Imprisoned Read online

  As she caught her last glimpse of him, Ari’s vision doubled…then trebled and she realized she was crying.

  Liv seemed to notice it at the same time because she steered Ari into a small room and helped her sit on an exam table covered in a soft, blue drape.

  “It’s all right now, honey,” she told Ari in a low voice. “We’re in private now—just let it out.”

  The way the nice nurse was helping her hide her grief reminded Ari of Lathe holding her in the Rec Yard, shielding her from the eyes of the other inmates as she sobbed her heart out. His strong arms around her…the warm fragrance of his skin…the low soothing words he’d used to comfort her…

  And now he’s gone, she thought desolately. Gone and I’ll never see him again. Ever.

  It was all too much. Ari collapsed on the table, sobbing as if her heart would break—as if it was already broken and there was no mending it ever again.

  Lathe’s heart was sore and proud as he made himself walk away from her. He told himself he was giving Ari what she wanted—her life back. Now she could go back to Phobos with her brother and never think of him again.

  As he intended to never think about her.

  Liar, whispered a little voice in his head. Even now you can’t get her out of your mind.

  He tried but he couldn’t seem to put Ari’s stricken face out of his mind. Still, he was sure he would forget her in time. And despite her words, Ari was probably already on her way to forgetting him.

  After all, she had never really loved him the way he had foolishly allowed himself to love her.

  I was a means to an end, Lathe told himself. Protection from Tapper and the other violent inmates…a way to rescue her brother…a way to get out of BleakHall. That was all I ever was to her.

  Of course some of that might be slightly unfair—after all, Ari hadn’t known that he had a way out of the prison until he told her. So she couldn’t have been using him as a means of escape.

  Well she used me enough, Lathe argued with himself angrily. She got me to fall in love with her and let me believe she was something she wasn’t. Just like Talsa did! And besides she doesn’t love me—she never did.

  Feeling justified, he left the med center for his own suite. He had much to tell Commander Sylvan and plenty of incriminating vid-feed stored in his prison ID tag but that could all wait. It had been a hell of a long time since he’d had a decent night’s sleep and he intended to get one now…and then get back to his normal life as soon as possible.

  A life that didn’t include Ari.

  Forty-Six

  “It’s all right, honey—just let it out. It’s okay.” Liv stood by the sobbing girl and rubbed her trembling back and shaking shoulders, feeling helpless. Poor little thing—Liv really didn’t know her but she seemed completely heartbroken.

  Was this all about Doctor Lathe? He had always impressed Liv as withdrawn and somewhat aloof but extremely competent. Thanks to his unique gift as a Cure-All, he had a one hundred percent success rate with his patients. But he didn’t lean on his natural abilities too heavily—he was also one of the most knowledgeable physicians Liv knew. In fact, aside from Sylvan and Yipper, the little Tolleg surgeon who lived aboard the Mother Ship, she couldn’t name another doctor she trusted more.

  He also would have been the guy she would think was least likely to have a tortured romance. But if the girl sobbing her heart out on the exam table was any indication, he had certainly gone out of his way to break character.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked Ari when the girl finally seemed to have sobbed herself out.

  “N-no. Not…not right now, anyway.” Ari looked up at her with wet, wounded eyes. “It’s still too…too fresh. But is there any way…” She hesitated for a moment.

  “What is it, hon?” Liv urged her. “Go on—ask for anything you need and I’ll do my best to get it for you.”

  “I just…I’d really like a shower,” Ari said in a small voice. “I just went through a long dirty tunnel to get out of a prison where I was afraid to do more than wash in the sink.” She looked at her fingernails which did appear to be full of dirt. “I feel so grimy.”

  “Of course you can have a shower,” Liv told her. “You’re in luck—I believe this is one of the exam rooms with a full bathroom in it. Come on.”

  She helped Ari off the table and led her to the small bathroom with its sink, toilet, and shower stall. After showing her how to work the Kindred appliances, and making sure she was steady on her feet, Liv left, leaving the door cracked open behind her just in case Ari needed anything else.

  As she came out of the bathroom, there was a knock on the door and a familiar voice said, “Lilenta? You in there?”

  “Right here.” Liv drew the privacy curtain, blocking the bathroom from view and went to the door. “Is everything okay?” she asked when she opened it and saw her husband’s wide, golden eyes.

  “Fine. It’s just…Sylvan wanted to see you.”

  Baird stepped back, revealing Sylvan, who was waiting behind him with a troubled look on his face.

  “Oh, hi, Sylvan,” Liv said. “If you’re wondering about the patients from Dr. Lathe’s ship, I put the two males in exam rooms six and seven for Dr. Brike to examine and I have the girl, Lady Arianna, here with me. I just…”

  But her words trailed off when Sylvan came up to her and took her by the shoulders. He leaned down, peering into Liv’s eyes, seeming almost to examine her for some reason. Then he shocked her completely by giving her a crushing hug.

  “Sylvan?” she gasped, barely able to breathe in the big Blood Kindred’s embrace. Sylvan was a wonderful brother-in-law and an excellent doctor but he wasn’t usually this demonstrative. Also, there was a kind of unwritten rule that mated Kindred didn’t touch women other than their wives. If they did, the woman’s husband was likely to get very upset. But Baird just stood there watching with solemn eyes as Sylvan embraced her.

  At last he released her and Liv could breathe again.

  “What was that for?” she asked, looking up at him, wide-eyed.

  “I’m just…so glad that you’re all right, kin-of-my-mate.” Sylvan’s pale blue eyes were suspiciously bright and his deep voice was slightly choked.

  “I don’t understand.” Liv shook her head. “What in the world is going on?” She looked first at Sylvan and then at Baird. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  “Tell you later, Lilenta when we know more about it,” her husband rumbled. “For now—”

  But then the three of them heard a gasp and a clatter followed by an audible thump from the bathroom.

  Forty-Seven

  Ari swam back to consciousness to see three pairs of worried-looking eyes bending over her. One pair was silvery-gray—those belonged to the nice nurse called Liv, she was sure. The second pair of eyes was pale, wintry blue. And the third pair was pure gold and looked almost animalistic.

  She blinked up at them, realizing as she did so that she was wet and naked except for a large towel someone had wrapped around her. She was also back on the exam table, she saw as she looked around.

  “She’s coming around,” Liv said to the man—no, Kindred—he has to be Kindred, Ari thought—with the pale blue eyes. “Maybe she just fainted from exhaustion.”

  “Or hunger,” said the Kindred with pale blue eyes. Wasn’t he the one Lathe had called on the viewscreen during their ride to the Mother Ship? Ari tried to place him. Commander Sliver? Commander Sylpan? What had Lathe called him?

  “Uh, I hate to contradict you two since you’re in the medical field and I’m not,” the other Kindred—the one with the bright gold eyes—rumbled. “But what about that? Do you think it could have anything to do with why she fell out?”

  He was pointing at her, Ari saw. Pointing at the side of her neck, right under her ear. As soon as she realized that, she felt a dull throb of pain coming from that area.

  That’s where it hurts, she thought groggily. I touched it in the shower and it hur