Defiler

by Cari Silverwood

  “You don’t?” His voice turned hard. “Well, don’t fucking move. You want Dassenze? Try this.” He poked at her asshole with his thumb tip and she felt him slowly enter her there, using her own moisture as well as her own bodyweight to force entry as she wriggled to get away.

  It was painful, then as he went farther and farther in, the sensations morphed into little ecstatic bursts that brought her to making half-choked groans.

  “This,” he declared, his thumb fully inside her. “Is nothing compared to how he would feel inside your ass. I promise you, he is far bigger.”

  “I...I get it. I’m not sure...” Her ass constricted down on him. When she tried to release her fingers from each other, Brask growled a “No,” and she desisted.

  Instead he lifted her whole body with that hand under her ass so she was balanced there with her toes off the ground. His other hand was wrapped under one armpit, also keeping her balanced and taking much of her weight. When he shifted his grip so his forearm was more beneath a thigh, she found he’d poised her, spread-legged above his cock.

  “Pull both your knees up high. Bend your legs up.”

  No human would be this strong. There was no shake in his grip, just the surety of a male who had her fully under his control. She lifted her legs.

  He let her down gradually, inch by inch until the head of his cock slipped into her entrance. Then he lowered her farther, penetrating, impaling, while his thumb took up far too much room inside her asshole. By the time he was all the way inside, she was panting and whimpering, her fingers wrapped tight about each other.

  Brask let out a groan also. “I might take you up there next time.”

  “No.” She shook her head, gulping. “What you’re using is enough.”

  “No?” He chuckled. “Put your hands on my shoulders and your feet down. You can ride me. Do it well enough and I won’t fuck your little ass.”

  That assignment was one she could do with pleasure.

  She rode up and down on his cock, so full at the end of each descent that she’d want to do it again and again, to shove herself back down onto him, to screw herself down. When she was almost incoherent and babbling words in no particular order, he began to play with her clit. She came jammed down on his cock, with his thumb inside her too, her head back and her gasping out swear words. Though Brask hadn’t come, he was clearly too impatient to fuck her ass because he shifted her onto her back and thrust into her, his shoulders ramming at the back of her legs. Her feet waved above her with each drive of his cock.

  When he was spent, when he’d come inside her and she was sprawled across the bunk bed wondering if her legs would ever function again, he sat and pulled her to him.

  “Why are you smiling like that?” he asked, as she tried to hide it by turning her face into his chest.

  Ah well. The teasing seemed safe now. “You didn’t fuck my ass.”

  He snorted. “Next time. I’ll write it down so I don’t forget.”

  As if he would. She snuggled into him, wondering how they’d get clean without people guessing. Oh hell, did it matter? Their situation came back to her. Today they might die.

  The truck hurried on through the morning, tires humming, grumbling. Through the canopy of the turret she spied the tops of trees whipping past.

  And if they somehow survived all this?

  What he’d said before, it’d made her scared of her own need for Dassenze. The things the two of us could do to you. Scared as well as wanting that illicit and maybe immoral thrill she got from each of them making her theirs, she figured it was worth it. She’d risk it all, her slightly unvirgin ass and all, just to be with both of them for a few brief minutes in the lifespan of this universe.

  Chapter 20

  The drive to Adelaide was unremarkable as far as encounters with Bak-lal were concerned. Dassenze watched a few fall under the wheel. These later versions seemed to have lost the intelligence he’d always seen in the clone soldiers. Most were barely converted, not fast, not smarter or stronger. What was this factory queen doing? She’d spent exceptional energy in making the ones that’d arrived at Yunta.

  Crazy, he reminded himself. She had gone insane in some ways.

  Which then reminded him of Ally and Willow. Both of them weren’t functioning well in the sanity department. One was behind him in the passenger seat of this cabin, with her bond mate, Rimmil, plus one other Igrakk warrior. With Steve concentrating on driving, she seemed able to handle the influx of his thoughts. Perhaps she could teach herself to filter out all thoughts? That she hadn’t in all the years of her life might be due to not trying. She’d been kept isolated.

  Her cousin was sitting above him, on the roof of the first trailer, like a demonic or angelic figurehead.

  When told she was there, Steve had laughed. The Australian truck driver had a sense of humor that transcended tragedy. It was good to see. If his charges couldn’t laugh and see the big picture, as these Earth people called it, they might fall into a macabre depression from which he couldn’t retrieve them. They needed some happiness to function. All creatures did.

  Even himself. Yet here he was, denying himself the one thing that’d become an obsession. Talia. That was funny too, in a stupid way. He had his reasons, but they were wearing thin.

