Page 4 of Savage Union (Brutal Universe #2)

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JESSINA

I had suspected that my brother’s best friend, Turk, was my Fated Mate from the moment I met him. It’s called The Lightning Strike—the feeling anyone with Brutal blood in their veins feels when they first come in contact with the one person that the Goddess of Four Faces has set aside exclusively for them.

I felt it the first time Turk touched my hand—like an electrical tingle that ran through my whole body, making my nipples painfully tight and my pussy embarrassingly wet. But I was young then—I was unsure if what I’d felt was real or just wishful thinking.

It didn’t help that Turk didn’t show any signs of The Lightning Strike himself. Not everyone with Brute blood feels it, though. Sometimes the realization comes on gradually.

It made me wonder if my brother’s best friend would ever feel for me what I felt for him.

Turk is tall and muscular and strong. Not to mention he’s easy on the eyes. At seven feet, he’s considerably taller than me and he has the pearly gray skin of all those who have the blood of the Brutal Clans in their veins. (I am a rare exception myself.)

His dark hair has a slight wave to it and he has eyes that nearly match his horns, which are bronze—a sign of his high status within Clan Savage. He captains a ship called The Illyrian and they often go to neighboring galaxies to import rare and illegal cargo.

That was where I was running—to the Illyrian. But of course, I couldn’t go there as myself or even let Turk know who I was. He would probably just send me right back to my father’s mansion or turn me over to Slade. My big brother was kind, but ultimately if our father demanded that he return me to the family mansion, Slade would have to comply.

Which meant I needed a disguise—a really good one. So I took a hover-cab to the one place I knew I could get exactly what I needed.

“I need a complete sex-change simulation,” I told the Synth dealer, once I was seated across from him in the small, grimy booth in the side alley where he did business.

“Full change? That’s gonna cost ya,” he said, frowning at me. He had long, greasy black hair that was pulled into a ponytail at the back of his neck. But his fingernails were clean and he seemed to know what he was doing.

I knew about this dealer from eavesdropping on my father’s conversations with his Enforcers. Synth implants along with Stealth Tech were highly illegal—mainly because a really good implant could fool even the Imperium’s most advanced scanners. So of course, it fell under our Clan’s jurisdiction. This dealer was supposed to be the best in the business and he regularly paid Clan Cruel protection money.

Of course, I didn’t dare to tell him I was a Princess of Clan Cruel—he would refuse to do business with me and probably turn me back in to my father if I did. I had to pretend to be a regular customer.

“I can pay your price,” I told him, lifting my chin. “I need an implant that will make me appear fully male from head to toe.”

“Okay, girly—that’s gonna be a thousand credits,” he said briskly and opened his case. It was filled with hundreds of slim, silver cylinders that gleamed against the black velvet lining.

“A thousand credits!” I squeaked before I could stop myself. That was practically all the money I had. I hadn’t dared to touch my bank account because I was afraid it would tip my father off to the fact I had run away.

Before I left, I had staged a kidnapping, knocking over furniture and throwing personal items on the floor to make it look like there had been a struggle. But if I started pulling money out of my account, my father would know I had run away and would be able to trace it back to my location. I couldn’t have that.

The dealer stopped in the act of choosing the right Synth cylinder.

“You want it or not? Thought you said you could pay.”

“I can.” I sighed. “Okay, so a thousand. That covers touch too, right?”

The dealer frowned.

“Don’t think so girly. Adding tactile to the visual Synth will run you another two thousand.”

“So three thousand all together?” I exclaimed. Goddess, no wonder my father collected so much from this dealer—he was making a fortune .

“Yeah. Can you pay?” His thick fingers hovered over a cylinder that was about as big as my pinky finger.

Reluctantly, I shook my head. I had that much and more in my bank account, but as I said, I couldn’t access it.

“Just a visual Synth,” I said.

“Okay.” His fingers traveled to the other side of the case, finding a silver cylinder that was half as big. He plucked it from the black velvet and pulled out a snub-nosed device that looked like a weapon—a Synth gun. The dealer started to load the cylinder into the gun but paused for a minute. “Let’s see your money.”

I pulled out four green two-hundred-fifty credit chips and showed them to him.

“Good.” He nodded and grabbed my wrist, holding my arm still. With his other hand, he cocked the gun. Then he took aim at my upper arm and pointed the laser scope. A bright red dot appeared on my brown skin, just below my shoulder.

“Wait,” I said. “Is this going to hur?—”

There was a muffled explosion as the Synth gun went off and a searing pain stabbed me in the arm.

Tears sprang to my eyes and I shrieked as the agony burst through me. I was pretty sure this was what getting shot with an old-fashioned projectile weapon felt like!

“Hey now, girly—males don’t cry, ya know,” the dealer said roughly, releasing my arm.

“You…you could have warned me.” I sucked back a sob and swiped at my damp eyes. “That really hurt!”

“You’re lucky you couldn’t afford the tactile Synth,” he said blandly. “It hurts twice as much—like having your fucking arm cut off with a fire torch. You know, if you’re going to pretend to be a male, you need to remember not to show your emotions so much.”

“I’m not!” I said indignantly.

“Yes, you are, girly. Go on—go look at yourself.”

He nodded at the alcove behind him where he’d set up a cheap 3-D viewer which would show me from all angles.

Rising on shaky legs, I made my way to the viewer to have a look at my new appearance.

What I saw stunned me.

There was a boy looking back at me—a boy who could have been my twin. He had smooth, brown skin and pale amber eyes which were red from crying. His hair was short and his jaw line was still delicate, but more square than mine. His features were mine, only a bit larger and less feminine looking.

