Silent Lucidity

by Tiffany Roberts

  “Do you need to be reminded who is the employer and who is the employee?” Cullion said as he strode into her room with two of his bodyguards ahead of him and two more behind.

  “No, sir,” replied the foremost guard, a large, tan-skinned borian, “but you pay us to keep you safe. That means we need to get you to the hovercar out front and off the premises until we’ve cleared the building.”

  “I will not leave my most valuable pet behind while an intruder prowls my home.” Cullion turned his furious gaze to Abella as he approached her.

  She bowed her head, averted her gaze, and clasped her hands in front of her midsection.

  “Where is he?” Cullion demanded.

  “Gone,” Abella said.

  “You expect me to believe he just left?” Cullion caught her cheeks between his long fingers, digging his fingertips into her flesh, and forced her face toward his. He glared down at her, his long neck bending forward slightly. “Do not mistake me for a fool, you ungrateful wretch. The servants said he came in here for you.”

  Abella squeezed her hands together as his fingernails bit into her cheeks. No matter her reply, Cullion wouldn’t believe her. “He didn’t say anything while he was here.”

  It wasn’t a lie. The stranger had never said a word to her.

  The fury in Cullion’s eyes intensified. He didn’t look away from her when he spoke to his guards. “Search these quarters.”

  Cold dread filled Abella.

  The borian guard cleared his throat. “Sir, we need to evacuate—”

  Cullion turned toward the borian, silencing him with a glare. “I will not have street filth force me out of my own home! Find him and kill him, or you will have to explain to your superiors that you are personally responsible for the termination of my contract with Starforge.”

  No. Please. Please don’t find him.

  The words repeated over and over in her head. The stranger was her only hope, her only chance to be free, to leave this place—this planet—and get home.

  But how could the stranger evade Cullion’s security? There was nowhere to hide, only one exit, and he was outnumbered five to one.

  The other bodyguards—three vorgals—walked forward with their gunstocks against their shoulders, checking behind the couches, cushions, and gauzy, hanging cloths. The borian remained near Cullion, who forced Abella to her knees with a dismissive shove.

  She pressed her lips together against the jolt in her legs and the twinge in her back.

  Cullion slipped his fingers into her hair, seized a fistful of it, and pinned her head to his robed leg, allowing her neither to bend down into her normal submissive position nor straighten her back.

  She watched the guards from the corners of her eyes with her heart thundering in her chest.

  The vorgals stopped in front of the bathroom door. One of them kicked the door open with a crash, clearing the way for his companions to enter the room. The scene reminded her of the police movies she used to watch with her dad when she lived at home—his dental career hadn’t offered much excitement, so he seemed to have garnered vicarious thrills through such action movies.

  The memory made her chest constrict. Her disappearance must’ve crushed him. Was he okay? Were her mother and brothers okay? Were they still looking for her, or had they given up and assumed her dead?

  “Clear,” one of the guards called from within the bathroom. They reentered the main room, and all three relocated to the bedroom door.

  Abella tensed. Her tongue felt like it was suddenly made of sandpaper, and her breaths were too shallow to provide adequate air to her lungs. Cullion’s grip on her hair tightened.

  The bedroom door was opened a crack, but the room beyond was dark. The vorgals took their positions to either side of the doorway, and one reached forward, flattening his palm against the wood to push the door open. Soft light from the overhead holograms spilled into the room, creating a weak patch of illumination.

  Abella’s breath caught in her throat when two of the vorgals entered the bedroom and checked both sides of the doorway. Her speeding heartbeat drowned out all other sounds.

  With a choking grunt, one of the vorgals inside the room stumbled backward. Abella lost sight of the pair. The high, punchy sound of their guns firing punctuated their alarmed shouts, and the room lit up with the strobing glow cast by their shots. After only a few moments, the room went silent and dark.

  Cullion growled and thrust Abella aside. She caught herself on her hands and pushed back to her knees to stare at the open doorway.

