Claimed Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 2) Read online

  They boosted him to the roof then attached him with a two-yard chain to a heavy fixture on the side of the squarish vehicle. No one could shake that loose. If he fell, he truly would be dragged.

  Fuck that. Worth it for the ride.

  The engines started; they rattled onward. He’d never before noticed the faint, bluish steam rising from the engine compartments, never really become familiar with the shapes of the leaves where they blanketed the sky from view. He craned his neck to study them. Broader than most on Earth. Even so, he could imagine himself back there. Home.

  This was the last vehicle in the line and it followed the road same as those in front, jarring him when it hit bumps and ruts. After this were only three riders on jaggs. He’d seen one run earlier. Or gallop, perhaps it should be termed? The things could go faster than any horse. Maybe faster than any vehicle he’d seen used.

  The Mekkers probably had ground or flying craft that could surpass anything the Scavs or grounders possessed, speedwise. They were top of the tech tree on this world. How had these Scav bastards survived when their enemy was the Mekkers?

  Night had fallen but no moons showed. Through the trees to the right, a yellowish glow suffused the undersides of clouds. Big, vast black sky and a faraway glow like a city. That’d be a Mekker swathe. Why did they move? Why not settle down, beat up the locals, feed off them? There must be some deeper reason he’d not encountered yet.

  He was getting ahead of himself. First step – get free. Second? Her. Miss Ari Smartass Jiggle-tits. He’d never been a man to cruise past an enticing puzzle that was so female and cute.

  Though she wasn’t sweet – more like ferocious – and she definitely looked as cute and attractive as dog poop when she turned on her charm.

  Puzzling but then he liked puzzles. He also liked the idea of messing with her after she’d played that castration card. God, would he like to mess with her. How the fuck dare she threaten him.

  Rubik’s cubes and Monopoly, Cards against Humanity, Twister, football, playing hide and seek with the neighbor’s kids when he was little.

  Sometimes he made lists in his head of stuff from Earth he should remember; because he was forgetting things he should know. Needed to hang onto those. He wasn’t just the man he’d become here; he was Sawyer, special forces soldier who’d survived Afghanistan and Iraq, with a sister he loved and parents who must wonder what’d become of him and his sister, Fern.

  Back then, he’d wondered at the crap the world threw at you. Didn’t matter how good you were, or how bad, nothing mattered when people were trying to kill you. You lived or you died in a puddle of blood and shit. Pieces of your pulverized body were stepped on when everyone else ran for cover. He’d seen that happen – lain prone beneath a leafless tree with the guts of a friend tangled in the branches and dripping vile stuff on him. Horns weren’t the sign of the Devil; IEDs were.

  He’d gone home and thought he might drag himself up from the muck, given time.

  Mind full of pain but he had friends, and the streets had people doing their average life things, kids playing in playgrounds, comedy on TV...Fern’s wedding.

  The night before her wedding...then here.

  They’d likely executed her, and all because she’d done what he’d taught her to do – stand up for herself.

  His morals were possibly cold and dead.

  However.

  Sawyer lay back, sighing despite the cold.

  When things were good you took advantage.

  Who cared about cold when you could lie here with rivets poking into your back and watch the stars twinkle.

  God. Stars.

  Stars up there.

  Starry, starry night... Which song was that from? All those songs he’d never hear again.

  Still...here, now, nothing beat this.

  He had a chance. He might’ve doomed himself by being so forward, by almost lying about Zarr’s directive, but this was better than being subservient. He’d done enough of that. The slave him was getting buried. Time to roar, to bust out and stand tall, time to fight for his future.

  He hadn’t seen stars except through barred windows for such a long time.

  His eyes ached. He let the tears flow. No one could see.

  There were times even a man got to cry.

  Cry it out. Then...when things were raining fire and brimstone, he could do what he had to do to win. He knew what the rules for that would be: Fuck up everyone on this dirty, grimy, misbegotten planet that was likely shat from the asshole of a black sun.

