Deceived Read online

  He didn’t have ingredients to make cheeseburgers or French fries, though. Or a pizza or a curry or sushi or anything else that remotely resembled Earth food for that matter. Later he could order the foods he needed—he had found the form on an e-clip and he could send out an order electronically for anything he needed for the kitchen. But he wanted to make the girl something now.

  He was just about to despair when he found some of the tough-skinned purple yams from Ry’gle that were renowned for their sweetness. He frowned, weighing them in his hand. Now what could he make? Nothing that resembled Earth food, unfortunately, but something good and nourishing and tasty, at least. Something that smelled and tasted appetizing and didn’t have anything to do with Trollox cuisine at all.

  He skinned and diced the yams and set them to boiling in salted water. When they were soft, he mashed them into a paste and added eggs and xylom honey. Luckily, there was yeast in the cabinet and some kind of nut flour as well. Dark mixed them all together until a bright purple dough formed. He let it rise, punched it down, and let it rise again. Then he formed it into a loaf and brushed the top with sweet handa butter which he found way in the back of the cold storage unit.

  By the time six o’clock—the time specified by Gorn for dinner—rolled around, the entire kitchen was filled with the heavenly scent of baking bread. Of course, there were also the nauseating smells of the Trollox food to contend with, but Dark kept the lid on the pot of stew he was making as much as possible so he didn’t have to deal with it much.

  He wished for the ventilating hoods he’d had in his old kitchen back at his restaurant on Rigelus Prime. They had been strong enough to suck away foul odors, ensuring that none of his regular humanoid customers ever caught even a whiff of the dishes they made for the Trollox patrons.

  Without the ventilation, all he could do was keep the pot lid on and open a window, allowing some of the artificial breeze which circulated the air under the atmosphere dome, to waft through the kitchen.

  At six exactly Gorn was sitting at his place at the head of the massive dining table. And sitting at the foot was the mysterious girl with the bruised face. Dark wondered, as he served the Trollox a huge tureen of stew, how she’d gotten that bruise. He would have bet anything it came from one of his new master’s massive fists.

  The thought made his fangs sharpen in anger again and he tried to push it away. He would do his best to save her—in the meantime, all he could do was feed her.

  He served her a plate with several slices of the sweet purple yam bread along with a small dish of butter and a tiny bowl of honey with a spoon. Her big blue eyes widened when she saw what he was serving her and she looked up at Dark questioningly.

  Since Gorn wasn’t looking at them, Dark permitted himself to smile at her—just one upraised corner of his mouth to let her know everything was all right.

  “For you, Mistress,” he said in a low voice. “I hope you will eat with a good appetite.”

  “I…I will. Thank you.” She picked up a slice of the fresh-baked yam bread and nibbled it experimentally. Her eyes got even wider. “Oh—this is delicious! It tastes like a cross between a honey bun and pumpkin bread.”

  “I do not know those foods,” Dark said truthfully—he had barely scratched the surface on Earth cuisine on his visit to the Mother Ship. “But I hope you will enjoy it.”

  “It’s wonderful.” She took another bite and then stopped for a moment to spread the rest of the slice with butter and drizzle it with honey. She was just raising it to her lips for a third bite when the gravelly voice of Gorn’s left head stopped her.

  “What the fuck is that shit?” he demanded, glowering at the purple yam bread the girl held in her hand. “You, pretty boy—what are you servin’ my breeder?”

  “Forgive me, Master, but I thought that as she is a humanoid, I should make her humanoid food, just as I make Trollox cuisine for you,” Dark said blandly.

  “Well, you thought fuckin’ wrong, pretty boy!” Gorn looked angry—dangerously close to enraged, in fact. “To bear a Trollox heir, she’s gotta eat Trollox food. Take that slop away and serve her from my dish!”

  He nodded at the tureen which he had already been slobbering in as he drank the stew straight from the bowl.

  “Of course, Master,” Dark said at once. “Forgive me. But there is no need to take from you—there is still some stew left in the pot.”

  Though he hated to do it, he whisked away the fresh yam bread and brought out a small bowl of the Trollox stew to the girl. He saw her wince at the smell and didn’t blame her. As he bent low to place the plate before her he murmured,

  “Don’t worry—come into the kitchen after Last Meal if you can and I’ll give you the bread.”

  He saw her eyes go wide again but she only picked up the spoon he’d given her and pretended to take a bite of the foul-smelling stew. Dark wondered if she would be able to come to him—if so, he could feed her the rest of the loaf. And maybe he could get her to start trusting him so he could eventually take her with him when he left.

  * * * * *

  Anna wasn’t sure what to think. She had never had a Replicant speak to her in such a way before. Not that she often tried to make conversation with them. Mostly Gorn bought the alien-looking kind with multiple arms to cook and clean and the obvious sex-doll kind to fuck.

  She’d tried to make friends with one of the sex dolls once, out of sheer loneliness. The doll didn’t say much but she had apparently been programmed to be a good listener and Anna had found herself telling her everything that had happened—how she had been tricked and taken and sold… Through it all, the sex doll had nodded sympathetically, her eyes fixed on Anna’s face.

  It was almost as good as talking to a real person—or so it seemed to Anna who had no one in that awful house. She had gone back several times to talk to the sex bot, whom she had dubbed “Rosie” because of her red hair and flushed cheeks. But then, the third time she’d gone to see her new “friend,” Gorn had been there.

  Anna still remembered standing in the doorway, frozen in horror as she watched the huge Trollox literally fuck the doll to pieces.

  He’d been taking her from behind, shoving his massive, warty shaft into an opening which seemed much too small to accommodate such huge girth. The doll wasn’t complaining though—she was making a series of high-pitched coos and moans, apparently meant to simulate sexual enjoyment. She’d been on her knees with Gorn holding her arms, pulling them back towards him.

  “Fuck! So fucking tight!” Gorn had growled, shoving his hips forward and plowing into the sex bot with all his strength.

  Suddenly, one of her arms tore right off.

  Still the doll didn’t complain even though her bright pink blood squirted everywhere. Gorn hadn’t stopped his pumping either. He’d simply grabbed her long red hair, which was gathered in the back into a ponytail, instead.

  “You broke another one!” the right head—the one Anna had dubbed “Hisser” in her mind—complained.

  “Shut it,” grunted the left head—or “Growler” as Anna thought of it. “We can always buy more. Shut it and fuck!”

  As he spoke, he gave another especially rough thrust and yanked on the sex bot’s hair. This time it was her head that popped off, as easily as the heads of Anna’s Barbies used to pop off when she was a girl, she’d thought, feeling sick and shaky. Still, she couldn’t stop watching—what was happening in Gorn’s “fuck room” was too horrible to drag her eyes away.

  As her captor continued plowing the headless, leaking sex bot which trembled spasmodically beneath his bulk like a dying bug, all she could think was,

  That could be me. That’s going to be me if I don’t get away.

  But how? He’d brought her through a worm hole to get here and she didn’t even know where “here” was. She didn’t know how to fly a spaceship either—her stepfather Brex had promised to teach her but it was pretty complicated and he’d only gone over the basics before she’d been taken. So th