Bridging the Distance Read online

  Maybe.

  “He needs to imprint,” she said to Bound, who was still staring with longing and pain at his brother, raging in the cage. “He needs a female’s touch—I’d bet my life on it.”

  Which is exactly what you’re about to do, whispered a grim little voice in her head.

  “Are you sure, My Lady?” Bound looked at her hopefully.

  “Not one hundred percent, no,” Lorelei admitted. “But we’re about to find out.” Darting forward before she could lose her nerve, she reached for the huge Kindred who was still reaching through the bars of his cage with his free arm.

  She had been meaning to just touch his arm but the Dark Twin was too fast for her. With a snarl, his huge hand grasped her wrist in a vise-like grip and squeezed.

  For a moment Lorelei felt the small bones of her wrist grinding together and she was certain the big Kindred would pulp her arm as easily as a man squeezes the juice out of an orange. She was dimly aware of Bound shouting and the Countess wringing her hands but they didn’t concern her now. Her focus of attention must be the massive Kindred in the cage.

  Pushing down the pain and panic that threatened to engulf her, Lorelei looked into the black-ringed emerald eyes and spoke clearly and slowly.

  “Torn,” she said in a soft but carrying voice. “Look at me. I call you by your name. I claim you. You’re mine.”

  The relentless, grinding pressure on her wrist suddenly eased and the green eyes went wide. Then the black shadows gathered around them began to dissipate, leaving the big Kindred’s face clear. A line of black moved down his shoulder and the length of his muscular arm to suffuse the hand which was holding Lorelei.

  The nanites, she thought distantly. They’re coming.

  The black reached his fingertips and she felt a slight tingle as they tasted her through his skin. Then they rushed back up his arm, their work done.

  “Mistress,” the prisoner whispered hoarsely. He dropped heavily to his knees, his hand still lightly gripping her wrist. “Mistress, I am yours.”

  Lorelei felt a rush of relief. Thank goodness she wasn’t going to die or lose her hand and arm after all! Her guess had been right and her gamble had paid off.

  She looked at the big Kindred, still gripping her wrist with a look of mute devotion on his lovely, wild face.

  “It’s all right, Torn,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke the muscular forearm with her free hand. “Everything is going to be all right. I’m going to take you home.”

  She looked at Bound who was still in some kind of shock and then at the Countess du’Montrive who was staring in open-mouthed wonder.

  “Wrap him up,” she said, smiling a little. “I’ll take him.”

  * * * * *

  For so long Torn had known nothing but rage—nothing but fury. A red mist clouded his vision and everyone around him was the enemy. Inside him, the tiny voices buzzed in his brain, insisting that everyone must die—that he must kill and kill and kill until none were left, until all of them were gone.

  The voices tormented him—were a constant, buzzing torture because they didn’t belong. They wanted to take him over—to remake him just the way his right arm had been remade—reshaped into a weapon…

  “You will lose yourself,” the Captain of the V’radors had buzzed, his voice coming from the silver grating in his throat—his mouth had been modified beyond the capacity for speech. His eyes were nothing but two staring, blinking lights and all his limbs were mechanized as well. “You will lose yourself and become perfect in the process.”

  “You’re one ugly son of a bitch, aren’t you?” Torn spat at him, fighting the plasti-steel straps that held him down. But it was useless—they were too strong to break, especially the one around his new arm.

  “Consider yourself lucky that you have been chosen to be a love-slave as well as a protector,” the Captain said. “Or you would have had more modifications.” He sighed, a strange, hollow sound coming from his throat. “Females find too many body-mods unattractive for some reason. So we left your pretty face…” He reached out a metal claw to caress Torn’s cheek. “Oh yes, such a pretty one…You’ll be the prettiest of us all.”

  Torn yanked his head to the side to avoid the metallic caress.

  “Get away from me, you sick bastard! I’m not one of you, even if you did cut off my arm and replace it with a fucking prosthetic!”

  “That ‘fucking prosthetic’ as you call it, can punch through solid plasti-steel or stop a moving vehicle in its tracks,” the V’rador buzzed. “Be grateful for it, Kindred. It will help you protect your Mistress once your conditioning is complete and the Thought-eaters have had their way with you.”

  As he spoke, the thick, black, oily liquid began oozing its way through the tubing that was thrust in the vein in Torn’s left arm.

  “The Mind-biters will take your past and leave room only for your future. You will remember nothing when they are done.”

  “No!” Torn swore, his voice hoarse with determination even as the nanites found their way into his bloodstream and began to invade his body. The V’radors had many names for them but there was only one thing Torn called them—fucking parasites. “No, I won’t forget!” he shouted. “You can’t take my memories from me! My past—my brother!”

  “It will be eaten. All of it eaten,” the V’rador Captain intoned. “The Memory-seekers will find and destroy everything that is not needed.”

  “No,” Torn had insisted. “No!”

  But even then he had felt the nanites at work in him, already crowding into his brain like unwelcome guests, jostling eagerly like patrons at a buffet—eager to eat him—eager to change him into something the V’radors could sell…

  As long as he could, Torn fought them—fought with all his might to think on his own, to keep his own free will. But the voices—the nanites—would never give up. He clung to the only thing he had left—his Twin Bond—to try and keep his sanity. But they even ate away at that.

  What twin? You have no twin—you have no brother, they whispered and buzzed in his brain. Thoughts and memories were taken from him, nibbled away bit by bit as though by hungry insects. Each day he remembered less and less, each night he felt the bond grown weaker.

  Until at last, he couldn’t even remember his brother’s name or face or the fact that he had a brother at all. There was nothing left but the red rage and the need to kill.

  He wanted to die…wanted to kill…wanted to burn the whole universe to ashes if only it meant an end to the constant buzzing, the constant gnawing inside his brain—a brain that was not wholly his anymore.

  And then she came.

  He didn’t recognize her at first but when he touched her the buzzing abruptly stopped. For the first time in months, ever since the V’radors had injected him with the thrice-damned nanites, there was silence in his mind. A blessed peace—a calm so unusual that at first Torn didn’t know what to do. He was no longer used to being alone in his own head—to hearing only his own internal voice.

  “Torn, look at me,” the female said. “I call you by your name. I claim you. You’re mine.”

  He felt something inside him shift—something so huge he knew it would change his life forever. It was as though his heart had been on the wrong side of his body all of his life and someone had suddenly put it back into place—the right place—at last.

  Then the nanites were back but instead of buzzing and gnawing, they hummed in perfect harmony.

  Her, they sang—a song so sweet, so seductive that Torn could not ignore or deny it. His vision cleared and he looked at the tiny female whose wrist he held in his hand. Her—it’s her! She claims us! We are hers.

  An Elite, whispered a thought in his brain—one of the few uneaten memories he had left. And the nanites sang, Mistress!

  “Mistress,” he whispered aloud and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to serve her—to be always by her side and never be parted from her. “Mistress,” he said again, falling to his knees befor