Dark Solstice (2 page)

Her gaze lit finally on a fair haired giant of a man as he bested his opponent and stepped back to catch his breath. Almost as if he felt her gaze, he turned, lifting his head. Their eyes locked for several heartbeats and a shiver started in Rhea’s belly and radiated outward until she felt weak and cold all over.

His eyes were so pale a blue they looked like ice.

She knew instantly who he was.

The iceman.

An assassin, he’d been tried and convicted almost two years ago and was one of the most infamous of Phobos Prison’s inmates.

Although it had never been proven, he’d been credited with at least a dozen murders of heads of state and other high ranking political figures, as well as the heads of at least two global corporations, most recently Wilhem Johann, founder and CEO of Johann Solutions, Inc., the company that had established Phobos Prison to provide labor for terraforming Mars.

Recognition shook her as nothing before had. She had thought she’d fully assimilated just how dire her situation was, but she realized her mind hadn’t completely accepted it before. She had thought not being able to put a name to the faces was the worst of it, because she had no way of knowing the threat she was facing. The iceman, John Raathe, made it abundantly clear that knowing would avail her nothing.

She couldn’t defend herself. She couldn’t escape.

There was no escape.

Frowning, John Raathe dragged his gaze from the woman with an effort. He didn’t know what compulsion had led him to look at her to start with when he couldn’t afford the distraction, but self-disgust filled him that he’d yielded to it.

His time on Phobos had fucked with his mind, he decided derisively.

Women had never been a weakness for him—not since ….

He broke the thought off.

Not since he’d grown old enough and wise enough in the ways of life to realize women were the fastest way for a man in his line of work to get dead, he mentally amended the first thought.

He could appreciate the fact that the one currently chained to the prize post was as beautiful a specimen as he’d seen in years with the detachment of viewing a sexdroid holo—an object of interest if he had the credits to purchase it—she certainly looked as perfectly, flawlessly, designed for sex as one from where he stood—and he did appreciate her beauty.

But now sure as fuck wasn’t the time to ‘shop’ when his mind needed to be fully focused on staying alive.

The distraction nearly cost him as another man felled his opponent and challenged him by taking a jab at him with his knife. The blade glanced off his shield and cut a shallow slice across his upper arm, causing him just enough pain to redirect his mind to the business at hand.

Rhea’s heart seemed to leap into her throat as the prisoner leapt at the iceman.

She didn’t know why. She certainly wasn’t rooting for him.

Hopefulness?

She spent half the time that remained to her praying anyone would win except the iceman, and half the time praying that her heart would simply give out and spare her further terror and pain.

Neither wish was fulfilled.

When the dust settled, the iceman, John Raathe was the last man standing.

The crowd didn’t seem especially ecstatic about it either. Rhea wasn’t certain what conclusion to draw from that—Whether it was an indication that John Raathe wasn’t an especially popular inmate, or if it was only because the show was over, but she rather thought ‘Johnny doesn’t play well with others’ probably applied to pretty much all of the prisoners.

He was bleeding, she saw, when he moved to the post to claim his prize, his movements stiff, but there was no sign of the agony she knew he must be feeling in his expression.

There
was
no expression. His face looked as perfectly emotionless as his eyes.

Rhea didn’t know whether to be more frightened or to feel less threatened. Gloating would not have surprised her—triumph, animal lust.

Her knees gave out when the guards released her.

Raathe stared down at her where she’d crumpled to the ground for several moments and finally leaned down, grasped her arm, and hauled her to her feet. He bent stiffly to snatch her clothing from the dirt as they passed by it. One of the guards herding them across the arena struck him with his baton, sending him sprawling.

He still had the crumpled suit in his hand when he got up again, however.

After sending the man who’d struck him a look that promised death if he ever managed to get hold of him, Raathe moved a little more slowly and a little more stiffly toward the door. Wrist and ankle manacles were placed on both of them before they were allowed to pass through the blast doors and into the corridor.

