She was certainly no task mistress.
As if the thought conjured her, he heard her voice from one of the turnoffs. It took everything he had not to follow her husky cadence, but continue on behind Lara. He cast about for something to say, while mapping the location in his mind. “What did the strangers bring to trade?” And more importantly, what did they want in return?
“I was attending the House Mistress and did not hear anything directly.” Lara stopped shy of the opening to the kitchen and lowered her voice. “But her ladyship said her youngest daughter, the troubled one, is to be wed.”
For once Cormack wished he’d paid attention to the gossip that spilled from Lara’s lips. “I thought the overlord’s get had already been married off.”
She smacked his arm, playfully. “Cormack, you must not absorb one thing I’ve told you! It’s the changeling, the one he took in despite the prophecy.”
He started in amazement. “She is old enough to be married?” Vividly, he recalled the night when the bedraggled Born woman came upon the wagon train as the colony traveled, forever chasing the light but keeping to the darkness. The thunder of hooves as a strange rider appeared on horseback with a bundle in her arms. Her offspring. Mortally wounded, the mother had begged the overlord to take the child in, rear her in safety. Barely five old calendar years in age Cormack had overheard the exchange, recalling how he’d wiped the sweat from his brow, his back aching as he carried a satchel intended for a full grown, not a half grown lad, to see the dying woman riding into view. Blood stained her clothing and her skin had turned nasty shades of red when she’d fled across the sun-baked desert to escape the Cyborgs that had held her hostage.
Some had believed the baby to be an omen of bad things to come, but for some unknown reason, the overlord took the child and ordered his house mistress to raise her as his own. “I haven’t seen the girl in years. I thought she’d fallen ill and perished.”
“No, she’s very much alive, to her ladyship’s great displeasure. But she is wrong somehow and the overlord has hidden her away with some menial task or another.”
Cormack envisioned some of the Bred experiments gone wrong, where the subjects came out malformed and were recycled immediately. How disgusting that this child had been allowed to continue living, consuming food and ordering Breds about when his people were slaughtered in droves.
Lara sidled up close to him, pressing her heavy breasts against his arm. “Here, this is all I could take without being noticed.” She dropped several packets into his coat pocket.
“Thank you.” Anxious to find the task mistress once more, he tried to pivot away but Lara clutched him tightly.
“I will see you later.” Her gaze burned with sexual promise. His cock didn’t so much as twitch, but he nodded so she would release him.
Ducking his head, he strode quickly away from the kitchen, back to the split tunnel where he’d last heard her voice.
Perhaps he’d been wrong because not a cough or a footstep echoed through this hallway. His jaw clenched. He would not give up, not until he had to.
His next shift didn’t start for several hours and the only things waiting for him back at the barracks were the cries of hungry children, the groans of rutting Breds and the promise of Lara to come.
Better to spend his night roaming these halls, with the taste of the task mistress still on his lips.
For what felt like hours he wandered the labyrinth of connecting tunnels, hoping for a glimpse of her.
Other Breds scurried past him but in his pilfered cloak, he must have been mistaken for one of the strange visitors. Breds didn’t disturb Borns, ever. For once that fact gave him solace instead of fury.
“You called for me, milady?”
Cormack stopped short, cursing his distraction.
He’d almost wandered into an occupied chamber.
Holding his breath he turned to go when he heard her.
“Yes, I require your assistance.”
His shoulders sagged in relief. For a spell he’d feared she didn’t exist, that he truly had gone mad and imagined their encounter. But her voice, sweet and husky caressed him from the inside out. He must see her again, no matter what price he’d be forced to pay.
“What can I do for you?” The Bred with her sounded young, no more than twenty, but mature enough to know her station.
There was a pause, and a shuffling of fabrics as if she changed her clothing. He sank his teeth into his fist to keep from groaning aloud. But her reply brought him up short.
“I need you to help me escape.”
5
The young Bred’s eyes went wide in her elfin face and for a moment Allora considered bringing Mel with her. Having someone to accompany her would make the task more bearable. But a Bred caught abandoning the community would be recycled immediately, with no one bothering to find out the why of it. Mel was young, with many years of life ahead of her and while she seemed loyal to Allora now, the task mistress recognized the Bred’s credo of love the one you’re with would prevail in the end.
Allora held still as Mel removed her armor, staring down at the small hot spring, wishing she could linger within, enjoy the wet heat. She would not think of what she’d allowed Cormack to do to her, would not think about how he was most likely doing the same even now to a Bred woman out in the barracks, his strong hands gripping an experienced woman’s thighs, holding her open to his ministrations. Or worse, rutting within her until both shouted from relief. Relief Allora had seen countless times while patrolling the barracks, but had not experienced for herself. I have bigger problems than irrational jealousy right now.
She touched Mel’s arm and lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “Go to the kitchen and tell the cook I need a hot dinner. While she is preparing it, steal as many nutri packets as your apron pockets can hold.”
The girl shook her blond head and stammered,
“I’ll…they’ll catch me and I’ll be flogged.” She cleared her throat, obviously retrenching back into her normal bawdy self. “Under the right circumstances I might enjoy having my backside tanned, but not over a few packets.”
“I wouldn’t ask this of you if there was another way. But there isn’t, because tomorrow the overlord will announce my betrothal.”
Mel’s face lit up with understanding. “You fear unification? Or is it the wedding night that has you so stirred up? I told you to take a Bred lover to do the dirty work of capturing your maidenhead. It’s what we are made for.”
Allora grit her teeth. “This is not about rutting, it’s about my life.”
Mel tsked softly. “You would shirk your duties because you fear some man’s cock? Don’t let him hear, for you will never be able to deflate that ego, no matter the state of his equipment.”
She groaned and sank back onto her pallet.
Though she was a full decade older than the Bred, Mel had done things that Born woman four times her age couldn’t imagine. In the girl’s experience everything boiled down to sex, and claiming otherwise was futile.
“They will strip me of my position. Born women married to overlords cannot be task mistresses.”
Mel cast a sly smile at her as she laid out a fresh shift. “Don’t throw out the boots and whip just yet—you still might have hours of fun with them.”
Defeated, Allora shuffled to the side of the pool.
Casting her dirty shift to the floor, she shivered, cold air raising goosebumps on her skin. “Please, go fetch me a dinner tray.” She would just have to figure out another way to acquire what she needed.
Mel touched her arm, a small gesture that would see her whipped if the overlord ever saw it. “"Twill be all right, milady. It only hurts for a moment and then, never again. And you will have a child from the ordeal.