She stared at me unblinkingly for a long moment, then nodded curtly. “My name is…Lyrie.”
No missing the hesitation in her voice, as if the name was unfamiliar on her tongue.
Her chin lifted. “I’m with the Resistance.”
The words were thrown out proudly, almost a challenge, but as I shuffled the few steps across the cell, she flinched. Then she squared her shoulders, her nostrils flaring, her lips clamped together as she faced me fiercely.
The knowledge hit me with a visceral punch; she expected me to strike her.
Instead, I extended my hand, waiting for her to reciprocate. When she did, I turned my wrist, bowed, and pressed my lips to her scabbed knuckles. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Lyrie.”
She snatched her hand back, clenching it. Her gaze traveled from me to her fist. “How did you—” she bit at her lips, holding back whatever she’d been going to say. “And your allegiance?”
“Told you. I’m a merc. Guns, fangs, and claws for hire. Until recently, to the Regime.”
She shook her head. “That’s your employer. Not your allegiance.”
“You’re suggesting I don’t give my loyalty to my employer?”
“Given who your employer is, I hope not. And considering your state, I assume not.” She nodded at the gash on my forehead. “You should clean that up. Infection runs rampant in this shit hole.”
“It’ll heal soon enough.”
“Here.” She awkwardly ripped a piece of fabric from her tattered tunic with one hand. “Did the guard give you water? At least wipe the worst of the blood away.” She gestured impatiently with the rag as I didn’t take it. “Don’t expect me to do it for you.”
“I’m Felidaekin. It’ll heal itself.” Gods knew why I felt compelled to share the fact with her. Maybe I was just trying to reassure myself, given how long the damn process was taking lately.
She took a step back, brought up short by the jagged rock wall. “Cat shifter? Really?” Somehow, her words held more curiosity than the alarm I half-expected.
“Well, I’d offer to show you, but I’m not really in top form at the moment.” I waved a hand down my naked torso, the bruises shining through prison muck.
“How did they take you down?” Her interest quickened. “I’d…heard you were invincible?” She made an odd noise in her throat, something between a chuckle and a snort. “There again, I also thought you were a dream or something.”
“I’m sure some women consider me a dream,” I couldn’t resist the line, though the situation sure as hell wasn’t conducive to flirting. Still, it could be my last chance. Ever. Scoping for opportunity was habit, second nature to any jag. Apparently, it didn’t matter how beat-up I was.
She scowled. “Myth would’ve been a better word choice. Why aren’t you healed, if you’re a shifter?”
Clearly, she had no intention of being won over by my tongue. Which was fine, as my tongue had no intention of going anywhere near her filthy, gaunt form, and I had neither the interest nor the energy to do anything beyond making a bit of desultory conversation, anyway. My head throbbed, and one of my ribs was definitely broken, jabbing into my skin.
That sucker was going to be an issue when I shifted. I’d been shifting for nearly twenty years, since I was a teen, and it still hurt every damn time. My Cheetahkin form was about the same size and weight as my human form, but my muscles, bones and sinew had to crack and break to change position. I could only imagine what hell shifting was for Herc and Leo, who were even larger in their cat forms.
I waved a hand toward the prison hatch, the only opening in the windowless cell. My ears twitched as I made sure the curly-haired woman had moved away and no guard lurked to overhear my confession. No need for them to know they were succeeding in keeping me subdued. “Maybe because those bastards keep shooting darts through that damn door. Crap litters the floor like dead stingers, but they eventually get me with one or two.”
“Penner,” she breathed.
“Huh?’
“The drug they’re darting you with. It’ll be Penner. Are you getting side effects?”
I shrugged, then decided I really needed to sit again, fairly quickly. “At the moment, I wouldn’t know what’s a side effect from their drugs and what comes from getting kicked in the head when I’m unconscious.”
She edged closer and used the rag to dab at my forehead, like smearing the blood around was preferable to letting it run free. Or maybe she was trying to staunch the flow because the cell now reeked of the iron tang of blood. Even though she lacked my feline senses, it’d have to be offending her nose.
