The two of them were dressed alike too—in black leather trousers and boots and dark blue, long-sleeved shirts. Their clothing looked like it might have been nice some time ago but now it was torn and ragged.
“Time to pay and take your ssslaves, Mistresss,” the Horvath guard hissed abruptly, interrupting her train of thought. “Market Day isss over for now.”
“Over? But it’s barely past noon!” Lexi protested. “And I need to arrange transportation for them.”
“All our ssslaves have been ssold so Market Day is over. Pay now! Take them now!” the Horvath insisted. “We are closssed!”
As Lexi transferred the considerable sum of credit she’d paid for the hapless males, she considered what she could do and where she could take them. She had a private hovercoach waiting at the end of the street—it was too big to drive through the narrow alleyways of the Down Market district. But would it be safe to let herself be alone in the coach with the two males? She eyed them uneasily. They looked badly in need of medical attention—especially the dark one—but could they be faking it?
“Thank you, Mistress.” The clear, soft voice came from the lighter male—the one with the silvery hair that brushed his broad shoulders. He had light eyes to go with his hair color—a pale blue that seemed to pick up the other colors around him. He was looking at Lexi with gratitude in his face and to her, at least, it looked sincere. “Thank you for saving us from the Death Mines,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” Lexi nodded a bit stiffly. Normally the males she rescued didn’t thank her. Most of them had been so conditioned to hate women that they often spat or growled at her, even as she explained that they were free now and had them loaded onto the private ambulance. In their minds, she was no better than the Mistresses who had mistreated them. And while Lexi understood their trauma, she tended to stay well back from the males she rescued—most of whom might turn violent at any time.
“We won’t hurt you, no matter what that other Mistress said,” the blond male continued quietly. “I’m Gaze and this is my brother, Bound—we’re Kindred and we revere all female life.”
“Kindred, did you say?” Lexi looked at them with new eyes. She’d never met any of the huge warriors before, but she knew a thing or two about their reputation.
Firstly, their race was rumored to be 95% male, which meant they were always looking for females to procreate with. Of course, Lexi had no interest in any such relationship, but she had also heard that the Kindred were respectful of females and had vowed never to hurt them. That, at least, was reassuring, she thought.
Especially since the Horvath guards were opening the caged area and going in to shove the two Kindred out.
“Out, now! Out, now!” they chanted. Two of them grabbed the blond Kindred and shoved him out the open gate and two more took the dark one by the arms and hauled him up, where he hung like a dead weight between them.
For a moment, Lexi thought he was dead. His head lolled back on his neck, showing a strong throat and the fact that he wore a neatly trimmed black beard, unlike his brother, who looked like he was normally clean-shaven, though now he had some stubble on his jaw.
Speaking of the blond Kindred—Gaze he had called himself, Lexi remembered—he was shouting and struggling, clearly anxious to get to this brother. Lexi had an idea he might have broken free of the large Horvath guards but something was making him weak.
“Hey, let him go! Be careful—he’s lost a lot of blood!” he shouted, twisting his head to look over his shoulder.
“Here—we letsss him go!” one of the guards holding the brother hissed and suddenly the tall, dark Kindred was sprawled on the ground at her feet.
He groaned softly, his eyelids flickering for a moment before sinking back into oblivion. The moment the Horvaths let go of Gaze, he was on his knees, cradling his brother’s head in his arms.
“Bound,” he murmured. “Brother, please don’t die on me! We’re free now—the Goddess has sent an Elite to free us. Please!”
The sight of the big dark Kindred in such bad shape decided Lexi.
“Come on—do you think you can help me drag him?” she asked Gaze. “I have a hovercoach at the end of the street, but we’ve got to get him there.”
“I’ll get him there.” A look of grim determination came over the light Kindred’s face. “I can do it.”
Lexi wondered if he could. His brother looked like he weighed a considerable amount—all of it muscle. And Gaze was staggering with weakness—though what was making him weak, she still didn’t know. Maybe he was simply hungry—she knew for a fact that these Down Market slave sellers didn’t feed their captives anything. They considered it a waste of money, since most of the males were only going to be sold for a few credits.
Of course she had vastly overpaid for these two, but she didn’t care. To her mind, a life was worth more than any amount of credit. Besides, her Great Aunt had left her more money than she could ever spend in one lifetime.
“Can you manage?” she asked anxiously, as Gaze got an arm around his brother and hauled the other man to his feet.
“I can…manage,” he assured her, but his voice was low and tight with strain.
“Here—let me try to help.”
There was no way Lexi could get her own shoulder under that of the dark Kindred’s—it was too far above her own. But she looped an arm around his waist and was able to help a little as they began dragging him down the street.
Getting the mostly unconscious Kindred through the Down Market district was no easy task. It made her glad of the muscle and upper body strength she’d gotten from years of kneading dough—she needed all of it and yet, she wasn’t doing even half of the hard work. Gaze was the one bearing the brunt of the burden and Lexi wasn’t sure how he was doing it. When she glanced across at him, she saw that his face was pale and there was a trembling sneer of effort twisting his sharp, handsome features. But still he kept going doggedly on, refusing to stop until, at last, they reached the hovercoach.
The coach was completely automatic and theft-proof. All Lexi had to do was place her hand on its sleek silver side and it shimmered and a door formed as the metal polymer its hull was made of parted for her.
Luckily, it was both big and roomy inside with long Thackian leather benches running down the length of it on either side and a wet bar at the back. Lexi had been thinking of getting rid of it and getting something smaller—it was too big and ostentatious and she never had cause to use it as her Great Aunt had, since she never went to any fancy parties. But she was glad now, as she and Gaze somehow managed to load Bound into the coach, that she had put off replacing the big vehicle. It was exactly what she needed for transporting a sick Kindred.
No, two sick Kindred, she thought, eyeing Gaze as he collapsed inside, gasping for breath as they finally got his brother, Bound, situated.
Somehow, she had ended up on the far end of one bench with the dark brother’s head in her lap—though how it had happened, she wasn’t quite sure. Gaze was on the ultra-plush carpeted floor beside her, his head in his hands as he tried to get his breath back.
She had never been so close to a male before—let alone two of them—and they were both so big. Also, as close as they all were, she couldn’t help but notice their scent.