"The prefect won't allow you to remain here unless we stipulate that you were a contracted act who was delayed due to family matters. What can you do?" Eckobar's voice took on a commanding tone.
"I am the indestructible man. No matter what happens to me, I recover. Most damage that would kill others does not even break my skin." He tensed as a calculating look took over
"May I test that?" Eckobar nodded to someone behind Garoz and Hardcore felt three impacts on his spine.
"It is rather hard on my clothing to have daggers thrown at my back." He grinned and looked behind him at the multi-armed Wasku with blades in her hands.
"We have an excellent seamstress, Garoz, was it?" Eckobar extended his hand. "Welcome to the carnival. I believe I know how to get you to Sylvain, but you will have to engage in some acting."
Garoz inclined his head. "Perhaps we should engage in this discussion in private."
"Sylvain's home is probably the only place in the camp that isn't bugged. Come with me." The huge man led the way and for the first time in a long time, Garoz felt small.
The container-turned-tent was a brilliant green, an attention getting structure if ever there was one.
"Inside, please." Eckobar held the fabric door open and waved Garoz to precede him.
Garoz reached into his pack and withdrew a jammer, placing it on the centre of a low table. "Even if they are listening, nothing will make sense."
"Thank you. Have a seat."
Garoz sat and waited for his spiked host to speak. This assignment was getting very convoluted and to his mind, it hadn't even started.
"Sylvain is our biologic talent. She has the ability to stimulate growing in any plant and occasionally animal that she touches. She can also do a wave stimulation that causes whole fields to sprout and flourish."
"I see. I have been given to understand that the Porvin have taken her?"
Eckobar nodded. "A week ago. I have heard that the prefect is offering her services to the other planets for a hefty sum."
"So, she is a slave." Garoz saw a picture behind the couch and crossed the room to lift it. "Is this Sylvain?"
"It is. She used to be a feature in the evening performance." There was pride in his tone. "The gymnasts would throw her from the high wires and she would use those wings of hers to glide above the crowds, tossing flower petals to the onlookers."
Garoz looked at the image, taking in the huge dark eyes, waves of chestnut hair, delicate frame and fluttery green wings. A tiny tattoo on her ankle caught his eye and he looked closely at it. "Do you know what this is?"
"It's a stamp of some kind. It was on her when I bought her from the mine at Kolat-sing."
"Bought her? She is a slave?"
"She is owned by the carnival. Yes. There was no other way for the mine to part with an uncontrolled race." Eckobar stood next to him and reached a taloned finger out to caress her two-dimensional cheek. "It was almost a pity when her talent manifested. She had a great career ahead of her on the main stage."
Garoz took another look at the young woman in the picture. "When was this made?"
"Ten years ago. She is taller now, her wings fuller."
"Eckobar, I believe I have a solution to this issue, but I need to send a message to my team. There are some authorizations that I need to acquire and the sooner I get in touch with the Guard, the faster we can get Sylvain out of the prefect's clutches." There was a germ of an idea flourishing in his mind and if he stopped to think about it, he might back out.
Chapter Three
Sylvain looked out the window at the expansive field that was showing the first signs of blooming. She jerked away from the glass when a throat was cleared behind her.
"Sylvain, I do believe that you should reconsider my offer." Tenario puffed himself up and flared the flaps of skin along his neck. The inhabitants of Porvin were a peculiar blend, but lizard was very high in their gene pool.
"I cannot stay here and I will not marry you. This is not the way to go about getting my cooperation, either." She raised her hands and the shackles jingled. "Have you sent a messenger to the carnival?"
"Not yet. I am not comfortable ordering them to go about their business quite yet." Tenario tried to look haughty, but it turned his face into something shifty. "Have you completed today's growing cycle?"
Sylvain nodded. "The crops you have selected are peculiar though. They seem to soak up the energy."
He chortled and rubbed his hands together. "Askuke hybrids. They will make me a fortune."
Sylvain was shocked. "You…do you know what those will do?"