  The borian had positioned himself in front of Cullion and stood with his rifle aimed toward the bedroom.

  “Gorok? Vrek?” called the vorgal who hadn’t entered the bedroom; his back was pressed against the wall beside the bedroom entrance.

  The only answer he received came in the form of three blaster shots. Abella jumped as plasma bolts burst through the wall behind the vorgal, all fired low; two caught him in the legs, and he fell toward the opening with a pained snarl.

  The stranger was suddenly in the doorway. He caught the falling vorgal from behind, looping an arm around his neck, and hefted him up, using the bulkier being as a shield. He peered over the vorgal’s shoulder with one black eye—not at his foes, but at Abella. Her breath quickened, and, shamefully, a rush of heat spread low in her belly. His stare was so bestial, so possessive, that she was more a slave to the stranger in that moment than she’d ever been to Cullion.

  “Shoot him,” Cullion shouted.

  “I’m not going to shoot my own man,” the borian replied.

  “I pay you. Your lives belong to me!” When the borian continued to hesitate, Cullion barked, “Shoot him now!”

  Releasing a frustrated shout, the borian fired his weapon. The bolts hit the wide-eyed vorgal in the chest; he was dead before he had the chance to make a sound.

  Despite the horrific scene unfolding before her, it was the stranger who held Abella’s attention. Moving faster than she thought possible for anyone—whether human or alien—he leapt aside a nanosecond before the gunfire struck the vorgal. A metallic flicker was the only indication of his wrist moving.

  An instant later, the borian hissed in pain and dropped his rifle. The grip of a knife protruded from his forearm.

  The stranger charged forward in another blaze of speed, leaping over a couch to slam his knee into the borian’s chest with all his weight behind the strike. Abella saw the stranger land atop the borian and press the barrel of his gun to the underside of the guard’s chin just before a wiry arm wrapped around her throat and tugged her up and backward. She bumped into Cullion’s chest, and he tightened his hold on her. She struggled against his grasp, fighting through the pain of another spasm in her lower back, but Cullion held her firmly against him.

  A single blaster shot went off. The stranger rose and turned his head toward Abella, but now he was looking past her, at Cullion, with his impossibly black eyes.

  “Stay back,” Cullion spat, body trembling. “Money, power, influence; whatever you want, I can give it to you. Just back away!”

  The stranger paused and dropped his blaster into its holster. His fingers curled, and his claws lengthened.

  Cullion tensed. “You. From the Twisted Nethers. You are the one who murdered Drok. The one who dared to touch my pet.” His voice lowered, turning into something closer to a growl. “All this for an animal? For this wretched, disobedient creature? If she is truly what you are after, I will kill her. It is my right as her owner.”

  The stranger took a step closer. Cullion staggered backward, dragging Abella with him and strengthening his grasp. She grunted and clenched her jaw, nostrils flaring as her airflow was cut off.

  Hell no, she thought. Not now, not like this. Not when freedom is so close.

  A fire flared in her chest. She would not be brought low. She would not die at the hands of this foul being who’d used and abused her for the last four years. She would not die here, and she refused to spend another
second as his pet. She’d not let all her suffering be for nothing.

  Fury like Abella had never felt swept through her. She bared her teeth and raised her hands, bent her fingers like talons, and raked them across his face. He started with a gasp, his hold on her loosening enough for her to turn and press her attack. She screamed, releasing all her pain, anger, and grief as she scratched at his flesh.

  He extended his arms to shield his face from her strikes, but Abella as faster. She thrust her hands past his defenses and gripped the sides of his head, jamming her thumbs into his cruel, beady eyes. He yelled and swatted her arms away, but not before one of her nails punctured his eye.

  Cullion shrieked. One of his flailing arms struck Abella’s head; it was a glancing blow, but it gave him an opportunity to grab a fistful of her hair. He raised his other hand to join the first, and, using his greater weight, swung her around and forced her backward.

  Her head struck the wall before her body did. Her vision blurred, and the room spun around her.

