Seral nodded. “He was questioned, and we discovered many things. However, I requested that you be present for his trial by the asheksi council. We all know of your abilities, and you’ve used them before to ensure the truth was spoken. We would ask that you do so again, though we know it could cause you great discomfort.” He gave me a steady look. “You can refuse, Dade. No one would judge you for not wanting to put yourself through that.”
Polsh agreed. “Buphet is a hateful man. The words that spew from his throat are bad enough. It’s been difficult finding guards with enough restraint to not bash the shipzu’s face in.”
I snorted. “I already tried that. Didn’t work, obviously.” I looked down at Yaseke beside me. He looked scared. “Tziu?”
“I want to know why he killed our family, the truth, but Dade….” Yaseke shook his head. “I won’t ask that of you.”
I stroked his hair back behind his ear, staring into his troubled amber eyes. “You don’t have to.” I cupped his cheek. “I’ll do it,” I told Seral.
Buphet must have been secured in an anteroom nearby. Four guards brought him in, completely naked, his arms twisted behind him. He was covered in bruises, but they didn’t all look fresh. Yaseke tensed beside me. He was shoved down into the chair and then secured to it by a shimmering bio net. As soon as it activated, Yaseke relaxed a little. I stroked his arm to comfort him.
“Don’t bring him over here,” I said when the guards began to move his chair. “I’ll move.” There was no such thing as too secure when it came to Yaseke’s safety, and I didn’t want the bastard anywhere near my tziu, just in case.
Seral stood up when I did. I moved behind Buphet, where he could not see me, and stood with my hand hovering above his bare shoulder.
Modoalm spoke in a measured voice. “Buphet Fiorlintas, you have been charged with treason and murder. Your confession has been accepted, but you are required to admit your crimes before the asheksi prior to your sentencing.”
“And let this freak touch me? No, no way,” Buphet hissed.
“Capital punishment cannot be declared without verification of the truth. You can do it this way… or another.” The guards stirred, eager to get their hands on a human collaborator, no doubt.
“Like that’s a choice, you shipzu.”
Modoalm stood up, slamming his hands down on the table. “You will watch how you speak to me, or I will have your throat silenced. Permanently.”
Buphet shrank back.
“Now, you will repeat your confession, or I will have you publically tried and sentenced!”
Grimacing, bracing myself for the feelings the bastard would share with me, I grazed his shoulders with my hands. At first, I felt nothing. I had to focus and try again. I opened that spot in my mind where my emotions seemed to come from, and… let his in. Fear swamped me, and anger, and a bitter, burning hatred. I swallowed back the bile that rose into my mouth, gagging.
It took a long minute of gathering my composure, as much as I could, and focusing on my breathing in order to signal Seral to begin. I kept my eyes down, too afraid of what my other ability, my new power to hurt through emotions, might do if harnessed by this creature’s virulent aversion to everyone in the room.
“Why were humans on Caeorleia?” Seral began with a question that could be answered many ways.
“To conquer us, of course.” Scorn dripped through me, and I curled my lip. I nodded.
“What was the purpose of the secret base? Why was it not used to attack the city before the rest of the humans were forced to leave Caeorleian space?”
“The humans there were a separate branch. Using the white-haired thing, they contacted me after they sent down your son’s little pet, Ryker.”
Buphet hated Ryker with a special force, even more than me. It stunned me, to feel that level of hate.
“They were going to strike but wanted the planet for themselves, not their government.” The men in the compound were the doctors? I didn’t recognize any of them. Five years was a long time, in a slow science vessel, to learn how much they wanted to be in charge. I shuddered at the thought of those sadists with a populace of Caeorleians at their mercy.
Seral snarled. “Do not speak my tziu’s name again, or your ability to scream will be the last thing you lose as I tear you apart.”
Fear snarled through the hate in Buphet. My heart raced. I exerted my newfound control and forced it down.
“Son. Do not get derailed. There is a finite time for this.”
Modoalm must have spotted the way my free hand was shaking. I balled it into a fist at my side.
