Enslaved

  “You’re damn right, I’m taking her,” he growled. “I’m taking her because I want to heal her and take care of her—which is a hell of a lot more than you seem to be willing to do.”

  “You defiled her!” Trin’s mother was red in the face.

  “No, I loved her,” Thrace corrected her. “As I love her still which is why I’m taking her. Now get out of the way.”

  But Trin’s mother wasn’t budging.

  “You defiled her and she allowed it!” She pointed accusingly at Trin who was curled against his chest like a wounded animal. “Allowed it and enjoyed it! Her pain and suffering are necessary. They are the only way to pay for such blatant sacrilege.”

  Thrace looked down at his beloved—at the raw, red scratches that marked her lovely, creamy brown skin…at her ragged hair. And then he thought of the other damage which had been done—of the suffering she must have endured when her beloved pets were killed in front of her…the agonizing she must have done the night before when she was trying to decide whether it would be easier to chop off a finger or poke out one of her eyes. And all to please some puritanical code the priestesses had cooked up, no doubt just to scare the other females into submission and keep themselves in power.

  Thinking of all that had been done to Trin was enough to make the Rage drop over him again like a red cloak that clouded his vision.

  “She’s suffered enough,” he growled, fighting to keep his temper in check. “Now get…out…of …my… fucking way!”

  Despite his best efforts, his voice rose to a roar on the last words and he saw Trin’s mother flinch back. Her face had turned from red to white and she stared at him with shocked eyes.

  “I’d do what he says, lady,” Becca said softly, coming up behind him. “If you don’t watch it you’ll push him into Rage—that’s the state of berserker fury that Kindred or Havoc males go into when their females are threatened and it’s not pretty to see.”

  “Or easy to stop,” Charlie added.

  Trin’s mother stepped back but she still wasn’t done.

  “Lonarra,” she said, addressing Trin directly. “Lonarra, listen to me—you can’t go with this male. You can’t throw away your life like this!”

  Trin had been pressing her face to Thrace’s chest but now she turned her head and looked into her mother’s eyes.

  “I have to go,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, Mother, but I have to.”

  “You’ll regret this!” The high priestess’s voice rang out behind them and Thrace half turned to see what she was doing.

  He was afraid she might be holding a weapon on them but instead, Betina was standing directly in front of the looming gray statue of the Goddess of Judgment, her arms raised dramatically. In one hand she held the jeweled dagger and in the other a golden bowl.

  “You will regret it!” she repeated. “For I curse you now, Lonarra Trin, former Daughter of Zetta.”

  In his arms, Trin jerked and gasped as though the priestess had physically struck her. Her mother, whose face was already pale, suddenly went as white as snow.

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh, no—not that! Not a blood curse—anything but that!”

  “I curse you, Lonarra” Betina went on relentlessly. “I curse you that your sins will never be forgiven. They will linger in your mind and haunt you all your days. And when you die—Goddess will it shall be soon—your stained and degraded soul will be condemned to the Hell of Defiled Women where you shall burn in fire and drown in blood for all eternity!”

  “Please,” Trin whispered. “Oh Goddess, please no…”

  “And I seal my curse so, with blood.” the high priestess finished triumphantly.

  She drew the sharp blade of the dagger down her forearm, opening a long, shallow cut which began to bleed at once. Blood spattered upon the stone floor and one of the lesser priestesses rushed forward to take the golden bowl and catch some of the scarlet drops in it. Betina took the bowl from her and knelt before the statue of the Goddess of Judgment.

  “Oh Goddess of Judgment, drink of my blood and know of my devotion. Seal my curse to this female’s soul that she may never feel joy again and take her soon to Hell!”

  “Please,” Trin whispered again and when he looked down, Thrace saw her eyes were filled with tears. “Please, Thrace, get me out of here!” she whispered brokenly.

