Imprisoned

  “Thank you.” Malik nodded at her—then his nostrils wrinkled and he inhaled deeply, frowning. He turned to Lathe. “Why is there a female here among the male prisoners? That cannot be safe for her.”

  Ari’s eyes widened.

  “He knows? You told him?”

  “Of course not—I smelled your scent,” Malik told her. “There’s no mistaking the scent of a ripe female.” He frowned. “You’d better be careful, you know—I’m not the only one here who can sniff out a female. The lashers who roam these halls at night can get very aggressive if they smell a female’s musk. My Mistress Hellenix had to sign multiple statements swearing they were going to be used at an all-male facility and no females would be around anywhere.”

  Lathe sighed. How was it this other Kindred could tell at once that Ari was female while he himself had struggled to come to the realization?

  Maybe because I trusted my eyes instead of my nose, Lathe told himself. That damn solid-holo projector of hers had me completely fooled. In the future, he promised himself to remember which sense was more reliable.

  “It’s all right,” he told the Volt Kindred. “Ari is with me—I’m protecting her.”

  “See that you do.” Malik frowned. “And give my regards to Commander Sylvan. I hope you may be in time to save him.”

  “Who?” Ari asked, frowning but just then they all heard the strident voice of Mistress Hellenix drifting through the crack in the door.

  “Malik, where are you? I insist that you come here to me at once!”

  The big Volt Kindred made a face.

  “Duty calls.” He left the room swiftly and Lathe and Ari followed.

  “So it’s settled then,” Mistress Hellenix was saying as they came back into the room. She was lounging in her chair at the head of the dining table, looking like a cat that had gotten entirely too much cream. “There is already an operative in place to carry out our plan. I’ll send out the dispatch tonight, giving them the go-ahead. By tomorrow or the next day at the latest, it should be done.”

  “Here, here! To Mistress Hellenix—our problem-solver.” Mistress Jankypoo raised a delicate blood-crystal goblet and the other Mistresses copied her motions, cheering as they did so.

  Lathe pretended to go about the business of refilling wine glasses as the Mistresses chattered and talked but inside his mind was racing frantically.

  Tonight? She’s putting out the hit on Commander Sylvan tonight? We have to get out of here! I’ll have to give the nanites the command to finish the tunnel at once! We can’t wait any longer.

  Of course that would mean tripping the prison’s escape alarms but that couldn’t be helped. He would wait until he and Ari started down into the tunnel in the Infirmary before he gave the command for more rapid digging. Hopefully they could time it so they were exiting the tunnel before the Horvath guards were alerted.

  Hopefully.

  Thirty-Seven

  “Come on—hurry!” Lathe pulled Ari along faster, one big hand yanking her by the arm as he dragged her back down to their cell.

  “What’s going on? Why are we in such a rush?” Ari demanded. The big Kindred had been agitated ever since his private meeting with the other Kindred warrior—the one with the silver eyes. She wished he would slow down a little. She was so damn tired and the place where Tapper had scratched her with his knife, just below her left ear, itched fiercely.

  “I’ll tell you when we get to the cell,” Lathe ground out. “But for now, can’t you hurry?”

  “Are you worried about the lashers coming out?” Ari asked. “I thought you said Mukluk set the system so that the cold air wouldn’t start blowing until thirty minutes after the last of the Mistress’s ships has left. That should give us plenty of time to get to your cell.”

  “Yes, it’s enough time to get to our cell and let the sensors inside check us in for the night,” Lathe growled. “But we have a lot further to go than that before our grace period ends.”

  “What do you mean a lot further to go?” Ari asked but just then they got to Lathe’s cell and he pushed her inside.

  “All right,” he said, pulling her towards the door almost as soon as they’d gotten inside. “Come on—we need to get to the tunnel before the frigid air starts blowing to wake the lashers. Thirty minutes should be enough but I’d rather not push it.”

  He started to leave the cell but Ari was rooted to the spot.

