If the possessive look that had been on Benediction’s face had made Iona uncomfortable, the look on Gage’s face at that moment made her feel transformed. He dropped what he was holding and rushed to her. He took her hands in his and turned them over in his so he could see her palms and then her knuckles.

“You survived the gravity test,” he said proudly.

“You survived falling into the fissure,” she said, opening her arms so he could come inside them.

They held each other in their own world.

“What’s going on?” Vych asked in horror. “Why do all of you look like Lord Benediction?”

“He’s not as one-of-a-kind as he’d have you believe,” one of the men with Gage said grouchily.

“Oh, Gage,” Iona said, pulling away from him. “I just canceled all my bids and took myself off the market. I can’t be sold like this. I’m so pink!”

He laughed, his blue eyes reflecting the pink light that lit the lobby. “You were always pink.” He flicked her hair.

“This is pinker than I can take,” she mourned, gingerly touching her cheeks with her fingertips.

“No. It’s weird, but I think you look even prettier.”

Iona was sincerely moved by his saying that. No one had seen her look prettier than Gage because he was the last person from Sleeping Beauty Inc. to see her before she was handed off to new clients. If he thought she looked prettier now then she had never been more in love.

She didn’t wait for him to kiss her. He probably thought that he couldn’t because of her raw skin and yes, her lips were sore, but she didn’t care. She reached up and kissed him full on the mouth.

And he kissed her back.

“Thank goodness we think alike,” he said as he bent toward her and kissed her more.

“You two are the worst!” one of the guys at the entryway hollered. “Get a room!”

“There are plenty down that hallway,” the other guy said, voicing his discomfort with Gage and Iona’s PDA.

Gage didn’t answer and just kissed Iona more, which she loved. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, feeling the heat from his breath on her burns. It should have been intolerable, but she had waited so long for Gage to see her this way, to touch her this way and she wasn’t backing off because of a little stinging.

“Can you believe we have to watch this? There are a ton of rooms down the hall!” one of the men bellyached.

“Who are those guys?” Iona asked as she moved down Gage’s neck and started fumbling with the buttons at his collar.

“Heretic and Testament,” Gage introduced, pointing at each of them. “This is Iona.”

“No wonder you wanted her back,” Heretic said with a suggestive eyebrow wag.

“I thought they were dead,” Iona said, sliding her fingers around Gage’s middle and untucking his shirt.

“Iona! You’re being courted by Lord Benediction. Stop this at once!”

“There are rooms down the hall. Go fool around in one of those,” Testament encouraged.

“N-no,” Vych said like she didn’t know what she was supposed to root for. “Iona is supposed to be pure when she marries Lord Benediction and if she soils herself with that man, she’ll be unworthy.”

“You want her to marry Lord Benediction?” Testament chuckled. “I thought all his lady followers kept pictures of him under their pillows.”

“She probably has a picture of him printed on her pillow,” Heretic teased. “No. I know! It’s tattooed on her chest.”

Vych turned her back to Gage and Iona to show her disapproval and in that second, Gage grabbed Iona’s hand and pulled her down the hallway. Iona expected to be drawn into one of the bedrooms, but Gage pulled her onward and in the next second, she was in a utility closet with the door shut tight behind them.

“I didn’t know you were into doing it against a wall, but I guess,” Iona said, pulling off her outer coat.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He shook his head. “We’re not here to fool around. There are huge packing bags in here and I’m going to sneak you out inside one and let your new handler have a hell of a time picking the locks to figure out which room you’re in when you’ll be in none of them. Take off your boots.”

Iona snorted, letting her back go up against the wall. “I can’t fit in one of those backpacks. Besides, I have been making arrangements to leave Io on a recycling ship going to Ganymede in two days. The recycling depot is in Dahlcroft and that is a little over thirty kilometers from here. I was just going to give Vych the slip and walk there.”

“And how were you planning on giving your little bodyguard the slip? She may not want you to marry Benediction, but you can bet she doesn’t want to be blamed for your disappearance. If you get in this bag, I’ll carry you out of here, you little contortionist, and it will be hours before anyone can figure out how you left.”

She had decided to try to get in the bag, just to appease him, but before that, she moved to put on her new Sleeping Beauty Inc. bracelet.