  “Of course, baby.” Thrace felt a stab of shame. He never should have kept her here, listening to all that crap the priestess was spouting. But for a moment he’d felt frozen to the spot—unable to move as she carried out her bloody incantation.

  He turned back towards the entrance of the inner sanctum, ready to push past Trin’s mother—to knock her aside if he had to. Though he abhorred violence towards females, he wouldn’t let her stop him from taking Trin, wouldn’t let her keep them in this hell hole one more minute.

  But Trin’s mother stepped quietly aside as they passed. Thrace saw Trin look up at the older woman.

  “Mother…” she whispered but her mother only shook her head and looked away.

  “Do not call me that anymore. I have no daughter now.”

  “Mother, please…” Trin struggled to get out of his arms but Thrace wasn’t taking a chance on her changing her mind and staying for more torture. Between her mother and that bitch of a high priestess, she’d had her mind fucked with enough for one day. Hell, for an entire lifetime.

  “Come on, Mistress,” he said, striding forward. “It’s time we were going now. Past time, actually.”

  “Wait!” Trin begged but Thrace wasn’t waiting anymore—not for anything or anyone. He carried her out of the sanctum, out of the temple, and into the fresh air and sunshine.

  Parked across from the temple in a grassy spot, was the Kindred shuttle. Thrace carried the struggling, crying Trin towards it. Becca and Charlie followed, still keeping a firm grip on their destroyers.

  “Wait,” Trin begged again. “My mother…”

  “Has some very fucked up ideas,” Thrace growled. “And it’s not going to do you any good to listen to any more of them.”

  Trin subsided in his arms, sobbing. Thrace’s heart ached for her and he held her tight, wishing he could ease her pain.

  “She cursed me,” she whispered at last. “She laid a blood curse on me, Thrace.”

  “I know, baby,” he murmured into her ragged hair. “I know and I’m so sorry. But a curse is just words—you don’t have to believe it.”

  “Just words,” she whispered but she didn’t sound sure of what she was saying at all.

  He held her close. “It’s all right, baby,” he sent through their link. Everything is going to be all right now.”

  Or he tried to send it, anyway. He’d heard the others talking about how the walls of the temple blocked their mental communication and he’d been hoping that once he got Trin outside those tall stone walls, her mind would open to him again and thoughts could flow between them through their bond.

  But even now, though they were finally away from the temple of the Goddess of Judgment, the mental block Trin had put up against him and the bond they shared held strong. Even now he couldn’t reach her.

  Looking at her ravaged and tear stained face, Thrace wondered if he ever would.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Put me down,” Trin said, the moment they entered the shuttle. Thrace had taken her straight back to the far end of the craft, presumably so they could have some privacy.

  But Trin didn’t want to talk to him—or to anyone. She just wanted to close her eyes and die. The look on her mother’s face kept replaying over and over in her head. “I have no daughter now,” she’d said and Trin believed her. She had been wiped from the records by the blood curse and her own sins. She was nothing anymore—and she didn’t deserve to be held in the arms of the male she loved. The male who would surely die with her if she allowed the blood curse to drag him down as well.

  “I’d rather hold you,” Thrace rumbled. He passed a hand gently
over her shorn hair. “Want to keep you close, baby.”

  “I told you before, I’m not your ‘baby.’” Trin struggled out of his arms and turned her face to the window, looking out and away, refusing to meet his questioning gaze.

  “All right. Well, at least let me get a med aid kit and treat your wounds.” He was already busy with some kind of medicine but Trin pushed his hands away.

  “I don’t need that.”

  “Yes, you do,” he argued. “You need help—they hurt you in there, Trin. You need to let me help you.”

  “I don’t need anything from you.” From the corner of her eye she saw the flash of hurt on his face but she had gone too far now to stop. She had the blood curse on her—she had to push him away for his own good. “In fact….” She took a deep breath. “In fact when we get where we’re going I think…I think it’s better if we spend some time apart.”

