Tain said, privately shocked that she had to close her hand into a fist to keep it from reaching out and stroking Killen"s shoulder and arm. "It"s cool enough down here that I seem to need something to warm me up."
"Yes, I can tell that you"re cold," Killen said in a very ... neutral way, his glance having touched her hardened nipples. "Are you sure it"s coffee you want and not an excuse to indulge in a little ... exercise of ownership?"
"What are you talking about?" Tain asked, honestly having no idea what he meant. "What can ownership have to do with anything?"
"Don"t worry, Tain, you don"t have to lie to cover the fact that you"re only human," Killen said in a weary voice, the look in his eyes sad now.
"You"re in control of me just the way I was in control of you, and that"s a very ... overwhelming thing when it really hits you. The sudden understanding makes you want to exercise that control in the most basic way possible, the most intimate way. The feeling is irresistible in the beginning and won"t start to bother you until the novelty wears off, so there"s no reason not to indulge yourself."
Killen no longer looked directly at Tain, which might have been a very good thing. She had to fight really hard to keep her face from showing what she now felt, which was an incredible mixture of ... she wasn"t completely sure what it was a mixture of. What she did know for an iron-hard fact was that Killen had misinterpreted her reactions.
Tain stared down at the man who was now under her control, feeling nothing of a desire to make him serve her the way he"d forced her to serve him.
Yes, her body had been reacting to his naked nearness, but not because of an urge to humiliate him even more. Tain had hated the idea of slavery even before she"d been forced to experience the state personally, and taking advantage of someone who couldn"t refuse her was completely against her beliefs.
And that thought made her admit to herself the real reason her body had tightened and hardened. It was a combination of concern and desire, concern over Killen"s well-being and a desire to feel his hands on her again. If he made love to her the act would prove that he was all right, and she very much needed him to be all right. But not because of what she had planned for tomorrow, not for any reason she was willing to admit even in the privacy of her own mind.
Happily, though, Killen had misinterpreted her reason for being there and for feeling the way she did. More than that he"d given her a way to get what she wanted more and more badly with each pa.s.sing minute - without letting him know the truth...
"You know, it"s really helpful to deal with someone who doesn"t have to have the facts of life explained to him," Tain drawled after what was really only a very brief hesitation. "Turn to your side so I can join you under that blanket."
Killen stiffened, but he still did just as Tain had ordered. The pallet wasn"t very wide, but there was enough room for her to slip under the blanket and press her body to his. His warmth flowed into her at the touch, showing that she really was cold, but something else became even more clear. Killen"s mind might be reluctant, but his body certainly wasn"t.
"You are so nicely made," Tain murmured as she ran her hands slowly over Killen, feeling a faint trembling in his body. "Will you be able to lie on your back without much pain if you brace yourself with your feet?"
"I think so," Killen answered, the words sounding as if they were being dragged out of him. The blankness of his expression said he didn"t want her to know how he really felt, but it was a waste of effort. Tain knew Killen hated what was being done to him, and that fit in perfectly with her plans. With any luck the man would also hate her, and that would end any possibility of their ever getting together in a relationship. That end was something Tain knew she needed to survive, but a very small part of her hated the need more than she knew was possible...
Once Killen had put himself to his back with his knees bent to let his feet brace him, Tain made sure he wasn"t in pain before she began to kiss his body. In no time at all Killen was moaning, his arousal completely returned, and Tain found that she couldn"t continue with the foreplay. Her own arousal was so high that under other circ.u.mstances she would have been whimpering, but with her in control there was no reason to whimper. She went to her knees and straddled Killen, then quickly took him inside her.
Killen"s hands came to her waist as her own hands rested on his shoulders, her up and down movement making them share the moaning. It felt so good to have Killen inside her again, even though it would have felt better if he"d been on top. But Tain couldn"t allow that, so she"d have to make do with this as her final goodbye to him.
