Royal Recruit - Susan Grant Page 0,46

back-first into the padded wall. It knocked the wind from him. The cables on his ankles tugged him onto his back and spread his legs wide.

Gasping to catch his breath, there was nothing he could do but watch as a new cable on the wall came alive and slithered across the floor.

What was this one going to do?

Take a guess, buddy. He was spread-eagle and this thing was rushing for his family jewels. Instinctively, he tried to bring his knees together, but the cuffs wouldn’t budge.

“Tell me this isn’t an involuntary castration device,” he muttered.

He twisted around and tried to wrench free. On any normal day, he was a pretty calm guy. Faced with the prospect of losing his manhood, however, that all changed.

The cable slowed as it reached him. It seemed to sniff around, whirring softly. Jared froze. He barely breathed as the cable sniffed gently at his jaw and neck then stopped where the collar of his suit began. He wasn’t sure what the thing was searching for, but he wasn’t going to help it out. As long as it stayed in the northern hemisphere, fine. The second it headed south, he’d be making some noise. A lot of noise. He wasn’t going to take castration lying down.

The cable slipped under his collar. Jared gritted his teeth against the feel of the cold metal tip hunting around his neck. Then the robotic snake hooked around his collar and tore open his shirt. Buttons flew. The suit shredded as it was ripped away from his skin.

The thing pulled off his clothes, tearing open his suit and underwear like a kid ripping into gifts on Christmas morning. In seconds, all he wore were scraps of fabric and his watch. The metallic cable hissed across the padded floor and snicked into the wall, leaving him spread-eagle and just about buck naked sprawled on the floor.

Chapter Thirteen

The chamber was silent except for Jared’s ragged breaths and the soft humming noises as the cuffs made minute adjustments on his ankles and wrists. Maybe he’d been right about the manly eunuch, and now he’d been led into a terrorist trap.

Were these conspirators part of the same group that had ambushed the transport no one in the Coalition government wanted to admit was ambushed? The biggest threat to the Coalition was the Drakken. If the Empire had infiltrated the palace, he had to get Keira out now. He had to protect her.

Jared struggled against the restraints. They seemed to be intelligent; the harder he struggled, the tighter they became. If he went still, they released some of the throbbing pressure, but as soon as he tried to wriggle a hand free, they cinched tight.

He forced himself not to fight the restraints. Carefully, he rotated his wrists. The cuffs whirred and tightened. He paused, the pressure eased and he was able to slip his hand out a millimeter more. Moving his hand a tiny amount at a time, he worked at getting free. Pause, slide, pause. Finally the cuff held to his fingers only. He yanked hard and his hand was free.

The cuff whipped around like an angry snake whose dinner had been pulled from its mouth. Jared fought to keep his arm out of the cable’s reach. With three limbs pinned, it wasn’t easy. After a brief struggle, the cable found his wrist and coiled around it, tighter than before.

“Ah, fuck.” He grimaced in defeat. But at least he knew he could free himself. Now he had to get smarter about it. If he could give the cable something else to grab—his other wrist, or a leg; in other words, make a swap—he could get a limb free.

He was in the middle of starting the process all over again when the doors behind him opened and someone slipped into the room. Light steps padded on the soft floor.

A woman wearing a long dark blue robe with sparkly silver accents walked in front of him. A matching veil covered her face and reached all the way to her ankles. She was barefoot with rings on all her toes peeking out from under fabric that looked fluid. It reminded him of water, but he couldn’t see through it. A trick of the microscopic computers embedded in the fabric, he knew. Liquid, it clung to every curve of her body as she followed the trail of crushed and mangled flowers.

The cuffs had let up on their pressure. He inched his right hand out, stopping when the cuff hummed.

The