Sedition Page 5

  Sheriff watched him leave with a cross look on his face, then shook his head when the doors to the room closed. “Come on, sweetheart. Up.” He picked up his leather cut from the chair and slipped it on while I climbed slowly out of bed.

  If I thought Sheriff looked dangerous before, stripped to the waist with his powerful chest and arms covered in those tattoos, his muscled legs encased in leather pants, the cut made him look positively deadly. The reaper skull and crossbones on the back were just like every other Dark Legion member, but the General’s badge on the front looked like it belonged on him. He looked born to be the head of the world’s most deadly pirating road warrior crew.

  His belt, or more specifically, the star-shaped buckle on it caught my eye, and I swallowed hard, staring at it. The emblem was a sheriff’s badge, not seen since the Old World when people still had electricity, and men called police still used guns. The sight of the belt made my muscles tense with unease, knowing what he could do with it when he chose.

  “Master. Um.” I looked up at his face again while still sitting on the side of the bed. “You aren’t going to punish me, are you?”

  His dark brows winged down. “Why would I do that?”

  I knew it was an odd thought. He’d been wonderful to me, letting me take up his bed and accepting my visitors at all hours. But I’d grown used to my masters running so hot and cold, to losing people just when I was beginning to feel close to them. I couldn’t trust that something more wasn’t going on here.

  “Well, it’s just that almost every time I’ve been alone with you, you’ve…” I bit my lip, not trusting myself to mention his belt across my ass without my voice shaking. I hated the way my sex ached at the thought.

  Sheriff cupped my chin, tipping it up. “Do you want me to whip you, Little Spy? Is that what you want?”

  The words should have scared me, but with the heat in his eyes and the low growl of his voice, my muscles tightened with the need to have him hurt me however he wanted.

  I shook my head jerkily, looking away. When I focused on his face again, his mouth twitched with amusement, letting me know I hadn’t hid my desire well.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, sweetheart. There is something we need to discuss.”

  My heart sped up. Since the incident with Madi’san, I’d had the feeling people were hiding something from me. Would I finally find out what it was?

  Sheriff let me put on a fresh cadris, but when I picked out a simple blue one, he shook his head and plucked another from the closet where Pretty Boy had left an assortment.

  “Wear this one.”

  I looked over the elegant scarlet halter top and billowy pants with the thin gold chains embroidered into the shape of the bust and along the waist of the pants. The matching top and pants were made of gorgeous crushed velvet.

  “Why?” He’d made fun of the clothes before, implying I’d earned them through manipulation, but there was nothing cruel in his manner now.

  “Because. I want you to.”

  What in the Maker’s name was he up to? I didn’t see anything in those gorgeous eyes that said he was playing me, but...

  I did as I was told and slipped the cadris on, then gave my hair a quick comb-through.

  “Are you finished now, woman?” He grabbed my wrist and led me to the doors. “I’m not taking you to a banquet, girl.”

  For some reason the impatience in his tone made me smile.

  He locked the doors to his quarters, then led me through the rough-hewn tunnels to the wooden walkway outside his cave. The early evening breeze felt refreshing and cool on my bare arms and feet, and I inhaled the scents of fresh flora that grew about the Grotto’s lush landscape. Honeysuckle and night-blooming jasmine filled my nose, the fresh scents reminding me that I was alive and well, that I’d nearly lost it all.

  Maker, I loved this place.

  It felt so good to look up at the sky after more than a week cooped up in Sheriff’s windowless rooms, even with the short, regulated walks Doc had prescribed.

  Night had painted the sky with a thousand stars, numerous as the jewels that glittered in the cliff walls around me. Here and there on the various greens, the solar trees stood, branches folded upward, the many solar panels on each looking like the bristles of some sort of huge and strange alien flowers in the distance.

  “Where are you taking me, Master?”

  Sheriff turned to walk backwards with his hand in mine. “Can’t you go ten minutes without asking questions?”

  “Sorry, Master.”