"Bring in money, buyers from all over the system will flock here for those pods and you will grow them for me."
Her wings flexed and fluttered, but she kept her heels on the ground. "They are addictive!"
"And one of the best stimulators of breeding in nineteen species. They will beat a path to our orbit." He was almost salivating with greed.
"You can't have me growing those year after year. They will destroy the soil." She took two steps toward him and stopped with a jerk. The chains weren't letting her get near him.
"We can move the settlements. Follow the fallow fields." He seemed perturbed that she was not appreciating his genius.
"You won't have fallow fields if you plant the hybrids! They poison the ground that they grow in and you know it and if you don't know it, do some fucking research!"
He folded his ruffles flat against his neck. "I can see that I will have to visit you another time. You are not properly grateful for this opportunity."
Tenario stomped out of her rooms and she returned to the window seat, tears in her eyes. They had planted Askuke hybrids. The plants would remove all of the minerals from the soil, but they wouldn't stop there. The very life energy that soil contained would go into the plants, stealing every bit of potential from the ground until nothing was left but dead dust.
She groaned and pressed her forehead to the glass to cool her feverish skin. They weren't giving her enough water and it was shaking her concentration.
Only the prefect was allowed to speak to her and he didn't listen when she told him that the supplies were not up to standards.
She lifted the window until it was open a few inches and inhaled the air that brought in traces of the planet, humidity and the soil. If the guards caught her, they would simply close the window, but for now, she was enjoying every second of it.
Voices seemed to be raised by the front gate. She tilted her ear to the short space in the window and listened intently. All of the voices were male. One had the same subsonic vibration as Eckobar, the other was fascinating and cool. A voice in control of the situation. The high shrill tones were those of the guards and after a five-minute discussion, they took on an acquiescent tone.
Silence fell for a few minutes and she reluctantly closed her window and paced the ten feet that she had available on her chain. She fluttered her wings to move the air in the room, waiting for something to happen.
She didn't have to wait long. The prefect blustered into her room with a look of fury on his face. "This is outrageous. How could you?"
Sylvain was blinking in surprise. "How could I what?"
"How could you have neglected to tell me you were married?" His neck flaps were opening and closing violently.
A Kozue warrior entered the room and Eckobar was right behind him.
Relief flooded through her just before she was struck by Tenario's words. "Married?"
The male's hair was navy blue, his skin a silvery grey and his eyes burnished gold. The rest of him was all taut muscle fighting for acknowledgement under his tunic. "I am surprised that you would forget such a momentous moment in our life together."
A marriage. It was a way out of Porvin. Sylvain smiled softly as she looked at the Kozue as she noted Eckobar's approval. He was nodding slightly and she took her cue from him.
"What possible reason could there have been for me to refuse you, other than my husband's existence?"
"Why did no one know of it? The prefect of Gossin knows nothing of it."
Sylvain forced herself to blush as she took slow steps toward the Kozue. "His people value pure bloodlines. I don't even know what I am. We agreed to keep it quiet so that his people would not feel compelled to kill me to preserve their line."
The male came to her when she ran out of chain and pressed a heated kiss to her lips. Her surprise swiftly fell beneath a passion that roared up from inside her. Whoever this man was, he sure knew how to kiss.
His fingers wrapped around her waist and stroked the bottom base of her wings. Her low moan and the arch of her body against him gave him signals that no one could mistake.
When he broke the kiss, he looked down at her with a gleam in his eyes that turned them to molten, swirling gold. "Hello, wife. It is good to see you again."
Her swollen lips parted and she drew her tongue across her lower lip to answer, "I am happy to greet you, husband."
He was very happy to be pressed against her, that much she could confirm.
"Why is she chained?" Her
husband
was glaring at the prefect.
"She…I…It was necessary to keep her under control. She can be violent." He was shrinking under the glare of the man who held her.
"Take them off. Now."
The prefect ran to the door and got the key from the guard. He handed it to her husband and scuttled away. It was amazing what the presence of an alpha male did to the prefect's manner.
