Breath held, Brenya pried the loose plate free, sliding the square as silently as she might to the side. It was dim in what was clearly a converted storage space. An unreliable source of light offered a low, unsteady glow—changing color and output while doing little to break through the shadows.
Illuminated by that scant flicker, Brenya found…
A single cell.
A single prisoner.
No guard posted within the room.
Brown tangles trailing toward the ground, she ignored the staring Beta absorbing everything an upside-down room might provide.
The stink of Jacques’ anger lingered in his absence, as did the scent of her slick—slick he’d rubbed into his skin one of the several times he had mounted her earlier that day.
It was not a pleasant smell.
Yet, it was nothing to the horror of unacceptable design on display.
The haphazardly constructed containment would have led to reassignment, had any engineering grunt from Palo Corps installed the travesty. The entire construct of Jules’ prison was one massive flaw in workmanship. A sheet of the amorphous metal that made up the glass of the Dome had been assaulted by a drill, pinned to concrete with screws. Screws! No human eye might see them, but undoubtedly each drilled hole was surrounded by a mass spider web of microscopic cracks.
These were incredibly strong yet brittle fabrications.
They required the perfect nest into their surroundings. They were built to melt into one another.
That is why, from outside, the Dome looked as if it were one solid half circle of glass. A gently curved, elegant construction of painstakingly crafted pieces… as if the Dome itself were one organism.
To have drilled screws through a single panel to hold those plates in place? An immediate failure in the integrity of the entire structure. To expect screws to hold the weight of that microscopically cracking panel was sheer stupidity of the most insulting sort.
What a waste and ruin of an excellent resource.
Had the Beta behind the glass taken the time to test his cage, he would have learned that enough force near either wall would damage his containment to a point it would have eventually shattered.
The clarity of that glass, a sure sign that Ambassador Jules Havel had not attempted to fight his way out.
He’d allowed what was being done to him.
Why?
Brenya had seen that specific shade of blue before, the flashing indigo of Jules Havel’s eyes—at the center of a lightning strike. It had been one of the most catastrophic storms to smash against the Dome. Two long days by reinforcing a great deal of damage from the inside of the glass, ignoring the amber glow of fire where the woods smoldered in the rain.
It was the blue of impending destruction, Jules saying nothing so loudly, it was as if he acknowledged her assessment.
She had not been prepared to find a willing prisoner who starved voluntarily, but it seemed this male—this Thólosen terrorist—was plotting. All the more reason to finish this now.
Setting golden tools back between her teeth, Brenya poured out of the hole she had created in the ceiling. Unfolding until her body was in alignment for an easy landing.
Fingers setting her free of the cramped space, she fell, landing softly in a crouch.
Glancing up, it finally sank in what her view from above had distorted, the source of flickering light.
There was something in the room far uglier than a man incarcerated or the ramshackle prison itself.
She was there. Every last ugly inch of her was on display in morbid obscenity—her body writhing while it was forcibly dragged down a cock that didn’t fit. Until it did.
The size of her made to seem so tiny in comparison to the man who bounced her on his cock. The woman in the projection threw back her head, bowed her back as if inviting the villain deeper. She had parted her lips, sucking down air in a silent, telling gasp.
The gold utensils fell from Brenya’s teeth, clanging against standard concrete as they bounced about her naked toes.
“Don’t look at it, Brenya.”
How could she possibly look away?
Hands with the power to climb across the side of a palace, to have found and held the cable of a moving lift, crept around her middle. As if she might hold in the shame.
The woman in the ongoing display of sexual aggression enjoyed herself. Rocking her hips in time with the onslaught, bracing and angling so labia stretched and seeped slick down a pulsating male part, displaying her engorged clitoris for the man to address.
How could she have done what played in that projection? Hair wild, chest heaving, hips circling as if starved for more… she invited the very thing she loathed. How could she have behaved in such a way, when Jacques did what he did?
Twin tears warmed Brenya’s cheeks, her breath caught on an uneven inhale.
“Look at me. Look at me, Brenya.”
What difference would that make?
“He can make you think its pleasure—an unfair biological advantage.”