As a final goodbye it could have been much worse, considering how long Killen let the time last. Tain came more than once while Killen matched her movements with his eyes closed, but finally he was no longer able to hold off his own release. He came while Tain shuddered from the latest of her o.r.g.a.s.ms, and all she wanted to do was collapse on top of him.
But doing that wasn"t part of her plan, so she patted his face instead, climbed off him, then left the alcove to return to her own bed.
And once she lay under her blanket she had to fight really hard to keep her crying from getting loud enough to wake Risdin...
Chapter 5.
Jake woke up feeling so comfortable that for a moment he didn"t remember where he was. He lay on his stomach, and even though his body ached here and there he was also aware of a sense of satisfaction. He hadn"t felt this sated since the last time he"d - That was when he remembered the night before, and what had come of Tain"s visit. All satisfaction and comfort disappeared as he sat up slowly, now aware of the disappointment he felt. It was stupid to have thought that Tain was a better person than he, someone who would never have taken advantage of a bad situation. But she had taken the same advantage he had, and even though his body had enjoyed the time his mind certainly hadn"t.
"Obviously you needed sleep even more than I did," Tandro"s voice came from behind him, the words soft. "I"ve been awake for a while, long enough to hear one of the women moving around, but whichever one it is she didn"t come in here."
Jake turned to see that Tandro also sat on his pallet, which meant that things were looking up for them. Last night he would have been able to sit if he"d really had to, but this morning there was nothing but a shadow left of the punishment he"d been given.
"If it isn"t Tain who"s awake, coming in here would be a waste of time,"
Jake said, speaking just as softly. "Have you forgotten that we aren"t allowed to obey anyone but her? That means, of course, that we stay on these pallets until she says we can get up."
Jake expected to see anger in Tandro over what he"d said, but the native suddenly looked drawn instead.
"After yesterday I really didn"t need any more lessons on the evils of slavery, but it looks like I"ll be getting them whether I need them or not." The man"s voice was low, as if he were controlling himself sternly, but it was pain rather than anger that he strove to hold off. "It isn"t really possible to understand how bad it can get unless you go through it yourself, is it? Why is it that human beings can"t seem to learn except the hard way? Why can"t we know that something is wrong without having our faces rubbed in the wrongness?"
"If you ever find out the answer to that question I"d appreciate it you let me know," Jake responded, reflecting that he"d thought some human beings knew right from wrong the easy way. But that was before last night...
"Good morning, men," Risdin said from the doorway before she walked in holding two filled plates. "I"ve made breakfast, which I"m sure you can use. You can get started on the food while I go back for the coffee."
"Thank you," Jake said, taking the plate she handed him as he studied her face. "You"re being extremely good to us, and I don"t understand why.
Unless I"m mistaken you were once a slave yourself, so why would you treat two men in any way but badly?"
"Since I found myself the only one awake this morning, I did some thinking," Risdin answered, her smile wry. "I know how badly the slaver treated you two, and that didn"t make any sense - until I realized that he must have done it because you"re against slavery. There isn"t really any other reason for making you slaves, and you were hurt and humiliated because you want to make it impossible for me to be hurt again.
Was I wrong?"
"No," Jake admitted with a shake of his head after exchanging a glance with Tandro. "But I"d like to know how you know that we were humiliated as well as hurt. Did Tain tell you what was done to us?"
"Tain didn"t say a word, but she didn"t have to," Risdin answered, her expression now more angry than wry. "Being enslaved means you"re going to be humiliated as well as hurt, since that"s the fastest and easiest way to control a slave. There are people who are strong enough to ignore pain, but I don"t think there"s anyone strong enough to withstand humiliation."
"Before yesterday I might have disagreed with you, but not now,"
Tandro said, his expression having fallen all the way to bleak. "What they did to Killen terrified me, thinking they might do the same to me. I don"t know how he managed to stay sane after something that bad, but I wouldn"t have been able to handle it like that. I was ready to do just about anything to keep from - "
Tandro"s words broke off before he went into details of what he meant, bringing Jake a good deal of relief. He"d been able to keep himself from remembering that he"d been forced to react like a frightened girl during that second switching, and even now he couldn"t do more than touch on the subject from a distance. The time had been so devastating that it was a miracle he hadn"t gone crazy...
