparent anticipation. “This appears to be turning into a most lucrative meeting. In fact, I will go and get my tabulator now so that the bidding may begin.”

  He turned and scuttled off, leaving Chloe to look between Lord Globber and the huge Kindred who was apparently named, “Tark.”

  Her heart pounded in her chest and her knees felt weak as she wondered which of them was going to buy her.

  Chapter Five

  “Please,” the little Elite said to him in a low voice. “Please, Tark—don’t let him have me! I don’t want to be tentacle-raped—please!”

  She looked so frantic that he automatically put out a hand to her to calm her. She came to him at once, sheltering in the crook of his left arm like a small frightened creature.

  Her actions made his heart fist in his chest—as though she’d reached in with one soft little hand and squeezed it. At that moment, Tark knew he was lost.

  “A-all r-ruh-right,” he tried to reassure her. “G-guh-going to be all r-right.”

  “Thank you.” She pressed against him, her small, deliciously plump body trembling. Uncertainly, Tark squeezed her shoulder, trying to reassure her without words. Her skin was soft and cool to touch—she was so frightened she was shivering.

  “Step away from the female,” Globber snarled at him, sliding forward. “She is as good as mine—I intend to buy her and make her pay for the pain and humiliation you have inflicted on me.”

  Tark bared his teeth and growled at the other male. There was no way he was letting this asshole have the little Elite. At the same time, though, he knew he would never outbid the damn Slimerian. The slimy bastards were richer than the Goddess herself and when they decided to own something—or someone—nothing could stop them from acquiring it. Well, almost nothing, he thought grimly.

  He hadn’t come here to buy a female but it was clear what fate the gorgeous little Elite had in store for her if he left her here. Though he had no chance with a female like her, Tark couldn’t ignore the dictates of his own conscience—he had to help her—but how?

  I know how, he thought. But it’s going to take some fucking finesse.

  He couldn’t kill the Slimerian outright—the bounty the bastard’s fellow Slimers put on his head would be enormous. But he could put him out of commission for a little while—hopefully long enough to get away.

  Tark thought of wrestling Globber to the ground but he knew the danger of those long, mottled tentacles. They held hundreds of thousands of sucker pads and each one was equipped with tiny, razor-sharp teeth. They wrapped their tentacles around you and held on by digging the sucker-teeth into the flesh of a hapless victim and gouging out chunks. If enough of them got hold of you, they could bleed you dry in a couple of minutes.

  It might not be a very fair fight, but he would have to rely on his blaster, Tark decided. He was supposed to enter the Commercians’ station unarmed and the little blue bastards had done a cursory weapons search when he first came in. But they had missed the tiny mini-blast he always kept as a precaution in his boot.

  As unobtrusively as he could, pretending he was only reaching down to scratch his calf, Tark pushed Chloe gently behind him and reached for the concealed weapon.

  But the Slimerian seemed to know what he was up to.

  “Not so fassst!” he burbled and lashed out with a tentacle.

  Tark caught the tentacle with his left hand while he continued to go for his blaster with his right. Globber hadn’t been able to hurt him before because his sucker-teeth couldn’t cut through the Dark Kindred gauntlet on Tark’s right fist. This time, however, the mottled green appendage wrapped around his left hand and he felt the suckers latch on and start gouging immediately.

  He let out a wordless roar of pain and whipped the blaster into position. He had meant to set it on stun but the sharp agony of the razor-sharp sucker teeth digging into his flesh made him careless. Pointing at the Slimerian, he pulled the trigger, releasing a ray of white light which burned a fist-sized hole in the bastard’s slimy torso.

  Globber gasped and fell backward, his other tentacles feeling for the wound in his mottled chest.

  “No…” he burbled, sinking to the ground. “No, you…you…”

  The tentacle wrapped around Tark’s left hand spasmed once, gripping so tightly it made Tark snarl again in pain. Then it went suddenly limp and let go as the Slimerian slumped to the floor.

  “Oh my God,” the little Elite gasped behind him. “You…you killed him.”

  Tark shook his head. He wanted to tell her that Slimerians had four hearts and he had only taken out the dominant one. He had caused an excruciatingly painful injury but the other three would take over and start healing Globber in fairly short order. But it would take him too much precious time to get all that out and he still hadn’t finished searching the construct domicile for the jewel.

  Without saying a word, he reached down and grabbed the Slimerian with his right hand—the left one was dripping blood and covered in sucker bites. With a mighty heave, he dragged Globber over to the dimmest corner of the home theater area which was, luckily, pretty dark. Unless the damn Commercians could see through shadows, the Slimerian should go unnoticed, at least for as long as it took him to finish searching for the jewel and get away with the girl.

  He hoped.

  * * * * *

  When he came back into the light, Chloe noticed that his hand was covered in blood. The tentacle monster had hurt him—had wounded him! He had gotten hurt, protecting her!

  “Oh, your poor hand!” she exclaimed, coming forward to examine it.

  Tark only shook his head.

  “N-not b-b-bad,” he growled.

  “Yes, it is!” Chloe exclaimed indignantly. “You’re dripping blood everywhere. Come into the kitchen and let’s get you cleaned up.”

  He let her lead him into the kitchen but once they got there, instead of letting Chloe wash his wounded hand in the sink, he immediately started searching for that damn jewel again!

  Of course the appliances all made the same mistake the scale and closet had and thought the huge warrior was Chloe—clearly they had been programmed to recognize only her and no one else.

  “Now, Chloe,” the refrigerator grumbled reprovingly as the big Kindred rifled uselessly through the protein pellets and then wrenched open the fruit and vegetable door with his metal hand with ease. “You know snacking between meals is not allowed! When you cheat on your diet, you’re only cheating yourself.”

  Though Chloe was still irritated
at the fat-shaming fridge, she couldn’t contain her glee when she saw the big Kindred ransacking its sacred drawers which had all been locked for so long.

  “Shut up,” she told the refrigerator cheerfully. “That’s not me breaking into your drawers, it’s a huge Kindred warrior. You can’t keep him out—he’s big enough to break you if he wants to, you stupid appliance.”

  Tark, meanwhile, had turned his attention away from the fridge and was ransacking the cabinets—which held only cups and bowls and plates, as Chloe well knew.

  He was still dripping blood from his wounded left hand but he seemed not even to notice it.

  Grabbing a wad of paper towels from the dispenser on the counter, Chloe wrapped them around his left hand, trying to staunch the bleeding at least. Tark spared her a glance and then nodded once, as though in thanks, before continuing his search.

  At last, however, he appeared to give up. He turned to Chloe, a question in his golden eyes.

  “I’m afraid that’s it,” she said, understanding him though he had said nothing. “We’ve searched the whole house now and the jewel’s not here.”

  For a moment his golden eyes blazed and then his broad shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “I’m so sorry,” Chloe said softly, reaching up to pat his muscular arm. “It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “O-o-only ch-chance,” he managed to get out.

  Only chance for what? Chloe knew she didn’t have time to hear what he meant right now. From the front part of the house, she could hear the Commercians talking and their shrill voices were getting nearer.

  “Look,” she said quickly to the big warrior. “I’m really sorry you didn’t find what you were after but please don’t leave me here! These little blue bastards are trying to starve me to death. I mean, I know I’m not the super-model skinny ideal but I’m never going to be either. When I get too thin I look sick. And I just can’t—”