The Dark Places Read Online Free PDF Page A

conflicted dismay, my body ignored my
brain and pressed hard against him.
    “You are also being imprinted by
me, doll,” he said softly. “This is the only cure for imprinted couples.”
    Imprinted? What did he mean? He’d made no mention about love or desire. Earlier, he’d only
said that he liked me and enjoyed my
company. Then I recalled my parents’ meddling with my fate and gulped. This was more, at least, than what had
awaited me on Dearleth . At least I had chosen this man. Or it seemed my
body had done the choosing, because my brain had gone muzzy and nonfunctional
in his arms.
    Before I could sort out how it
happened, we stood before a bored Marnu City deputy judge inside the large,
mostly empty office. In a hoarse voice barely above a whisper, I pledged my
obedience, loyalty, and person to Matt Lorins. He pledged the same to me, with
strong assurance in his tone.
    At Alliance Standard Time 2315, on
the Fifteenth Standard Day of the Eight Standard Month of the New Empire
Alliance Year 0192 A.I.C.—After Intersystem Colonization—we both signed the
city, province, and planetary records forms. Then we allowed a medi-scanner to
nip bits of skin tissue and to sample tiny blood droplets from our index
fingers for positive genetic identification.
    Why
can’t I wake from this trance and stop cooperating so tamely?
    In less than fifteen minutes, Matt
led me from the complex, and we were inside another taxi flitter headed for the
Marnu Grande Hotel—if my dazed brain had understood his instructions to the
driver—where he likely was lodging during his stopover. Silence lay heavy
between us throughout the brief ride, but I was very aware of Matt’s warm grasp
upon my cold hands and his encircling arm. Was
he regretting his actions?
    It wasn’t until I stood beside my
companion at the hotel’s registration desk, listening while he made occupancy
changes and identified me as his bride, that the
reality of the past hour’s events converged on me. I just married a man about whom I know almost nothing, except that he can
drink strange, deadly brews and stand upright—and that his eyes are stranger
than Bilk’s.
    What
have I done? How had I done it?
I’d cunningly evaded the snare my traditionalistic parents had set to bind me
with on Dearleth, only to end up with this one on Harnaru.
    My knees weakened and my fingers
clutched the gleaming white, gold-streaked marble counter. I frantically combed
my memory, trying to recall if ours was a short-term marriage tract or
something longer.
    I swallowed rising panic when we
walked from the desk toward the lifts. Surely
it is just a short-term tract , I reassured myself, taking in the well-dressed guests of Marnu’s largest and
most lavish hotel. A delicate-boned, honey-haired lady traipsed past me on
sequined slippers, enveloped in a heady, flowery perfume and expensive yards of
fragile, pink Barshoni Satin interwoven with silver threads. Gleaming jewelry
adorned her arms, neck, and hair. Chances were great that they were all
precious stones and metals.
    I wryly contrasted that ethereally
groomed vision with my own unexciting appearance, garbed in mundane,
formfitting black coveralls and black city boots of sturdy, synthetic material,
along with unadorned and unpampered hair. The only perfume that might exist
upon my person after six hours in the Lilith’s smoky interior was the deodorant
soap gel I’d showered with earlier in the day.
    I glanced sideways at Matt,
noticing for the first time with quiet shock that his conservative dark gray
tunic and pants suddenly looked very expensive against the elegant hotel’s
backdrop. The grid-patterned grain in his mottled black and dark gray boots
indicated they were fashioned from real animal hide. That ring on his left index
finger, gleaming beneath the lobby’s crystal chandeliers with refined elegance,
could well be platinum, or something rarer. I’d dismissed it earlier as mere
silver. He looked like he belonged
here. I