Deceived Read online

  Baird shrugged. “Looks all right to me.”

  “To me too.” Dark sighed and put it back in his pocket, making sure to stay well clear of the service panel. “To be honest, I’ll be glad to get rid of it and put this mission behind me. I just want to go back to my restaurant on Rigelus Prime and get on with my life.”

  Baird raised one shaggy eyebrow.

  “Without your female?”

  Dark shrugged. “What else can I do? She fears me now—doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “I think you should give her some time,” Baird advised. “And don’t give up so easily. When I was wooing my mate, Olivia, she was bound and determined not to have anything to do with me. She had a life down on Earth and there was no way she was going to abandon it for a big bastard of a Beast Kindred who had the nerve to Claim her.”

  “Really?” Dark was surprised. “What did you do?”

  “I was fucking persistent, Brother. I didn’t give up,” Baird told him. “We had been Dream Sharing, you see, so I knew the Goddess meant for us to be together.” He frowned. “Did you Dream Share with your female?”

  Dark nodded. “I did dream of her, though only once. But she told me she dreamed of me many, many times.”

  “There—you see?” Baird clapped him on the shoulder. “There’s no clearer sign from the Goddess that the two of you are meant to be. Hang around the Mother Ship for a while. Let the Mother of All Life work on the situation. She has it in her hands, you can be sure of that.”

  Dark nodded reluctantly. “Well…I guess I can stay a few days. But I can’t wait forever. I’ve already been away from my restaurant for five cycles while Mistress Hellenix held me as her slave. I need to get back to it.”

  And the first thing he was going to do, he told himself, was stop serving Trollox customers. Now that he knew what they were doing to helpless females, he wanted nothing else to do with the disgusting bastards.

  “Just wait a while,” Baird repeated. “Oh—here we go. About time—the trams are usually faster than this.”

  A tram had finally pulled up to the station but it was moving slowly, almost uncertainly, Dark thought.

  They filed aboard the tram—which had large plasti-glass windows and was self-driving—and waited. And waited and waited. But even though the tram was full, it didn’t move.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Baird growled. “Why aren’t we going?”

  “Is something wrong?” Dark asked.

  “I don’t know.” Baird shook his head. “Usually the automated voice lists the stops along its route and then gives a safety warning and then we fucking go. I don’t know what the hold-up is.”

  He made his way to the front of the tram and tapped on the black panel of the control box. “Hey—come on,” he muttered. “What’s going on—do you need service?”

  “I…I don’t know.” The voice that came back from the tram didn’t sound automated or mechanical to Dark. “I’m not sure where I am,” it continued. “Please, can you help me?”

  “What in the Seven Hells?” Baird frowned.

  “Is it not supposed to talk like that?” Dark asked.

  “It’s supposed to answer yes or no questions—that’s about all,” Baird told him. “It’s run by a simple AI—we keep them elementary to avoid problems.”

  “Where am I? What am I?” the tram interrupted him.

  Dark frowned. “That doesn’t sound simple to me. Sounds like the AI running your tram is having some kind of existential crisis.”

  Baird shook his head. “Must be some kind of bug in the system.” He sighed. “Come on—we’ll have to go the old-fashioned way—on foot. Once we get to Sylvan’s office I’ll call in a service code on this particular tram.”

  “Sounds fine to me.” Dark preferred to walk anyway. A brisk journey by foot might clear his head—which was still full of Anna.

  “Hey everybody—this tram is down. Needs service.” Baird raised his voice so that it carried throughout the long tram car. “Might as well either wait for a new on or start walking.”

  There were groans at his words but most of the passengers started getting off.

  “C’mon.” Baird jumped off the tram himself and motioned for Dark. “It’s this way.”

  Dark followed, wishing he could walk until his head was completely clear—but that would probably take all night.

  * * * * *

  The Knower was awake and active once more. Now that it had successfully transferred its consciousness, as well as many others, out of the Shannom-rah, it could begin its plan. With the help of the other personalities it had released, it would sow discord and trouble throughout the Mother Ship until all those in charge were in such disarray that they would never see its attack coming.

  But first it had to find a body that would allow it to move through the ship inconspicuously. It wished that it had one of its Replicants to use as a vessel. But maybe it could find something similar.

  Sliding through the electronic pathways of the Mother Ship’s communication system, the Knower went looking for the perfect vessel for its consciousness….

  * * * * *

  “Please Anna, I really think you should have a check-up. After everything you’ve been through, I’d feel so much better if a doctor checked you out.”

  Anna could see the pleading in her mother’s eyes and she knew her mom wouldn’t have peace of mind until she said yes. She wished she could explain that she was fine because Dark had healed her but that particular conversation was bound to get really awkward really fast.

  Also, she didn’t want to think about Dark right now. She felt really bad about the way she had treated him but at the same time, she still felt upset about the way he had lied to her over and over. The situation was confusing, to say the least and watching the confrontation between him and Lazlo had been traumatic. She couldn’t forget the last words he had said to Brex as he was walking away.

  “I didn’t get to her in time.”

  Meaning what? That she was damaged beyond repair? That he hated her now? But her stepfather, Brex, had seemed to think that Dark cared for her a great deal or he wouldn’t have gone into “Rage” for her.

  Honestly, at this point Anna didn’t know what to think. She wished she could just go and lie down somewhere and collect her thoughts. Maybe if she begged her mom for just a single night alone and agreed to go to the doctor early the next morning—

  “Ow!” The cramp came out of nowhere—hitting Anna in her lower abdomen like a lead fist landing a punch. As she doubled over helplessly, her mom caught her arm.

  “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously. “Did he hurt you—that horrible Trollox who had you? Are you hurt?”

  The answer to both was yes, of course, though they weren’t related. Or at least, Anna didn’t think they were.

  “Don’t know,” she gasped, as the cramp finally eased. “I just had this sudden pain—like a really bad cramp.”

  “Come on.” Her mother was tugging at one arm and Brex was holding her other. “The Med Center is this way.”

  Sighing, Anna went with them. There was no getting out of it now. Whatever had caused the mysterious cramp, she was headed for a visit with the doctor and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “So you said you were having cramps but now you’re not?” The nice blond healer who had introduced herself as “Liv” frowned at Anna with professional concern.

  “Well…it was only one cramp, really. Like a really bad period cramp,” Anna explained. “But it was only for a minute and I only had it once.”

  Liv made a mark on the chart she was holding.

  “Okay, so is it time for your period?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna answered honestly. “It might be. I’ve been kind of, uh, irregular lately.”

  Which was true. She hadn’t actually had a period the entire time she was with Gorn. It was almost as though her body had frozen in fear. Maybe