  “Tunnel?” She looked at him, uncomprehending. “What tunnel?”

  “Damn it, the escape tunnel I’ve had nanites digging under BleakHall for the past six solar months,” Lathe growled. “I’m going out tonight and you’re coming with me. But since the lashers would like nothing better than to make you a midnight snack, we have to go before the cold air starts blowing.”

  Ari took a step back from him, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I’m sorry Lathe, but I… I’m not going.” She couldn’t believe the words she was saying but she knew they were true. And she prayed she had the conviction to follow through with them.

  “What?” Lathe looked shocked. “What are you talking about? If anyone else finds out what you really are you’ll be dead or worse inside of five minutes.”

  Ari lifted her chin. “Don’t you think I know that? After Tapper…” But she shook her head, unable to go down that road. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Lathe, but I’ll have to take my chances. I can’t leave here without Jak—I can’t go without my brother.”

  “Your brother?” His turquoise eyes widened. “You mean your brother is here in BleakHall? But you never told me that! Then again, you never told me a lot of things,” he added darkly, frowning.

  Ari sighed unhappily.

  “I know you’re still angry with me for deceiving you about who I really was but try to see things my way, Lathe—I didn’t come here for you. I infiltrated BleakHall to save my big brother. I even had a plan to get us out…” She grimaced. “You can probably tell that didn’t go very well, but I still won’t just leave Jak here to rot.”

  Lathe raked a hand through his hair distractedly.

  “Fine, you can bring him with you—where is he?”

  Ari bit her lip. “Locked up in the hole,” she said in a small voice. “But I can get him out—I know I can,” she went on quickly. “I’ve been working on the wiring that controls the locking mechanisms and it’s almost fixed.”

  “Almost fixed?” He shook his head. “Ari, I don’t see how this can work. Unless you can get down into the hole, free your brother, and bring him back to the Infirmary in less than half an hour, you’re both going to be lasher food.”

  “Then I’ll just have to stay.” Ari tried to make her voice calm and was proud when it only trembled a little bit. “Jak will be out of the hole in another month or so. If I can just make it that long…”

  “You won’t make it another day now that damn disguise of yours has failed,” Lathe said roughly. “What are you going to do the next time you go to the shower? Ask all the other males politely not to look?”

  “I’ll just keep washing myself in the sink.” Ari lifted her chin defiantly. “That way no one will see me, uh, without my clothes.”

  “That might work if you were allowed to stay here in this cell,” Lathe pointed out. “But you’re not a trustee, Ari. The minute I’m gone, they’ll bust you back down to general population. And believe me, there are no private bathing or toilet facilities there.”

  Ari thought of the open stalls with no doors and the round, stained fixtures that served as rudimentary toilets she’d seen in cell block E. Lathe was right, she realized with a sinking heart. Pretending to be male here at BleakHall was going to get a whole lot more difficult once Lathe wasn’t here to shelter and protect her and keep her in his private trustee cell.

  Still, she didn’t want to leave Jak.

  “Lathe please,” she pleaded. “Try to put yourself in my shoes. If your brother was still alive, would you want to leave him here? You told me he died here in B
leakHall. I’m afraid if I leave Jak, he’ll die too.”

  “Goddess damn it,” he growled and ran both hands through his hair in deep frustration. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment as though thinking hard. Finally he looked at her again.

  “All right, but we’re going to have to take a chance.”

  “That’s fine,” Ari said eagerly. Any chance was better than no chance at all, as far as she was concerned.

  Lathe frowned. “Wait until you hear how much we’re risking before you agree to it. I wrote an override in BleakHall’s control system when I first came here—it allows me to run the climate system for a little while.”

  “Really?” Ari felt a surge of hope.

  He nodded. “I thought I might be taking other Kindred prisoners with me when I went and I didn’t know if the lashers would bother them or not. I thought it best not to find out.”