  Chapter 4

  Sawyer yawned. He was lying on his back, rocking with the movements of the vehicle beneath him. Things had changed. The dawn sky was being swallowed by a ragged roof far overhead. Chewed off and twisted girders and something like concrete was up there. He squinted, rubbing the muck from his eyes. Rusty metal above and darkness, because all he saw was its shadowed underside.

  By rolling over and propping his chained-together hands on the blanket and the metal roof, he levered himself into sitting position. To either side, the strange eight-legged jaggs were clopping down a slope. The convoy had driven through most of the night, and he was busting to pee. He was better off than those trapped inside.

  The vehicle slowed and rolled to a stop on a flat area that was at least two stories below ground level. The ceiling was high. Blue lights shone from various corners of what seemed a large, decrepit room. Or was it some underground parking area?

  “Get down off there, you!” A Scav beckoned.

  “You need to undo that!” He leaned over the side and pointed to where the chain attached. A nod was all the reply he received, though the man came forward.

  There were at least fifty Scavs here. Maybe more he couldn’t see. Most seemed busy at tasks – unlocking vehicles, climbing from driving cabins, directing people. Some were hugging each other – the newly arrived were greeting friends, smacking them on the back, kissing them, talking.

  The lack of an undercurrent of fear was palpable. After months of it, the lack was invigorating, obvious, unbelievable almost. The four slaves in his vehicle disembarked and were directed toward a man who would remove their neck ports.

  The Scavs didn’t suck out and sell blood?

  The grounders had fed him food every day designed to make his body manufacture good-quality blood.

  His chain was detached, and the man held up a hand to help him get down. Sawyer grabbed it then managed to vault off the truck and land on his feet in a puff of dust.

  “Perfect ten dismount,” he murmured.

  “What?” The Scav frowned.

  “Nothing important.” He smiled at the man, who only shrugged and nodded toward the doc removing the neck tubes.

  “Don’t stray. You won’t get far if you do. This place has a perimeter of guards up there.” He gestured up the slope of the road the vehicles had been driven down.

  “I won’t.”

  As he walked, Sawyer fingered the collar. Even if he wanted to run, he’d pay a part of his soul to get this whole thing off. The tube was a great start.

  The predisposition to and plain old acceptance of slavery in this world, the violence, the way he’d been stomped into being the lowest of the low, this blood-sucking collar – at times, those had almost broken him. He hadn’t thought it possible.

  He’d made a new agenda while traveling through the night, and he’d fallen asleep before he’d restated a most important aim. He had to find his sister Fern, dead or alive – he’d bury her if he must, but he’d find her.

  Bury her. That thought made every morsel of him crunch down. Despair and anger waited – a terrible mix. If it came to merely finding her body, he wasn’t sure who on this Aerthe he wouldn’t kill. His last friend had died in the Scav attack – though he’d been more an ally.

  “You’re next.” The doc, or physician, as they called them, threw aside the tube he’d extracted from a woman with long red hair. A meager trickle of blood ran down her neck from the swab she held bet
ween collar and skin.

  The collection of tubes looked like spaghetti made for a giant vampire.

  “Jesus,” Sawyer muttered. “Those are longer than I thought they were.”

  He turned and sat on the chair the doc indicated, staring ahead as something was unscrewed from the collar using a tool he’d glimpsed. “You sterilize that, man?”

  “Steri-what?”

  “Use something to kill the germs, the bugs.”

  “No bugs here.”

  And that was so reassuring.

  A long dragging sensation began somewhere indistinct, somewhere inside his chest. Pains and nausea rose. Before they could become truly awful, the doc laid cooling, massaging fingers on Sawyer’s neck and quietly said, “Done. You’re done. Just have to...”

  Blood dripped on his shoulder.

  Small movements were hinted at beside his ear, squeaky noises happened, the collar shifted. His muscles relaxed. The man had magic fingers. Another tube was thrown on the pile and a swab pressed to his neck.

  “The rest of the neck-to-skin rivets can come out another day. Once you see who owns you.”

  Sawyer stood, making the chair squeak, making the grit roll under his bare feet. “No one is going to own me.”