  Still shrieking, Cullion tugged her away from the wall and slammed her against it again. Abella’s vision went black for an instant. Her knees buckled, but he held her up by her hair, adding a fresh sting to her mounting pain. Blue blood oozed from Cullion’s eye, trickling over his pronounced cheek bone to stain his bared teeth. She grasped his forearms, desperate to break his hold, but she couldn’t find the strength.

  Darkness flowed in at the edges of her vision.

  No. Not here. Not now. Not him.

  The stranger appeared behind Cullion; her blurred vision granted him an ethereal visage, blending light and shadow to make him a deathly, avenging specter. He reached over Cullion’s shoulders, clamped his hands on the ertraxxan’s head, and wrenched it to the side.

  The skin of Cullion’s neck tore, spilling more blood, as the stranger twisted the ertraxxan’s head around until it faced backward. The series of wet, jarring cracks that accompanied the motion were some of the most horrifying—yet satisfying—sounds Abella had ever heard.

  Cullion’s hands, suddenly limp, fell away from her hair. The alien who’d owned Abella for four years, who’d kept her as his performing monkey, collapsed.

  Finally free.

  It was her last thought before the darkness claimed her.

  Tenthil stepped over the dead ertraxxan and bent forward, slipping his hands under the sagging terran’s arms to catch her before she fell. Her head lolled. Frowning, he swept her hair back from her face and examined her for injuries. Cullion’s blue blood had splattered on her face and chest and covered her hand, but as far as Tenthil could tell, she wasn’t bleeding herself. She did, however, have a lump on the back of her head, and her pallid complexion suggested she was exhausted.

  He clenched his teeth against a fresh wave of rage; he should’ve moved quicker, but he hadn’t wanted to risk harming her. He admired the fight she’d put up, but she’d made it difficult for Tenthil to get in a clean blow during her struggle with Cullion.

  Crouching, Tenthil laid the unconscious female over his left shoulder and looped his arm around her middle. He turned his face toward her, inhaled as her scent washed over him, and nuzzled his cheek against her side.

  He grappled for control as his muscles stiffened and his cock strained against his pants anew. Now was not the time, but his body didn’t seem to care. He needed to get her out of this place so he could tend her wounds; there were more Starforge personnel on the premises, and it was likely the Eternal Guard had been alerted by now.

  Only when she was safe—and healed—could he give in to his primal desires.

  Tenthil drew his blaster with his right hand, checked its charge, and stepped over the corpses to enter the bedroom. He dialed the weapon’s power to maximum; it emitted a high hum as its core heated. Turning his body sideways to shield the terran, he extended his arm and aimed the blaster at the wall behind the wide, low bed. His target was a large recess—he suspected it was a window that had been covered at some point.

  There wasn’t time to waste hoping he was correct.

  He turned his face away and squeezed the trigger. The blaster’s whine intensified into an undulating buzz. A second later, a massive burst of plasma erupted from the barrel. The room shook as the blast struck the wall with a deafening boom, filling the air with rubble, smoke, and dust.

  Tenthil waved the blaster in the air to clear away some of the acrid fumes as he turned toward the wall. The slowly dissipating smoke revealed a huge hole, nearly two meters in diameter, over the debris-laden bed, its edges glowing orange with super-heated metal and stone. The alleyway behind the manor was visible through the opening. He holstered the blaster; it was hot enough that he felt it through both his pants and the shielded holster.

  Gently, he slid the human off his shoulder and gathered her in his arms, clutching her against his chest. He ran forward, hopped onto the bed, and leapt through the hole.

  His boot touched down atop the wall; he used that point of contact to thrust himself back toward the manor, landing in a crouch on the ground between the building and the barrier. He shifted the female over his shoulder again as he rose and drew his blaster. Working with one hand, he opened the breech, slid out the still-smoking power cell, and replaced it with a new one. A flick of his wrist snapped the breech shut.

  He dialed the output down to normal as he jogged along the three-meter-wide path. He and the terran needed to leave the sector as quickly as possible, and he knew of only one likely vehicle nearby.

