Handling the Hybrid: A Kindred Tales Novel Read online

  Dark had come prepared for this. He had been willing to go on this mission only as long as he didn’t have to worry about servicing anyone—especially the Trollox—sexually. Accordingly, one of the engineers who worked on the Pairing Puppets, which were the androids the unmated Kindred on the Mother Ship used to meet their needs, had created a prosthesis Dark could wear.

  Keeping his face completely blank, he unfastened the leather trousers he was wearing and opened them wide.

  “What the fuck?” Gorn muttered, both heads surveying the exposed flesh.

  The V of black leather showed only a smooth, tan strip of hairless skin—the space between Dark’s thighs was utterly sterile and sexless.

  Of course, beneath the prosthesis—which was made of psuedo-flesh and molded to his skin seamlessly—Dark was as well endowed as any Kindred—all of whom were blessed by the Goddess in order to be able to please their females. Bur it was impossible to tell that with the prosthesis in place—he simply looked like a Replicant that someone had forgotten to add male equipment to.

  Gorn shook both his heads, the horns on the right head clacking against the horns on the left.

  “I don’t fuckin’ get it,” he growled, glaring with both sets of glowing eyes at Dark. “This is brothel. What the fuck is the point of you if you can’t fuck, pretty boy?”

  “I am programmed for cooking,” Dark said blandly, refastening his trousers.

  “Cooking, eh?” Gorn glared at him doubtfully. “What’s them, then?” he asked, pointing to Dark’s mouth.

  My fangs—he sees my fangs! Fuck!

  Dark barely stopped himself from slapping a hand over his mouth. Being half Blood Kindred, he of course had the double set of fangs where a normal humanoid would have his canine teeth. They were only supposed to get sharp when he met the female he wanted for a mate but his also sharpened when he felt threatened. And with the two-ton, massive Trollox looming over him, it was difficult to feel otherwise.

  “I am…build for protection as well,” he said, improvising. “If your home has valuable belongings that need guarding, I am well versed in many forms of combat.”

  He expected the Trollox to demand that he prove that too and he was more than ready to take the big brute on—his nerves had been on edge from the moment Gorn stumped over to examine him. Instead, the right head, which had been completely silent up until now spoke.

  “What kind of food do you cook, pretty boy?” The voice of this head wasn’t quite as deep and there was an oily, sly quality to it that made Dark feel he ought to be careful how he answered.

  “What kind of cuisine do you prefer, Master?” he asked blandly. “I am versed in Gelusian hot pot, Chil’bean blood worm preparation, Fondro mung-slop—”

  “Can you cook any Trollox food?” the left head demanded impatiently, its yellow eyes blazing. “I’ve bought Replicants from this place before that claimed they could cook for me but none of them knew hracker-head stew from yarn intestine pie.”

  “I can cook these and many other Trollox dishes,” Dark told him—which was the absolute truth. His restaurant on Rigelus Prime had been right near the Cantha system where most of the Trollox made their homes. He’d had regular Trollox customers—who he seated in a special dining room—ostensibly because the furniture there was heavier and more durable. But in reality, it was simply to hide his huge patrons and their messy eating habits from the view of other customers, who were invariably put off by Trollox table manners—or the lack thereof.

  “Hmm…” Gorn looked like he was wavering. “Well, I do have valuables that need protecting and I don’t want to hire a fucking humanoid chef—fucking untrustworthy they are,” the left head said.

  “And a Replicant with no cock is good,” the right one purred. “We don’t have to worry about him tampering with our breeding vessel.”

  “Fucking true,” the left head grunted. “All right, let’s take ‘im.”

  “I will place a bid that no one else can match,” the right head said smoothly, taking up the bid-pad on the stand beside Dark and tapping industriously with one curved claw. “There,” it said, finishing and putting the pad back. “That should do it.”

  “See you after the auction, pretty boy,” the left head growled. “You’ll be comin’ home with me. But for now, gotta find a few pretty little fuck toys. They wear out so fast.”

  The right head sighed. “They wouldn’t if you’d be a little more careful with them! You always break them right after we get them.”

  “Fucking is fucking,” the left head snarled back. “Ain’t no ‘careful’ about it.”

  The Trollox stumped off, still arguing with himself and Dark breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t liked being so close to the big bastard—it made every nerve in his body tight as he prepared to fight a male all his senses swore was the enemy.

  Better get over that feeling, he told himself sternly. Gorn is going to be your new master so you’re going to wind up spending time with him whether you want to or not.

  Well, hopefully he would be confined to the kitchen and could just send the food out. As long as the huge Trollox only wanted to eat and didn’t care about supervising how the food was made, he should be all right…

  The auction seemed interminable with numerous customers coming to look him over and then placing bids but finally a brothel employee—a humanoid male wearing a button that flashed, Ask me about our double penetration specials!—came over to him.

  “Okay, buddy—looks like somebody put in the maximum bid on you,” he said. “Gotta get you going to your new master.”

  He had a bored look on his face as he unlocked the stay-put manacle from around Dark’s wrist and nodded at him.

  “Come.”

  Dark took a deep breath and did as he was told, walking in what he hoped was the same stiff, robotic gait he saw the real Replicants using. They went through a doorway into a long, dark corridor and he saw a small doorway at the end. For a moment he hesitated—if he went down that hall, there was no going back and he knew it.

  The brothel employee noticed he wasn’t following and turned to frown at him.

  “Come on, will you? I’ve got a million other things to do. What are you—glitchy?”

  That got Dark moving again. He didn’t want the employee to tell Gorn he had bought a defective product. The Trollox would doubtless send him back and then he would lose his chance to get close to the Shannom-rah.

  Goddess, help me, he thought, walking down the hallway. No backing out now.

  He was doing this and there was no stopping until his mission was fulfilled.

  Want more? Of course you do!

  Don’t worry, Deceived will be coming next month to feed your Kindred cravings.

  Hugs and Happy Reading!

  Evangeline

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