Deceived Read online

  Dark had learned and by the time he’d been old enough for primary classes, he had a tough shell around him to keep others out. The other children knew not to touch him—a lesson he reinforced by breaking one boy’s fingers when the bully wouldn’t let him alone. He’d been suspended for several weeks for that but it was the one time Dark remembered his father expressing pride in him.

  “Did what you had to do—good for you, son,” he’d barked, clapping Dark on the back so hard he almost fell over. “Don’t let them get behind your walls and you’ll be fine. We might make something of you yet.”

  It was the first time his father had showed him any physical or verbal approval and shortly after that, Dark was allowed to accompany his sire to the kitchen of LorElle and start helping with the prep work. It was there that he fell in love with cooking, for it was the only way to be close to his father—who closed himself off from everyone but their mother, when she was alive and closed himself off entirely after her death.

  So Dark had learned his lessons from his father early and well—keep your walls high and your knives sharp. But sitting there in the darkness, cradling his younger brother who was weeping his heart out, Dark couldn’t keep his walls up anymore.

  Circling Creek’s thin, birdlike wrist loosely in a finger and thumb, he had deliberately let down his walls for the first time since he had built them up in primary ed.

  Pain had blazed into him, pouring like fire through a funnel into his guts. His own grief for his mother was like a dull, grinding ache—a constant sorrow that never went completely away, even when he was asleep. But Creek had intense emotions and their mother had been his whole world. He hadn’t been born a Pain Taker like Dark, so their father had allowed her to baby him and cuddle him as she had not been able to do with her oldest son. Creek felt her loss like a knife wound to the heart—a stabbing agony that went on and on and never dulled or lessened. A pain so great it was breaking him.

  It almost broke Dark too.

  As he sat in the darkness and let his brother’s pain flow into him like a poison tide, he felt as though he might die of it and yet he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t yank his hand away and leave Creek to face the pain himself.

  I love him too much, he thought, dizzy and sick with the piercing, stabbing, blinding ache of both his own pain and his brother’s. It hurts more to see him in pain than it does to take it on myself. I have to take it all—have to ease his ache.

  As so he did, though it weakened him so much he could barely get out of bed the next morning. But that night, for the first time since their mother had died, Creek slept peacefully. And looking at his little brother’s sleeping face, the lines of pain and loss temporarily smoothed from his forehead and his young body completely relaxed in sleep, Dark knew it was worth it—worth the intense agony of taking his brother’s grief inside himself, worth the weakness that followed—worth everything just to give Creek a little bit of peace.

  It was a cycle that repeated itself often. For though he could take the emotional pain of the loss for a little while, it always returned. It was never so bad as that first time, however, and after a while, it lessened considerably and Dark learned to live with it.

  His father, of course, had no idea of what he was doing. To him, Dark was nothing but an extra set of hands in the kitchen when he could be spared from watching his brother—a convenient extra prep cook whom he barely saw. He buried his own grief in work and let his sons fend for themselves—why would he know or care what Dark was doing?

  Dark had grown to resent his father even as he emulated him. By the time he was twenty-five cycles old, he had a restaurant of his own on Rigelus Prime, far from his sire. Creek had come to work for him and by the time Dark was twenty-eight, he had earned the first ten of the coveted Marks of Honor. He’d been planning on earning another ten and surpassing his father in every way—not that the old bastard would probably notice.

  And then the Ambassador from Yonnie Six came and his life became wildly skewed.

  She and her entourage ate at his restaurant—Tour’femm—and found both the food and the head chef to their liking. She had waited for him, surrounded by guards with blasters, and caught both him and Creek in the alley after closing time.

  Before Dark knew it, both he and his little brother were sold to the ruthless Mistress Hellenix to work in her kitchens. He had done some of his best cooking there—better even than he’d done when he knew the critic from Frip was reviewing him. That was because the sadistic Mistress was quick to criticize and free with her pain whip when she didn’t like the end result of Dark’s tireless work.

  How often had he tasted the sting of her lash—and taken Creek’s pain as well as his own afterwards? For his little brother and no one else would Dark endure the double agony that came with his curse. And he endured it often while they were slaves on Yonnie Six.

  He had feared he would live his life in bondage but then a miracle happened—his cruel Mistress had traded him and Creek for another slave and at last Dark and his brother were free.

  Dark had planned to go straight back to Rigelus Prime. He didn’t know what might be left of Tour’femm but he was determined to go back to the life he had built for himself and finish earning the Marks of Honor. He would put everything he had endured at the hands of his sadistic Mistress to the far back of his mind and forget it, he promised himself. As for Creek, thanks to Dark’s gift, his brother had been mostly spared from the horror. He ought to be able to live his life as well. They would run the restaurant together and forget and be happy—or at least be free.

  Then came the dream.

  The dream of the girl with the bruised face and frightened look—the dream of the Shannom-rah—an ancient artifact desperately needed by the Kindred of the Mother Ship. They had to get to the rainbow crystal which was capable of storing trillions upon trillions of personalities before their enemy, the Knower did.

  And Dark had volunteered to go.

  Because of the dream. Because of the voice he’d heard whispering, A life for a life—you must go, warrior.

  But, not because of the girl, he told himself firmly, as he looked out over the assembled crowd in the Replicant brothel. Not her. Never her.

  He’d been failed by females all his life. His mother who died and left him with an uncaring father and a helpless brother to take care of…the Yonnite ambassador who had stolen five long cycles of his life…the Mistress who had beaten him when she was angry and done…other things when she was pleased.

  No, he had no time for females, Dark told himself. No time, no patience, and no need. After this assignment he would go back home and live out the rest of his life the way his father had—working in the kitchen of his own restaurant to make the best cuisine he could, seeking the elusive Marks of Honor, and never, ever taking a mate.

  Wonder what Creek’s doing now? Is he prepping for Last Meal service tonight? he thought, listening to the crowd murmur among themselves over the pumping music. The auction was about to begin and expectations were high. The Replicants were lined up in neat rows around the perimeter of the large room and everyone was eager to get started. Most of them were female—because most of the buyers were male—but there were a few male Replicants on the far side of the room. Dark was at the end of their line. His handler—the brothel employee who had smuggled him in for a princely sum—was long gone and now he was on his own.

  Can’t believe I’m actually going through with this! If it wasn’t for that damn dream…

  This wasn’t the first time Dark had been auctioned off—he’d been sold to Mistress Hellenix at the Flesh Bazaar five cycles before. Even though he was being sold of his own volition this time and the assignment would be temporary, he could feel his nerves beginning to fray.

  He was starting to sweat, the fine droplets of perspiration beading on his forehead just below his black hair. He usually wore it long but he’d had it cut short on the Kindred Mothership—the better to emulate the neat, artificially handsome Replicant