“Ten years?” Nina looked at him in disbelief. “Did you take a vow of celibacy or something?”
“Something like that.” He cleared his throat. “You should probably put the med kit back. We might need it sometime in the future.”
“Oh, right—the first aid kit. I will. But first, which one of these is an antibiotic cream? Something to fight germs? I need to put some on your forehead.”
“No you don’t.” He frowned. “Kindred are fast healers. You cleaned the cut—that’s enough.”
Nina opened her mouth to protest, but a closer look at the cut over his eye revealed that it was, in fact, healing nicely already. Wow, the Kindred must have really excellent immune systems.
“I’ll put up all but the gloves,” she said, closing the med kit. “I’m sure I’ll need them in, uh, in the future.” She could feel her cheeks getting hot as she said it, but it was already out. Of course she was going to need them—to put him back in place. If his shaft ever went down, that was. But a quick, sideways glance at his crotch told her that particular task needed to wait a while longer.
He saw the direction her eyes went and shrugged. “Sorry. Not ready yet.”
“Uh, I guess not.” Nina hurriedly gathered the square first aid box and rose, meaning to put it back exactly where she’d found it. But when she opened the cabinet she’d thought was the right one, she saw something else instead. “Wow,” she muttered. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?” Reddix wanted to know.
“This thing I found.” Lying on what looked like a black velvet pillow was the strangest piece of jewelry Nina had ever seen. It appeared to be some kind of choker necklace made of filigreed black metal and set with red, green, and blue lights. The lights blinked slowly, almost sleepily, as though the thing was resting—although why Nina would get such an idea about an inanimate object, she didn’t know. Lying beside the black velvet pillow was a small rectangular object that looked to Nina like something that might belong on a key ring. It was made of the same black filigreed metal as the choker, and it had three lighted buttons, which seemed to correspond to the lights on it—red, green, and blue.
“What is it? What did you find?” Reddix asked again.
“This.” Nina was strangely reluctant to touch it, but there was no other way to show him what she was talking about. She was glad she was still wearing the gloves. Setting the first aid kit down on the floor, she carefully lifted the black metal choker from the pillow and pulled it out of the cabinet. “See?” she asked, bringing it closer to his face.
“Holy Goddess!” he growled and threw himself backward, as far from the black metal choker as he could. “Get away from that fucking thing, Nina! Put it down and don’t touch it again!”
Nina didn’t ask why—his reaction was strong enough to override any sense of curiosity she might have about the necklace. She put it back on its pillow at once, noticing as she did so, that the lights seemed to be blinking faster now, almost as though she’d woken the thing up by handling it. But that was another silly thought—wasn’t it?
“What is it?” she asked, turned to Reddix when the choker was safely back in the cabinet with the door closed. “And why did you get so upset?”
“It’s a Goddess damned Hurkon agony collar.” He shook his head, his face pale. “What in the Seven Hells is something like that doing on board this ship? What kind of a monster were they transporting that they needed a Hurkon collar to keep the fucker down?”
“And agony collar? What’s that?” Nina asked.
“Exactly what it sounds like, sweetheart,” Reddix growled. “You put it on your prisoner and press the pretty shiny buttons. It activates all the pain centers in the brain—causes extreme physical pain and anguish.”
“So…another restraining device. Kind of like the cuffs?” She nodded at his wrists.
“No, nothing like them,” Reddix said. “The restraints are specially made to fit snug to a prisoner’s wrists and restrain them without actually hurting them. I never would have used them on you, otherwise. I’m not into causing pain.”
“Oh.” Nina bit her lip. “And the collar?”
“The Hurkon collar is all about pain. It’s designed to cause the maximum amount of agony and unlike the cuffs, it’s sentient.”
“Sentient?” Nina frowned. “You mean it can actually think and reason and…?”
“And enjoy inflicting pain? Oh, yeah.” He nodded grimly. “The Hurkonians imbed a gasher inside each collar—a tiny tele-empathic creature that wants to cause agony because it feeds off extreme emotions.”