Claimed Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 2) Page 27

  Bins lined an aisle; all were filled with clothes. Musty clothes but the smell of a set of clothes was the last thing he was concerned about.

  Ari, he realized, was his concern.

  “What is this store, Sawyer?”

  Her words made him turn and look at her.

  On the roof above, the rain pounded down.

  Her white hair was plastered to her. The areolas of her breasts announced her femaleness, as did her thin arrow of pubic hair. In this nude state, without him to protect her she’d likely be raped.

  He’d kill any man who tried. Actually kill them.

  In this direly unusual situation, she seemed as likely to be a water nymph as a real girl from another world.

  “This is a place where you can buy clothes that others no longer need. It’s probably a charity. They give stuff away or sell it cheaply to help those in need.”

  Then she turned in place, circling, taking the store in, as if this were some wonderland. “I’ve never been in a place like this. Giving away things? Not to friends but to strangers?”

  He nodded, and wished she’d keep turning – it was the prettiest, sweetest thing he’d seen all day.

  Ari continued. “On Aerthe you either buy, make it, you take by force, or you dig it up from ruins. These are clothes?” She tiptoed to a bin and looked at a table also. “May I choose for you?”

  He was struck by the quiet need in her voice and said, “Yes.” Found his throat ached. “I will choose for you.”

  Chapter 41

  Ari found for Sawyer what he called jeans, as well as a belt, boots, and a dark brown shirt. Most, she had to experiment with a few times to get a size that would fit him. Then she waited while he sifted through the bins and came to her with a red dress with a tiny flared skirt and a pair of thin black tights. When she wriggled on the dress and then the tights, he had her wait while she was bent over. Then he assured her the tights outlined everything on her ass he wanted to see and feel.

  His big hands running over her made her shiver.

  “Come here.” Sawyer pulled her to a corner where a deep, padded sofa waited. He sat then drew her onto his lap. With Sawyer reclining, she curled up her legs and cuddled into him, listening to the steady assuring beat of his heart.

  “We can live here? Survive?”

  “Yes.” He patted her ass, breathed some more. “After being on Aerthe, the worries I used to have here are nothing. They’re absolutely frivolous. Stop worrying.”

  The breathing helped as much as his heartbeat and more than words could. She liked simply being next to him. A new world...his world. It was too much. How did you understand something like this? How did you feel it? Maybe it would take weeks before she’d know, everywhere, in her head, her bones, her toes, in the way her skin bumped into things that had never existed before, that she was here, on Earth.

  For the moment, he was enough. He soothed her with his immovable weight that didn’t stir when she shifted, with his voice, with his scent. She moved her arm so she could feel his thigh, watched her fingers cover the muscle there...saw how small her hand was against him. To go from hating him to this was as radical as moving to another world, she supposed.

  If one could happen then the other must be true. Ari sighed.

  A new world.

  Her thoughts whirled in chaos but it was a distant, muffled chaos.

  “I suppose, you will still be you, here, on this Earth?”

  Sawyer chuckled. “Yes. Meaning?”

  “Nothing.” She liked that too. Continuity, and she loved how he’d been on Aerthe, this last week or more. “It’s just...”

  Ari wriggled, and finally knew she had to say the words she’d wanted to say. Admitting this was the opposite of the strong, if introverted, person she’d imagined herself.

  “I want to be with you, here. Please?”

  The please seemed stupid, but she was worried...because maybe he’d say no. Fear gnawed at her. Maybe he’d reject her, because he didn’t need her here? Such irony. It felt weak to need him with such intensity.

  “Done.” He swallowed. Her heart caught for a moment. His arm was draped over her, keeping her close, and he squeezed her. “I want to be with you too, Ari. I’ve not been able to imagine anything else for a while.”

  She huffed, thinking, thinking, round and round in circles. More, she needed to do more, and it was time she took that step. He’d been waiting for her to take it.