"Hey, it"s all right," Risdin said, putting a hand to Tandro"s shoulder in shared compa.s.sion. "That"s actually the worst part of being a strong man or woman. If you"re weak you just do as you"re told even if you don"t like it, thereby proving that you don"t have to be humiliated all that badly in order to obey completely. But the strong ones hold back part of themselves in spite of the drug, and the slavers always know the difference.
And always do something to make them want to stop holding back.
Sometimes that kind breaks rather than bends, which doesn"t make much sense to me. If you break and lose it completely, you can"t comfort yourself with the dream of escaping some day and finding a way to get even."
"I think you"re possibly the bravest person I"ve ever met," Jake said to her with as good a smile as he could manage, speaking the truth.
"Backing down seems to be against my nature, even when it happens to be the sensible course of action. If I"d at least pretended to back down yesterday, Himlin probably wouldn"t have done what he did to me."
"It might be a good idea to remember that for next time," Risdin said with a much better smile than his. "In the meantime your food is getting cold, so you two eat up while I fetch the coffee. We have important things to do today."
That reminded Jake of Tain"s "plan," but before he could ask any questions Risdin turned and left the alcove. He tackled the food while he waited for the woman to come back, but even when she did he found he couldn"t question her. He didn"t understand why until he was almost finished eating, and if he hadn"t been so hollow he would have lost his appet.i.te.
Tain had told him that he didn"t yet need to know the plan, and that was what had kept him from questioning Risdin.
Heavier depression tried to crowd into Jake"s mind, but he banished it by forcing himself to anger. Risdin"s advice wasn"t easy to take, but he needed to be in real control of himself; knowing that he would be free in just a little while should keep him going, and once he was free...
Once he was back where he belonged and free of the drug he"d never have to see Ms. Tain Halliday ever again...
Tain awoke to the aroma of food, an aroma that made her returning appet.i.te stir. When she opened her eyes she saw Risdin crouched beside her with a plate, a smile on the other woman"s face.
"If you weren"t ready to wake up I didn"t want to disturb you, so I just waved the food under your nose," she said, making a small gesture with the plate. "We ought to have company at any time, so let"s get eating out of the way before they get here."
"Good idea," Tain agreed, sitting up and stretching a little before taking the plate. "But the next meal will be mine to make. You"ve already had more than your turn."
"I"ll take cooking over sneaking around near slavers any day,"
Risdin said with a small sound of scorn as she straightened up. "If I let you do the cooking then I might have to do the sneaking, so no thank you. I like this arrangement much better the way it is right now."
Tain smiled as Risdin left the alcove, understanding that Risdin needed something to keep her busy. Waiting while other people risked themselves - and your safety - was often harder than doing the risking personally, and having something to occupy your time also helped to save your sanity. If Risdin was happy with the way things were right now, Tain would not argue the arrangement.
It didn"t take long to eat the food and drink the coffee that had been put down next to the pallet, and then Tain got into her "clothes." It still wasn"t time to get rid of the trappings of a slave, and thinking about how much she hated the costume helped to keep her thoughts away from Killen.
She knew how unhappy he would be about what she"d done last night, and her best bet would be to add to that unhappiness without being obvious about it.
Tain was certain that Killen was the sort to risk himself for a woman he cared about, and that was the best reason to make sure he didn"t care.
They still had some touchy situations ahead of them, and if Killen died trying to protect her it would be worse for Tain than if she died instead.
She couldn"t get involved with the man without having her life fall apart, but that didn"t mean something inside her wouldn"t break if he were killed.
Taking a deep breath helped Tain regain control of the agitation that wanted to send her to Killen with an apology, and then she was able to leave the alcove and head toward the area given the men. She was a professional, after all, so her expression would be just what she wanted it to be. For as long as she had to have it that way...