That silently moaning, unrestrained creature … was a betrayal to Brenya’s very being. Action in the exact opposite of feeling. That hideous thing came on a burgeoning knot, shaking as if she had touched a livewire. To see the muscles in her abdomen ripple, to know what was taking place inside her even as the projection’s belly began to gently expand.
There was wetness even then between her bare legs. There was always something dripping out of her, because Jacques shot deep and he shot often enough that her very womb had adapted to drink down the deluge.
Old and new seed was in her, growing more liquid by the hour and escaping in a telling, awful trail in that very moment right down her thigh. Pressing her legs together as if that might actually hold it in, Brenya turned wet honey eyes to the man waiting for the rebuke she deserved.
Jules spoke. “Your neck is bleeding.”
It was not a question, so it required no answer. It required no attention.
Licking dry lips, unsure where to begin, Brenya cocked her head, aware her expression was one of despondent confusion.
So he spoke for her. “This is where you beg me to spare the people of Bernard Dome.”
Exactly. She had made her way to Ambassador Jules Havel for that reason alone.
The cork holding back her voice popped, Brenya stepping closer to the glass. “If I could find humor in this situation, it would be in knowing that we share a secret that shouldn’t be a secret at all.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t emote. But he conveyed an ocean of danger. “And what would that be?”
Fingers working the knots she had created in the stolen shirt, the parcel of food she had brought for him was set free. It was in doing that task, in focusing on something other than the strange way the man looked at her, that Brenya was able to tell the truth. “From the moment my life was infected by Jacques Bernard, he has inflicted pain upon me every single day. Resisting led to no alteration in this pattern. Surrender led to no change. The pair-bond…”
What was there to even say about the pair-bond? Nothing, because ultimately, it didn’t matter. What mattered was Jacques’ oversight.
She laughed in the way of the weary and the broken. “The Alpha believes the pair-bond will force you to do everything in your power to keep me safe. And therefore, all of Bernard Dome will be protected from… you.”
Her laughter died. Not because the stoic, staring Beta stood unmoving as he absorbed all she did. It was because none of this was funny.
“Like Jacques, you are under no restraint from causing me harm. Pair-bond or no, you would do so in full understanding of your actions. The Commodore has not contained you with his ploy. He has unleashed you on a population who should not be held accountable for my crimes and Jacques’ cruelty.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up, a contrived expression that conveyed nothing, because the man felt nothing. “You are right. I would hurt you without restraint.”
Melting into the glass between them, letting it bear her weight, Brenya shut her eyes to all of it. “I find it reassuring.”
“Look at me, Brenya.”
Lashes lifting, she obeyed.
Finding that he moved with the precision of a panther, easy grace and coiled violence. That in those few peaceful moments he had fully approached, that he too pressed against it, as if there were nothing between them. As if his hands were already around her throat. And then he whispered as if his breath might warm her ear. “Let me out, and I will hurt you all you like.”
A strange shiver left the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to rise. Pushing far enough away from the glass so she might run her attention over everything from the fall of his brown hair, the shape of his ear, the height of his cheekbones, the cruelty of his mouth, to a neck that was tattooed with such dark markings it was as if the evil inside him was trying to claw its way out. “Did you destroy Thólos Dome?”
He answered, “Yes.”
“Did you invade Greth?”
Again. “Yes.”
Pressing her palm to the faulty installment between them, Brenya stroked the glass. “When I stole your ship, it never occurred to me that you might be on it. I was unaware of the situation in Thólos or the consequence of my choice to seek asylum there. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter that I was ignorant and careless. I am fully culpable for this situation.”
Fingertips seeking out the secrets of the glass, Brenya digested the nature of what stood physically between them. All the while, lifting her eyes to a terrible, blue, intolerant gaze. “I am sorry, Jules Havel.”
“So you have brought me a bag of food to make amends?”
There wasn’t time for tricks or word play. There wasn’t time for much. They both knew he had not so much as glanced at the food since she arrived.
Swallowing, she dared ask, “Why did you torment the people of Thólos?”