As she clumsily pressed the wound, I reared back, shoving reflexively at her. My hand caught her left arm, still braced across her stomach, and she gasped, staggering back. Her face paled, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead.
Ignoring the pain, I leapt to my feet and reached for her, grasping her shoulders and steadying her as it looked like she’d fall.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds, sucking in ragged breaths. When she seemed to have regained some control, I took her left wrist, gently this time. “Let me see.”
I expected to shift her arm and uncover bruising or something similar on her stomach, given her tattered, beaten appearance. But as my fingers closed around her forearm, her right hand shoved against me, surprisingly strong. “Don’t move it.”
“It?”
“My arm.”
My fingers tracking lightly up her arm, I realized why. Hidden beneath the sleeve of her tunic, the limb was swollen, yet I could feel the bone beneath the ballooned flesh. Or more correctly, I could feel the pieces of bone. “Broken?”
She nodded.
“How?”
She rolled her eyes, a quick, humorless grin quirking her lips “Would you believe I slipped and fell on the way here?”
Sudden anger surged through me, the rush of adrenalin spiking my own pain. Bastards. Even if she was a Resistance sympathizer, what could this woman have ever done to deserve such treatment? That settled it. When I got out, Lyrie was getting the hell out, too.
“Sit,” I said, gesturing at my hard bunk.
She looked from it to me for a moment, as though she’d refuse, then gave a jerky nod. I noticed she lowered herself as carefully as I had, giving away hidden injuries.
I grunted with disgust as I peeled her sleeve back.
She glanced at her distorted arm, then fixed her gaze on the wall beyond my shoulder. “Looks worse than it feels.”
“I doubt that.”
“They just shot me up with pain killers. Doesn’t hurt now. Not unless someone grabs it, anyway.”
“Then while it doesn’t hurt, I’m going to bind it.”
A premonition of pain flashed across her face. “I’m pretty sure that’ll equate to someone grabbing it.”
“Can’t be helped. You want it to set straight, right?”
She took a deep breath, blowing it out between pursed lips. “Not at all sure I want that, right now. But yeah, do it while I’m doped up.”
There wasn’t enough fabric left on her tunic to make a decent wrapping so, concentrating so hard my shoulders shook, I forced my claws from the ends of my fingers, slashing at the fabric of my shirt, which I’d been using as a pillow.
Lyrie never took her eyes off me, a frown marking her forehead as she watched my claws, almost unblinkingly. “Gods, if I had weapons like that…”
“You’d likely be in the same position as I’m in right now,” I finished for her. “This is not a great place to be a cat shifter.”
“There are better places?”
I knelt before her, hiding my own wince. “Plenty.”
“Tell me.”
I figured she was talking to distract herself, though as I bound her arm, her questions stopped, her teeth embedded in her lower lip.
“Aaidar, for one,” I said, winding the fabric.
“That’s—” she broke off, shaking her head, so I picked up the conver
sation.
“That’s where I’m from. Plenty of cat shifters. And other kinds, too.” I rattled off a load of the different shifters, heaping shit on the more pathetic varieties like honey badgers, as I tried to divert her.
By the time I’d finished, blood stained Lyrie’s lip and her teeth.
“Okay,” I wiped my hands on my camos, as though I could rid myself of the taint of her pain, then straightened slowly, every muscle aching. “Well, we’re a great pair, aren’t we? Hope you’ve got some awesome plan for how we’re busting out of here, Lyrie, because I’m not sure either of us will last too much longer.” Nor did I have the faintest idea why the Regime had suddenly decided I needed her company.
“Does anyone know you’re here?” Her tongue worked through the blood on her lip and she grimaced.
“Doubt it. The rest of my guys should be safe with the Resistance, now.”
“Rest of you? There are more shifters here? How many?”
“Five.” I winced as I remembered Spike’s death, days earlier, taken out by an armed drone. “Four, now.”
Her gaze rested on mine for a long moment, the green iris hazed by blood. “You lost one of your brothers? I’m sorry. But you said your guys have gone to the Resistance? You’ve chosen a side, then?”