  “There is no slavery here?”

  “Not true slavery, no. Not for us, anyway.”

  “Then...” She sat up and looked into his eyes. “May I have your belt, Sawyer?”

  Around his eyes crinkled, but he gave her a straight-edged smile before he said, “Yes.” He unbuckled the belt, slid it from his waist, handed it to her.

  She slipped off the sofa to the floor and waited, with her hands on his knees, thinking, gathering courage.

  “I can guess what you want to say.”

  “Mmm.” Still hard to say it, but... She held up the belt. “Put this around my neck, Sir?”

  When he’d done so, when he held the free end in his fist with determination, as if he was never planning on letting go, when the metal buckle sat beneath her chin and the leather circled her neck, then she finally said the words.

  “I would like to be yours, Sawyer. Your slave. By my choice. Does that...does that work for you?”

  It seemed a compromise of huge proportions, and yet, if he accepted she’d be ecstatic.

  If slavery was real, she could never say this, do this.

  Or could she? The moment was so potent, so satisfying – to hand herself over to him – it made her wonder.

  His voice came out in a deep tone that sawed down to her bones. “Yes. It satisfies me greatly.” He put his hands over hers, clasping her hands between his while still holding the belt. “Thank you, Ari. I accept you.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  There was a symbolism here, for they seemed the first beings alive in a world encompassed by these walls and by the rain drawing lines down the windows. It was a symbolism underlined and etched by rumbles of thunder and the dimness of the store, by their nakedness when they first arrived...by coming to this world through a portal that might’ve killed, by finding hope when all had been gone.

  By being everything to each other, for no one else could understand them.

  Then he tucked his finger under her chin and also used the belt to tilt her head. Grim, serious, with the belt just a little tighter than it needed to be, he said, “You are mine now, girl. Do not forget.”

  Oh she wouldn’t; she wouldn’t. Surely her eyes shone.

  “I’m going to have to teach you to speak English.” He patted her head where she’d laid it on his knee. “Wait here. I saw a piece of jewelry I can use.”

  When he returned to tower over her, because she’d stayed on her knees, a slim steel necklace hung from his hand. He opened his hand and showed her – it was a sculpted dragon with the wings wrapped tightly to its body and the clasp formed where the dragon gripped the tail in its mouth.

  “A dragon collar. This’ll look beautiful on your neck.”

  Then she waited as he removed the belt and placed the dragon around her, the metal cool on her skin. His callused, blunt fingers moved from link to link, softly and methodically, as if placing each link exactly so.

  With the clasp fastened, he went to one knee before Ari and laid the weight of his hand on her head. “I’ll find a leash to use in private, but you’ll wear a collar in public. Just know that I will never let you go, whether slavery is real here or not.”

  A paradox, but strangely it completed her, compelled her.

  “I own you.”

  “Yes, Sawyer,” she whispered, mesmerized by the ferocious intensity in his eyes.

  His fingers crunched painfully into her hair. Then he leaned in and took a kiss from her lips – a hard, relentless kiss – leaving her panting, squirming, and squeezing her thighs together, and
wishing they could do more here, in the darkness of the store.

  Was this love or obsession or something else? All the arguments she might raise for or against giving herself to him had disintegrated. The labels didn’t matter. This was right.

  They went out into the rain again, with her wearing the steel dragon collar.

  The rain rattled on roofing iron and signs, pattering at their feet and on their heads when they walked in the open.

  They came upon what Sawyer called an ATM machine. She laid her palms on the machine and was fascinated at how the innards resembled a mechling, though Sawyer denied that to her, twice.

  But, she could feel it.

  She reached within with her mind, and the machine spat out money in large amounts.

  Sawyer swore. “Magic is here?”

  As they walked away, he said something else that captivated her more.

  “I wonder if I can get you pregnant here? Would you like to have a baby? The doctors might know how.”

  A baby?

  “Umm.” She thought on that.

