His Mate to Keep by Ivy Sparks

6

Xavier

My ears perkedup when I heard the sentinel’s metal claws echoing down the hall. I listened for Merrit’s yells, insults, and pounding fists, but I heard nothing of the sort.

When Merrit came into view, her eyes lit up as our gazes met, but she didn’t move. She stood still inside her transport container while the sentinel set it against her cell, and she crawled inside as placidly as anybody else.

She retreated to the farthest corner and pulled her knees to her chest while she waited for the sentinel to leave. She trained her eyes on the floor and didn’t look up, even after the sentinel was long gone.

I studied her from beyond the glass. She looked shaken, but not broken. They must not have used the atomizer on her. But why not? The atomizer was how they initially analyzed a test subject’s fighting capabilities. Were the experimenters planning to do something else to her?

She didn’t look up even when a tray of food appeared from the floor compartment. The mechanical arm left it sitting right in front of her, but she didn’t appear to notice it. She didn’t look at me, either. Whatever happened to her in the testing suite must’ve shaken her worse than anything else that came before it.

I scanned the area to make sure none of the sentinels were nearby—not that they would stop me from talking to her. I sat down next to her with only the pane of glass separating us. “Merrit, are you all right?”

She rocked slightly. Her eyes darted from side to side, but she still didn’t look up.

“You should eat,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. I knew I hadn’t seen her eat anything since she got here.

Her eyes darted to my face before she quickly looked away. She seized the tray and started shoveling the food into her mouth. She had listened to me earlier about cooperating with the sentinel, and now she was following my advice to eat. Maybe she was finally starting to trust me.

My eyes lowered to her mouth.

She had such supple lips…

“Good,” I said, refocusing. “You need to keep up your strength, just in case an opportunity ever arises.”

She looked up at me. “What else? What else do I need to do to survive here?”

Just then, another familiar clack of claws caught my ear from down the aisle. I stood up and spotted two sentinels moving from cell to cell, each dragging a bin, one with dirty clothes, and one with new ones. “This is your next lesson, Merrit.”

One sentinel stopped in front of my cell. The glass opened just a few inches so that the metallic machine could extend a jointed arm through the hole.

I stood up. “Strip off all your clothes,” I told Merrit. “They come through every second day. The first sentinel collects the subjects’ clothes. As soon as you undress, the shower starts and the second sentinel distributes clean clothes afterward. Do it quickly. They have little patience for prudishness.”

Hoping to encourage her through my example, I slipped off my pants and passed them to the sentinel. It took the garments, stored them in the laundry cart, then moved on. The small opening in the glass closed, and I took a position in the center of the cell.

I braced myself for the deluge of water that followed. Just before it turned on, I caught Merrit gawking at me from beyond the glass. Her mouth hung open, and she stared at me with huge eyes, but when my gaze met hers, she jerked her head away.

It was as if she’d never seen a man without clothes on before.

The next instant, the shower dumped a deluge of steaming water over my head. It enveloped me and the cell in steam. I rubbed the first inundation of soapy suds into my skin, over my face, and into every crevice.

Then came the rinse water that washed me clean. I stood still while a powerful blower blasted all the steam and moisture away. It blew hard against my skin and dried me in seconds. The mist evaporated from the glass as the second sentinel stopped in front of my cell.

I took my new clothes, but before I could put them on, a howling shriek startled me. The first sentinel stood in front of Merrit’s cell. Its arm extended through the opening in the glass, waiting for her to take her clothes off.

To hurry the process, metal arms extended through openings on her cell floor, and Merrit went ballistic. “No! You can’t make me! Leave me alone!”

“Merrit…” I began, but it was too late. Two more robotic appendages levered out of the ceiling. They angled toward her to restrain her.

I raised my voice to a yell. “Merrit, listen to me! Stop resisting! You wanted to know how to survive in here. Take your clothes off, and they’ll leave you alone.”

“Fine!” she snapped, more at the situation than at me. With a groan, she started ripping her clothes off. She yanked the buttons on her rugged stitched vest, and I thought I understood why she hesitated to part with it. She must have made that vest, the pants, and the shirt herself. She didn’t want to let them go. They were the last evidence she had of her old life, a life she would never see again.

Her lips trembled as she handed the vest to the robot, who stashed it away. She shot me another terrified glance as she started on her shirt. “Turn around,” she croaked. “Please don’t look at me.”

“You looked at me,” I returned. “What difference does it make?”

“Turn around!” she said, her voice wavering.

Just then, one of the arms from the ceiling dropped a few inches more. It pivoted in front of her eyes and startled her again. She attacked her shirt buttons and stripped it off, forgetting all about me, then she started on her pants.

Finally, she kicked them off and handed them over, her smooth skin now entirely bare. The sentinel moved on to the next cell, and the restraint arms retracted into the floor and ceiling. They left her standing naked in front of me, ready for the shower.

I surveyed her luscious curves with mounting interest. Her full breasts and large hips gave her an hourglass figure. Her muscled thighs angled down to her knees with a voluptuous rump behind.

My blood rushed to my cock, and I swelled as I traced every sweeping curve. I could just imagine following them with my hands and discovering every delicious secret about her with my lips.

She glanced over at me and her eyes dipped to my cock. She gasped, then the next instant, the shower opened up and dumped soapy water over her. With disappointment, I watched as the steam filled her cell and hid her body from me.

Now that I couldn’t look at her anymore, I got busy putting on my new clothes. I buttoned my pants, discarding the shirt as I waited for her to finish. None of the clothes were actually a requirement to wear here, and seemed to be more of a courtesy, much like the food and showers. I always opted to wear the pants, though. Even I had some modesty.

In a minute, the blower cleared the mist in Merrit’s cell and dried her. She kept her back turned to me while she retrieved her new clothes and covered herself. She didn’t look at me once afterward. Instead, she sat in the farthest corner of her cell, turned her back to me, and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

Watching her gave me a sudden stab of regret. I half expected her to yell at me for having dared to look at her, like she once yelled at the sentinels for every little thing they did to annoy her. Now, with every new routine she learned to tolerate, she was becoming more compliant, more cooperative. The fight drained from her. Soon she would become as placid and hopeless as the rest of us—as I was now.

The fire I admired about her when they first brought her in was already going out. Soon it would die completely, and she would become a hollow shell waiting for her last day to come. I could tolerate it in myself, but not in her.

I considered calling out to her, maybe even inciting a snarky comment from her, just to rekindle that spirit, but I decided against it. I needed to give her some time. She would come around. At least, I hoped she would. In such a short amount of time, I had already gotten used to talking to her, to caring about her.

And I didn’t want to lose that.