  “Ahhh.” The doc had a thick growth of gray hair gathered by a cloth wrap into a tail that swished about near hip level. “I heard of you. Sunset then. That’s when we have a meeting. I’ll be listening when you try to tell Zarr to free you.”

  The twist of his lips communicated a dry amusement.

  “You do that. Got a shirt anywhere I can use?”

  He looked around, not really looking for shirts, looking for her.

  “I’m Largo. Physician Largo.” He studied Sawyer, up and down, as if figuring out whether he needed special treatment. “I don’t have a shirt. Ask around though. You seem a steady sort of person. The panicked ones we chain up for a while. Since you’re not given to anyone yet, you can walk about. Look around. Just don’t forget to be there when we start to gather. Being absent will get you into trouble. Trying to escape, or doing anything worse, will get you hurt, badly.”

  He nodded. “Thanks, Largo. Food?”

  “You look like you need feeding. The grounders locking you up makes muscles melt away. It’ll come back.” The physician pointed deeper under the building, with one bloody finger.

  No use arguing further about ownership. He’d find out where he could piss and see about food.

  The doc had nailed it – his muscles were in an abysmal state, despite all the sit-ups, chin-ups, star jumps...he probably looked exactly like a man who’d been caged for months and had blood drained out weekly.

  Couldn’t see Aribelle, but he knew she was here. Was an odd thing, but he could feel her, a light buzz, a disturbance where she walked, as if he’d tuned into her frequency. If other men could do this, they didn’t show any signs. She’d become an itch he couldn’t scratch or fuck or other things. He let his mind go somewhere it hadn’t been for a long, long time.

  Like sitting back in his armchair, curtains drawn, beer in hand, to watch an old movie he’d dug from a dusty box in the basement. Once upon a time, it’d been Lara...Kate. Even Eve for a while. Whippings, flogging, the belt, plain old hurting women to make them squeal and scream and come...watching them writhe after he plucked off the clover clamps from their nipples. Willing girls, not slaves.

  His darker proclivities had been kept in check on Earth.

  Here. Aerthe. If he were free, the limits were looking infinite. No one gave a flying fuck, unless they were your subject. This world dragged you down to the violence level of a hungry Neanderthal on steroids.

  He walked a few steps, still looking through the crowd.

  Moth to flame, that was him, and he was more partial to being the flame not the moth. Her castration threat was null and void, past tense. She would’ve had that order carried out, if the Scavs hadn’t arrived. Would’ve tried to. He smiled grimly.

  Revenge fucking was a thing, wasn’t it?

  If she returned to Uncle, their worlds would go in two different directions.

  Despite the no owner and free-to-walk concept, after breakfast, he was grabbed by people in charge of everything from watering, feeding, and grooming the jaggs, to stacking supplies, to cleaning up after the meals. The Scavs had communal down to a fine art and without the need for committees. He still wasn’t sure of their command structure, except that Zarr was at the top of the pile.

  Out of everything they asked him to do, grooming a jagg was the weirdest.

  This beast’s coat was a buttery orange with paler, lightning-shaped stripes over much of its body. The hair felt like the fuzzy new growth on a newborn puppy. So soft – it made him want to run his hand over the creature forever.

  He shut his eyes just to absorb the feeling. If he ever got depressed, he’d come back and pat one of these. He imagined lying on the ocean with little waves rippling over his legs, his mind full of nothing, in a pure sea of serenity.

  Sawyer cleared his throat and surfaced from his daydream. He stepped back to admire the results of his grooming. “Good boy...girl. Whatever you are.” With a brush, he’d removed a lot of twigs and dirt from its coat.

  Some sort of horn blew, echoing through the open area. Guards stationed high on the ramp-like road turned their heads. A few headed down toward him. This must be a signal for the meeting. Sunset was close – judging by bruised pink sky and the pale light washing through the saw-toothed entrance gash.

  “Bye.” He saluted the creature.