Rhea followed him down the corridor, her mind perfectly blank except for the chant that kept playing over and over in her mind.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

The chill that invaded her was real, though. The manacles chafing her wrists and ankles, tripping her up when she moved incautiously, were real.

The murderer in front of her who’d just won her as prize by killing other predators just like him, was real.

The only bright spot in the entire ordeal was the fact that they were herded along a different route than the spectators. She wasn’t certain what might have happened if she’d been thrown in naked with the prison population, but she was certain it wasn’t something she wanted to know.

The relative quiet of their march was only a temporary reprieve, though. As they reached the cell block, she discovered that the inmates had already begun to file into their cells. The doors swung closed even as her party arrived, locking with the deafening synchronized click of several hundred cages at once.

Bars held the animals at bay. The cells themselves had been hewn from the rock to save time and/or money, but had resulted in the comfort of at least some privacy for the prisoners.

Probably pretty much complete privacy because she doubted the guards spent much time patrolling the walks. There were vids everywhere to catch the faintest movements, but she doubted they monitored those either.

Phobos prison was the most secure maximum security prison of all time simply because there was no where to go and therefore no point in escaping. There was no air outside the prison, no atmosphere at all, and except for the short range ships that took prisoners back and forth to Mars in work details, no transportation off the rock.

They passed through that block of cells, down a short corridor and into another cell block. Raathe’s cell was about half way down.

Removing the restraints, the guards shoved both of them into the cell and locked the door. They didn’t leave. They stood just outside the cell, leering at Rhea, waiting, she was certain, for the next big show to begin.

She divided a wild eyed glance between the lion in the cage with her and the baboons leering at her from the outside. Raathe caught her arm, half leading and half dragging her toward the bunk. She tensed, prepared to fight to the death if necessary to keep him from touching her.

Raathe caught her face in one hand, scanning it intently. She had the wild eyed look of a cornered animal, he saw, feeling his gut tighten. She was half mad with terror and unable to process more than the certainty of imminent death, or worse, and the determination to fight for her life with whatever strength and savagery she could muster. Unfortunately for her, the adrenaline rush that had carried him through battle had abandoned him. He was exhausted from his own fight for survival and, more over, in so much pain it had taken all he could do to hide it from the predators of Phobos Prison who could smell even the faintest whiff of weakness, and neither of them could afford for him to display any hint of vulnerability now. “Are you a smart girl? Or a stupid one?” he murmured.

Rhea blinked, trying to wrap her mind around the questions and figure out what the trick was.

“Because if you’re smart, you’ll get on the cot and lie down. And if you’re stupid, you’re still going to get on the cot and lie down, but you’ll be feeling a lot pain.”

She wasn’t certain she believed he wouldn’t hurt if she cooperated, but she didn’t doubt his threat. Deciding to take the first option and hope for the best and prepare for the worst, she moved shakily to the cot and lay down.

Grunting, either with satisfaction or pain, or both, he lay down on top of her. Shifting onto his side, he draped an arm and leg across her, dragging her tightly against him, and then dropped his head to the pillow next to hers.

“I didn’t have any choice but to fight for your fucking entertainment, but I’m sure as hell not fucking for your entertainment,” he growled without looking at the two men waiting outside the cell.

The guards, disgusted that they weren’t going to see any action, left.

Rhea lay tense and as stiff as a board for nearly ten minutes before she realized he’d either gone to sleep or passed out. The tension was slow to leave her, but thaw from her shock began to set in as the warmth of his body on hers and the warm fan of his breath against her cheek and neck filtered through her and finally reached the frozen core.

He’d dropped the suit she’d been wearing before on the floor as he came into the cell. Rhea stared at it longingly. It was soaked, she knew, and muddy, but it was something to put between her and the iceman.

Steel plated armor would have been more desirable.

