Conduit - M J Marlow (best short books to read txt) 📗

Everd replied; “and declared us worse than the Vyrashtu.” “She is mad.” “We could have told her the truth, Ashad,” Everd told his older brother. “If she knew how grave our situation was she might have agreed to come.” “We could not give her the choice, Everd,” Ashad replied; “precisely because our situation is so grave.” He turned away to a display of their home world spinning in the air in the center of the cabin. “How much will we find changed after 400 years, brother?” “Our worlds have been under the rule of the Vyrashtu, brother,” Everd replied. “I fear we may not recognize them.” He looked at me again. “Our bargain with the Emperor was nullified on his death.” “We have the means to break our brothers’ bonds,” Ashad shrugged. “Once free, they will be quite eager to send the Vyrashtu back to the outer worlds where they belong.” He cast one final glance in my direction. “Our new queen will have her throne!” * I was allowed my liberty after only my captors knew how long. I was given the best cabin on the vessel and spent hours looking out the view port as we journeyed. Mary and the other five women had been freed from their captors, but they could not be returned to their humanity. I grieved for that loss; even as I welcomed their company. They were my ladies and we spent many pleasant hours together remembering our home world. The princes did not come in my presence unless it was necessary, or if I called them. And since I would not see them, their visits were few. I was in the pool in the cabin, enjoying the feel of the warm water on my bare skin when an alarm sounded. I rose up and started drying myself off. Chandri entered just as Mary pulled my robe on and was lacing it for me. “My queen,” he said from his knee. “We are approaching what should be a thriving colony world. Our scanners tell us it is a lifeless cinder.” He waved the woman off and draped the rest of the garment on me. He held out his arm. “We would have you witness for yourself what your friends, the Vyrashtu, have done to our people.” “I never said they were my friends,” I protested, even as I let him lead me out; “only that they had not lied to me.” Chandri snorted and we continued to the elevators and up to the control center. My women fell in with me and we looked at the large pieces of what we were told had once been a thriving world. Everd was standing white-faced and with clenched fists as close to the view port as he could be and not be on the other side. His colony, I saw in his mind. The grief coming off of him made me shake. I longed to comfort him, but when he turned and I saw his eyes I knew it was still too raw for him. He bowed his head briefly to me and left the cabin. “He will have to relinquish his claim to you now,” Dovid said to me as I stepped in further. “A double blow.” “Why?” “He is a prince without holdings,” Bindri replied from where he was watching a panel. He came up to me and raised my right arm; the cuff markings were back on my own arm. “He has no right to you.” “Then I will have no other mates,” I told them fiercely. I pulled away from Bindri’s hold. “I will not abandon him because your enemies took his world from him.” They looked at me in shock. “I mean it!” “She is so glorious when she is indignant,” Dovid sighed as they watched me leave. “Does she not yet realize she has no choice in these matters?” “Apparently we should have waited another generation,” Bindri frowned. “Her mind is still far more human than Sylenni in its beliefs.” He had a thought. “We could lock her in a healing chamber with a learning helmet for another month or two.” “Her appeal,” Ashad said as he turned from where he had been watching another panel “is in the fact that she is herself. I do not think she will ever appreciate her new self as it conflicts with all she has known. We must allow time to teach what breeding could not force into her design.” “Everd certainly went willingly enough to the fledglings bed,” Bindri nodded his head. “He is still young enough to enjoy fire and challenge.” “That will change,” Dovid frowned. “Poor youth; to have had a queen for only one mating and be cast adrift. We shall have to keep an eye on him.” “You really think he would turn rebel for her?” Bindri queried. He thought about it. “She is exquisite in face and form; and there is no doubt she is power itself, but he would be casting his own aside if he tried to hold her.” “As you have both said,” Ashad reminded them, “he is a youth. And we all remember how impulsive and foolhardy we were at his age.” He turned to Chandri. “Keep him in exercise, Chandri. Give him duties that keep him to other parts of the vessel.” He looked at the others. “We keep him from her for the rest of our journey. Once we arrive on the Queen’s planet, no male will be allowed access to her until her next mating cycle.” I wondered why their minds were locked to me as I returned to my cabin. They had been so free with me on my own world, but now all of them shut me out. I felt abandoned by them and that puzzled me. Were they not