  Light sluicing from behind the jagg drew a soft halo around the fine hairs of its antlered head. It eyed him, slowly chewing whatever it’d fetched from the feed bucket with a rolling motion of its teeth. Pointy teeth some of those were – the front ones. Horses were clearly unrelated.

  What herbivore had pointy teeth? Though even the frickin’ birds here had teeth. If they were birds. Flying with wings might not be enough to call them that.

  He had the vague notion the jagg was assessing him. More likely it was engrossed in the taste of that food and would forget him in seconds. He turned. People were going deeper into the ancient building.

  A wide opening, bare of doors, was swallowing them. If there’d once been doors, they must’ve been lost long ago. As he reached the doorway, he heard the subtle rumble of many voices.

  The meeting.

  Time to do his thing. Not easy being confident in the face of so many strangers who wanted to see him a slave, not after months of being demeaned, confined, collared, cuffed, and treated like a bull headed for slaughter.

  Sawyer halted. When heads turned, he decided to stay a few more seconds. Impressions counted. He’d lost muscle, but he was taller than most men here, broader of shoulder too. He was no longer a cardboard, two-dimensional, slave-level person.

  Hero not a zero.

  Framed in the door, with the shine in his long and desperately black hair, courtesy of the portal ride from Earth to Aerthe, to these guys he’d look extraordinary...right? They’d ceased to talk and most turned to look.

  Large room, with some sort of non-functioning, fancy, glass-and-metal lights hanging down on poles. Blue light spread from torches with bulbs. Yellow flickering light came from other sconces the Scavs must’ve installed on poles. Rust streaked the stone-like walls. If he sprinted, he’d take maybe twenty seconds to touch the far wall. Square pillars supported the ceiling, here and there. Sounds echoed.

  Zarr sat on a makeshift throne that had angular outlines and varied textures and light reflection qualities. Not made from swords nor car parts... From this distance, with the patches of gloom, he couldn’t tell what objects the throne was made from. Lego? Cans of beer? The exhumed skulls of his conquered and lamented enemies?

  “Come in! We are waiting for you. They tell me your name is Saw-yer.” Out of all the Scavs, he was the only one who seemed to have trouble saying it. “I believe you told falsehoods about my orders. What should I do to
you?”

  He muttered under his breath. “Call me Conan and hand me a big sword and a harem of naked virgins.” Then louder, he said, “Let me prove myself, as we discussed!”

  He went forward, walking along the little thoroughfare kept empty and flanked by the crowd of Scavs. The chains linking his feet and wrists jangled lightly, reminding him of his reasons for being bold. Many of these people seemed to have decided this was a picnic affair and had brought food and drink. They sat on wooden chairs and mounds of cushions, on rugs, on what might have once been frames for sofas now stuffed with new padding.

  Fair hair was common and the lights reflected off a sea of blond, though there were also the darker-haired ones – some of those were people he took to be grounder slaves serving food. Others were ornaments by the side of their owners – collared, cuffed, leashed, or chained. Most were women. Most were scantily or provocatively dressed.

  He’d fallen into a Roman orgy, hopefully. He hadn’t seen these slaves before, outside. Pleasure slaves, he assumed. The grounders had kept him and other slaves so they could extract blood and sell it to Mekkers. No blood would be sucked from these women, though they might get to do some sucking of their own.

  His step slowed as a man caressed the round breast of a girl, slipping his hand beneath her skirt and probing there until she writhed and turned to kiss him.

  Now this was what would make keeping a slave worthwhile.

  His cock chose that moment to remind him of its existence. Been so long since he’d had a woman.

  Coincidentally, his not-so-favorite woman, Aribelle, stood beside Zarr but a step below, since the throne was elevated.

  Her thighs had the curvaceous flow of a woman’s shape – in where it should go in, out where it should be plump and grab-able. Beautiful, with an ass he could stare at forever. Someone should’ve told her those pants were too body hugging to be demure. Her top was sleeveless with a mass of embroidery swirling about on the lower third, like Renoir on cloth. Prettier than the other shirt. There’d been blood on it and brains, he supposed.