Perfect Master (7 page)

She reached across the table and took his
hand. “You’ve suffered too much already. Please don’t do this for me.”

Arik attempted a crooked smile. “I will be
king someday. I don’t want my subjects to run away in terror every time they
see me, and I shouldn’t hide myself in the palace, away from their curious
eyes.”

“You’ve been hurt enough already, Master.
If your subjects don’t like the way you look, they can avert their eyes. Anyone
who knows you as I do will love you as you are.”

“Quiet, my tenderhearted darling. I want to
explore the possibilities. Whatever I do, it will be for me.” He lifted the
communicator and said a few words to the king.

* * * * *

The next morning Pak Song and a renowned
restorative surgeon called at the palace and were shown directly to Arik’s
tower. When Emerald invited them in, Arik showed them his back. Only when she
took his hand and turned him around did he lower his robe. It broke her heart
to see him so reluctant to reveal his scars.

He riddled the two men with that dark,
pained eye. “I can tell by your expressions that you believe I’m a lost cause.”

The wizened Asian man shook his head. “No,
your highness. What cannot be repaired can be replaced. Bionic forearm and hand
are simple. Did one successfully a few months ago for an Earthling exile. Can
provide his testimony as to way bionic hand works. Doctors here can get rid of
most scars.”

Arik shook his head. “The scars don’t
bother me, except for the ones on my face. What can you do with this?” he
asked, lifting his hook to nudge his empty eye socket.

“If you sit, I will take closer look. Did
bionic eyes for an Earthling, the first cyborg I created. They work better than
originals. Even better than I imagined they would. Patient was blinded in
starship explosion. Now he can see very far away, even through walls. Only
problem is, bionic eyes are red and they glow. Must research matter. He says
they distract those around him. Beats not being able to see, though.”

Arik sat on a padded bench and waited while
the cyborg maker examined him. He couldn’t help noticing Emerald move close by,
as though determined to protect him.

When Pak Song probed the shattered right
side of Arik’s face, he was unable to keep from wincing. “Please, Master, don’t
allow them to hurt you more,” Emerald said, distress evident on her beautiful
face.

Arik took her hand and pulled her onto the
bench beside him.

The old man stepped aside and consulted
with the surgeon. Finally they turned back to Arik. “We can rebuild crushed
bones in face, sire. Can also give you bionic eyes but can only do that as a
set. Will have to remove uninjured one.”

“No!” Emerald sounded as though she
couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing the love in his solitary eye. When she
rested her hand on his left thigh, though, it distracted him from Pak Song’s
painful probing.

“What do you think, your highness?” the
cyborg maker asked.

“I agree with the princess. I don’t intend
to lose the sight I still have.”

The cyborg maker shook his head. “Never
tried doing a single bionic eye. Will give it thought, maybe try it on someone
who’s completely blind before offering it to my prince. I do recommend the
bionic hand, though. That will look and work like real thing, I promise.”

Arik didn’t answer right away, but finally
he met the cyborg maker’s expectant gaze. “I’m a little hesitant to become a
cyborg. As for this ugly thing,” he said, holding up the hook, “I’ve become
used to wearing it. I realize it’s primitive, but I’ve managed to learn how to
use it to a certain extent.”

Pak Song wrinkled his nose at the sight of
the prosthesis. “I make bionic forearm and hand. I promise you will like it—you
won’t be able to tell it from this one in any way.” He reached out and touched
Arik’s uninjured left hand.

He turned to Emerald. “You will like, too,
highness. Hand and fingers will feel just like your lord’s other one, even move
the same. I make skin you cannot tell from his own.”

Arik saw Emerald’s smile, imagined the
enhanced pleasure he could give her if he had two good arms. He closed his eye,
daydreaming for a moment how it would feel to walk down the Street of Pleasure
without feeling the stares, the pity. “I’ve decided, gentlemen. I’m putting
myself into your hands. If you can repair my face so I won’t make grown men
scream with terror, do it, but I will wear an eye patch rather than lose my
good, remaining eye. As for the bionic arm, I look forward to it.”