But he was still almost pretty—and he looked too damn young! Like a male who was barely twenty—if that.

“Hey—this isn’t what I asked for!” I said, rounding angrily on the dealer. “I’m supposed to look like a man—where’s my beard? Or at least some stubble?”

He shrugged.

“Sorry—that’s not how Synth works. If it makes changes that are too extreme, the Imperium’s Fraud Alarms are set off the minute they scan you. You get picked up on Synth charges and you’ll go away for a long fucking time. Believe me—I know,” he added darkly.

“But how are other males going to respect me?” I demanded. Even as a man, I wasn’t tall or muscular or imposing, like a Brute Enforcer. I looked too thin and too weak—an easy target.

“You can start by not crying around them,” the dealer said grimly. “And remember—this is a visual Synth only. If someone grabs your chest, they’ll feel your breasts. If they get close enough to your back, they’ll feel that long hair of yours, girly.”

“They will?” I put a hand to my head reflexively and the boy in the viewer did the same. I touched what looked like empty air in the viewer…and felt the long, thick waterfall of my real hair cascading down my back.

“They will,” the Synth dealer affirmed. “If I were you, I’d cut the hair and use a compression tank-top to flatten your breasts. I have one in your size you can have for another fifty credits,” he added.

“Cut my hair?” I repeated, still stroking my fingers through the long strands. Since I’ve never thought of myself as really pretty, I consider my hair to be my one true beauty. The idea of cutting it hurt—almost as badly as the Synth gun had.

Speaking of the Synth gun, I looked at my upper arm. There was no bulge there to show the implant, but there was a pretty nasty bruise already forming. I automatically started to rub my arm but winced and pulled my fingers away the minute they made contact—the flesh was still too tender.

“I’ll cut it for you—no extra charge,” the dealer offered. “But I get to keep it—I’ll sell it to a high-end wig-maker in the Beauty district.”

I didn’t want to let him do it…but who else could I ask? I couldn’t go to a barber or a stylist now. What would I say—“please cut off my invisible hair?” So I had to reluctantly agree.

“All right,” I said. “But you’ve seen my hair—it’s worth a lot. I’ll trade you the hair for the compression tank.”

He considered a moment and then nodded.

“Deal.”

He got up and came to stand beside me, holding a pair of heavy silver sheers. Grabbing my hair in one fist, he lifted the sheers and started chopping it off, right below my ears. As he cut, he talked.

“Remember if you have to get naked, you’ve got the appearance of a shaft but it’s just a hologram projected by the Synth implant. If anyone tries to grab it or touch it, they’re going to know there’s nothing there. So it’s better to avoid getting naked in front of anyone you don’t trust.”

“Don’t worry—I won’t!” I said with feeling. I had no plans to strip in front of strangers, so my Synth-projection penis was going to remain unseen by anyone but me.

“Good.” He finished cutting and pulled the thick handful of hair away from my head. As the hair left my body and the thin holo-field being projected by the implant, it reappeared, trailing from his fist in a long, black, silky wave.

I couldn’t help thinking it looked like he had scalped me—it felt like it too. My neck felt rubbery and my head was suddenly too light without the heavy masses of wavy hair I’d had all my life.

I wanted to cry again when I saw the dealer fold my hair carefully and put it in a bag, but I reminded myself that I looked like a man now and I had to act like one. That meant no showing emotions, no matter how deeply I felt them.

“I’ll get you that compression tank,” he said and rummaged in another bag at his booth for a moment before pulling out a skinny black tank-top that didn’t look big enough to fit a little girl—let alone a grown woman. He handed it to me and nodded at the viewer again. “Go on—put it on.”

I wanted to protest his idea that I should take off my top in front of him…but then I realized he wouldn’t be able to see my breasts. The holo-field generated by the Synth implant would hide them.

So I slipped off my top and my bra—it was useless now since its main function was to lift my medium sized breasts and make them more prominent. I felt naked and strange, standing there in the grimy ally, nude from the waist up, but the young man in the viewer didn’t seem to mind. He had a flat, unremarkable chest and tiny, dark brown disks for nipples instead of my own prominent points which had always been extremely sensitive.

I pulled on the compression top, gasping a little as it pinched me, and finally got it into place. I had to admit, it did a great job of flattening my breasts. I doubted anyone brushing against me would feel anything.

Since the dealer was sitting at his booth again and doing something—probably counting his money, I thought sourly—I dared to open my trousers and take a peek. Sure enough, there was a penis down there—or at least a holo-projection of one—curled against my inner thighs. When I shifted my legs, it shifted too—moving just like an actual shaft would.

It looked so real, I reached down to touch it. My fingers passed through empty air and touched nothing but the soft curls of my mound.

Behind me, the dealer stirred and I hastily pulled my hand out of my trousers and fastened them up again. Luckily, I had been planning my escape for some time so I’d had the opportunity to acquire male clothing in my size. Once I fastened my trousers and put my shirt back on over the compression tank, I really did look male—though still not as old or as imposing as I would have liked.

“Looks like you’re set to go,” the dealer said, eyeing me critically. “Just remember—as long as the implant is in your arm, you’re safe. Don’t get it removed until you’re ready for people to know your true identity again.”

“Got it.” I nodded. “Er, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, girly. Just doing my job.” He shrugged. “Be safe out there. And if anyone catches you or finds out about the implant, I don’t know you and I never saw you before.”

“Yeah, okay.” I nodded.

It was time to make my way to the Space Port where I knew Turk was getting the Illyrian ready for a long trip to the Triplex Cluster.

I was determined to be on it when he left.