I nodded, taking a seat beside her. Guess we both needed to grab whatever rest we could. “My alpha, Herc. He bonded with a Resistance sympathizer. She fled the compound, and he went after her. Sent word for the rest of us to follow.”
Lyrie jerked upright, twisting toward me. “Someone escaped the compound?” I frowned at her sudden eagerness, and she glanced away, lifting one shoulder. “I know some of the sympathizers here. Obviously. Just wondered who managed to get out.”
“A load of rebel—I mean, Resistance—prisoners got out. Led by a nurse from here. Maya. Do you know her?”
Lyrie was silent for a moment, then she nodded firmly. “I know of her. Now, this plan of yours to get us out.”
“Wish I had a plan, Lyrie. Unless the Resistance are likely to come looking for you, I’ve got nothing.”
She shook her head. “They don’t know I’m—”
She broke off as I held up a hand to silence her. Footsteps approached from far down the corridor. I moved to the grid in the door, scenting. Overlaying the mustiness of the underground corridor was a whiff of the merspice that our commanding officer—my former C.O., now, I suppose—wore by the bucket load, reeking like an expensive purchase-mate in an upmarket sleaze-easy.
A snarl curled my lip, and I prowled back to the bunk. “Smithton. And someone I don’t recognize.”
“General Hartlin, most likely.”
I’d sat close enough that I could feel the tremor run through Lyrie’s body as she spat the name. Hartlin had to be Janie’s estranged father, who’d sent troops after her and Leo.
Now I had names for those who’d caused her harm. Men who thought it permissible to beat up on a defenseless woman.
The hatch covering the grille slammed back, and Smithton peered in.
He stepped aside and another face appeared at the small opening. Purple eyes glared at me, then ranged to Lyrie before moving away.
“Hartlin,” Lyrie murmured.
I’d already figured that. Janie had the same striking feature.
Keys jangled and the door unlocked, the snub nose of a Teyraus rifle poking in before the guard appeared warily behind it, Hartlin and Smithton beyond him.
“I hope you appreciate that we’ve given you company, shifter,” Hartlin enunciated clearly, his back ramrod straight.
“I’d appreciate freedom somewhat more.” My eyes quickly assessed his uniform, the epaulettes on his shoulders. “General. I have a right to know on what charges I’ve been detained. Under what ordinance do you hold me?”
He moved his head minimally. “Think of it as an extended R&R break.” He clicked his fingers in Smithton’s face.
“Khal. Cheetahkin,” my C.O. supplied.
Hartlin barely nodded. “Consider it R&R, Khal. You’ve only one duty, here. As you can see, we’ve supplied you with a purchase-mate. Fortunately for you, she’s been held long enough that we’re certain she’s at the peak of her breeding cycle. She’s also been injected with hormones daily to ensure her fertility.”
I felt Lyrie tense beside me, her shoulders rolling forward as though she’d pounce on Hartlin. Yeah, right. Even I wouldn’t do that with both the armed guard and Smithton standing there.
Hartlin raked a hand through his peppered hair, his jaw ticking with anger. “You can thank the Resistance for your new duty. Their destruction of years of study and meticulous DNA analysis forces my hand, now. Where I would’ve chosen to proceed more cautiously, in fact, had experimented prudently, the loss of the research means we’re running out of time. I don’t have the luxury of replicating the experiments, which means now I’ll need an advanced specimen for tissue sampling, along with umbilical cord blood for gene replication, if the crossbreeding project proves successful. Your sole duty is to impregnate this…” his gaze swept Lyrie disdainfully. “This sample.”
Lyrie recoiled from me, as though she thought I’d actually pin her down and do it this second, right in front of whoever wanted to watch.
I jerked to my feet. “Hells, no.”
“In cat form,” Smithton interjected, his eyes darting from me to Lyrie, his fingers twitching like a centrian’s hairy little legs.
Disbelief made his words ring in my head, as the cold of the stone room seeped into my bones, dread oozing through my veins. It wasn’t possible for Felidaekin to mate with non-Felidaekin in cat form. Gods, it wasn’t right, never mind possible. I shook my head.