Killen and Tandro sat talking quietly, neither of them noticing Tain when she stopped in the doorway. The empty plates and cups near their pallets said they"d already been given breakfast, which made one less thing to worry about.
"Good morning, you two," Tain said, drawing their immediate attention.
"You can get up and walk around and even put on your body cloths, but don"t try to leave this underground area. Risdin may have mentioned that we"re expecting the arrival of more of the women in her group, so you men will have to be as un.o.btrusive as possible. I don"t think I have to tell you why."
"Some of them will hate us, and some of them will be afraid of us,"
Killen said with a nod as he immediately reached for his body cloth. "I would have understood the point before yesterday, but now I really understand it."
"What about the girl, Ennie?" Tandro asked as he also reached for his body cloth. "Is she safe? Is she likely to be with the females coming here?"
"I made sure she"d be safe before I went after you two," Tain answered slowly, wondering about the odd expression Tandro seemed to be trying to hide behind easy calm. "As to whether or not she"ll be coming back here, I really don"t know. Why do you ask?"
"I"m the one who was supposed to be responsible for her," Tandro answered evenly, but this time he avoided Tain"s gaze. "I"d really hate to be blamed if - something happened to her."
"I see," Tain murmured, well aware of the fact that she hadn"t demanded that the men tell her the truth. Oddly enough it hadn"t occurred to her that Tandro might actually have feelings for Ennie, but now that she thought back there were signs enough that her own problems hadn"t let her notice at the time. It was almost laughable that Ennie had decided no one cared about her when she was with a man who actually did care.
But Tandro"s been hiding his true feelings, and I don"t understand why, Tain thought as she left the alcove and headed for the cooking area.
If Ennie has become more than just another female for him, why didn"t he say -.
Tain"s mental stewing stopped short when an answer came, an answer that should have been perfectly obvious. Tandro hadn"t said or done anything to show his true feelings because he knew Ennie wasn"t part of his world. The girl would only be on this planet for a short while, and then she would leave Tandro behind and return to her normal life. The native must have felt pitiful falling in love with someone he considered completely beyond his reach, but that was a typical male reaction. It had probably never occurred to him to ask Ennie how she felt about it...
Tain bypa.s.sed the cooking area and returned to her pallet to collect her plate and cup, then she joined Risdin where the other woman sat drinking coffee. After Tain refilled her own cup she spoke to Risdin about how the other women would be getting to the underground area, having wondered if her guess would turn out to be right.
"Yes, this tunnel goes all the way to a place in the woods beyond the town"s wall," Risdin confirmed with a smile. "I"d love to say that we were the ones who dug it out, but all we did was find it. We think the tunnel and underground areas were made by the people who first got to this planet and were kept a secret from everyone but a few of those who lived in the house above here. The house must have been fairly big, but then something happened to it and what was left was made a part of the warehouse that replaced the house. Or so we think."
"That explanation makes a lot of sense," Tain agreed. "If everyone who knew about the tunnel died at the same time, the secret would have died with them. And by the time the warehouse was built, a lot of the old knowledge was lost along with certain memories. I wondered why the room holding the secret entrance looked more solid than the rest of the warehouse, and now I know. The new owner of the land who built the warehouse added to the rooms that had been left standing because the old rooms were better constructed than the new stuff."
"Which made life a whole lot easier for us," Risdin said with another smile. "If they"d knocked down the walls of the room above us they would have found the tunnel, and then we would never have been able to use all this."
"How did your people find this?" Tain asked, a point she hadn"t tried to guess about. "With the release lever so far under the bottom of the cabinet, I can"t quite picture someone stumbling across it by accident."
