Driven Read online

  Linna kept her chin high and refused to let desperation control her. "I hope you rot, Lunavoss."

  "Save it for your new owner, stupid cunna."

  Linna didn't like the sound of that. "Owner?"

  "Erystus does a good trade in Carnalla sluts. I'm sure he'll find a good use for you. As for your lover, well, I'm sure he'll find a nice place in the Carnalla lovevine fields. Ironic, don't you think?"

  Linna didn't think. She just swung. Her fist connected with Lunavoss's cheek and sent the other woman reeling. Lunavoss came back, quick as light, and kicked toward Linna's stomach. Linna blocked the blow.

  The fight was on.

  He'd never felt a pain as great as this, not even in the yaladat, the Xanderran adulthood ritual. His head spun. His stomach lurched. He rolled instinctively to his side, vomited once, then again until his stomach ached with the effort and his throat burned from bile. First chills, then heat wracked him. He heard moans and understood they were his, but couldn't stop. The world spun and twisted, and he twisted with it like a salla bug's prey wrapped in silk and twisting in the wind.

  After a while, he heard her voice. Linna's voice. The soft words and tone soothed, him, even though he wasn't quite sure what she was saying. A cool hand stroked his brow. Cool, sweet liquid passed through his lips and stayed in his guts, and he had time to be grateful for that privilege before the world went dark again.

  Del opened his eyes to darkness, but this time it was lack of light, not fever and illness that kept him from seeing. "Linna?"

  He half-expected her not to answer, to discover she'd only been a dream, but she was there in an instant. Her hand crept to his forehead before she stroked his cheek. She smelled like paradise.

  "You're awake."

  "How long?" he asked, unable to voice the rest of his question.

  He didn't need to. Linna knew what he meant to say as surely as if he'd spoken aloud. "A few days. They come once a day to bring food and medicine. They've come three times."

  "They?"

  Her voice was light, but sounded forced. "We've been sold to space pirates, Del."

  "Who?"

  "The Oss was boarded by a pirate named Erystus Sloane. Lunavoss gave him us instead of her cargo."

  Del tensed at the captain's name, expecting to feel something pull at him. The last thing he remembered was the floor coming up to meet him after she'd caught him by surprise with her hypogun. He assumed she'd drugged him with the lovevine and had her way with him, but as he sat up, all he felt was a blinding headache.

  More importantly, Linna's scent still stirred him. "She gave me lovevine."

  "That's what she said." She moved closer to him.

  The hairs on his arms lifted in response.

  The floor rocked beneath them and light flooded the room. It burned his eyes and he covered them, blinking, until they adjusted. They were in a small cargo hold outfitted with a bed, a table, a sanitary bucket and nothing else. Prison quarters.

  "You don't remember anything?" Linna questioned. She poured liquid from a pitcher into a cup and handed it to him.

  He sniffed it. Soloil. Not the best thing for an aching head and queasy stomach, but it would quench his thirst. He took a swig and found it settled his stomach better than he'd thought it would.

  "She hit me with a hypogun. I went down. That's all I can remember until I woke up here."

  She nodded and looked up. Her hair fell in lank strands on her cheeks, paler than normal. She looked tired. She was beautiful.

  "Del, there's something I need to tell you."

  He sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and tried to steady himself. He needed food. Spying a plate of rolls next to the pitcher on the table, he grabbed one up and stuffed it in his mouth. The second it touched his tongue, his hunger roared to life, insatiable.

  He gobbled the rest of the stale bread before wondering guiltily if Linna needed some. He swigged some more soloil and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I should've saved some for you. I'm sorry."

  She smiled and shook her head as though amused. "I don't know why Xanderrans have such a bad reputation."

  Del thought about how his father had never hesitated to take a fist to him for being rude. His people were quick to anger, and just as swift to battle, but consideration and respect for those you loved was trained into you from childhood.

  Del stopped himself from taking another drink. Love. There it was again, that word in connection with thoughts of Linna.

  He looked at her. She was looking back. Her eyes were sad, even though her mouth smiled. "You're a good man, Del."

  She wasn't talking about saving stale bread. Del swallowed, hard. Memories of her beneath him, overlaid in red, rose in his mind. But that wasn't right. They'd been together darkness. Never red light. Unless....

  "What happened?" he asked, then had to clear his throat and ask again to be sure she'd heard him.

  "The drug she gave you made you...she meant it to..." Linna paused, seemingly at a loss for words. Then she took a deep breath, faced him head on, and spoke without hesitation. "We made love, Del. All the way."

  He was on his feet and pacing before she could speak again. Made love. Another flash of memory hit him. Linna's face, twisted with passion. Him above her. The captain's voice behind them.

  "We're behsherit." He didn't make it a question.

  Of course they were. Now it seemed so obvious. He could feel it all through him. Feel her all through him. In his bones, his lungs, his heart, his blood. His brain.

  The remnants of the lovevine made him stumble against the wall, and he put his forehead on the cool metal. Trying to gather the strength to face her. He didn't want to see the pity in her eyes.

  "Del, I'm sorry." She sounded miserable. "I didn't know she'd given you lovevine. I found you in her room. You came at me. You...you took me."

  "Ah, harah." He pounded the wall with his fist. "I raped you?"

  Self-loathing filled him and, for one moment, he thought he might puke again. Del pounded the wall again and again, wanting to pound himself instead. He closed his eyes, but opened them when an image of Linna rose beneath him, face not twisted with passion. With fear.

  "No! Oh, God-of-Choice, Del. No. You did not rape me."

  He sensed her behind him. She didn't touch him, for which he was grateful. He couldn't stand her pity.

  "Do you really think I couldn't have fought you off if I'd wanted to?"

  The gentle humor in her voice made him twist his head to catch a glimpse of her. She stepped into his view, her expression unreadable. She reached out for him, but stopped herself before she could touch his shoulder. She looked at her fingers, a hair away from his skin, then let them drop.

  "I might not be Xanderran, but I'm enhanced enough to have kicked you right on your lovely ass, Del. If I'd wanted to."

  He turned to face her fully. "You didn't want to."

  "How could you think I would?" she asked him softly. "After everything we've been through? Your apartment? The hall in that abandoned building? If I had known you weren't conscious of what you were doing, I'd have stopped you. I should've stopped you."

  Her voice caught. Tears shimmered in her beautiful blue eyes. "I should've known you wouldn't have made love to me willingly. But I wanted you Del. I can't deny it. When you came at me like you did, and you kissed me...I wanted to believe it was really you, wanting me."

  She took a deep breath. "She'd have taken you, if I hadn't been there first."

  "Linna--" He wanted to tell her he loved her, and that he'd loved her for months. Becoming behsherit had nothing to do with it. He'd fallen in love with her the first time he'd won a smile from her. He wanted to tell her that even if they had not made love, even if his freakish genetic makeup hadn't somehow bound him to her through mutation, he'd still be hers. She owned him because he loved her. Del tried to think of something to say, some way to tell her how he felt, but the words tangled up on his tongue and wouldn't be spoken. Behshe