“Why did you murder your family?”
“I didn’t!” My surprise filled me, along with his emotions, but Buphet was telling the truth. I nodded as Buphet continued. “The humans required a show of faith. They… took them. Those who resisted they killed, and the rest they gave to the Vlrsessiums in payment for their assistance. These humans already have an alliance with those creatures.”
Distaste filled my mouth at the memory of the slavers. “You sold our entire family into slavery, for power?” Yaseke’s voice shook. I longed to wrap him in my arms, but when I looked at him, he wasn’t breaking apart. He was furious, incandescently angry. His face had paled so much that his blue markings stood out in stark relief, but his eyes were blazing. “Women and children! You consigned women and children to that fate for the sake of… what?”
“Ruling a planet!” Buphet snarled. “None of you were fit to share my blood. None of you could begin to do what was necessary to ensure our ascension to rule Caeorleia—as is our right! Not his”—Buphet glared at Modoalm—“not those tainted-blood children that the human shipzu’s blood would bring into being. I deserve to rule. I am the only one who knows what is best!”
I could feel his muscles straining against the bio net under my fingers, but he didn’t move an inch.
“When Seral revealed his plan to make the humans leave, I knew I could manipulate those here to use their weapons to remove the entire tainted Iorflas line, just as they did mine, leaving the asheksi in charge. I’d take over and rule Caeorleia the way I was always meant to. Not you!” He was spitting out the words, his hum harsh and hurting my ears, as he glared at Modoalm and Seral who sat at the end of the table. “Not you!”
The self-aggrandizing assurance and thwarted rage was finally too much for me. I jerked back, heaving. I dropped to my knees, my arms folded against my stomach. Nothing I’d felt was ever that bad. Not the sadistic doctors and guards as they got off on torturing me and the other experiments, not the fear from the earlier questioning of those in Buphet’s employ. Not even the casual, unavoidable touch by disgusted Caeorleians who hated humans.
Yaseke was at my side in an instant. I pushed back from Buphet, needing as much space as possible between us and him. All the feelings he’d sent surging through me faded once I let him go, but nothing could take away their memory, not even my tziu’s capable, loving hands soothing my hair from my face as I emptied my guts into a bin Polsh shoved at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I retched, over and over. The bitterness of the bile in my mouth curled my tongue, and I coughed. A cool hand on my neck startled me, but no emotions broke over me.
Yaseke.
“Here, Dade, drink this.” I kept my eyes lowered as I took the cup Yaseke held out to me. The condensation made the glass slippery. My stomach was still roiling, so I sipped at the icy water slowly. Yaseke sat next to me and pulled me close.
I sighed and leaned against his chest. His hands felt good against my clammy face as Yaseke smoothed my hair back. The lack of invading stimulus was amazing. It felt so good to relax in his arms and know I was safe from feeling anything but my own emotions.
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat and took another drink. Polsh took the trash bin and handed it off to one of the other guards. My face heated. Vomiting wasn’t something I’d done since I was a green recruit, panting and bleeding, as I stood over my first ki
ll—a small, knee-high bipedal alien with turquoise fur and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that had tried to eat my face. Its teeth had been as long as my thumb.
As sick as touching Buphet made me, we had to finish this. I set my glass of water next to the wall and stood up. Yaseke stayed next to me.
“Dade, I’m sorry,” Modoalm said. “What we asked was too much for you.”
I was not weak. “No,” I protested. “Ask your questions. We have to know.” Touching the egomaniacal bastard was the last thing I wanted to do, but he could have information we needed to know, without a shadow of a doubt, was true. The science vessel that brought us to Caeorleia held a lot more soldiers and scientists than we’d found at the secret compound. Too many bodies had burned in a fire in part of the ship to get an accurate body count. There was no way to know if they’d all been on the ship in space when the nano attack had occurred.
Yaseke hovered but didn’t touch me. I still didn’t like him this close to Buphet.
“Go sit down, tziu.”
Yaseke opened his mouth, his arms already crossed over his chest.
