Unbound Read online

  Still, Brynn tried to dig in to her food anyway.

  The disk had expanded to a flat white plate holding what appeared to be a thin, spongy, light brown cake. The cake smelled of savory herbs and looked pretty good…until she cut into it and found long, purple, hair-like filaments running all through it like a network of veins.

  “Ugh—what is this?” Brynn picked at the thin purple hairs in disgust.

  “Don’t know.” Varin was already eating from his own plate, which held a kind of thick stew with chunks of what looked like green meat and blue and purple vegetables in bright pink sauce. “Sorry if you don’t like it. Want to trade? This stuff tastes better than it looks.” He indicated the stew.

  “No, that’s okay.” Brynn sighed and pushed her plate away. “I’m not hungry after all.”

  Varin frowned. “You have to keep your strength up, Brynn. I have to know you’re safe and strong in case I—” He stopped abruptly and looked down at his plate.

  “In case you what?” Brynn felt a shiver of fear run through her. “Varin, what is it? Tell me!” she demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  He sighed and also pushed his plate aside.

  “All right, I wanted to wait until after we ate but I guess there’s no putting it off. Remember how I told you I have a slave chip in my back and if it’s not changed at least once a year I’ll die? Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m getting close to my annual change time but I don’t have any chips.”

  “Oh my Goddess…” Brynn put a hand to her mouth. “Varin, no! I can’t lose you again! I won’t!” She jumped up and ran around the table to put her arms around his neck. The low chair he was sitting in meant that for once, since she was standing, Brynn was taller. “Please!” She was so panicked she grabbed him and pulled him close, pressing his head to her chest. “Please, Varin, don’t leave me again! Don’t die! Please!”

  “Take it easy, little one. I’m not dead yet.” His voice was somewhat muffled and Brynn realized that, in her terror, she was pressing his face right between her breasts. She could feel the scratch of his whiskers against her tender slopes and realized that the v-necked dress shirt had gaped wide, showing her bare skin. But she was so upset, she didn’t even care. She just kept seeing him in chains down in the dungeon, hearing her mother say that he would die, that Brynn herself had killed him just by showing him affection…

  Just as I’m doing now, she thought and felt a surge of guilt. Only she was acting much more forward than she had when her mother had labeled her a “slut.” She was not only showing Varin her bare breasts, she was pressing his face right in between them!

  The Blood Honey surged inside her and she felt her nipples harden. Goddess, if he would just turn his head and take one of her aching pink peaks between his lips. He could suck her nipples into his hot mouth, laving them with his tongue, making her pussy throb with need…

  No! I can’t give in to these thoughts—these feelings. Have to fight it!

  “I…um…” She pulled back in confusion, grasping hastily at the sides of the shirt to cover herself. “I just don’t want to lose you again,” she whispered, looking at him with eyes that stung and burned with tears. “Please, Varin…”

  “I’ve got a little time,” he said, clearly wanting to reassure her. Brynn would have stepped back some more, but he put his arms around her hips, linking them loosely behind her to hold her in place. “That’s what I wanted to talk about—what to do in the time we have. Which way to go.”

  “We need to go to the nearest habitable planet and buy you a new slave chip,” Brynn said at once.

  “Yes, well…about that.” He sighed unhappily. “I’m afraid this ship I stole is pretty noticeable and extremely expensive. Just about any port we put in to that’s big enough to have a slave market that sells the right chips is also big enough to have notices posted and people looking out for it. Add that to the fact that the slavers I escaped from will be looking for me and the Hive will be hunting for you and that makes a whole lot of people we want to avoid.” He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know if there’s a safe port for the two of us anywhere in the known sectors.”

  “Well then, what are we supposed to do?” Brynn felt a surge of despair but she refused to let it drown her. She lifted her chin. “We can’t just give up, Varin. We can’t. We need to find you help—get you a new chip!”

  “That’s true,” he said simply. “And there might be a way to do that.”

  “How? I thought you said all the known sectors are too dangerous to dock in,” Brynn objected.

  Varin took a deep breath.

  “In the slave ship I was on after your mother, the Queen, sold me, I was chained next to a Tempath. He had information about the Hive—it’s the only way I was able to come get you—he told me exactly what to do. But he also knew about my people.”

  “You mean the Kindred?” Brynn asked. “Where are they? Can we get to them in time to get you some help?”

  “I believe that we can, but—and this is a big ‘but’…” Varin raised an eyebrow at her warningly. “The majority of them live on the other side of the Blind.”

  “I…I didn’t think there was anything on the other side of the Blind,” Brynn protested. “I thought it was just an immense cloud of cosmic dust that goes on and on for millions of light years in every direction and anyone that goes in never comes out again.”

  “That’s why it’s a problem,” Varin said. “But the Tempath had star charts stored in his memory. He gave me coordinates—the right place to enter the Blind in order to get through to the other side and also the location of the other Kindred.”

  “That’s amazing,” Brynn exclaimed. “Then we should go there—as fast as we can!”

  “Even if it means going through the Blind?” Varin raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Even so.” Brynn nodded decisively. “I trust you, Varin—if you think you can get us through, I know you can.”

  “Little one…” He let his arms drop from around her waist and looked down. “Gods, I hope I can be worthy of your trust. More worthy than I have been in the past.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brynn demanded. “You came and saved me from the Hive! I don’t know any other male who would have been brave enough to come in even if he had an army at his back but you…you rescued me all by yourself! That’s amazing, Varin.”

  “I couldn’t save you in the dungeons of Galen Prime,” he growled. “Couldn’t help you when you needed me most.”

  “Oh…” Brynn realized he was talking about her deflowering and she felt her cheeks get hot with shame. “I don’t blame you for that,” she said in a low voice. “It wasn’t your fault. It was my parents’ greed that…that…caused what happened to happen.”

  She couldn’t say it out loud—couldn’t make herself talk about the silver club that had pieced her so painfully, no matter how hard she tried.

  “It shouldn’t have happened, though.” Varin’s voice was low and angry. “I felt your pain and violation…but I could do nothing about it. Nothing.” He looked at his hands—the one normal and strong, the other still gloved. “I’ve been a slave all my life but I’ve never felt so helpless as I did at that moment—seeing you about to be hurt and not being able to stop it. I’m sorry, Brynn.”

  “Oh, Varin…” For a moment she thought she might cry but Brynn swallowed her tears. “It’s all right,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “It’s in the past and it’s never, never going to happen again.” She clenched her hands into fists. “I’ll never let anyone do that to me—put anything in me there, ever again.”

  A look of sorrow came over his strong features. “I can understand why you would feel that way, little one. I just wish I could have spared you that pain. Wish I could have protected you.”

  “Maybe…maybe I don’t want you to always have to protect me,” Brynn said, lifting her chin. “Maybe I want to learn to protect myself so I’m not so helpless and dependent.”

&nbs