  But his teeth flashed in the darkness. He led me down another walk to the floor of the Grotto and into the garage where the Legion members kept their bikes. “We’re going for a little ride, you and I. I want to show you something.”

  I stared.

  The garage was filled with bikes, all in neat rows, with dozens of different patterns painted on the sides. Flames, lightning bolts, decidedly mean looking birds, and skulls. But Sheriff’s bike, a little bigger than most of the others, was glorious. It had orange and yellow flames on the sides, seeming to come out of the same star as was on his belt. Everything else was shining and black.

  “Wow. The design is gorgeous.”

  “You like that, huh?” He swung onto the seat and then nodded behind him. “On you get.” When I hesitated, he added, “Doc said its okay. It’ll be a smooth ride where we’re going.”

  A thrill raced through me. I’d ridden with my masters before, behind Steel or Pretty Boy, and it was wonderful, feeling the wind in my hair, my arms around a road warrior’s waist, knowing I belonged to him, but I’d never imagined riding with the General. Maybe it was silly, but it felt like I’d been asked to ride in the carriage with the king.

  You’re changing everything, Violet.

  I shivered and climbed on.

  When I was situated and put my hands on his waist, Sheriff slid my hands around to his front, his palms warm and trapping mine there. “Don’t be afraid, Little Spy. I won’t bite.”

  My face heated, and I buried it in the back of his cut. The smell of well-worn leather filled my nose, and I inhaled deep, my sex clenching in response.

  “Hold on tight,” he said over his shoulder. “I ride fast.”

  I sat up until he jumped on the throttle and the engine roared to life. Once, I’d hated, even feared that sound. Back then it was the sound of loss and death and pain. Now the sound made me feel somehow safe and in danger all at the same time, but surrounded by a danger that thrilled and excited and made me ache to be filled.

  I wrapped my arms tightly around the General and rested my cheek against his back again as he rode out of the garage cave and up a path over a series of hills.

  Sheriff drove for what must have been about twenty minutes, so fast the wind whipped my hair out behind me, the landscape a blur of movement alongside us. Long stretches of grass and meadows rolled past, cliffs like those that walled in the Grotto rising high into the night. We made our way along old, well-worn paths, pounded down by years of churning bike wheels and hard use.

  When we finally stopped, he parked his bike and kicked the stand down, then led me up a narrow path at the edge of a forest. The secluded area was lush and green and wonderful. My childhood in the desert might as well have been a million miles away.

  “Are we still in the Grotto?” I asked him, following him along the wooded path.

  “Yes. A less used part of it. I come here to think.”

  A short time later, we came out into a small meadow, at the center of which stood an old wishing well. The grass here grew long and thick, not tamed and manicured like the greens in the main parts of the Grotto.

  “Wow.” I headed for the well, marveling at the thick bluebells and pink rasper-blossoms that surrounded it. “I’ve never seen one like this before. Damien had a well, but it wasn’t like this.”

  The well rose up at the center of flagstones worn and cracked with age, its walls waist-high and constructed from solid grey stones. The wooden pail
sat on the stone ledge. I leaned over the ledge and peered into the dark shadows below.

  “This looks like something out of a storybook.” I looked happily over my shoulder at him. “It’s beautiful, Master.”

  “I’m not paying much attention to the well, sweetheart.” He walked slowly over to me, smooth, long strides, then slid his fingers into mine.

  Throat suddenly dry, I could only stare at him. I’d never seen this side of him, this almost…gentle man who held my hand and walked in meadows with me and took me to pretty wells in the wilderness. How did I handle him like this?

  The urge to ask him why he was being so nice tugged hard, but I didn’t dare. It might cause him to change, and I wanted to enjoy it. So I just let him pull me close to him until we leaned against the side of the well, his fingers still holding mine.

  His gaze took in my face, the shape of my mouth, my eyes, the fall of my hair, all as if he was trying to memorize it. What did he see when he looked at me? He said nothing, just watched me until the tension between us became too much.

  “Master?”