Dragging in a deep breath to steady her nerves, Rhea shifted, trying to inch out from under him.

His hand tightened. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled in a voice slurred with sleep.

She went limp, partly from voluntary reflex to his command, and partly from weakness. She stared longingly at the clothing for a while, so near and yet impossible to reach. Eventually, too exhausted from her ordeal to remain awake and on guard, Rhea followed him into oblivion.

She drifted toward consciousness again feeling a warm fluttery sensation in her belly and a heated tug on one nipple. Her mind was slow to catch up, disinclined even to question the pleasant sensations gathering inside of her, but in a few moments awareness produced a number of unpalatable memories in a nightmarish string of images and Rhea’s eyes popped open of their own accord.

Tipping her head down, she found herself staring down into icy blue eyes that sent a shiver through her and kicked her heart into overdrive.

Chapter Three

Rhea stiffened. Her skin pebbled as a wave of cold washed over her. Unfortunately, it didn’t douse the warmth he’d already generated in her belly.

After studying her for a long moment, as if to gauge her reaction, or maybe just to see if she was stupid enough to try to fight him off, he returned his attention to the nipple he’d been toying with. She turned her head aside, struggling with both the urge to try to push him away and the warmth that continued to flow from her nipple to her belly. The nerve endings had no discrimination, though, and refused to respond to the promptings of rational thought. The steady, almost lazy tug of his mouth on her breast built the warmth slowly but surely in spite of her efforts to ignore him.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t immediately begun to struggle. Still sluggish from sleep and disarmed by the warmth already curling through her, it had nevertheless flickered through her mind, and yet she’d tamped the urge as quickly as it arose.

She was completely at his mercy, she realized after a few moments. He could do whatever he wanted to do to her and there was no one to stop him.

She certainly couldn’t.

On a rational level, she knew that. She’d watched him in the arena and knew without any doubt that there were few men who could stand against him but, unless that realization had been floating through her subconscious, she couldn’t say it had had anything to do with the decision not to even try to thrust him away.

Maybe it had and also the thought that had prompted her to climb willingly into his bed to start with, that if she didn’t fight him he wouldn’t hurt her.

She didn’t really believe that, but it was the only thing she had to hold on to.

Help wouldn’t come. It would be months and months before anyone even realized something had happened to her and the company could make up any story they liked to explain her disappearance. She was on her own and whether or not she survived for any length of time depended upon whether or not the iceman allowed it. If she had value to him he might even deign to protect her from the others in the prison and he was certainly capable of it. With his bare hands, he’d pounded three or four men into unconsciousness—not ordinary men, but men capable of dealing out death themselves who were as hard and tough as he was—or nearly that, certainly.

The warmth shimming in her belly seemed to reach a surfeit that made the heat begin to overflow and spread through her. She managed to drag in a shaky breath as he shifted and focused on her other breast.

She could do this, she told herself. She could close her eyes and her mind and let him use her body and not turn into a screaming lunatic. He wasn’t hurting her. At least it coincided that his pleasure was something that felt good to her and not the horrible torture she’d imagined, even though it also gave her a disgust of herself that she felt any pleasure at all.

She could feel moisture gathering in her sex to join the warmth he’d evoked, could feel her body readying itself for his possession.

It was a good thing. It meant he could rape her and it wouldn’t tear the delicate tissue, wouldn’t rack her with pain when he did it.

She stiffened when he stopped suckling her breast and lifted his head, expecting to feel his hard hands prying her thighs apart next, feel the shift of his weight between her legs.

Instead, he climbed over her, got to his feet, and strode across the cell to the facilities. She felt strangely deflated when he did. Thoroughly confused, she turned her head to watch him and then looked away quickly when she saw him drag his cock from his pants to piss.

She hadn’t considered the dehumanization of having to live like an animal, with no privacy for personal needs. She’d been too busy imagining all sorts of horrible deaths to contemplate what
life
inside Phobos Prison might be like.