Handling the Hybrid Read online

  Her voice shook a little on the last words but she kept her chin high and held his gaze with hers in a way that Vrox respected.

  “All right…Mistress,” he emphasized. “And after you get your late relative’s inheritance, you’ll set me free with a hundred thousand credits and a promise to leave me the fuck alone afterwards.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed. “Deal.”

  “Clasp on it.” Vrox extended more of his arm through the hole, offering his hand and forearm for a warrior’s clasp.

  “Oh, um…” Tandy looked at the offered hand uncertainly and Vrox could see the fear far back in her big brown eyes.

  “Come on, little girl—I’m not going to hurt you. Not unless you hurt me first,” he murmured. “You have to trust me enough to clasp arms—if you don’t, how can you honor your part of the bargain and let me get my own back every night?”

  “You’re right.” Tentatively, she slid her soft, cool fingers up his forearm and reached as far as she could around his elbow—which wasn’t very far. In contrast, Vrox could have almost wrapped his long fingers around her arm twice. He settled for a firm, but not painful grip, letting her know he was giving this deal his all. He liked the contrast of their skin colors—his own dark tan against her creamy brown it was…erotic somehow and he could feel the pulse jumping nervously in her wrist. After a moment he withdrew—aware that one of her biggest fears was probably that he would grab her and yank her forward, forcing her to let him past the force field and out of her domicile.

  I suppose you could have done that—why didn’t you? whispered a practical little voice in his head. But Vrox knew why—it was because he was an honorable male. He had made a deal with the curvy little Mistress and he fully intended to see it through.

  “All right.” There was a look of relief on Tandy’s lovely face when their arms parted. “Then I guess we’re agreed—we start tomorrow.”

  “Oh no, little girl,” Vrox growled, frowning at her. “We start tonight.”

  “What? But I haven’t…haven’t done anything to you yet!” she protested, putting her hands on her hips.

  “You haven’t huh? What do you call using the pain cuffs on me in order to get me to follow you out of the damn Flesh Bazaar?” he demanded.

  Her face went suddenly pale.

  “But…but that was before the deal we made! It shouldn’t count.”

  “You brought me to my fucking knees, little girl,” Vrox pointed out, scowling at her. “It was Goddess-damned painful.”

  “And now you want to hurt me back? Is that right?” She lifted her chin and Vrox almost felt ashamed. But no—this was the deal they had made. Quid pro quo—tit for tat. She held his fucking life in her soft little hands—she had to know she couldn’t get away with anything.

  “I just want to give back to you what you gave to me—nothing more,” he said evenly. “I won’t hurt you any more than that—won’t try to get away and escape either. We have a deal and I’ll honor it,” he added, seeing her narrowed eyes and uncertain look. The Truth device, which he still wore, lit up green and beeped, proclaiming the sincerity of his words.

  “I…but I…” She bit her lip, looking at him uncertainly.

  “We can’t start this relationship on uneven footing, little girl,” he told her sternly. “You have to know—know in your fucking bones—that whatever you do to me, comes back to you.”

  “I understand that.” Tandy swallowed hard. “But I guess…guess I’m about to understand it better.” Her warm brown cheeks had lost a lot of color and her hands were shaking but she was doing as he asked, Vrox saw—she was opening the force field. She really was going to let him punish her the way she had punished him earlier with the pain cuffs.

  His opinion of her grew exponentially. For such a little thing, she had the courage of a vranna! He could break her in half with one hand and she knew that but they had made a deal and she was going to honor it.

  Goddess-damn it he admired her!

  But that didn’t change the fact that he had to give her back exactly what she’d given to him.

  Her time of reckoning had come.

  Five

  Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? demanded a little voice in the back of Tandy’s head as she opened the force field and stepped inside with the big Kindred. He can do more than hurt you—he can kill you and you’re putting yourself at his mercy! What is wrong with you?

  I’m not completely at his mercy, Tandy argued with the voice—which she was terribly afraid might be the voice of reason. I have the remote to the pain collar and cuffs in my possession and he can’t take it away from me because it’s keyed only to my touch. One jolt from it would kill him.

  So then why did she feel so nervous as the force field closed behind her and she found herself facing the big Kindred with nothing between them? She looked up at him…and up and up. Goddess, why did he have to be so tall? He had his hands on his hips and he was looking down at her appraisingly, as though thinking how to start her punishment.

  Tandy decided to make it easy for him.

  “Here,” she said, reaching for one of his pain cuffs. They were keyed to her fingerprint so only she was able to take them off. But before she could get the right unfastened from his thick wrist, the big Kindred drew back, frowning.

  “What do you think you’re doing, little girl?” he asked.

  “Well…putting on the pain cuffs so I can get shocked, like I shocked you,” Tandy said, frowning. “Unfortunately, you can’t handle the remote yourself—it’s keyed to me and if you try to touch it, the jolt you get from it could kill you,” she explained. “But I promise to give myself a good long zap—you can even count it out if you want—so I can get the full experience of what I did to you.”

  To her surprise, Vrox shook his head.

  “No, little girl—I don’t want you to do that. These damn pain cuffs are heavy duty and they’re set for a male my size—not a tiny little thing like you. You need to have pain because you gave me pain—but I don’t want you to have any permanent injury.”

  “Well that’s…chivalrous of you, I guess,” Tandy said blankly. “But how are you going to, uh, give me pain if not with the cuffs?”

  “Like this.”

  Before she could protest, he had swung her up and was carrying her under one muscular arm, over to the padded red bench in the center of the force field area she’d made for him.

  “Hey!” Tandy gasped. Her first panicked instinct was to shock him into submission but as she scrambled for the remote, the slippery little black box squirted out from between her fingers and fell to the floor with a muted clatter. “Oh, no!” she gasped. Without the means to control the pain cuffs and collar the huge Kindred wore, she was basically helpless in his arms and there was nothing she could do to stop him doing…whatever it was he had planned for her.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! screamed the little voice in her head. This is what you get, Tandy! Now you’re going to die! He’s going to strangle you or rape you or some horrible combination of the two and when they find your body Deelee will be so happy and Remy’s going to die and it’s all because you were stupid enough to trust a slave!

  But when Vrox finally settled down on the padded bench, he didn’t wrap his long fingers around her throat or try to force her to the ground and spread her legs or any of the other horrible scenarios her terrified imagination kept showing her. Instead, to Tandy’s mingled relief and surprise, he simply sat her on his knee and put one big, warm hand on her back while the other rested firmly across her legs, keeping her in place.

  “What…what are you doing?” Her voice was breathless with fear but she couldn’t help it—he was so big. She felt almost like a child in his lap—a child waiting for a punishment.

  “To start with, we’re just going to sit here for a minute,” Vrox rumbled. “You’re scared to death—I can hear your heart pounding ninety-to-nothing.”

  “You… you can hear my heart?”

  He nodded and r