Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (40 page)

“You might have to get in line behind Trinan.”

“Shit. I haven’t even asked. Vid?”

“Finally out of surgery. He’s got a long road of recovery ahead, including another surgery, but the doctor said he should regain full mobility and functionality eventually.”

Another thing Janeen had to pay for. Or was it Dolan? She’d kidnapped Corinth to trade for Kayla, clearly a plan designed by Dolan—no one else on Falanar had the slightest interest in Kayla. Who did Janeen work for, exactly? And if it was the IDC, was some faction of the IDC aligned with Dolan? The idea made him ill.

What had the IDC come to? Who did
he
even work for these days?

“Noar and Rigger?” he asked, to distract himself from questions he didn’t want answers to.

“They’re at Rigger’s quarters in the Game complex, decrypting Dolan’s files.” Hekkar sat in the chair across from him to give the medic access to Malkor’s back. “We’ll discover his plans.”

“In time to help Kayla?” Malkor lowered his voice. “I can’t sit here like this, not with her out there. With him.”

“We’ll get her,” Hekkar said. Malkor met his gaze and knew neither of them believed it.

* * *

Kayla relaxed in her comfortable chair, feeling the world spin. She’d been sliding in and out of consciousness and only now felt coherent enough to form words.

“This chair’s wonderful.”

“I’m glad you like it.” She knew that voice. Dolan? He came into her view, smiling at her. Where was she again?

“But my bracelets are tight.” She wiggled her fingers, looking down at the white cuffs. Not bracelets. Restraints. Right? Or were they bracelets? The closer she looked, the more they seemed to shine like jewelry. Had he given her jewelry? That seemed odd.

“Kayla,” someone called. “Focus on me. Focus on what’s real.”

She looked over at the man. Aquiline features, vibrant turquoise eyes, stern mouth. So intense. Why did he look so upset?

“Vayne?”

The man nodded. “That’s right. Focus on me. Ignore everything else.”

Dolan swiveled her chair until he filled her vision. Elegant lavender robes. Full lips. A strange thing to notice, with the scars on his face, but his lips caught her attention. So red. His lips curved into a smile. “How are you feeling?”

How
did
she feel? Light. Weightless. Happily sliding through a dream while sitting in a comfortable chair. She looked at Dolan, feeling strongly for him. They shared something, something powerful. What was it?

“Lovely,” she finally said. That made him smile more. He touched her hand where it lay in her tight bracelet. Restraint. Bracelet.

He stroked her fingers, then intertwined his with hers.

It felt good, touching someone, being touched. She hadn’t been touched in so long, not like this. And she wanted to touch… someone. She’d had a need. Her body had needed someone, needed his touch. She looked up into Dolan’s eyes, one a blank crimson, one purple. Was it him? Had she longed to touch him?

“I’ve gotten to know you, these last five years.” Her attention was drawn again to his mouth. To that half-smirk he couldn’t help. “Through your brother. He’s shown me a million memories of you, and I came to love you over the years.”

“Love me?” Was that right? Did she love him, was that this feeling pressing against her chest, demanding release at his touch?

“It’s not fair to say I truly loved you before we met. Vayne’s memories of you are filtered through his experience of being your brother. He does not see all of you, the way another man would. As I do.” He tilted her chin up. “Now that I’ve met you, however…”

He bent those full red lips down to hers and kissed her. It was a long moment before he raised his head again. “Vayne’s memories did not fully do you justice,” he whispered, “but I will.” He kissed her again, and while the room spun around her, something grew within. Passion? Was it desire she felt?

No. Something was wrong. Something was wrong in his kiss. Suddenly she wanted to be free of his hand, of his mouth.

He lifted his head and glanced past her, to a screen embedded in the wall. “Perhaps this is not what you need.” The words, spoken lightly, didn’t match the disappointment in his eyes. He released her hand and walked away.

She felt a feather-light touch at the base of her skull. A feeling she knew she should recognize but didn’t. A man came into her sight.

“Perhaps this is more what you need,” he said, in a voice that slid along her skin like rough velvet. She knew this man, this voice. Malkor. She felt the smile that came to her lips.

