“Well, the fact that they won’t grant me an audience for one thing,” Lexi said, frowning. “I think it’s because I don’t dress like the other Yonnite Mistresses and I don’t have a bodyslave to back me up.” She lifted her chin. “But I refuse to wear some ridiculous getup and subjugate some poor male like that! It’s wrong and I won’t do it—males are people too.”
“It’s very good of you to notice that,” Gaze said dryly.
Lexi’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry—that sounded really condescending, didn’t it? It’s the culture I was raised in and the fact that I’ve never been around any males until recently, and all of those have been in really bad circumstances. They’ve all been beaten and abused by their Yonnite Mistresses so most of them hate all women—even me, even though I’m trying to help them.”
“The culture here on Yonnie Six isn’t exactly conducive to good male/female relations,” Gaze said, nodding.
“Not conducive? It’s fuckin’ horrible,” Bound growled. “We’re fuckin’ lucky that Angel came and got us or we’d be on the way to the Death Mines by now!”
“You’re right, Brother.” Gaze looked at her earnestly. “We owe you our lives. I don’t know how we’re ever going to pay you back.”
Lexi made a shooing gesture.
“I don’t do this for any kind of payment. It’s more of a mission for me—a quest to shut down the Death Mines, or at least make Mistress Crueltongue use robots or machines work her mines instead of killing hapless slaves.”
“You really are an Angel.” Bound’s deep voice was slightly hoarse. “I wonder if those other males you’ve rescued have any idea what they owe you?”
Lexi felt her cheeks getting hot.
“I’m not some saint, you know—I’m just a baker with a hot temper and I don’t like to lose. If I could get the Sacred Seven to listen to me and stop letting Mistress Crueltongue kill her workers, I’d leave and go back to my bakery in a minute!”
Gaze looked thoughtful.
“Maybe we could help.”
“How?” Lexi asked, frowning. “You know how little respect males are given here on Yonnie Six.”
“Which is to say, fuckin’ none,” Bound growled.
“Yes, but you said the Sacred Seven won’t see you because you won’t dress like a Yonnite Mistress or, er, ‘subjugate a male,’” Gaze said. “But what if you dressed up—just once—and Bound and I pretended to be your bodyslaves?”
“Yeah—the Yonnites like to show off that they have the biggest and the strongest slaves,” Bound put in. “If you had both of us at your back, there’s no fuckin’ way they could ignore you.”
Lexi opened her mouth to dismiss the idea…and then stopped. It was actually a really good plan, she thought. The Sacred Seven couldn’t possibly dismiss her if she showed up with two huge Kindred in tow. The status of a Yonnite Mistress was measured by three things—her wealth, the way she dressed, and most of all, by the size and stature of her bodyslave.
“That could actually work,” she said, frowning. “There’s a public ball coming up and I know at least one member of the Sacred Seven is going to be there. I was going to go by myself and try to back her into a corner and give her a talking to, but this might be better.”
“We’ll be happy to accompany you and act like your bodyslaves,” Gaze told her and Bound nodded.
“Least we can fuckin’ do,” he agreed. “You’ll have the biggest, strongest bodyslaves there!”
He made a decisive motion, which led to him falling back on the bed.
“Hey, be careful!” Gaze exclaimed, hauling his brother back upright. “You might be the biggest, but you’re not the strongest—not right now,” he told Bound.
“Fuckin’ slavers givin’ me that fuckin’ wound,” Bound growled, looking grumpy.
“Are you all right?” Lexi asked, a bit anxiously.
The Dark Twin nodded.
“I’ll be back to normal soon—just still weak is all. Cause I lost so much blood—it’s serious business for a Pitch-Blood to lose that much.”
“Do…do you need more blood? Either of you?”
Lexi could feel her cheeks getting hot as she asked them. She couldn’t help remembering the feelings she’d gotten when she fed them both at once…and the even stronger feelings that had followed when the three of them touched at the same time.
She’d been sitting across from them, sipping her soup, and trying to be sure she didn’t make any physical contact with either one of the huge Kindred. And now, here she was, offering to give them her blood again—what in the world had possessed her to make the offer?
She waited for a long, breathless moment as the big Kindred seemed to consider it and she saw them exchange an unreadable glance that conveyed volumes of silent information. At last, Gaze shook his head.
“Not now, though it is very kind of you to offer,” he said. “We only need to sip blood every few days.”
“It helps our bodies form more blood,” Bound explained. “It’s a Pitch-Blood thing—we don’t need much but when we do need it, we really fuckin’ need it.”
“Oh…I see.” Lexi nodded. She was filled with conflicting emotions—relief that they didn’t need to drink from her mixed with regret for some reason. Could it be she was longing for another taste of that fierce desire touching the two of them at once had caused in her?
Surely not, she told herself. All her life she’d been told she must avoid males, that they were beneath her, that it was wrong for a male and female to be together. And yet Gaze and Bound were nothing like the males she’d known in the past—which were mostly just the broken bodyslaves she rescued. They were polite and intelligent and big and handsome…
Stop right there, Lexi, she told herself. What are you thinking? Are you actually attracted to these two?
To be honest with herself, Lexi thought that she might be. It was difficult to say, since she had never been attracted to anyone before and she’d never spent any protracted time with males at all. Before she’d come to Yonnie Six, she had only seen a male once or twice in her entire life. And after coming, she’d mainly dealt with the poor, downtrodden ones that hated everything female because of the abuse they’d suffered at the hands of their Yonnite Mistresses.
Gaze and Bound were different—the Kindred revered females. And they were extremely attractive, she had to admit. She had never felt herself drawn to a body like her own—a curvy, female body—but the big warriors were well…so big. And so muscular and hard and they smelled really good too, not to mention the way touching them both together had made her feel…
I thought you weren’t going to touch them anymore, the little voice in her head scolded her. I thought we agreed this kind of thing is wrong—being with a male, wanting to touch a male…
Yes, she’d been taught all that, Lexi admitted to herself. But she had also been taught to stay in her own place and mind her own business and that hadn’t stopped her from going off to Yonnie Six to rescue slaves, had it? Why should she accept at face value everything she had swallowed whole when she was younger? Why shouldn’t she think for herself? Try new things?