They both had sharp, handsome features—not that it mattered what males looked like, she told herself. Lexi thought she saw a resemblance between them, despite the fact that the one had a kind of silvery blond hair and the hair of the other was black as midnight. Were they possibly brothers? She thought they might be.
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.”