The Gilded Cage Read Online Free PDF Page A

his mind, Tamaz always referred to the man as Igor, regardless of his medical degrees and schooling. After all, once you have been stripped of such honors for ethical and criminal convictions, can you really still call yourself a doctor?
    Tamaz supposed that made him Dr. Frankenstein.
    He always preferred Blackbeard, himself, especially once his rook–black hair began to silver in a way that seemed to make him more attractive to the fairer sex.
    He looked down sourly.
    Not that she would ever smile at him .
    Igor turned a dial on the front of his machine. Tamaz was astounded, as always, when the nearly subconscious hum faded. The machine made him tense.
    Sykora relaxed as well, but that was an end to the electricity torturing her nerve clusters. Her muscles softened from the absolute tension they had held. Even her nipples faded from their peaks.
    Tamaz nodded again.
    Igor opened a small vial of liquid beneath Sykora’s nose. Even from here, it was foul enough to wake the dead.
    Sykora stirred.
    Her eyes had blinked occasionally, while under the rush of electrical pain, but that had been an autonomous function.
    Now, there was cognition in there, slowly dawning.
    Tamaz watched as those brilliant green eyes came to focus on the ceiling above her. After a moment, she found him standing there.
    The opposite of love is not hatred. It is apathy. There is no apathy there. Now we just need to transform the passion .
    Djamila Sykora came back to herself, back to him, from whatever place she retreated to in the face of his onslaught.
    “It is not too late, my love,” he crooned to her softly. “You have it in you to end the pain. All you must do is surrender to me.”
    She was not broken yet. But he knew that. The subtle way her lip and nose curled into a sneer around her gag made that evident.
    But he could still try. She might yet acquiesce, before things were required to reach the ultimate stage.
    Her Prince Charming, her Captain, would come soon to rescue her.
    He could not bear to leave her in the hands of someone like Tamaz, where her purity might be sullied.
    No, it would simply be necessary to kill Zakhar Sokolov. And to do it in front of her.
    Make her watch, make her plead, make her suffer. Combined with the torture and the drugs, that should be enough to break her.
    A broken Sykora would not be as good as a willing Sykora, but he could settle for half a loaf, especially one as magnificent as her.
    “Sokolov is coming for you, dear Djamila,” he continued, in the kind of voice you used on frightened animals.
    Her eyes flared as the words penetrated her inner being.
    Was that hope? Fear? Love?
    Whatever it was, bringing it to the surface was just one more step on the path to breaking her, to taking her, to owning her.
    Tamaz physically stopped himself from licking his lips at the thought of a pliant Sykora, offering up her core, her self, her womanness, to him.
    Soon. Very soon, his vengeance would be at hand.
    Tamaz nodded at Igor, silent and unobtrusive as ever. The man spun the dial back into the sixth setting.
    Tamaz felt a spear of lust pass through him as her toes curled under, her back tried to arch, her nipples reached for the heavens. But never a sound passed her lips.
    First I will have my revenge on Sokolov, my love. And then you .
    Part Two
    Meehu Platform . An ugly, geo–synced, misshapen metal donut orbiting an otherwise–worthless planet of the same name, in an unfashionable corner of space where the Concord tended to bleed into vagueness and three other political entities lacked the oomph to exert their will.
    Javier didn’t know the place all that well, but word got around. There were always stories about a place like this.
    Mostly, the tales were far more exciting and exotic than the reality would turn out to be. Pirate stations always sounded cool, but usually turned out to be rather seedy, like the bad part of a bad town where you were likely to be rolled for spare change.
    The Platform was a few