He slapped it out of her hand. “What are you doing? I told you. You never put one of those on voluntarily. You can use it without it being affixed to your wrist. Just put it in your pocket, it will work fine that way.”

“Okay,” she said, going to obey him.

He reached for her wrist. “Put it on silent mode first.”

She did as she was told. “I feel a little cheated. I was gonna get lucky.”

“No, you weren’t. I formulated that plan from outside and asked the boys to tease us about needing a room so I could get you in here. I’m trying to ruin your sudden and very public relationship with Benediction and get you off Io.”

“I’d rather you got me off in here,” she complained, putting a toe in the oversized backpack.

He stopped her. “But seriously, if you’d rather stay here and marry Benediction than run off to the stars with me, I can let you go back to your new handler. Is that what you want?”

“Shut up, Gage. You’re so annoying when you talk sometimes. I’m going along with your plan. You can carry me off in a backpack if you want. Do whatever. I’ll stay with you.”

“Then get in. I’ll magic you away.”

Iona did not expect to fit in the bag. She didn’t expect it when he zipped it most of the way shut.

“Way better than the cardboard box?” he asked cheerfully.

She rolled her eyes. “It smells better.”

“On Io? That’s really saying something.” He was about to zip it shut. He was about to close her in darkness but before that, he got down on the ground and whispered to her what happened to him when he fell into the crack and what he discovered.

“It was on church land?” she asked.

He nodded. “I don’t know who’s responsible. All signs point to Leviticus and Benediction working together, but it’s also not completely crazy that Heretic and Testament know more than they are saying. It’s a dangerous world. Are you sure you want to come with me?”

“Yeah. Let’s go together. Do your companions know you’re packing me away in a suitcase?” she asked.

“No. They think I’m here to have sex with you and to get supplies. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it from them once we’ve left. I’ve been getting a thousand messages from Benediction and the wrecker who saved me, Tuton. You remember him?”

Iona nodded.

“They want me to go back to the crack in Loki’s Breastplate and have it out with Leviticus. I want to go but I’m worried about what will happen if we do. I’m concerned there’s no way off Io if Benediction is involved with this scheme to trap us. If he’s in on it, neither you nor I will be able to lift off. He has grounding authority.”

“We could hide somewhere together,” she said, taking his hand.

“And what would we do?” he asked softly.

“We could get married,” she suggested. It was a possibility now that she had decided to give up everything.

He smiled. “I’m still Sleeping Beauty Inc. property. I can’t get married without a contract that trumps my contract with them before my contract expires. You can’t become my owner again here on Io. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re really against slavery here,” he said with a crooked grin, “I’m surprised they believe in marriage.”

Iona smiled back at him. “Maybe it would be legal because we’re on Io. If I’m not an owner, maybe you aren’t a slave.”

His eyebrows shot up. “If we have to stay here, we can look into it. Quiet now. I’m going to zip you up.” He kissed her, gave her one last look of encouragement, and then zipped the backpack shut.

Iona felt him heft her onto his back and leave the utility closet. His pace was easy as he walked, as if he didn’t have a hundred and twenty-seven pounds of pure woman on his back. He turned and Iona knew he had entered the lobby.

“Where’s Iona?’ Vych asked in alarm.

“She’s still in the room enjoying the afterglow. She might be a while. I left her with a pack of cigarettes. I think she was planning on smoking them all.”

Iona heard Vych hurry down the hallway.

“Let’s go back, guys,” Gage said, speaking to Heretic and Testament.

“I do hope that was worth it,” a voice like Gage’s said.

“It looked like it was worth it to me. Who was she again?”

“She was my last owner,” Gage explained.

“If slavery was always like that, it wouldn’t have been a bad way to live.”

The voice trailed off as Gage removed the backpack from his shoulders and placed it gently in the back of the Danger Zone. He snagged a finger on the zipper to give her more space to breathe and shut the door.

As soon as it was closed, Iona pulled more of the zipper open and figured out a way to close it when they landed. She was essentially in the helocarrier’s trunk, but it was a side cabinet intended for cargo because the back propeller was in the way of a storage area. She stuck a leg out and let herself breathe.

She was going to be in a lot of pain in a few hours once Benediction’s treatments wore off.