The Taming: Book 3 in the Tribe Warrior Series by Imogen Keeper (romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

floor. “I didn’t. Your friend Malina sent it to the reporter.”

Klym shook her head. “How did she get it?”

The people across the hall started moving again. Someone turned the feed back to the ball game, and little green men roved the walls.

Spiro didn’t say anything.

Staria turned on Klym, eyes wide, jaw dropped, mouth curved in an awed smile. “He came for you.”

Klym rounded on Spiro. “He’s here?”

Spiro nodded.

“He’s on Argentus?”

Again, Spiro nodded.

Why were they smiling?

Fury settled low in her belly.

“You need to go get him,” Staria said, turning to Spiro with wide, almost-scared eyes. “Where is he? He’ll be killed immediately.”

“He’s been arrested,” Spiro said, those bold blue eyes digging into Klym’s. “By your father.”

41

A ball-gag. Seriously?

SOMETHING SLAPPED AGAINST Tor’s cheek insistently.

Tor tried to talk, but his tongue didn’t work.

More slapping.

He tried to listen, but the only sound he heard was someone breathing through pinched nostrils, and the pounding of two hearts.

He sniffed. Man-sweat. Antiseptic too. Subterranean maybe.

More slapping.

His eyes came into focus slowly.

A pair of eyes that looked disconcertingly like Klym’s in their warm, gray color stared at him, from a face that looked nothing like hers. Up close, her father’s face was a mess of dark pores and red veins. He’d looked paler and grayer in the holo-feed. In life, he was just as hard, with a blunt jaw and broad, bulbous nose.

Klym’s mother must have had a hell of a face, because she’d gotten nothing from this guy but her eyes.

Tor started to say something, but something that felt like a ball-gag was in his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but it wouldn’t budge.

His arms were tied behind his back, and he was lying on his side in a white-walled room on a metal floor with a drain in the center. That was never a good sign.

What was it with the Argenti and tying him up? It was uniquely insulting to be on the other side of cuffs. He’d strapped assholes in to them too many times to count, and now here he was, tied up again. He’d known this would happen—Franno had warned him—but the ball-gag was a surprise.

One of the armed Guarda came forward and took a knee beside Tor, patting him down, removing his rezals and knives, and with an oily glance at Merona to make sure he couldn’t watch, he slid Klym’s pearls out of Tor’s pant pocket and slipped them into his own.

Tor glared at him, blasting silent promise his way. He’d get those pearls back, and he’d see this man’s blood.

A single light hung from the ceiling behind Merona’s head, casting sharp shadows on his face.

“Oh good. You’re up.” Merona stepped back, and the light hit Tor’s eyes, making him wince.

He shouted a few blunt curses, including a handful of detailed ideas of what he’d like to do to Merona’s corpse with the ball-gag, but it came out as nothing more than garbled grunts.

“Oh, good, you’re moving again. I was starting to worry about your dosage. Big bastard like you, we gave you a double.”

Tor glared at him, did the shouting-behind-the-gag routine again for affect, and spent some time pulling on his arms experimentally. He knew handcuffs. All bounty hunters knew handcuffs.

He slid his thumb up and found the distinct rounded faceplate sitting just above the heel of his hand. Naphas.

His favorite type, produced on a Fringe Colony called Naphalli. Practically a piece of art. It required a thumb print from the owner to open them. The only way he was getting out of them was if he killed Merona and got his thumb into just the right position, he incapacitated Merona and got his thumb into just the right position, or Merona set him free.

Of the three options, the final one was the most attractive, since manipulating the body of a grown man, behind his back, with his arms tied, was one shade shy of impossible.

His legs were free, though.

Which was probably proof that wherever he was, Merona didn’t think there was a chance in hell of Tor breaking free. He wiggled his toes, wondering about the lasting effects of whatever drug he’d been given.

At least they hadn’t taken his boots. They should have. He would have.

He garble-shouted some more, just to see if he could get a rise out of Merona, and pulled himself awkwardly to a seated position.

Merona’s bushy gray brows lowered. He ignored Tor’s noise. “Did you touch my daughter?”

Tor nodded vigorously and shouted some more behind the gag.

“Did you take her virginity?”

Tor garbled, loud noncommittal nonsense.

Merona lifted his own shiny, spit-polished black boot and gave Tor a steady kick smack in the sternum.

Tor fell back with it, but lifted his right leg and hooked Merona behind the knee, dropping him to the ground.

Tor twisted, getting his leg up into position, to do a boot-drop right on his face, but Merona was fast. Especially for his age.

He rolled into his drop and surged to his feet before Tor could sweep him again.

Tor did his best to make a laughing sound behind the gag. Mostly it came out like he was grunting.

“Send in a pair of guards,” Merona called out to whoever was watching them on camera.

Merona rose, dusting off his hands, and sent Tor an irritable look. “Try anything like that again, I’ll break your nose. With that gag, you can suffocate slowly on your own blood.”

Tor had made that same threat a few times. Empty. No one bothered to tie up a guy and ball-gag him just to let him die like that. But he tried to look appropriately cowed.

A few moments later, a white door at the back—one without a handle—opened, and in came two armed guards.

Knives and rezals but no swords. A big part of him had wondered if they’d already moved him to a space base somewhere. If he was still on Argentus—Klym was close. Franno hadn’t been entirely certain that they wouldn’t ship him straight to one of Merona’s ships to cover their asses. It had been the weakest