  Turning at the outside corner, he hurried down the side of the manor toward its front yard. Only as he neared the next corner did he stop to carefully lower the terran, tucking her in the shadowed base of one of the recesses along the wall. Once she was sitting—unresponsive but breathing—he rounded the corner.

  Two guards stood beside the hovercar, their attention directed toward the manor’s front entrance.

  “Report team two,” said one of the guards. He was silent for several seconds; his expression falling, before he turned away and spat out a series of curses in his native vorgish tongue.

  “What does he mean they’re all dead?” the other guard demanded, turning to face his companion.

  Their distraction was the opening Tenthil needed. Keeping low, he crept forward, reaching the hovercar on the side opposite the guards. A few more steps brought him around to face them. He fired rapidly into the nearest guard’s back. Several of the plasma bolts pierced the first guard and hit the second; they both fell within a second, releasing abrupt, choking cries.

  Tenthil tugged open the hovercar’s rear driver-side door and was rounding the vehicle to return to the terran when he paused. There was a cage built onto the rear of the car. Any creature kept within would be on display to anyone nearby, like an animal in a menagerie.

  His stomach sank when he realized its likely use. He hurried back to the female and frowned down at her.

  Had she been forced to ride in that cage when Cullion traveled, exposed for the world to see, displayed as the property of a wealthy ertraxxan? He swallowed his anger; it would do no good now. Cullion was dead.

  Tenthil lifted her over his shoulder again. Her closeness renewed his awareness of her scent, and it took a surprising amount of willpower to ignore it.

  We must reach safety.

  He brought her to the car, checking behind him frequently over the short trip, and laid her across the back seat. He had no doubt that Cullion had reclined in comfort in the luxuriously furnished cab while the terran had been stuffed in the cage out back. Fresh rage flowed through Tenthil’s body, but he did not give it control. He gently shut the door and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Dipping a hand into one of the pouches on his belt, he removed a tiny disc the size of his fingertip and pressed it onto the control panel. With an electric crackle, the device activated. The hovercar’s display flashed an error, warning that the navigation network could not be accessed; the jammer was functional. The hovercar would be untrac
eable for three hours.

  That was more than enough time.

  He pulled back on the controls, guiding the hovercar upward, and angled it toward the nearest express tunnel. Without a backward glance, he engaged the throttle and sped away from Cullion’s manor.

  Even without the navigation equipment running, Tenthil knew the way back to his hoverbike; he followed an out-of-the-way, meandering route, watching for pursuit throughout. He landed the hovercar a kilometer away from the bike.

  The terran’s weight was slight, but carrying her through the sometimes cramped maintenance tunnels and catwalks he used to obscure his path and avoid prying eyes proved challenging. He had no desire to harm her further, meaning he was often forced to slow his pace.

  As time separated him from the events at the manor, the rational voice reemerged in the back of his mind, reminding him that there would be consequences for what he’d done. He cast it aside; his needs, at that moment, were simple—a safe location and equipment to tend to his terran—and required his full focus. Everything else could wait a while longer.

  When he reached the hoverbike, he turned the female toward him and sat her in front of him, leaning her against his chest. He hooked an arm around her torso to secure her in place and grasped the controls with one hand. She’d been unconscious for almost an hour, now; he knew enough about terran anatomy to kill one efficiently, but he wasn’t certain of their limits, tolerances, and normal functions—was this typical, or was it a bad sign? How easily did they suffer internal damage?

  How durable were they?

  Her head settled against his shoulder as they darted through another express tunnel, and he rested his cheek on her hair. It was soft, smooth, and fragrant, adding a floral note to her scent. If her closeness alone hadn’t been enough, her smell pushed him over the edge. His body demanded her, cock throbbing and balls aching. To have her here, in his hold, and be unable to do anything was maddening.

  Growling, he forced his attention back to the task at hand and twisted the throttle, making the hoverbike lurch forward with a fresh burst of speed.