  Ari’s heart started pounding. “So does that mean you can keep the lashers from waking up while I rescue Jak? You can keep the cold air from blowing?”

  “I think so.” Lathe looked troubled. “I wrote the override but I’ve never tested it before. And in order to make it work, I have to stand right by the climate control system and keep my prison ID tag in its scanner the whole time.” He gave Ari a level look. “So you’ll have to get your brother by yourself. I won’t be able to go with you.”

  For a moment her stomach clenched in fear. She had gone through the tunnel where the lashers were kenneled several times now on her trips to the hole. But every time she’d gone, it had been in the middle of the day and there was slim to no chance the huge beasts would wake. Now she would be going down at the time they usually ended their daily hibernation and trusting that Lathe could keep the cold air from blowing in order to keep them asleep while she freed Jak. Could she really do this?

  I have to, she told herself sternly. Jak would do it for me. I can’t leave him here—we have a chance to get out and we won’t get one again. We have to take it.

  But could she trust the big Kindred to keep his word and not let the cold air flow—especially when he was so angry with her?

  “I can do it,” she told Lathe. “And I will do it. But I have to know something—why do you even want to take me with you in the first place? I would think after what…what happened between us you would just leave me here.”

  “You really think so little of me?” Lathe’s eyes flashed turquoise fire. “You think I’d leave you here just to die because you lied to me and deceived me?”

  “Some men would,” Ari said quietly.

  “Kindred aren’t like other males,” Lathe growled. “We honor females…even when they don’t honor us.”

  Ari felt a surge of irritation.

  “I won’t say I’m sorry again since you seem determined not to accept my apology. What do you want me to do, Lathe—get down and suck your cock again?”

  “I would have sucked yours,” he said in a low, angry voice. “Do you know how that makes me feel Ari? That I was willing to do that? I thought I was in love with another male—it turned me inside-fucking-out!”

  “Well being with you turned me inside out too,” she flared. “It made me feel awful not being able to tell you the truth. But you kept talking about how you hated liars and people who misrepresented themselves and I thought…” She trailed off. “I was scared, Lathe,” she finished in a small voice.

  Lathe gave her a steady look.

  “You know what bothers me the most?” he asked, his voice low and rough. “The fact that you have the courage to go down through the lasher kennels when it’s time for them to wake—hell, the courage to infiltrate BleakHall in the first place—but you didn’t have the courage to tell me who you really are.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ari whispered, even though she’d just said she wouldn’t apologize again. “So damn sorry, Lathe. I wish I could make it up to you.”

  He shook his head moodily.

  “Forget that now—we have to get going. But…there’s one thing I need to do before we go.”

  “Something you want to bring with you?” Ari looked around the cell but he didn’t go to get anything from under his bunk or the small shelf near the top of the ceiling. Instead he was still looking at her.

  “I don’t want to take a risk on my override failing,” he told Ari. “If it does, the cold air will start blowing, the lashers will wake, and you’ll probably be gone before I can get to you.”

  Ari shivered at the thought but squared her shoulders.

  “That’s awful but it’s a chance we’ll have to take, right?”

  “Wrong,” Lathe said, frowning. “There is an extra step I can take to protect you before I let you go wandering down into the mouth of hell.” He took a deep breath. “Strip, Ari.”

  “What?” Ari took a step back. “I hardly think this is the time—”

  “Strip,” Lathe repeated impatiently. “I need to cover your scent with my own.”

  “What?” Ari repeated, taking another step back. “I don’t understand.”

  Lathe made a growl of frustration.

  “You heard what Malik said—the lashers are especially attuned to female scent. Which is probably why that big one kept coming around when you first moved into my cell.”

  “Oh…right.” Remembering the huge beast with its glowing yellow eyes, Ari shivered. “But I don’t understand what you mean when you say you’ll ‘cover my scent.’”

  “Kindred have scent glands in and around their lips and mouths,” Lathe explained. “And their groins,” he added darkly. “But I don’t fucking trust myself to rub my shaft against you bare.”

