Imprisoned Read online

  “I understand.” Liv nodded. “But right now I think Ari needs to talk her way through this before she can make a decision.”

  “I will go and speak to Doctor Lathe in the meantime so he can be ready, yes I will, yes I will,” Yipper declared.

  “No!” Ari sat up in bed and grabbed for his hairy little arm. “No,” she said again urgently. “I want your word that you won’t tell him anything.”

  Yipper looked confused.

  “But if he can help you…”

  “No!” Ari exclaimed again. “He never wants to see me again and I refuse to be dependent on his charity.”

  The little surgeon shook his head in a baffled way.

  “Do you know, sometimes I think I understand human emotions and then I find that I was wrong and I do not understand them at all. No I don’t, no I don’t,” he said mournfully. “Sometimes I think it was easier to work with the Dark Kindred. They were…simpler.”

  “Just let Ari and I talk for a while and then we’ll make a decision,” Liv said gently. “I know you just want to help, Yipper, but it has to be Ari’s choice what treatment she gets.”

  “Very well, very well.” The little surgeon left, still looking upset and Liv turned to Ari.

  “All right, hon, as my best friend Kat would say—spill. Go ahead and get it all off your chest so we can work through this thing together.”

  Ari started slowly…talking about how Jak had been taken by slavers, then sold to Yonnie Six, then sent to BleakHall. Then she explained the solid-holo device and the transport bubble she had hidden in her prison ID tag.

  “Wow—it’s ugly but useful,” Liv remarked, staring at the tag in surprise as Ari activated the bubble for a moment. She couldn’t show Liv the solid-holo because her power source was depleted but Liv made her promise to let her see as soon as she got it powered up again.

  “And Yipper can remove that for you as well,” she added. “It looks surgically implanted but I’m sure now that you’re out of BleakHall you don’t want to keep it as a souvenir, right?”

  “I would like to have it taken out,” Ari said and sighed. “He might as well do it when he’s replacing the entire side of my neck and head.”

  “You know, before you go that route we really should at least let Doctor Lathe try healing you,” Liv said softly. “He really does have an amazing success rate.”

  “No,” Ari said stubbornly. “You heard him—he never wants to see me again.” Tears threatened and she had to sniff them back. “I just can’t believe he’d act like that. After everything we went through…”

  “Tell me more,” Liv urged gently. “Tell me the whole story. I think you need to get it off your chest.”

  Ari went on, telling Liv how Lathe had taken her under his wing from the first. And how quickly feelings had grown between the two of them.

  “He even told me he was falling in love with me,” she confided to Liv. “And he couldn’t…couldn’t understand why because he thought I was male.” She hung her head. “I should have told him then what I was—I should have shared my secret with him. But he had been going on and on about how he hated liars and people who misrepresented themselves. Apparently there was some girl who wanted a job on the Mother Ship and she tried to use him to get it but she was already engaged?”

  She looked at Liv, hopeful that she might have more information but the nurse only shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, hon—I don’t know about that. Doctor Lathe hasn’t been aboard the Mother Ship that long and he’s always been an intensely private person. If some girl kicked him to the curb, he probably never said a word about it to anyone. That’s the kind of guy he is—he keeps it all inside.”

  “Well, he let it all out with me,” Ari said softly. “It seemed like he did, anyway. He was so warm and protective and gentle with me…right up until he didn’t want me anymore,” she ended in a whisper.

  Liv frowned. “I think this sounds like a bad case of wounded pride. He doesn’t like it that you fooled him so thoroughly and made him think he was in love with another guy when he probably sees himself as straight as a board.”

  “He’s definitely not a lover of other men,” Ari said. “But for a while I made him question that and I think…” She sighed. “I think he just can’t forgive me for it. I tried and tried to apologize but he just wouldn’t accept my apology. I think he thinks I was just using him for protection but honestly, it was so much more than that.”

  “So how do you really feel about him?” Liv asked. “I can see how upset this is making you—are you just bothered because you don’t want Lathe to think badly of you?”

  “No, I’m upset because I love him!” Ari clapped a hand over her mouth. Oh Goddess, had she really just said that out loud?

  You said it all right—and you meant it too, whispered a little voice in her head. You’re madly in love with him and you have been for a while—probably from the minute when he held you and let you cry out on the Rec Yard.

  “I love him,” she said again, testing the words and hearing the ring of truth in them. “I do.”

  “Just now figuring that, are you?” Liv asked dryly, a little smile playing around one corner of her mouth.

  “You know…I thought about it some at BleakHall but it was so scary and violent there I felt like I barely had room to breathe. Out here in the free world I can see…” Ari cleared her throat. “I guess I can really see what I lost.”

  “I wouldn’t say he’s lost for good,” Liv said. “Maybe just really thoroughly pissed off you made him question his entire sexuality. That tends to be pretty hard on the male ego, no matter how progressive a guy is.”

  “No…” Ari shook her head mournfully. “No, he’s gone, Liv. He’ll never want anything to do with me again and I guess…I guess I don’t blame him. It’s my fault he left…and my fault he’s never coming back.” Her voice sounded choked and wrong in her own ears and her eyes stung as she spoke.

  “Honey, don’t blame yourself that way.” Liv put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “You were incredibly brave to go into that hell hole all by yourself like that. Of course you were afraid to tell your secret. Listen…” She looked Ari in the eyes. “I’ve never been to prison, thank God, but I know what it’s like to feel helpless and vulnerable in an all-male environment. I was kidnapped by the Scourge back when the All-Father was still in power and if my husband Baird hadn’t traded himself for me…”

  She shook her head and Ari saw that her eyes were bright.

  “Sorry.” Liv sniffed. “It was a long time ago but I still have nightmares about it occasionally—standing there naked with the All-Father and his minions all around and feeling completely alone…totally isolated.”

  “That’s it—that’s exactly how I felt.” Ari nodded. “But I never meant to fool Lathe in the first place. He came up to me. He told me…” Her throat felt thick. “Told me he couldn’t ignore my cries for help. And he said my scent drew him to me.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a Kindred.” Liv nodded knowingly. “Sometimes I think they find their mates through their noses way more than their eyes.”

  “His scent was pretty amazing too,” Ari admitted. “His bonding scent, I mean.”

  Liv’s eyebrows went up.

  “His body released his bonding scent for you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Ari nodded. “Is that unusual? Or do Kindred do it for every woman they’re interested in?”

  “Listen, hon—the bonding scent is the big guns. It doesn’t come out until ‘the one’ shows up—the woman the Kindred wants to mate with for life,” Liv said, frowning. “I forgot to ask you, but did you ever dream of Doctor Lathe? You know—before you met him?”

  Ari nodded. “I dreamed of his eyes. They’re so vivid you know—such a gorgeous turquoise.” She sighed.

  “And did he dream of you?” Liv asked, still frowning.

  “He said he did,” Ari admitted.

  “So you were Dream-sharing and he was making his bonding