Free The Gilded Cage by Blaze Ward Page A

be a possible ally against Sokolov, and not a plant or a spy. He could always kill the man and have the woman later, if that was the necessity of things.
    He settled for a deep draft of her perfume. Sykora never wore perfume. The old Sykora. Who knew what he might convince her to do, once he owned her body and soul.
    Once she existed only to please him.
    The thought was more intoxicating than any narcotic might dream of being.
    He turned to lead them deeper into the ship, accidentally brushing against a warm, full breast as he went, supreme in all things.
    Ξ
    Hadiiye was slightly bemused at the situation. Wilhelmina wanted to gouge his eyes out. But then, Hadiiye hadn’t been touched by this man or his first mate.
    Rape existed on a spectrum, not a point. They had stayed generally at the emotional end, with enough groping to make their point, without ever getting truly physical.
    Wilhelmina the psychologist wondered if either Tamaz or Erckens even really liked women, or needed frightened little girls or boys to get excited. Certainly, they hadn’t gotten aroused by the situation, but rape was a crime of power, not passion.
    Wilhelmina had simply not let them have power over her.
    Hadiiye was willing to geld them with a dull spoon for her anyway. It would be an improvement to the species, to keep them from propagating.
    Especially when Tamaz got that look in his eye.
    One of his hands twitched, like it was going to go up her skirt. Hadiiye might even let it be, considering the situation, the location, the company.
    Or she might pull a shiv and touch his cheek, right below the eyeball, just to get his attention. She didn’t owe any man anything. Except pain and a slow, lingering death.
    She smiled at Tamaz as he changed his mind. She even suffered the space violation with a light smile as he leaned forward and inhaled her scent. The way his eyes rolled back, half–closed, was fascinating.
    He certainly wasn’t thinking about her.
    Food for thought.
    Salekhard proved to be a medium freighter as they tromped her decks. It was built more durable than hulls from her time, but five centuries of technology and metallurgy will do that.
    There was far more crew than a freighter this size would normally carry, but she was expecting that. This was a pirate, after all. Play possum until someone got close, and then turn into wolf in sheep’s clothing.
    From her recent studies, improvements in jump drives and life support systems meant that a crew of twenty to thirty would be normal on a vessel of this scale. She had probably already seen twice that count, just crossing half the linear distance and going up three decks.
    They certainly weren’t going to shoot their way in, if they wanted to rescue Djamila. Hadiiye was patient. Navarre would have a plan.
    The party came to rest at a closed hatch. It was like that moment when the tide turned, pooling all the water to stillness in a bay, just before it started to run back out. She missed the smell of Dundee.
    Tamaz gifted them with his warm, drunk smile, a canary in his mouth, at least metaphorically.
    “And now, my friends,” he said, summoning his best diction from the depths of his drunkenness. “Now, you will see the power that I wield. The glory. I give you, the dragoon, Sykora.”
    He turned and theatrically pushed the button to slide the hatch into the wall.
    Hadiiye was last into the small room, crowded with five other bodies around the table.
    No, six. Strange little man tucked into a corner, crowded back from the killers around him as if they had a sour smell. She sniffed. Nothing but the musk of big men and her perfume.
    Probably not something that turned the little man on, either way.
    They jostled around, finding a calm point. Again, tides swirling, eddying.
    In her heels, Hadiiye was taller than anyone in the room but the big guy, so she could see over shoulders and didn’t need to press forward.
    Hadiiye suppressed any gasp, any emotional response, any clue that might