Born

4

Cormack couldn’t help but follow the task mistress. From the shadows of perpetual midnight he watched her stride to the tunnels. As a field laborer, he had no right to be there, but snaring a cloak from one of the many stowed on the table by the entrance hid the designation tattoos on his arms and neck.

The fire snapped and danced in the grates, though this region of the earth remained warm from the sunny season. Soon enough the constant darkness would lead to permafrost and the fires would be kept blazing, the smoke rising from the ground in huge billowing tendrils warming the Born while the Bred were forced to huddle together in clusters. The weak and the sick would die off and be recycled, while the Born grew plusher with every turn of the planet.

The sounds of drunken revelry broke him from his morose thoughts and Cormack had to intentionally unclench his fists. Rage would not further his aim and he wanted to see her again, could feel her pull like the poles drawing at the oceans after the great stillness came leaving landmasses bare.

Though he knew it was foolishly arrogant of him, he felt as though she needed him in some way.

Ridiculous to think a beautiful Born woman would turn to a lowly field laborer, but then who would believe he’d licked her luscious cunny only an hour before? And she hadn’t ordered his death yet.

Perhaps he would pursue her until she either fell into his arms or removed his head from his shoulders.

’Tis the madness. Even as the thoughts coalesced in his fevered brain, Cormack considered that he might be on the verge of deconstruction. Breds had a shelf life, no more than forty years, tops before their brain and body chemistry started breaking down.

Bodily functions would quit, systems shutting down one at a time. The lucky ones suffered heart failure without ever feeling a twinge. Others decayed, bit by bit, becoming phantoms of their former selves before begging the Born to end them. Some simply went mad, sometimes taking other Breds out with them.

He knew which demise he preferred.

Yet even as he weighed the risks of seeking her out, his feet carried him forward. Believing it to be safer to settle in and wait for news of her, he stowed away in an empty room. This section of the tunnels had been dug by Breds, probably the first Breds ever to roam the planet. He touched the perfectly squared off wall, that had been dug with handheld tools, since machines were never to be trusted. The cool rock had no give, just like Cormack—a man without a purpose, merely existing for the use of the Borns.

A gasp sounded behind him and he turned to see a scantily clad Bred woman wielding an empty pitcher as though it were a sword. “What are you doing in here?”

Cormack heaved a sigh, more relieved than he’d like to admit in seeing a familiar face. “Lara.”

He let the cowl drop away from his face and she gasped. “My stars, Cormack. What are you doing in here?”

Cormack thought furiously, not wanting to link his task mistress to his name, in case he was found out. “Some of the litt’uns cry from hunger. I thought I could make off with a few extra packets.”

A smile stole over her face, her dark brown hair swinging loosely as she nodded. “You picked a good time for it too, what with all the strangers around.”

“Strangers? I hadn’t heard any were expected.”

Lara shrugged her slim shoulders. “They weren’t, just showed up. Come on to the kitchen and I’ll set you up right.” She winked at him and Cormack kept the smile plastered on his face until she turned her back. Damn, he hoped Lara wouldn’t renew her special interest in him after this. Sure, they’d fucked a few times, but he’d never intended to make her his Only One. Truth be known, he enjoyed her body heat and her womanly bits, but her incessant chatter about every minutiae happening in the Born hold made him want to recycle himself.

She was certainly no task mistress.

As if the thought conjured her, he heard her voice from one of the turnoffs. It took everything he had not to follow her husky cadence, but continue on behind Lara. He cast about for something to say, while mapping the location in his mind. “What did the strangers bring to trade?” And more importantly, what did they want in return?

“I was attending the House Mistress and did not hear anything directly.” Lara stopped shy of the opening to the kitchen and lowered her voice. “But her ladyship said her youngest daughter, the troubled one, is to be wed.”

For once Cormack wished he’d paid attention to the gossip that spilled from Lara’s lips. “I thought the overlord’s get had already been married off.”

She smacked his arm, playfully. “Cormack, you must not absorb one thing I’ve told you! It’s the changeling, the one he took in despite the prophecy.”

He started in amazement. “She is old enough to be married?” Vividly, he recalled the night when the bedraggled Born woman came upon the wagon train as the colony traveled, forever chasing the light but keeping to the darkness. The thunder of hooves as a strange rider appeared on horseback with a bundle in her arms. Her offspring. Mortally wounded, the mother had begged the overlord to take the child in, rear her in safety. Barely five old calendar years in age Cormack had overheard the exchange, recalling how he’d wiped the sweat from his brow, his back aching as he carried a satchel intended for a full grown, not a half grown lad, to see the dying woman riding into view. Blood stained her clothing and her skin had turned nasty shades of red when she’d fled across the sun-baked desert to escape the Cyborgs that had held her hostage.

Some had believed the baby to be an omen of bad things to come, but for some unknown reason, the overlord took the child and ordered his house mistress to raise her as his own. “I haven’t seen the girl in years. I thought she’d fallen ill and perished.”

“No, she’s very much alive, to her ladyship’s great displeasure. But she is wrong somehow and the overlord has hidden her away with some menial task or another.”

Cormack envisioned some of the Bred experiments gone wrong, where the subjects came out malformed and were recycled immediately. How disgusting that this child had been allowed to continue living, consuming food and ordering Breds about when his people were slaughtered in droves.

Lara sidled up close to him, pressing her heavy breasts against his arm. “Here, this is all I could take without being noticed.” She dropped several packets into his coat pocket.

“Thank you.” Anxious to find the task mistress once more, he tried to pivot away but Lara clutched him tightly.

“I will see you later.” Her gaze burned with sexual promise. His cock didn’t so much as twitch, but he nodded so she would release him.

Ducking his head, he strode quickly away from the kitchen, back to the split tunnel where he’d last heard her voice.

Perhaps he’d been wrong because not a cough or a footstep echoed through this hallway. His jaw clenched. He would not give up, not until he had to.

His next shift didn’t start for several hours and the only things waiting for him back at the barracks were the cries of hungry children, the groans of rutting Breds and the promise of Lara to come.

Better to spend his night roaming these halls, with the taste of the task mistress still on his lips.

For what felt like hours he wandered the labyrinth of connecting tunnels, hoping for a glimpse of her.

Other Breds scurried past him but in his pilfered cloak, he must have been mistaken for one of the strange visitors. Breds didn’t disturb Borns, ever. For once that fact gave him solace instead of fury.

“You called for me, milady?”

Cormack stopped short, cursing his distraction.

He’d almost wandered into an occupied chamber.

Holding his breath he turned to go when he heard her.

“Yes, I require your assistance.”

His shoulders sagged in relief. For a spell he’d feared she didn’t exist, that he truly had gone mad and imagined their encounter. But her voice, sweet and husky caressed him from the inside out. He must see her again, no matter what price he’d be forced to pay.

“What can I do for you?” The Bred with her sounded young, no more than twenty, but mature enough to know her station.

There was a pause, and a shuffling of fabrics as if she changed her clothing. He sank his teeth into his fist to keep from groaning aloud. But her reply brought him up short.

“I need you to help me escape.”