Setting his fingers to the glass, following her exploration of its secrets—as if they shared a strange dance—his voice held an enticing edge. “You know precisely why I slaughtered a civilization.”
“Bernard Dome is not like Thólos.” Nor was she empty and soulless like the man before her. “My people are blameless, peaceful, hardworking, dedicated—everything opposite of those you have been exposed to in Central.”
“Conveniently anesthetized into the perfect slave labor.”
The Beta was not exactly right, and he was not exactly wrong. But there was no point in debating what the man had never experienced.
“If I return you to your Rebecca, will you forgive me for what was done to you and leave my people alone?”
“No.”
“I understand.” And she did. She understood in a strangely malignant way.
Their dance was over, Brenya having found the slot that might be coaxed open so that a Beta prisoner could be given food and water. The programming sequence to open it had not been modified from the same she had used all her years making conducting repairs during the descent. Another sign Jacques had no concept of how his Dome actually functioned.
Brenya would not even need to break the glass to get Jules out.
Fingers moving in a dedicated pattern, it began to slide open, wider and wider, like a waterfall parting when a hand cut through its stream.
“This is just remarkably lazy.” All muttered under her breath as she bent down to scoop up the parcel of food.
He had her before she might blink, Brenya’s wrist caught, her body dragged forward until once again she was pressed up to the barrier between them.
Food hit the ground in its soaked napkin with a splat… on the wrong side of the glass. It was the other hand he had stolen, the other arm he used to maneuver her where he wished.
Parts of her that were sore and swollen were soothed by the chill of the glass. Parts of her that were fire and frightened resisted. There was no undoing it.
Gripping her wrist tight enough to negate her struggles, the edge of Jules’ fingernail dragged a light path from the hollow of her elbow down the inside of her arm.
Unable to recover her arm from that calloused touch, she growled, “We don’t have time for this!”
“Speak for yourself. I have eternity.” Jules stopped tracing the veins in her arm to toy with her fluttering fingers instead. “That is what a pair-bond is. Forever, Brenya Perin.”
Angry with the man, Brenya snarled, “Jules Havel of Thólos, I am begging you. I cannot save you all if you do not stop this and come with me now. The more time we waste, the less of a chance I can even get you outside. Not to mention that I will have to build a transmitter from stolen parts as we move so your people will be aware of your location in the woods. Let go of my arm!”
“Beg.” Reaching through the glass, he took a handful of her stolen shirt, pulling her closer still. “That is what you came here to do, isn’t it?”
This was unacceptable, infuriating. “You will never get out of the Dome without my help.”
With her cheek to the glass and his body pressed to the other side as if he might seep through it and take her any way he wished, Jules laughed. A true laugh she could not see. An expression on his face that was denied her. Which, for some reason, stung. “This virtuous help which comes at the price of saving… who?”
Fine, she could admit she wanted more from the Beta than only grace toward her people and to send him home. She needed him. “Unspeakable things have been done to my friends.”
“Annette?”
He loosened his grip enough that she might maneuver back and glare. “Yes.”
“Who else?”
“Her child. He will be murdered soon to make way for Ancil’s new baby. The child might even already be dead. But I will not stand by and wait for it to happen like everyone else in this hell.” Yanking her hand free and rubbing her wrist as if she might chase off the odd tingles he’d encouraged there, Brenya hissed, “You need me if you want to return to your Rebecca. I need you to help my friends. Shelter a woman and her child in the woods until Greth ships arrive. I know the air outside is clean. And, so long as I remain behind, Jacques will not think to search outside the Dome. He’ll be too distracted punishing me to realize until it’s too late.”
“No.”
Frustration led her to bang a curled fist against the glass. Scooping up the food that had fallen from her hand when he yanked her off-center, she threw the pack in his cell. In a practiced gesture that screamed disappointment, Brenya sealed the pane, watching the man ignore her offering, choosing instead to take a seat on the floor and lean against the side wall.
He stared forward as if she had never been there. As if projections of her did not cycle beside where they had argued.
When she failed to retreat, her lip trembling in exasperation, he said, “If I were you, I would run back to my nest and hide.”
