Page 5 of Taken By the Convicts
He’d scared her. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him, but he needed to keep her here, away from Collins.
As Reece released her arm and mouth, he drew a single finger to his mouth, hoping she’d understand. He quickly pulled up on the back of his shirt to show her the rash. The chains kept him from removing the shirt altogether.
“You don’t want the guards in here,” she said, moving behind him to examine the rash that had spread over his back. “That’s understandable. They’re not exactly the nicest bunch.”
Nice? She had a lot to learn about Veenith if she thought anyone here would be nice, least of all the guards. Murderous bastards. They were almost as bad as the prisoners. Hell, the way they tormented the prisoners, they should be Level 5s and condemned to Veenith like him and everyone else on the prison planet.
The doctor lowered his shirt and opened the supply cabinet. She fished around in a drawer. “I know I saw it somewhere.”
More clanking of medical supplies. He eyed the datapad she’d set down on the counter. Maybe he should draw a picture of a knife, tell her to keep a knife on her. Not that it would help her much. The men on Veenith were too skilled, too determined to let a mere knife stop them. She didn’t realize how valuable she was. Goddess, he hoped she’d listen to Thorne and wouldn’t leave the safety of the med-center.
“It looks contagious, which explains why the guards threw you in the isolation bay, but it’s a simple rash. I don’t think they’d be able to tell a sunburn from poison oak. I’ll take a sample and verify it in a few minutes.” She lifted his shirt again and swabbed a section of his back, which made the burning sensation start all over again. He tensed as she lowered his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she placed the swab in the tissue analyzer. “I should have removed the shirt first, but. . . Well, you’re chained. And I don’t want to cut your clothing off. I’m guessing The Company doesn’t exactly give you a lot of spares.”
Zero. He’d stolen this shirt and pants from a dead guy. He wouldn’t tell her that. Even if he could.
She made a few adjustments on the tissue analyzer and then peered through a scope. “It’s similar to poison succula. Definitely in the succula family, though I don’t recognize this particular variety. Where did you come across a tropical plant such as succula on an ice planet?”
The greenhouse most likely, though he didn’t know anything about any of the plants in there. The fight with Jayce had caused a lot of damage, but they’d both escaped before the guards had charged in. If they found Reece fighting in there, even though he’d been doing his job when Jayce came in looking to pilfer product, he could be pulled off greenhouse and hunting rotation and sent into the mines. While he wasn’t thrilled with the long hunts and the others on the hunting detail, he liked working in the greenhouse between hunts. He had a chance to be alone, where no one would torment him except Manager Powell.
“Don’t worry. I can treat the rash,” the lovely doctor said. “Seriously though, it looks like you were rolling in a patch of succula. I wish you could talk. Now I’m going to be wondering how anyone gets succula poisoning when there’s nothing but snow and ice out there. Oh, maybe the greenhouse Thorne mentioned. Do you work there?”
He nodded.
“Okay, I should have thought of that earlier. I haven’t been inside yet. I figured the plants he mentioned were hardy, like perst and onia that thrive on ice planets. It makes sense he’d import plants from Argus or another Company-controlled planet.”
His beautiful doctor knew nothing about Veenith. This wasn’t an ice planet, just winter. In four months, the snow would melt, bodies would be discovered, and revenge wars would start up depending on whose bodies were discovered and where.
She patted his upper arm. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into a back room and a minute later emerged with two bottles. “I hope you don’t mind a home remedy. My specialty is pharmaceuticals, but we had a lot of poison succula where I grew up on Baccula.”
Baccula? She was from his world? His heart sank. More than likely, she’d already mated several males back home. The Company assigned females to units of three and sometimes four males at a time there while they were still young, untried, usually when they turned eighteen. His doctor looked to be about twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.
This was not where he expected to be at thirty. He should be back on Baccula, working hard during the day and coming home to a female such as this one, sliding into her, hearing her scream his name with a smile on her lips and heat in her eyes, then falling asleep with her in his arms. Instead, he and Zev shared a room with males who couldn’t be trusted not to stab them in their sleep.
“Are you from Argus?” she asked.
He shook his head, tapped his chest, and then tapped hers.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.” She wiped the frown off her face quickly. “We’ll get this communication thing down somehow,” she said as she resumed measuring the ingredients for the topical she was making.
He’d missed his chance at the lottery, having been sent to guard Farlis’s mate and children on their year-long visit to Argus before Reece turned twenty. By the time he’d returned, the lottery had ended, and he had to re-apply. The next chance at a woman was four years down the line. At twenty-four, he hadn’t been chosen, but by then he’d been assigned to Manager Crimshaw on Kordon. Reece suspected Crimshaw had his hand in fixing the lottery against him and anyone else he wanted in his employ, like hefixeda lot of issues for The Company.
None of Crimshaw’s guards had a family unit, commitments, or outside loyalty that would distract them from protecting Crimshaw. Early on, one guard had told Reece to save his money for the empallas, the females excluded from the lottery. The empallas serviced the unmated men of Baccula for a price. Every year, Crimshaw gave his guards empalla bonuses: three prepaid nights with an empalla. That had been Crimshaw’s way of ensuring his guards had the chance to fuck regularly and not get tempted into joining a unit of their own, of developing loyalties to anyone other than him. Being with an empalla wasn’t the same as having a female to come home to, get to know, and share thoughts and dreams, to have a family, even if he had to share her with two or three other mates.
Maybe Melina could be his, here. She was on Veenith now and wouldn’t be returning to Baccula and whatever unit she’d had there.
She finished mixing the translucent, viscous cream with the red powder, making a stark red paste that looked like blood. “This will take away the burn, but try to avoid brushing up against any more poison succula leaves if you can. Each subsequent exposure will be worse now that your system is sensitized to the poison.” She rummaged through a drawer. “This should work,” she said, holding a medical instrument he didn’t recognize. She pulled out one end, a thin piece of metal with an angled edge.
He lifted a brow, asking her what she planned.
“I don’t think you need to have both arms chained to that table,” she said as she began working on the cuff on his right hand.
He couldn’t agree more, but her trust worried him. Just because he wouldn’t attack her didn’t mean the next patient wouldn’t. She stood so close again as she picked the lock, that Reece simply breathed her in, thankful now that Jayce had pushed him into the bed of plants that made him break out.
Within ten seconds, the cuff popped open. And that was an A-57 zurlite tumbler lock that wasn’t easy to pick. He should know, he’d tried many times since his arrest five years ago. That little device would easily fit into the palm of his hand and would come in quite handy.
He rubbed his wrist to remove the sting from the too-tight cuff. Even though one arm remained chained to the bed, he could easily grab her, take her. . . kill her. Not that he would. He’d never harm someone so sweet, so innocent. But other prisoners would. She should listen to Thorne about the prisoners here.