the creatures who had made me something other than I should have been. I had only to look at the wings on my back to be reminded of all they had forced on me. I saw Mary and the others settling down to sleep and I wished I could be so calm. I went to the viewport again and watched as we flew past the wreckage of Everd’s colony. I could not set him aside! I did not care about their traditions that said it had to be so. I caught a thought and my head rose. It could not be so! But I followed the thought and found it was so. This burned out world was not Everd’s colony! Someone had lied and he had, in his forced grief, broken our bond. I could not allow this to stand. “Going somewhere, my queen?” Ashad smiled as the doors opened and he was standing there. He pushed me gently back into the cabin and I saw his mind open to me. I backed away from him, shaking my head in refusal. “You were meant to be mine, Dulcie. There was never supposed to be another mate for you.” “So you lied to him?” I was horrified. “He is like your own brother, Ashad…” “He lost all favor with me,” Ashad broke in as he pulled me to him, “when he found favor in your eyes.” “Let me go!” “Never again,” Ashad replied. He shoved me down on the nest and laid over me. “I will have what was meant to be mine.” He saw me looking over at my women. “They will not wake. I took the liberty of adding something extra to their nourishment.” He began to unlace my gown and draw it off my struggling body. “From this moment, sweet lady, I make you mine.” “No!” I screamed and fought as he took what was not offered to him. “Stop this, Ashad! I am not yours to have!” I moaned in pain as he continued his attack. Only when he had finished with me was I freed. But only as long as it took for him to pull a familiar wiring out of his belt bag and press one into the cuff on my left wrist. “What are you doing?” “Laying my eternal claim to your lovely self,” Ashad smiled as he stroked the cuff. He cut his finger and traced the designs with his blood. “From this moment on, my lovely one, your blood will burn only for me when the mating urge strikes.” “I hate you!” I hissed and backed away from him. “There will never be a mating between us!” I found myself yanked back, and saw his eyes. I knew terror then as his mind opened even further for me and I saw everything he had done to bring himself to this place. “Your own people! Ashad, you are a monster!” “I give you one warning only, my sweet lady,” Ashad said as his dark eyes met mine. “If you even think of speaking of my little lie to anyone, especially Everd; I will know of it.” He stroked my cheek and I flinched away from him. “Our minds are one now, little one. You cannot think without my awareness of it. And that one you seek out to speak this lie to will die on the instant you speak the words.” “It is no lie!” I protested and tried to get away from him. I whimpered as his mind punished me and pain coursed through me like I had only experienced when my wings had come out. “Kill me! I will not let you win me through such a heinous act!” “After we went to so much trouble to create you, Dulcinea?” Ashad laughed and shook his head. “I think not.” He ran his fingers along my breast and I hissed. “You will learn to enjoy my caresses, pretty.” “Never!” I hissed at him. “I would rather be caressed by a Vyrashtu than have your foul hands on me!” He slapped me and I knew his rage. “Go ahead, demon! Beat me!” “I need not,” Ashad smiled at me cruelly. “I have had you, sweet lady.” His finger traced the cuff on my left wrist and I felt a shiver course through me. “My blood is now joined to yours. You are mine!” He took me again gently and I was crying out with need as his hands caressed me into his dark slavery. He left me sleeping and I did not wake. I had no way of knowing this was by his act. For the rest of the voyage, as we journeyed to my new home, he came to me each night and continued forging the chains he meant to bind me to him. Afterwards, he would send me to sleep so that I could not fight what he had done. When we approached the planet that was to be my prison, he came to stand behind me at the viewport. What he whispered in my ear had me shuddering in horror. He led me to the launch and I said goodbye to the others with tears in my eyes. I looked at Everd and he could not meet my eyes. I felt as if my heart was pierced through by this act. “This world is banned to all males,” Ashad told me as he piloted the launch. “The security satellites that ring this world scan those who approach. Only he who will be your mate is allowed through at the designated time.” He landed on a lush green island and I saw a tower in the center. The island was surrounded on the exterior by the tallest mountains I had ever seen in my life. Only this one opening led into the interior. “Your new home, my queen.” I got out of the launch with my friends and we walked towards the tower. I turned and watched as the opening closed behind us. The trees in our prison were filled with fruits and nuts. We would not go hungry. We ate as we continued to the center and I