“Please,” I said before he could argue.
Taking a deep breath, I touched the sneering Caeorleian again. Buphet’s emotions were virulent, explosive, and his hatred seethed through me. I clenched the fingers in my free hand, sending my nails into my palm. I could do this. I clamped my teeth together and endured.
Modoalm began again. “Are there more human compounds hidden from us?”
Buphet didn’t speak. He glared at the Toleral.
“Are there more human compounds hidden from us?” An undercurrent of satisfaction ran under the rage I was feeling. I couldn’t know if that was because there were more out there, waiting to strike, or if he was pleased at thwarting Modoalm’s questioning. “If you don’t speak, you will be forced to answer.”
That got a response. “As if I fear your torture,” he scoffed. But that was a lie. He did fear it. Not much, but it was there, a tiny, niggling corner of him that did. A guard stepped forward at Seral’s signal.
I lifted my hand from Buphet’s shoulder and found an instant relief. “Let me do it. He’s not afraid of your threats, and that will take too long.”
“Dade, no!” Yaseke cried. He lunged to his feet, his hands clamped on the table. “Don’t do this to yourself anymore. You don’t have to.”
“But I do,” I said. A part of me even wanted to. I wanted to take that fear and twist the emotion, force it to grow and consume the evil man who had hurt me and my family. If that desire was wrong, then so be it. The retribution was worth it. “I said I would make you safe, and I meant it.”
For my part, I would feel no guilt. The guards’ fear meant nothing to me. I’d live with the stigma of my ability to be able to make everyone safe.
Seral whispered in Modoalm’s ear, and the Toleral nodded once.
“Can you control it?” Seral asked.
The Vlrsessiums had died under the weight of my ability as it burst out of me the first time, but the humans at the compound had been different. I’d ramped up the fear and hate, not all at once, but in a steady rise until it was too much for them. I could control my ability and do the same thing this time. Besides, if the fucker died, we’d figure out another way to find out if there were other humans hiding on Caeorleia.
“Yes.” I turned to Yaseke. “I need you to go. You can’t see this.”
He shook his head. “No. No, Dade. If you are going to do this to protect me, then I will witness this.”
I didn’t want him there, but I couldn’t ask the guards to force him out of the chamber, either.
“I saw you before, remember, with the Vlrsessiums? I know what you can do.” This wasn’t the same thing, but we couldn’t waste any more time arguing.
“So be it.” I walked around Buphet’s chair. At least I didn’t have to touch him for this. That made me wonder if I really had to touch him to feel his emotions, either. I put that thought aside for another time.
“What? What are you… no!” Buphet fought against his bonds, but he couldn’t get free. He slammed his eyes shut.
“Could you help me?” The guard I asked grimaced, but he nodded. “Open his eyes. Secure them open.”
Buphet was cursing and struggling, but he couldn’t stop the guard from forcing his eyes wide open. I stared into those yellow orbs, seeking his emotions. This time I wanted to feel his fear. It had grown but not enough. I focused on feeling that fear, then slowly, so slowly, fed it. Buphet had an odd confidence to him that I couldn’t understand—he was a prisoner and under a death sentence—but it was washed away as I worked.
I leaned forward. “You’re alone, and no one will save you,” I hissed. “You’re going to die for what you’ve done, betraying your family, your Toleral, your entire species.”
He began to shake.
“Once we have defeated the humans, no one will remember your name. You are an outcast and will be known only as a traitor.” It was a punishment the power-hungry man deserved. My words sent his rage flaring higher, but I harnessed that energy and fed it into his fear, consuming the anger and strengthening my hold on him. The rest of the room faded until all I knew were his yellow eyes and the fear that grew and fed on his mind like a living entity.
“No,” Buphet whimpered. “Stop, please.”
Fear was the cornerstone of Buphet’s psyche. I could feel it now, could sense why the man buried the emotion. A driving need for dominance demanded he succeed at any cost. Rage at those who thwarted him, jealousy of others’ power, covetous weakness… it all hid his fear of failure.