Hartlin said calmly, “I thought you might have reservations. Therefore, I’ve arranged for some persuasion.”
I snorted, and waved a hand down my bruised torso. “Haven’t you learned that doesn’t work?”
“Indeed. Accordingly, this time my men won’t touch you.”
I stiffened, my eyes sliding to Lyrie, but Hartlin shook his head. “Or her. We need the breeding stock.”
I frowned. Why would I care who else they tortured? I mean, sure, I didn’t want them to hurt anyone, but it was implausible they thought to persuade me with the faceless, nameless plight of some stranger.
Hartlin clicked his fingers again, and Smithton pressed the com in his ear, turning away slightly, as though that’d prevent me hearing him. Idiot.
“Do it now,” he said.
The door of the room vibrated as a guttural snarl curled around us, and I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears. Shock bowed my knees, and I dropped to the bunk as the blood rushed from my muscles.
Cheetahkin couldn’t roar. Instead, we snarled. The guys always ripped into me about it.
Almost all the guys.
Except one.
The impossibility screwed with my mind. Because I knew that snarl. I’d heard it so many times, though always in fierce anger, a battle challenge or thrilled bloodlust, compensating for the fact that, like me, he couldn’t roar.
But never had I heard the pain and fear that now rattled the solid door of my prison.
Only a puma growled like that.
And there was only one puma on this damned planet.
One dead puma.
Spike.
Chapter Three
Lyrie
“H e can fuck me,” I said as the cat’s snarl faded.
I took a strange satisfaction out of the collective gasps that rang through the room. What? Did they think I didn’t see the opportunity here?
Would’ve thought Khal was sharp enough to get it all on his own, though. I shrugged. Oh, well.
This wasn’t about him or me or getting pleasure out of this situation. This was about survival, not him or me or us.
And it sure wasn’t the first time I’d been asked to produce something others could harvest.
“I have a few conditions before I give my cooperation, however,” I
added in the ongoing silence.
Hartlin stiffened, his uniform tightening across his shoulders.
Hate didn’t even begin to describe my feelings for this man.
“You’re in no position to make demands,” he said, his nose nearly pointing toward the ceiling.
Gathering the few scraps of energy left inside me, I stalked toward him, enjoying how he flinched backward before holding himself still.
I was one puny human. Did he really think I could harm him?
Interesting that he feared me, however. Perhaps I could use this to my benefit in the future.
“I’ll fuck him three times a day, if that’s what it takes,” I said, then deepened my voice. “I know you want a produce this…Thing. As soon as possible. But you might remember I like to fight. And Khal will not find me easy.”
Hartlin swept his fingertip down the newly-formed scab on his cheek—a wound he’d received courtesy of me and a sharp piece of slate tile I chipped up off the floor. His curt nod was followed by a narrowing of his eyes. “Humor me. What are your demands?”
I inched closer to him and Smithton, whose eyes widened. His fingers tightened on his laser pistol’s grip, blanching as if he worried I’d snatch it from the holster, put it to his head, and blast his brains all over the nearest wall.
Not a bad idea, actually.
Tapping my chin, I acted like I was pondering possible requests. But they really didn’t need my cooperation to make this happen. They could pin me down and let Khal have me however and whenever he pleased.
Assuming Khal was that kind of guy.
He’d been nice to me. So far. But I’d long since learned to reserve judgment when it came to men. And the Regime.
“I want the cameras shut off in this room,” I said, glancing toward the nearest units placed strategically high in all four corners. I’d wiped shit on the ones in my room the first night they’d dumped me inside. They’d beaten me and tied me in the corner before they replaced the cameras, mounting them where I couldn’t reach.
Hartlin grunted. Not quite consent, but it wasn’t outright denial.
Smithton grumbled. Revealing himself as the true voyeur. Could’ve guessed it anyway, by the way he’d salivated when they stripped me, hosed me down, and then stuffed me into my Regime-sponsored prison outfit right after catching me and dragging me into the compound, weeks ago.
CAT SHIFTERS OF AAIDAR: ENSNARE: (A Sci-fi Alien Romance, Book 3) Page 2