“Ah,” he said, smiling in return. “Is this what you want, my dear?”

“Whatever you see, it’s not real,” Vayne said. “That’s not who you think it is.”

How could it not be Malkor? His palm curved over her cheek. His touch, not as gentle as Dolan’s, was possessive, strong like Malkor. He claimed her lips, sealing his against her own.

Yes.

This was what she wanted. This man.

His hand slid to cradle the back of her neck, holding her mouth to his. Her heartbeat kicked up and something beeped, far off, in response. Malkor deepened the kiss and she tilted her head back farther to receive it.

Yes. This.

“Kayla, stop!” someone demanded. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone?

“Ignore him,” Malkor said against her lips, sounding breathless. “He wants you for himself.”

He kissed her again and she drank him in. Why were her arms tied down? She wanted to hold him, grip him. She wanted to— Why were her legs tied down? What was going on?

“Malkor, why can’t I move?”

“Shhh,” was his only reply. She breathed in his scent. Heady, woodsy. It was smoky and…

… and not at all like old-fashioned imperial soap.

She turned her head away and his next kiss smeared against her cheek. It wasn’t Malkor. Malkor never smelled like that.

Focus, Kayla, focus.

That lab. She was in a lab.

Dolan’s lab.

It wasn’t Malkor. She was being held here to… to… She twisted away when the man tried to kiss her again, and a ruined red orb of an eye came into view.

She remembered.

Kayla slammed her forehead forward, smashing the bridge of his nose when he tried to kiss her again.

“Gah!” Blood spurted through clenched fingers as he covered his face. It splashed into her mouth and she spat it back in his face.

“Get the frutt away from me,” she growled.

Dolan backed off, hand still clamped to his nose. He sat at one of the workstations, gauging the damage in a mirror before grabbing a medstick from a nearby drawer to treat the injury. That he had a medstick so readily available made her uneasy. How often had his work here required immediate medical attention?

Kayla tried to find her mental footing, but whatever drugs he’d administered played havoc with her mind and emotions. Dolan approached. Blood dotted his lavender robes and his nose showed considerable swelling.

“I had hoped,” he said, and she had the insane urge to giggle at the change his injured nose had wrought in his voice, “that a warm emotion like love might be trigger enough for you to rebuild the pathways in your brain. Looks like we’ll have to try something different.”

“Don’t do this, Dolan,” Vayne said. “She’s not like me.”

Dolan spun Kayla’s chair so that she faced Vayne. Fury at Vayne’s imprisonment flamed through her chest, hotter than she could hope to control with the drugs in her system.

“Your brother responds quite well to a different stimulus.” Dolan selected a benign-looking tool shaped almost like a massager from a tray. Vayne’s look of horror flipped her emotions.

A cold howl of fear snuffed out the fury. What was that thing? Terror blossomed, pushed high by the drugs, paralyzing her.

Vayne struggled in his chair. “Don’t do this.” His pleading tone shot her fear through the roof. “Please, Dolan.”

Dolan approached her with the massager and her breath came in sharp gasps. She scrambled for any way to stop him, drawing on the space where her psi powers had always been, begging for the strength to push him away with her mind, to shield herself.

Come on, come on
.

She fumbled for the connection like a blind man for his cane.
Help me!
she silently screamed at Vayne. His own pathways had been severed just recently, Dolan had said. He was as powerless as she.

At the first gentle touch of the instrument her body arched off the chair in a giant spasm. A trillion nerve endings flared to life in a burst of pain that ripped through her body like an electric shock. She would have screamed if her jaw hadn’t locked down tight. Dolan lifted the tool from her arm and she could breathe again.

The reprieve lasted only a second before he touched the instrument to her skin again and her entire body seized in a fit. Pulse after pulse after pulse of utter agony streaked through her body, tearing her apart.

When he released her again she gasped and choked. The instant he pulled the tool away the pain evaporated. That didn’t save her body, though, from sweating and gasping and twitching in the aftermath. Every muscle ached from the spasms and her heart threatened to burst from her chest.