“No one can help you now. I control this. I control you. I could make it so that you feel only this fear for the rest of your short, miserable life. You won’t die, but you’ll wish you could.”
Buphet began to babble and beg. Tears streamed down his face as he gasped for air and spilled everything he knew. “There is a ship here. They grounded it before the nano attack. Stop it, please! There are more humans there, with weapons. I don’t know what their plan is. I-I don’t know how many. P-please!”
“Where is it?”
He shook his head. I twisted his fear tighter, and he began to hyperventilate.
“Where is it?” I demanded.
“I don’t know!” Buphet jerked against his bio net. “I d-don’t… I don’t know! I s-swear!” He sobbed.
I snarled. “I don’t believe you.” He’d answer my questions, or he would learn how fear could burn him from the inside out. I grabbed the arms of Buphet’s chair, leaning over him.
“Dade.” The voice was faint.
I shook my head and sharpened Buphet’s fear into a knife—a knife I’d thrust straight into his heart.
“Dade, look at me.” It was stronger now, closer.
A hand on my arm sent a shockwave through me. I’d been lost in the connection I’d made with Buphet. The touch broke my concentration, and I lost control.
Buphet screamed. The smell of piss filled the air.
Hands tore me away from his chair. Yaseke yanked my face toward his. “Dade!”
I didn’t fight him, but I clamped my eyes shut, squeezing them as hard as I could.
“Control it, shut it down.”
“I-I….”
“You can do it. Look at me.”
I shook my head.
“I’m not afraid, Dade, you can look at me.”
Those cool hands cupped my cheeks softly. I wanted to believe Yaseke, but who wouldn’t be afraid of me after seeing the way I’d just tortured Buphet? My breath came in short pants as I suffered some of the fear I’d forced onto the traitorous asheksi.
“Look at me.” Yaseke’s voice was implacable.
I swallowed hard. I lifted my trembling hands, placing them over his. I didn’t want to cause him a moment of distress. He trusted me not to hurt him.
The warm amber eyes I saw when I finally forced myself to look were nothing like Buphet’s. These were crystal clear, full of
love, but I saw his pain and the tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Yaseke.” I reached for him.
“Hush.” He pulled me close. I leaned against him, bending to bury my face against the bare skin of his shoulder. His soothing hum vibrated my shypsoid bone soothingly. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.
“Come on.” Yaseke began walking backward. I couldn’t stand to see the looks everyone would give me, so I let him guide me out of the chaos of that room without lifting my head.
Dade needed him. Yaseke could see how lost he was inside his own head. Watching him stand there in front of Buphet and bring the male to the brink of madness had disturbed Yaseke. He couldn’t deny that. Not because he believed that Dade would ever misuse his ability, but because the humans had wished to wield that kind of power when they gave it to him turns before.
If the doctors knew they’d succeeded that day…. He shuddered.
Yaseke would not allow Dade to be broken that way. He had the ability, nothing could change that, but using it was tearing him apart. For all his strength and experience, a guard who would constantly be forced to use his ability was the last thing his isit needed to become. Yaseke would help find something else for Dade to do, or they would take Pira and Maerit and leave the residence.
But for now, Yaseke needed to get Dade out of his head. He led him slowly down the hall toward Dade’s old suite. Only Fieo and Nicklaus were there now, but it would be secure. Witani had offered to stay all day when Yaseke had asked her to watch the young.
Yaseke had taken her up on the offer but didn’t tell Dade. He figured they’d need some time to be alone after seeing the asheksi.
Yaseke pressed the button on the pad outside Nicklaus’ suite. He rubbed Dade’s back while they waited for the door to open, ignoring the guard standing in the hall who wouldn’t look at them.
“Oh my God.” Nicklaus had on a pair of shorts, and his short, red hair was tousled. His eyes widened and he stared at Dade. “What happened?”
Dade lifted his head from Yaseke’s, but he didn’t speak. Yaseke patted his back. “We need to use Dade’s old room. Is that okay?”
Adverse Effects Page 24