  Sheriff lifted one hand and pushed my hair back over my shoulder. “There’s something I need to show you.” He drew in a heavy breath and tore his eyes away. I had the sense of a moment being lost between us as he dug into the inside pocket of his cut. He pulled out a small silver cylinder. I watched curiously while he opened the top and tipped the cylinder into his palm. A small glass vial slid out. He held the vial out to me.

  My mouth fell open. The vial was filled with a bright blue liquid unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The liquid glowed like a luma-light.

  “What is this?” I picked it up slowly, fascinated, tipping it up and down, watching the bio-luminescence glitter under the moonlight.

  Slowly, he took the vial from me and held it up, looking at it, then locking his eyes on me. “This is blood, Setora.”

  My eyes widened. “Blood? From what?”

  “From you. It’s yours.”

  Chapter 4

  Blue

  When I was fourteen, four years before Damien had betrayed me, one of my former master’s higher-ranking slaves had punched me in the stomach. In a household whose master preferred fear tactics and psychological manipulation, that had been the one and only time I’d ever been hit quite like that, with such brute force.

  Seeing the blue, glowing blood in that vial—and hearing Sheriff say the blood was mine—felt a little like that punch, as if someone had driven a hammer into my gut so hard it knocked the wind out of me. My heartbeat pounded in my head so loudly that the sounds around me became muted, and I couldn’t breathe.

  Unsure what to say, I closed my eyes as if doing so would make what Sheriff had said—and the vial in his hand—not real. But when I opened my eyes, the vial was still there, and his words still rattled around in my thoughts.

  “Setora?” Sheriff’s voice was low and soft, anchoring me to the here and now, grounding me. Still, what did I say? A thought I could scarcely face spun like a storm.

  “It can’t be mine. I’d know if my blood looked like that.”

  “This is yours. Doc drew it from you during surgery.” He returned the vial to the protective metal cylinder and put it back in the inner pocket of his cut.

  I drew a long breath and let it out. Then I walked over to a boulder nearby and slumped down on it.

  Sheriff’s lips pressed together, and understanding filled his eyes. He didn’t press me for a response, only walked over to me and knelt. Waiting for me to adjust. His hands settled on my knees almost slowly, and the many rings on his long fingers, carved into skulls or embedded with jewels, glittered in the moonlight.

  “Your hands, Master.” I looked at them, my mind latching onto the sinister designs of the rings like a lifeline, struck by how much those rings turned his strong hands into ones that reminded me of swashbucklers in the Old World. All that was missing was a sword in his hand and a ship to sail. “You really do have a pirate’s hands, Master.”

  He tapped my knees with his fingers. “Don’t change the subject. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  My chest shook on another breath. Fear welled up, huge and monstrous, until my throat tightened as though that fear had become a hand squeezing me there. My eyes stung painfully. I made myself look at him, willing the tears back, refusing to let the big bad head of the Dark Legion see such weakness.

  “How did this happen? What does it mean?” My gaze locked on his cut, on the unseen area where, on the inside, his pocket held the vial of that strange blue liquid. The liquid that could not have possibly come from inside me.

  “We don’t know. Doc has never seen anything like that.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Because I told him to leave it to me. It felt like something a master should do, not someone you hardly know.”

  I thought I knew what he wasn’t saying as much as what he was. He wanted to be the one to handle me if I fell apart.

  Terror and uncertainty created a toxic mixture that burned the back of my throat. “Maybe my blood changed because it was a reaction to whatever Madi’san coated on the blade. Has Doc drawn any blood since?”

  “Setora—”

  But before he could finish, I leaned over and picked up a rock, putting it to my palm, about to slice the skin. To cut myself open and see for myself that my blood was as red as anyone else’s.

  “Hey.” Sheriff snatched the rock from me and tossed it aside. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “This can’t be happ—” I cut myself off and drew a long breath, fighting down the panic. “Do the others know? Steel? Pretty Boy, Hawk?”

  “Yeah. Doc showed them right after he finished your surgery.”