The surgeon cleared his throat. “If my
colleague will permit me, your highness, I believe I can use synthetic material
to rebuild the shattered bones in your face, even the eye socket. That way you
can use an artificial eye if you wish, rather than the patch.”

“What about the scars?”

“They can be greatly reduced, but not
completely erased. Still, I feel certain you will be pleased with the results.
With the bone structure repaired, the scars will not be so noticeable. Another
benefit will be that you will feel less pain after you heal. Obviously it is
also possible to laser down the burn scars elsewhere on your body, but if they
don’t concern you, I wouldn’t recommend you do it. The recovery time would be
long and painful, and the procedures on your body would serve no purpose other
than to improve your appearance in places ordinarily covered by clothing.”

The surgeon shook his head. “It’s a wonder
you survived at all, burned as badly as you were. I promise you I’ll do my best
to give you the improvement you want.”

Arik heard Emerald’s sharp intake of
breath, knew she’d meant it when she said she didn’t want him hurt. He met the
surgeon’s gaze. “As I said, the scars on my body don’t particularly trouble me,
as my princess and my body servant are the only ones likely to see them. How my
face looks is more important, as one day I will be Obsidion’s king. I can
hardly go around swathed head to toe in leather and still command my people’s
respect.”

“As you will, your highness. When will you
want us to attend you?” Pak Song bowed, while the surgeon merely inclined his
head.

Now that he’d made his decision, Arik saw
no need to delay. “At your earliest convenience. Thank you for coming so
quickly when you were summoned.”

Pak Song’s wrinkled face lit up with a
smile. “It is our pleasure, sire. With your permission, we will leave, but I
wish to speak a word to her highness first.”

“You have news?” she asked the cyborg
maker, her face lighting with obvious anticipation. Arik vowed he’d do whatever
he had to, so she wouldn’t be isolated much longer.

The wizened old man grinned. “Your
highness, we will soon be relatives. Meredith has matched my son, Pak Lin, with
your youngest sister.”

“Pearl?”

“Yes, highness. Mating to be in two years.
Your honored father says Garnet must go first.”

Emerald bent and gave the old man a hug.
“Do you know who she will marry?”

“The Aurelonian, Romulus, has been chosen
for her.”

Arik smiled. From what Emerald had said, he
gathered that her sister, Garnet, lusted for wealth. She’d get it in huge
measure from Romulus, the slave emporium owner who had settled on Obsidion and
made a huge fortune. “When will that mating take place?” he asked, hoping there
would be enough time before it for the two men to finish restoring his face.

“Next year, sire. Eli say can only afford
one daughter’s mating per year.”

“Father has always complained that we
pauper him,” Emerald said, her green eyes sparkling. “It is he who insists on
weighing us down with precious jewels, though—a matter of pride in his work,
I’m sure.”

Arik didn’t doubt it. He’d seen the
exquisitely crafted gold boxes Emerald had given Hikaru and his brothers as
attendants, encrusted with sparkling tanzanites and the smooth, mottled
lavender and cream stones from Earth that were said to restore virility. She’d
also gifted his father with a new, elaborate diamond coronet set in platinum.
His own gifts, thousands of carats of loose, beautifully faceted emeralds and
diamonds, filled a solid gold trunk so heavy it had taken two strong slaves to
carry it upstairs to his tower. Emerald’s father had sent her to him with a
king’s ransom in dowry, though he chuckled when he recalled his father’s
admission that no dowry would have been necessary to arrange their match.

“I’m glad,” he told her. “The time it takes
your father to amass huge dowries will let me make myself presentable before I
must escort you to your sisters’ mating ceremonies.”

* * * * *

Since it would have been unthinkable for
Obsidion’s crown prince to be treated outside the palace, Arik’s tower room had
become a hospital room, and Emerald’s former chamber had become a well-equipped
surgery.