“More?” Dolan asked. He extended his hand again and she screamed as he neared. She fought with every fiber to reach her powers. It was like scrambling bare-handed to climb a glass wall. Then the tool landed and she couldn’t even scream anymore.

When he released her she heard sobbing. It took a moment to realize it came from her.

Dolan brushed at the tears on her cheeks with one hand. “Kayla,” he said softly, “I don’t want to do this to you. You can stop me, but you have to fight for it. Find the connection.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Take your powers back.”

She glanced through tear-blurred eyes at Vayne, whose lips were pinched in a bloodless line. She kept her gaze on him as Dolan touched her again and her world exploded into pain. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was Vayne mouthing, “I’m sorry.”

* * *

Voices drifted to her while she floated.

“She’s stronger than you were, the first time.”

“She’s stronger than I am now.”

“Not true. You endure a little more each time we do this, resist a little longer before the pathways re-form in your brain.”

“Is that something to be proud of?”

“It’s something to wonder about. I worry that you no longer want your powers at all. If I didn’t force you, would you ever try to get them back?”

“Would you kill me if I had no more powers?”

A pause.

“No. I’ve grown too accustomed to your company.”

“You know that someday I will kill you.”

“So you say. But if you can’t do it now, while I am torturing a woman we both love, then you’ll never be able to.”

Kayla fought against full consciousness. It was so warm and soft here beneath the exhaustion left in the wake of pain. No one could hurt her. She couldn’t fail anyone here. She could just float.

“You know your twin would die for you. An interesting notion. Perhaps that’s the trigger I need.”

Their words stirred her brain, made her think when she didn’t want to, wonder when she could be resting. If she sank back down, it would be—

“I need her.”

Who said that? Kayla’s eyes opened of their own accord and she groggily raised her head.

Vayne and Dolan fell silent, both watching her with matching looks of concern.

How bizarre…

“Are you ready to try something else?”

She was ready to pass out again. Her arms and legs felt like mud, and the effort of holding her head up made her want to close her eyes.

She forced herself to sit up in the chair, rather than be merely held in place by the restraints. Whatever Dolan had planned next, she could take it. It couldn’t be worse than that painstick of his.

Vayne watched her with understanding in his eyes. “You’ll come out of it.”

She tried to nod. She trusted Vayne. He’d been through this and survived. She could do this.

Dolan walked to his tray of implements and reached for the painstick again.

“But— You said—”

“I’m not going to use this on you, you’ve had enough for one day.” He made his way to Vayne’s chair, the permanent half-smirk the only expression on his face.

“I’m surprised you waited this long,” Vayne said. He gave Dolan a flat stare, not looking at the painstick.

Dolan sighed. “I should have started here but I was hoping to spare her this, as it’s bound to be the most painful.” He glanced at the neural scans; her cartaid arch looked as inactive as Vayne’s.

“Dolan— Don’t.” Her voice came out sharp, stopping the
kin’shaa
. He met her gaze and she had the feeling that he truly did not want to harm Vayne. He waited, looking at her in such a way that said, “Give me some reason to stop this.”

“If you meant anything you’ve said about knowing me, then you know what it will do to see my
il’haar
tortured.” The desire to protect Vayne was so strong that she felt almost capable of tearing through her restraints to get to him. Dolan had to see that, had to feel it radiating from her. “There has to be another way.”

“I
do
know you,” Dolan said, with quiet emphasis. “Nothing will be as effective as this.”

He touched the painstick to Vayne’s wrist before she could argue further.

Vayne jerked with violent reaction. His whole body bowed outward. Hoarse shouts tore from his throat and blood rushed to the surface of his skin as if he boiled alive.

Dolan finally lifted the tool and Vayne collapsed back, broken. He panted, head turning side to side as if trying to escape the memory of the pain.

“When I get my powers back, I am going to rip your throat out,” she promised Dolan.

“I’m sure you’ll try, but your connection will be too weak at first.” He inclined his head in the barest of nods. “Thank you for the warning, though.”

She snarled at him, jerking on her restraints as he touched Vayne again. She writhed in the chair’s grasp, desperate to get any limb free enough to stop Dolan. Vayne’s shouts fueled her fury as he twisted under the torture.