  To have a child. Children were little adorable creations she’d admired from afar but had never dreamed could be hers...theirs. The idea blossomed into something new, something of promise. She imagined them strolling like this with a child between them, the child’s hand held in hers. She could almost hear small footsteps and laughter.

  A child both hers and Sawyer’s.

  She hugged Sawyer tightly and smiled, leaning into him. “Yes. I want that.”

  “Good.” He kissed the top of her head.

  They turned back and left money in the secondhand clothing store. It seemed right to do so.

  Then, his boots and her shoes squishing from wetness, they went out into the rainy darkness to find whatever this world of Earth had waiting for them.

  “Lots of easy money and babies,” Sawyer told her.

  And she was fine with that. She even skipped a little.

  He angled his head her way, eyebrow rising as if he were dubious. Rain dribbled down the side of his face. “You’re dancing?”

  “Maybe?” She smiled shyly.

  “I get it. I do.” He sought and held her hand. Above the sound of the rain and their shoes on the pavement, he quietly added, “Keep on dancing. Without you here, my life would be colorless.”

  Sawyer kept walking as if nothing had happened, but those words...no one had ever said anything like that to her before. Those few words had filled her heart.

  Epilogue

  The remnants of the battlefield outside the ship were as dreadful as within. JI tramped across it, dodging firefights and mangled remains, steering past burned-out wrecks. He found Osta leaning against a truck, surveying the landscape. No Mekker ships flew, however they’d ranged forth with infantry. By sheer numbers the Mekkers were winning.

  Anger, what was anger? He thought he knew.

  “You will have to withdraw soon, Osta.” JI walked up to stand beside him. “You lied to me about the DRAC missiles.”

  “I did, JI. I’m sorry. It was necessary. Would you have repaired them for me otherwise? Without those we are but bugs on the land to the Mekkers. We are nothing to those maniacs. Today...” He swept his hand across. “Today, I have made us something. They will listen to us from now on, and perhaps...I desperately hope...” His fist clenched. “We can force change.”

  “True. But the two-edged sword of lies?”

  “What?” Osta turned, frowning.

  Not the best last words, but they were his.

  JI hefted the wafer-thin spear of metal he’d brought with him from the land he’d traipsed over. He slammed Osta into the truck with one hand and speared the metal into Osta’s brain through the foramen in his ear.

  Blood oozed from the hole.

  He wasn’t quite dead, just mostly so.

  “Lies are bad, Osta,” JI said as he prepared a brain tendril. “Killing children because of them is worse. This is your punishment. I will become you. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That’s Shakespeare, by the way.”

  Then he plucked out the spear of metal and threaded his brain tendril into the prepared hole...and he began the data transfer of JI into Osta. Carefully, he merged their brains, eliminating some of Osta’s, leaving part of his behind to supervise the routine he’d mapped out as he walked here. Space was limited.

  When he was done, when he’d healed the brain enough, he stood where Osta had been, with the jaggs either side of him, and he was Osta.

  Looking out through these eyes would take some getting used to.

  He patted the jags, feeling the softness of their fur against his skin for the first time.

  The sunset was beautiful.

  Maybe this was what Sawyer meant by karma?

  Being inside an animal meant three years of sanity. A person? Surely madness was far more than three years away? Give or take a few?

  And...he had a cock.

  The future was looking good.

  Glossary

  Aerthe A world recovering from a great war that occurred over a hundred years ago. All the cities were destroyed, the countries were obliterated, and many of the advances of civilization were lost when the Mekkers landed and invaded. The world is alive with a magic rooted in the world itself. Though Mekkers have tapped into this to power their swathes, the mechlings, and some later military tech, Aerthe is forever striving to eliminate them – much as a body would destroy a viral invader.

  Doctor program A computer program that can be installed in mechlings and mechs. It enables advanced surgery with the correct tools are attached, as well as medical skills. The medical skills are designed for Mekkers, rather than Aerthe people or humans, and do not tap into the Aerthe ‘magic’.