Her husband lifted her hands and unlocked the cuffs, releasing her from the hated weight. When her hips were free of the final chain, she stepped toward the man in her arms and he stepped back, giving her the space that she had been unable to reach before this. "Oh, thank you."
"My pleasure."
She threw herself forward and hugged him the way she would have hugged Eckobar if he wasn't covered with spikes.
"Eckobar, I still do not wish to part with Sylvain. She needs to continue with her treatments and it will be easier for her and her husband to remain here than to return to the carnival and back every day."
Eckobar looked as if he would argue, but he noticed the short shake of the Kozue's head and he nodded. "Of course, though I would like for her to attend a party we are having for our seamstress. She is with egg."
Flustered, the prefect nodded. "Of course, what day?"
If Sylvain hadn't been holding the Kozue, she wouldn't have felt him press three fingers to her hip.
Eckobar smiled. "Three days. At sundown. Shorvah will be excited to see her again. The carnival has been worrying."
The prefect nodded, but didn't look happy about the addition to the room. "I will have meals for two sent up."
"Two extra carafes of water, please." The lack of water was making her weak and if she could get some by using the threat of the Kozue, she would.
Tenario nodded briefly. "The guard will remain outside. If you wish to walk the grounds, he will follow you."
Her husband nodded. "Understood, now please leave us. We have been parted for too long. This might get loud."
The Porvin prefect darkened several shades while Eckobar stifled a laugh. He left them with a wave that held four fingers up. The everything-is-under-control signal that was used when an animal that had broken loose was found and restrained again.
Sylvain smiled and leaned her head against the broad chest of her husband and when the prefect left, she breathed deeply. She went up on her toes and whispered in his ear, "What is your name?"
He chuckled and whispered back, "Garoz. You will be free from this place in three days."
She tried to move out of his arms. "I think we need to get to know each other before this kind of contact is appropriate."
"I believe that the guard has been told to listen for sounds of copulating. So while it is a little awkward, I believe that we should maintain the ruse." His hands were stroking the base of her wings again as if he knew what he was up to.
She shivered in his arms and processed his statement. "Are you saying that we need to have sex to sell the pretence that we are married?"
He kissed the side of her neck while his hands worked her wing base. "Something like that. Also I have not been able to get the thought of you with these wings fluttering above me out of my head."
She pushed out of his arms and whispered, "I don't even know you!"
"Eckobar vouched for me. That will have to be enough for now. Simply know that you can trust me and I don't wish you any harm. My goal is to get you out of here in one delectable piece." He tilted his head and gave her a soft smile. "It is your choice whether we do it the easy way or the hard way."
She licked her lips and he focussed his attention on her tongue. "Let me think about it."
"You have three minutes and then the guards are going to come in to see why we are so quiet."
Sylvain took a deep breath. "Fine. Get on the bed. I want to keep my wings out of this."
Chapter Four
Garoz's smile made her stomach flip and when he unbuttoned his tunic and lay back on her bedding, she had to remind herself to breathe. The expanse of his silvery skin was calling to her hands, she carefully straddled him while lifting her skirt out from under her legs and with a soft sigh, she stroked the hard flesh of his chest and shoulders, easing the fabric aside.
She was leaning down to kiss his chest and take a taste of that enticing skin when the door flew open and two trays were brought in by guards while a third watched the door.
Garoz lifted his hands to her waist and glared at the guards until they left the room, bowing as they closed the door behind them.
"Do you think they believed it?" She was still less than an inch from his skin and whispering.
"I think that the guard at the door is still listening. Are you still willing?" He stroked her face and rubbed his thumb along her lower lip.
She shivered. It had been a while and he was so very…perfect. "Yes."
Her breath mingled with his as she reached down to kiss him. As they kissed, tongues twining, her hands stroked his chest while he caressed her thighs under her skirt. His dexterity was amazing as he stroked past the tiny barrier of her panties and rubbed against her centre. The slick moisture that she was producing eased his strokes as he rubbed her clit in a rhythm that brought her to the edge of screaming in under two minutes.