  “Rub…rub against me?” Ari’s mouth was suddenly dry and her heart was pounding.

  Lathe seemed to see the fear and uncertainty on her face because his voice became somewhat gentler.

  “Don’t worry, little one—I’m not going to hurt you. Just going to rub my mouth against your skin and spread my scent so that if, the Goddess forbid, the lashers wake up, they’ll smell me instead of you. Do you understand?”

  “I…think so,” Ari said slowly. His sweet nickname for her calmed her down some. “But where…where are you going to, uh, rub me?”

  “Where your scent is strongest.” Lathe gave her a level look. “I need to hide the sweet fragrance of your pussy.”

  Thirty-Eight

  At last she seemed to understand him and began to take off her jumpsuit. Lathe tried not to watch—tried not to see her lush curves…the swells of her breasts… her tight pink nipples…the soft, hairless mound of her pussy. Gods, how could he have not known she was female before? No matter how good her disguise was, the warm, feminine scent that drifted up from between her thighs spoke louder than any fake holo she could have projected.

  Lathe felt his shaft getting hard but he tried to push his desire away.

  I’m angry with her—she lied to me. Lied about who she was and her feelings for me—she used me just like Talsa did. Besides, I’m only doing this to protect her in case my climate control override fails.

  “We don’t have much time so I’m going to make this fast,” he told Ari. “Sit on the bunk and spread your legs for me.”

  Blushing and biting her lip, she did as he directed. Lathe couldn’t help noticing that when she parted her thighs, her outer pussy lips parted too, revealing just a hint of her sweet pink interior.

  For a moment he was overcome with the need to spread her thighs even wider and lap her sweet little pussy—to suck her plump outer lips into his mouth and explore her pink folds with his tongue until she moaned and cried his name.

  But no—bringing her pleasure wasn’t his purpose here. He just needed to protect her by masking her scent with his own.

  Steeling himself against his erotic impulses, Lathe dropped to his knees before her and bent his face to her pelvis.

  The warm, sweet, feminine fragrance of her sex was even stronger here. His shaft was throbbing between his thighs and he could feel his fangs gett
ing long and sharp with the need to bite her—claim her—taste her. But he pushed his desire away and began to rub his cheek against her inner thighs instead.

  The sooner they got this done, the sooner they could get out of here.

  Ari bit her lip and tried not to gasp as she felt the rough scratch of the big Kindred’s whiskers against her tender thighs. God, having him so close like this reminded her of the other night when he’d kissed the holo-shaft. Except…except this was different.

  Back then he had believed her a male and had been going against all his natural instincts to kiss her. But now he knew she was female and was only trying to protect her from the lashers.

  That’s all he’s doing—just protecting me. Just putting his scent on me, Ari tried to tell herself as Lathe rubbed against her inner thighs with his cheeks and mouth like a feline marking its territory. He’s just…

  And then all the thoughts flew out of her head as he rubbed his cheek directly against the mound of her pussy.

  “Oh!” she gasped when his scratchy cheek came in contact with her tender flesh. It was an intense sensation—almost too much to bear when she already felt incredibly open and sensitive.

  “Sorry,” Lathe growled, looking up at her. “Too rough for you, little one?”

  “A little,” Ari confessed. “Your whiskers…”

  “Oh yes, of course.” He nodded. “I’ll use my mouth instead—more scent glands there anyway.” He motioned down at her legs. “I just need you to spread a little wider so I can reach you.”

  “All…all right,” Ari breathed. Feeling even more vulnerable, she opened her thighs wider and was embarrassed to note when she did so that her pussy was spreading open too. “Oh…” She started to close her legs but Lathe stopped her with a large, warm hand on her thigh.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Ari bit her lip. “I know you won’t. “It’s just I feel so…so open.”

  “You need to be open,” Lathe told her. “I need to rub against you there, too.”