"It was the other end one of ours found," Risdin supplied, no longer smiling. "The poor woman was an escaped slave with her owner not far behind her, which made her frantic for a place to hide. She literally tripped over part of the exit door in the woods, a rock door that looked like it was part of a very big boulder. She fell close enough to the door to see that the boulder wasn"t solid, and one touch showed her a handhold carved into the bottom of the door. She pulled on the handhold and the door opened right up, although it did stick a little after that. She managed to get into the tunnel and close the door again behind herself, and her owner never found her. She waited two days before getting up the courage to come out again, and she was almost dead when she stumbled into the area where our hideout is. Once she recovered she told us about the stone door, and the rest is history."
"It was obviously a stroke of pure luck, good luck for you and bad for the men," Tain said after taking another swallow of her coffee. "How soon do you expect the other women to get here? We can"t move until well after dark tonight, but I"d rather have things arranged early than at the last minute. And do you know if Ennie, the girl who was with me, will be coming back?"
"As I said, the women should be here at any time unless there were men in the area of the hidden entrance and they had to wait for the men to leave," Risdin answered. "As far as that girl is concerned, though, Areen said she and Celene were going to try to make her stay at the hideout. The girl is hurt on the inside, and that"s never easy to heal."
"The healing will hopefully be easier once we get her back where she belongs," Tain said, making no effort to explain what was really bothering Ennie. Not being cared about was a lack the girl shared with a very large number of women on this world, but the fact that the lack of caring had been worse for the natives was not likely to be something that Ennie would want to consider.
"Let"s take a walk and see if we can meet the newcomers half way," Risdin suddenly suggested as she got to her feet. "Just sitting around here is making me edgy, and I hate feeling edgy. And if you like, I have another smock you can wear."
"I wish I could take you up on both your suggestions, but I"ll have to settle for just one," Tain said as she also stood. "Going to meet your friends is fine, but I might as well stay in this outfit because I have to wear it when I go out tonight. People pay less attention to a slave or ignore her completely, and that att.i.tude will make my job a lot easier.
Besides, if I put on a smock instead of this stuff, I probably won"t want to get into these things again."
"That I can understand," Risdin said, shaking her head as she looked at the costume Tain wore. "I wasn"t considered pretty enough to be put into an outfit like that, which made me pity the pretty ones instead of envying them... Well, let"s go meet our company."
Risdin stopped outside the alcove to take a lamp and light it, and then she and Tain headed into the dark. A glance showed Tain that the men were dressed and moving around in their alcove, and then the living area was left behind. The lamp pushed the darkness away a bit, but there was still a heaviness and weight to the dimness that wasn"t often found aboveground.
If the walls and floor and ceiling all around her hadn"t been made of stone, Tain knew that she would be feeling extremely uncomfortable in their very necessary hideaway.
Tain was prepared for a long hike, but no more than five minutes after she and Risdin started to walk they saw the faint light of another lamp coming out of the darkness toward them. Risdin made a sound of satisfaction, but Tain didn"t relax until the approaching smudge of light showed that it was women who also approached. The fact that Risdin had apparently spent not a single moment wondering if the secret of the tunnel might have been found out made Tain a bit uneasy, but the suspicion on two of the faces coming toward them made her feel a bit better.
"Risdin, what"s wrong?" one of the suspicious ones called as soon as they all got a bit closer. "Why did you come to meet us?"
"Nothing"s wrong, Char," Risdin answered with a small laugh. "Tain and I got tired of waiting for all of you, so we decided to come and meet you.
What time of day is it outside?"
"When we entered the tunnel it was just about noon," the woman named Char answered, her frown showing that her suspicion hadn"t been completely soothed away. "And if you needed more smocks, why didn"t you ask us to bring some?"
The closer the group got, the easier it was for Tain to see individuals.
Char was a fairly tall, very beautiful woman, her outline under the smock she wore suggesting that her body was as attractive as her face.
The only thing that didn"t fit with the rest was the look in Char"s eyes, a look of hatred and distrust that promised never to ease back or fade even a little.
"Tain doesn"t want a smock, not when she"ll have to get back into the tease again later," Risdin explained, her tone filled with calm patience.