  “Time apart?” His deep voice sounded hoarse and strange. “Don’t you think we spent enough time apart while you were in that fucking house of horrors your people call a temple?”

  “I don’t have any people now.” Trin looked down at her hands. “Didn’t you hear my mother? I don’t have anyone.”

  “You have me, Mistress.” His voice was soft and sad now. “You’ll always have me. If you want me.”

  Trin looked right at him and said the worst thing she could.

  “I don’t,” she whispered, staring into his eyes. “I…I don’t want you anymore.” Because I don’t deserve you. Because I don’t want to drag you down with me when I go—when the curse takes hold. But she couldn’t say it out loud—it hurt too much. Hurt almost as much as the pain in Thrace’s eyes—the pain she had put there—when he nodded his head.

  “Very well. When we get to the Mother Ship, I’ll ask that they house us separately.”

  “Thank you.” Trin turned back to the shuttle window, her heart sore and aching. But she knew she had done the right thing. A blood curse by the high priestess was impossible to break—a sentence of death. Trin only hoped that the bond between herself and the big Havoc had been weakened enough by the barrier she had somehow put between them to keep him safe. She didn’t want him to die with her when the curse went into full effect—didn’t want him to sacrifice his life for hers when her life no longer held any value.

  * * * * *

  “I’m telling you, she just wants to lie on the couch all day and sleep!” Becca paced the floor of their suite, her bare feet whispering on the thick carpet. “At first we thought it was normal—I mean, she’s like a cult survivor, getting out of that awful place after all the terrible things they did to her. So of course she needed rest. But it’s been weeks now and all she wants to do is rest. It’s not right.”

  “It sounds most distressing, Rebecca. We know how much you have come to care for the Zetta female,” Truth said gravely. He and Far were sitting on the large, three person couch they shared and watching her with worried expressions on their faces as she paced.

  “I do care. I know how debilitating guilt can be and they laid a crazy amount of it on Trin in that temple. But she doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it—not even Charlie or me.”

  Becca sighed and reflected wryly that this was probably the most upset her men had seen her since they all bonded and settled down to live happily ever after. But she couldn’t help it. She felt for Trin as deeply as Charlie did. In fact, the two of them had been visiting their new friend every day for two weeks, trying to bring her out of the funk she seemed to have fallen into. But no matter what they did or said, Trin barely replied. Becca would have thought their friend had clinical depression but it seemed to go even deeper than that—she was nearly catatonic at times which worried Becca deeply.

  “There’s got to be a way we can help her!” she went on, still pacing. “She won’t eat, she won’t take a bath, she doesn’t want to read or watch movies or do anything at all…she just wants to lie on that damn couch and sleep her life away.”

  “And she won’t see Thrace?” Truth asked, frowning.

  Becca shook her head. “She won’t have anything to do with him.”

  “What about their bond? Can he reach her that way?” Far asked.

  “Charlie said he told Stavros that she’s blocking him.” Becca sighed and shook her head. There must be something we can do or someone she can talk to. The Goddess wouldn’t have sent us to get her just to watch her waste away. Would she?”

  “I do not believe she would, Rebecca,” Truth said gravely. “I agree—there must be a way to help. But how?”

  “That’s what I’ve been asking myself for days now!” Becca wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. “I tell you, ever since that awful high priestess put that curse on her she’s not the same girl! I mean, I know I wasn’t the one having visions of her but Charlie described what she saw and—”

  “Wait a minute.” Far held up a hand to stop her. “You say the priestess put a curse on her?”

  “Well, yes—just as we were leaving the temple. Why?”

  “What kind of a curse?” Far frowned. “Try to remember, Becca—this could be very important.”

  “Remember? I don’t think I could ever forget. It was a blood curse. She cut her arm and bled into a bowl and said all these terrible things…it was awful.” Becca shivered, remembering the gruesome sight. At the time she’d thought the priestess was just being melodramatic but from the way Far was looking at her, she began to wonder if the curse was more than just theatrics.

