Page 11 of Forced to Mate by the Mad Scientist (Kindred Tales Spicy Shorts #3)

11

SYLVIE

Sylvie waited, on pins and needles, to see if she was going to be punished for her refusal to give the collection droid what it wanted but nothing else happened for hours.

The women all milled around silently, clearly trying not to think about what Lorna was going through. It was obvious to Sylvie they were completely demoralized. Nobody even seemed to have any hope of escape and Barbarous knew it—he didn’t even bother to make sure the treetures locked the door to their prison.

Sylvie had hope, though. The flight plan Kross had filed for their mission had been for a week because she hadn’t been sure how long it would take her to find the tangeline vine. When the two of them didn’t contact the Mother Ship or return on time, someone was bound to come looking for them. The Kindred took care of their own.

The question was, could she survive here for a week or should she attempt to get out of here now? After all, she had no wish to be gang-raped by the treetures. If she could just get out of the tree trunk prison and find Kross, she was sure the two of them could get back to their long-range shuttle. Then they could send help back for the hapless women Barbarous was holding captive.

She thought about trying to get some of the other women to come with her…but Hersha shut down that idea fast.

“You know, maybe next time they come in, if there’s only one guard—” she began, but stopped abruptly when the goat woman glared at her.

“Shut up with that talk!” she hissed at Sylvie fiercely. “You never can tell when he’s listening!” And she nodded at the blank screen, which just looked like part of the wall when it wasn’t lit up.

“Fine, I just thought?—”

“Well, don’t,” Hersha snapped. “That kind of thinking is what gets you punished or even killed .”

“But if we all work together—” Sylvie began.

“You think we didn’t try?” Hersha demanded. “I’ve been here for five fucking years! And so have Lorna and Shredda. But what you don’t know, is that we used to have a fourth—her name was Zeela. She got caught sneaking out one night near the beginning and Barbarous killed her for it.”

“He…he did?” Sylvie’s voice was faint.

Hersha nodded.

“He didn’t just shoot her with a blaster, either. He had the treetures pull her apart—piece by piece. First her arms…then her legs…” She shook her head, looking down at her hands. “By the time they ripped off her head, she was dead. But we still had to watch—he wouldn’t let us look away. There was so much blood…”

Sylvie’s stomach twisted into a fist.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “That must have been…beyond horrible to watch.”

“Better to watch it than to have it happen to you personally,” Hersha said fiercely. “So when I tell you to shut the fuck up, I mean it— shut the fuck up.”

She got off the cot closest to the door where they had been sitting together and moved to the furthest cot, pointedly putting room between herself and Sylvie. As she did, she cast a look at the blank screen, as though someone was watching her. Which, maybe they were. Who knew in this crazy place, Sylvie thought.

After that, she didn’t try to broach the subject of escape with anyone else. If Hersha, who seemed to be the fiercest of the women, was so spooked by even the beginning of a discussion about it, she couldn’t imagine that anyone else would be willing to entertain the notion.

A little while later the door opened again and Lorna was shoved inside. She fell to her knees, crying, and the other women came to surround her at once.

“Are you all right?” Hersha asked, kneeling beside her.

“Is there anything we can do, my dear?” Clemina murmured.

“What happened?” Sylvie asked, before she thought. She wished at once that she could take the question back—it was clear what had happened to Lorna. Her plant-fiber shift had been ripped half off her body, it was barely hanging together to hide her nakedness.

Nonetheless, it was Sylvie’s question that she answered when she finally stopped crying. It took some time—Shredda wrapped her in a blanket and sat her on the side of one of the cots. The other women gathered around her, murmuring support. Finally, Lorna seemed able to talk.

“They put me in the new specimen room—along with your man, I think. Kross, right?” she said, sniffling as she looked up at Sylvie.

Sylvie felt her heart jump in her chest.

“Yes, that’s him! Is he all right?”

“He’s fine—a lot better than the treetures.” Lorna made a face. “Barbarous tried to get him to…to take me, but he wouldn’t,” she went on. “So then he pumped some sweet- smelling gas into the room. It made me feel so…so strange. But it didn’t seem to affect Kross, because he still didn’t want to take me. He said it would be ‘rape.’” She let out a sad little laugh that was more than half sob. “Like that’s anything new around here.”

Sylvie felt a surge of pride in her Protector.

“Kross is a Kindred,” she explained. “They worship a Goddess and believe that every woman has a little bit of the Goddess within her—a ‘spark of the divine.’ They absolutely refuse to hurt or force women—it’s considered the worst crime a Kindred warrior could commit.”

“It must be nice to live among men who feel that way,” Lorna said dully. “Anyway, Kross wouldn’t do it—he wouldn’t take me. But I almost wish he had—it would have been better than the treetures.” She shuddered.

“I’m so sorry,” Shredda said softly. “Did they…” She trailed off, delicately.

Lorna nodded.

“Yes, but the awful thing was, the gas Barbarous gave us made me…” She swallowed, as though having difficulty getting the words out. “It made me want them to.”

“What?” Hersha looked at her with obvious disbelief. “You’re not serious.”

“I wish I wasn’t.” Lorna swiped at her eyes. “But it’s true. It made me…made me want it so much. I was almost relieved when the treetures dragged me outside and…”

Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head, obviously unable to continue.

“It’s all right—none of this is your fault, dear,” Clemina said, rubbing her shoulders soothingly. “Just try to relax. It’s almost lights out and then we’ll all get some sleep. Things will look brighter in the morning.”

As though her words had triggered something, the room was suddenly plunged into total darkness.

Sylive’s heart caught in her throat and she looked around the pitch-dark room in wide-eyed panic. Oh God, what now?

It took her a moment to realize, by the sounds of the other women around her, that this was totally normal.

“Gods damn it—already?” Hersha muttered. “I swear they’re calling lights out sooner every night.”

“No use in complaining—might as well try to get some sleep,” Clemina answered her.

There were sounds of rustling and soon everyone was settling down in a cot. Sylvie wound up on the one closest to the door, which she didn’t love. It felt like she would be the easiest target if any of the treetures came over in the middle of the night. But she couldn’t exactly ask to trade either—all of the other women in the room had endured so much more than she had. So she cuddled in the cot, drawing her knees up and huddling in on herself for warmth.

As she drifted off into a sleep thinner than the gray plant-fiber blanket she’d been given, her last thought was of Kross. She was glad he was keeping his Kindred values intact but she wondered again how angry he was with her and if he would ever forgive her for landing them in this mess in the first place…