It had only been two weeks since Pak Song
and a team of restorative surgeons had moved in, along with skilled nurses and
technicians. Already Emerald could see changes in her prince, though she
grieved that he was enduring terrible pain.

“It’s not so bad, my love,” he told her
when she lay beside him carefully so as not to jostle his arm, bandaged where
Pak Song had peeled back the skin and implanted dozens of bionics a week
earlier. “The drugs help. Not as much as you do, though.”

She looked into his eye and smiled. “I love
you, Master. I loved you as you were, but I’m glad, for your sake, that you
decided to let the surgeons restore your face. Not because of how it looked but
because it caused you so much pain.”

“I’m anxious to see what they did.” He
raised his hand halfway to his face then laid it at his side once more.

“I know. So am I, Master.” Just yesterday
the surgeons had reconstructed his facial bones, so he was still groggy from
painkillers. “We must be patient. The bandages will come off soon enough.” She
looked at his head and neck, swathed in heavy dressings that left only his
nostrils, mouth and eye uncovered. “I understand how annoying it must be, much
like the hood you used to wear. You should be grateful that you can eat, even
if the food must fit through a straw.”

“Six weeks seems a very long time. I could
take the hood off to eat and sleep.” He sounded like a petulant child, but
Emerald saw the way his mouth turned up in an effort at a smile.

Using one gentle finger she traced the
smooth line of his lips. “Be good. Would you like another sip of broth?”

“I’d like to taste your luscious mouth,
love.”

She bent and kissed him, though the
dressings kept her from getting as close as she’d have liked.

* * * * *

Six weeks later Arik held his breath as the
surgeon snipped away the last of the dressings from his head while he sat
before a mirrored wall. “I think you will be pleased, sire.”

Pak Song had installed and adjusted the
bionic arm and hand a few minutes earlier. By all the gods, it felt real, as
though it were a part of him. He felt Emerald’s hand on his shoulder, inhaled
the sultry, flowery scent of her as his nose was freed. Slowly, with wonder, he
raised the hand across his chest and found her hand. Felt it. Small, soft and
delicate—like her. A tear rolled down his cheek.

The dressings finally were gone. He closed
his eye, felt both lids close. “I am afraid to look.”

Emerald squeezed his shoulder then entwined
her fingers with his. “All but the deepest of the scars are gone, Master. The
surgeons have performed a miracle.”

He’d never been more frightened, even when
he lay in that hospital bed on Eastphalia, not knowing whether he would live or
die. Clutching his mate’s hand, he made himself look closely in the mirror for
the first time since he’d beheld his monstrous image soon after his maiming.

His face was symmetrical…smooth but for one
faint, jagged scar that ran from his hairline to the spot where his neck met
his shoulder. It wasn’t perfect, or even as near so as his undamaged left side.
But he no longer had a sunken cheek or a gaping hole where his right eye had
once been. His eyelid opened and closed to reveal a white sphere, though, not a
working prosthetic eye. With an eye patch…

“You said you wanted to wear an eye patch,
sire,” the chief surgeon said, sounding as though he thought Arik might order
him punished for not having done a good enough job. “Her highness refused to
allow me to do further surgeries to reconstruct muscle functionality that would
have let the prosthesis move in synch with your good eye.” He stepped up,
dangling a black leather eye patch from his trembling hand.

When Arik grinned he noticed his mouth no
longer tightened around the right corner. “Hand it here. And stop shaking. I am
very happy with what you’ve done. The king will also be pleased.”

Very pleased indeed. He will be able to
look at me and not see the full result of his brutality.
“Emerald, have Hikaru summon my father. He will want to see the
results of Pak Song and the surgeons’ efforts.” When he let her go he tried out
his bionic hand, using it along with his natural one to position the patch over
the prosthetic eye and adjust the elastic band at the back of his head.