  The light twin was already tapping away at his hand-held device, searching no doubt, for something in his extensive research file.

  “If I remember correctly a blood curse is very serious,” he said frowning. “Ah yes—here it is. The curse is said to feed on the cursed one’s soul until their will to live is completely gone and…”

  “And what?” Becca could feel her heart beating in her throat.

  Far looked up, his face stricken.

  “And she dies. Becca, I’m so sorry. The blood curse is a death curse. And it’s always fatal.”

  “No—no I don’t accept that.” Becca stopped pacing. “There must be some cure—someone she could see.”

  “You could start by having Commander Sylvan look at her,” Truth rumbled. “Didn’t you say she’d refused medical help before?”

  “Yes, and Charlie and I let her!” Becca groaned. “What idiots we are! We thought she needed time to heal but she’s not healing on her own.”

  “Now we know why,” Far said quietly. “This curse is no laughing matter.”

  “Call Charlie and go to your friend now, together,” Truth recommended.

  “We’ll call Commander Sylvan and ask him to meet you at Trin’s suite,” Far added, finishing his brother’s thought. “If anyone can help her, he may be able to.”

  “All right.” Becca was already reaching for the thin silver wire of the think-me. “I’m calling her. We’ve sat around for too long—we have to do something about this now.”

  * * * * *

  “You have to take care of yourself,” Becca said earnestly. “You need to see a doctor.”

  “I don’t want to.” Trin closed her eyes, trying to block her new friends out. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone and let her go? Let her die as the priestess has foretold?

  “We know about the curse,” Charlie said bluntly. “And we know what it’s doing to you.”

  “Then you know why I don’t wish to see a doctor.” Trin sighed. “There’s no doctor here or anyplace in the universe who can help me.”

  “We disagree,” Becca said.

  “That is your right.” Trin closed her eyes. “Do what you want—I don’t care.”

  “Well maybe you need to start caring!” Charlie’s voice sounded sharp. “Trin, I’ve tried waiting—looking for the girl I saw in my visions to come back. You’re a starship captain for heaven’s sake! You have a happy, cheerful, calm disposition—or you did before that priestess got hold of you. You need to find
that part of yourself and let her out!”

  “She’s gone.” Trin could barely make herself say the words. “If she ever existed.” The blood curse had eaten the person she used to be—eaten her and left nothing but a shell.

  “She does exist,” Charlie insisted. “And she’s got to come back but it seems like Becca and I can’t help you find her. So we called someone who can.”

  Just as she spoke, there was a knock at the door. Becca ran to get it and came back with a tall Kindred male with spiky blond hair and ice blue eyes.

  “This is Commander Sylvan,” Charlie said, introducing him. “He’s the head of the Kindred Council but he’s also a doctor.”

  “Hello, Trin.” The male bowed courteously and Trin barely inclined her head in return.

  “We asked him to come and look at you,” Becca said softly. “I know you don’t want any doctors but Charlie and I have done all we can—we can’t just let you waste away with this awful curse.”

  That was exactly what Trin wanted them to do—just let her die of the curse. But short of jumping off the couch and running away, she didn’t see how she could avoid the doctor they had brought.

  Though it seemed strange to be examined by a male medical person, Trin submitted to his poking and prodding and tried to answer his questions. Such as…why didn’t she eat?

  Well, because she wasn’t hungry.

  Why had she not had her wounds seen to? Didn’t they hurt?

  Yes, they hurt but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  What about Thrace? Didn’t she want to see him?

  No, she didn’t really want to see anyone. Mostly she was just tired and wanted to sleep.

  At last, after asking all the same questions that Becca and Charlie had been asking her for days, Commander Sylvan stood back and frowned.

  “Far has told me all he knows about this blood curse that was placed upon Trin back at her home temple. And what I’m seeing is certainly consistent with its symptoms.”