  I bowed my head. If I’d grown another head and everyone had seen it, I was sure I’d have felt the same way.

  What did this mean? What was I? Did all Violets have this happen to them? The blood had looked so—I could barely make myself think the word—alien, it didn’t seem real. Would my masters want me, knowing I was like this? Especially when we didn’t know why?

  The thought threatened to shatter my heart, and for the first time, I realized not only just how much the Grotto had come to mean to me, but how much these four men had come to mean. The Grotto was home. They were my home. Images of the auction and Damien selling me off chased themselves around in my brain, the hot sting of betrayal giving them a sharp edge.

  Again, I willed back the tears that pricked at my eyes, then made myself meet Sheriff’s intense gaze.

  “Are you going to sell me, Master?”

  “What?” His voice was a rasp.

  “Well, I just thought…I mean. I thought you wouldn’t want me. You wouldn’t want a freak for a slave.”

  He made a low warning growl in his throat. “Now, you listen to me, woman. Look at me.” I’d bowed my head and he jerked my chin up. “This changes nothing. I know I was hard on you before, and I know it’s gonna take you time to trust me. But I’m telling you. I don’t care if you have poison in your veins, and I know my men don’t either. You belong to me. To us, and we’re never letting you go. You got that?”

  His words seized my heart in a tight fist. The implication in them, the ownership, but also the steely determination, were something I’d never imagined I’d hear from him. Especially him. I bit my lip and nodded, praying the sting in my eyes would abate.

  “And I don’t ever want to hear you talk about yourself like that again. My woman is not a freak. You were made for me and my men. Every bit worthy of the mark I put on your back. Is that clear?”

  My voice came out a shaky rasp. “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl.” He shook his head. “If you weren’t recovering from surgery, so help me, I’d bend you over my knee and turn your ass red right now.”

  “Why, Master?”

  “For insulting what’s mine.” His eyes softened and he held out his hand. “Come to me.”

  I took his hand and he gentl
y laid me down beside him, on my back. He rolled onto his side, head held in his hand, while his fingers made slow, lazy circles on my bare stomach.

  “I know you want answers. I do too. And I know you must be scared to death. But it’s going to be all right, my little spy. I’ll take you to Doc when we get back. We’ll dig until we figure this out but, Setora…”

  I just looked at him, needing his words, his acceptance, his reassurance to wash over me.

  “Whatever we find, it won’t change anything.”

  “Are you sure about that, Master? I mean, last week I found out I could read other people’s minds—”

  “Other Violets’ minds.”

  “Still. And now I have blood that lights up. Next week I might have a tail or start trying to kill everyone in their sleep.”

  He shook his head. “You won’t.”

  “But what if I do? I mean, what if I change? What if I become something else?”

  He slid his hand slowly up and down my arm. “We’ll handle it. If you suddenly go on a murderous rampage, it’ll give me the perfect excuse to tie you to my bed and keep you there.”

  He paused, leaning down to me, so close I could see the fine striations in his eyes, flecks of green in the blue.

  “Look. Here’s the thing you have to understand about road warrior crews. We’re like family. A lot of us who end up putting on a cut do so because it’s a place to belong. Yeah, protection is better in numbers and all that, but it’s also about the bonds a man has with his brothers. Or sisters. The Dark Legion doesn’t toss a member out when things get tough. Just the opposite. We band together tighter. One member’s hardships are all of our hardships. You understand?”

  The words hit home hard, striking something deep and inexorable in me. I’d spent most of my life being used as a tool, losing everything I held dear. Once, I’d looked up to Damien, and perhaps I’d even seen him as a father. But he hadn’t been a father, he’d been a monster. Except for my first six years, which I hardly remembered now, I’d never really belonged anywhere or knew what it was like to feel at home. The Grotto had become as close to a home as I’d ever had, but hearing Sheriff speak of his club as if it was a brotherhood bound by something stronger than blood, I felt like I was truly part of the Dark Legion. I was one of them.