  DRAC missile A missile developed by the people of Aerthe to kill off Mekker swathes. The exact way they function has been lost. Mekkers believe them to have great explosive power. This is only partly true.

  Factor H A substance said to be needed by only Mekkers that is depleted from their bodies merely by them living on Aerthe. It can be extracted from humans in quantities far greater than can be found in grounders or Scavs. Theories as to why it isn’t depleted in other people are many and as yet unverified. The Mekkers have not, yet, divulged such information.

  Grounder One of the two major classes of peoples native to Aerthe. Grounder is a descriptive term for those living a static existence rather than a term for a specific race. A Scav could also be called a grounder if they chose to live in a town. Grounders mine, manufacture, trade and farm, and prefer to live in one place. There are more grounders than Scavs but they are less warlike. Most live in towns, some run trading caravans. They trade with Mekkers and Scavs.

  Jagg Eight-legged beasts that go through several phases before becoming adults. Scavs use the adults as riding animals. When in the younger, carnivorous phase they are also used as guard animals.

  JI-mech 34 A highly advanced military mech produced by Mekkers. None have been made since the Last Days of the War.

  Jungle Swathe A swathe lost over a hundred years ago in a jungle area – rumored to have been destroyed by a plague.

  Landship An enormous vehicle, as large as a sea-going ship or larger. A swathe is comprised of many landships travelling together.

  Long gun Preferred weapon of the Scavs – powered by waik crystals, with projectiles powered by shoom. The metal used in their manufacture is mined by grounders and responds to thought and meditation. Decorations on the surface of such weapons emerge over time as the weapon gets to know its owner. Power, accuracy, and general specifications, improve with use.

  Lilo The sound of a word meaning ‘a large snake’ in Mekkian.

  Mechling A small Mekker robot powered by power cells that are a refined version of waik crystals. Though not manufactured to be sentient, some eventually go ‘sun-mad’ and become self-aware.

  On the world of Aerthe, humans can ‘hear’ the thoughts of mechlings and mechs such as JI.

  Mekker A
space-faring race that invaded Aerthe, taking down all the major civilizations, destroying all cities. Neither side won the war – in reality all lost. Mekkers are seen as an invading foreign organism by the world of Aerthe. They travel and live in the swathes and must keep moving or the natural defenses of the planet gather and kill them.

  Moons The world of Aerthe has two moons.

  Physician A doctor who can use the magic of Aerthe to heal. They also use some of what would be called normal doctoring techniques.

  Power Cell Manufactured from waik crystals by the Mekkers, these cells can power swathes, mechlings and mechs.

  Ram A flying Mekker war vessel that is launched from a swathe. Larger than a Sniker, able to travel great distances, and more powerful than a Sniker.

  Royal Swathe The swathe the Mekker king inhabits.

  Scav A nomadic warlike race that lives from hunting, scavenges from the remains of the old civilizations, trades with grounders, and still hopes to defeat the Mekkers.

  Shoom A material that provides explosive energy to projectiles.

  Sniker A small hovering war vessel of the Mekkers.

  Swathe – there are four living swathes – Royal Swathe, Lesser Swathe, Greater Swathe, and the Lost Swathe (which is no longer lost). These are comparable to a nomadic tribe, such as that of Attila the Hun on Earth. These moving cities are composed of several enormous wheeled and tracked landships, each containing thousands of people and each holds what a city needs – parks, theaters, homes, prisons, markets, courts, as well as engine rooms, command centers, and armed forces. They mine the surface as they travel and never halt unless compelled to do so.

  Sun-mad When a mech or mechling becomes sentient aka self-aware.

  Undercity A term used by Scavs to describe the space they inhabit when they travel beneath a destroyed city. This is always a dangerous journey, though explorers have been mapping out paths beneath these cities for decades.