  The city was on the horizon; houses were being passed. Abandoned cars and bikes and litter of every sort, including the dead, were strewn across the highway. Steve clunked down through the gears and they cruised onward, air brakes hissing, going slower so as to negotiate the mess. It wouldn’t do to have their wonderfully adapted truck get wrecked or bogged down by some unexpected obstacle.

  “Still heading for the bank tower?” Steve asked.

  He turned. “Ally? Is this where to go still?”

  The girl blinked wearily at him. “Yes,” she croaked out. “It’s what I remember.”

  Pain lines were stark on her face. Though Rimmil had been comforting her, a better cure would be strong drugs. She’d confessed to extreme headaches, but he couldn’t afford to have her heavily drugged. Human medications would do that to her. Though Ally understood, it was difficult for all who cared for her to watch her agony. At least Willow seemed more distant from whatever haunted her. The flashes of sadness that overwhelmed her had been coming less often. When they did hit Willow, Ally seemed to withdraw as well.

  Dassenze turned around again and stared out the smudged windshield.

  So much for his ultimate plan. If these witches were the answer to the Bak-lal invasion, they were probably all doomed. He shouldn’t give up yet, though. They had a whole lot of hours, surely? Ages and ages.

  He laughed to himself.

  The database with maps of the whole of Australia was one of the things he’d had from the start. It’d been crucial when they’d been aiming to track down the factory queen. So he knew what he was looking at – the bank tower.

  This close to the CBD, the roads were clogged with vehicles and everything from dropped toasters to magazines that fluttered in the breeze. Toasters? He frowned. The rear gunner began firing. Then the front gunner above them. The thung, thung, thung of the cry-steel seeded rounds could clear away whole buildings where they stuck. He prayed they’d take care. An undermined skyscraper falling on this truck would end them. The reason for the firing was clear when he checked. They’d come across twenty or thirty Bak-lal that were flinging themselves at the sides, trying to climb. Another two, a man and a woman, managed to clamber onto the hood and pound at the glass with a crowbar and a wrench. It’d been modified and was armored so he waited for the gunner above to shoot them.

  Steve didn’t flinch and kept driving. The man had balls of stone.

  A second later, there came a scythe of sound and a flicker of blackness and the two Bak-lal fell away, sliding facedown from the hood.

  Willow? Had she awakened her powers? It could only have been her. A small noise made him look back. Ally had curled into a ball on the seat. Though Rimmil whispered sweet words to h
er, she lay there sobbing until all of the Bak-lal were eliminated.

  What had he done? He’d pinned most of his hope for victory on these Earth witches.

  Nothing more blocked their passage to the towers.

  Every capital city in the country had been pored over during the past weeks as he’d tried to detect any sign a factory queen was buried beneath them. Every major structure was examined, and so he knew them all, blueprints, sewer lines, plumbing, structural design. Adelaide had been one of his main targets, though he’d found nothing. During the decades of her interment, she could’ve burrowed anywhere, as long as she did it carefully so as not to disrupt anything.

  He knew this building intimately. The shops beside the bank were few. An antique shop. The truck slid past its shattered windows. A pet shop – surprisingly intact. A booking office for the local railway, then the place he needed, the bank, made to be locked up with a vault beneath and solid walls and extra solid security glass and roll-down grills on entryways.

  He sat forward and pointed. “There, Steve. Stop here. I’ll open it.”

  Luck was with them for once, the underground car park for the bank staff would take the semi and the roll-down heavy mesh doors were still locked.

  The truck rumbled behind him as he walked to the lock. Preferable to unlock it rather than tear it open. The engineer came with him, along with one other warrior to provide extra support.

  Dassenze studied the street to either side. Empty. “Can you open it?”

  The engineer kneeled to look. “Yes. I believe so, Lord. One minute max.”

  He did it in thirty-two seconds. With the gate open, Dassenze waved the semitrailer in, then the three of them followed on foot.

  “Lock it so we can easily open it from this side.”

  The street was still empty, yet Ally had been sure this was close to her nest. Dangerously close perhaps, but they had such little time. If the estimates on flight time were off, the fleet could arrive earlier than predicted.

  “Something out there, Lord?” the engineer murmured.

  “No. Nothing. Come. You must rest, eat. We have a lot to do today.”

  “Yes.”

  Igrakks were implacable warriors yet he saw fear in the man’s eyes. He grasped his shoulder. “I will be with you on the battlefield today.”

  “Lord.” He nodded curtly.

  And that alone was enough to raise hope in the man. Hope was important but it was no use without a basis in reality. There had to be a way.

  Once he’d seen them all settled on the second floor, with the heavy doors sealed, the food had been brought out, and he’d ordered the engineer to open the sealed bank vault downstairs as soon as he’d eaten, he stood before them and waited for their attention to fall on him. Only Ally was elsewhere, in a distant room with Rimmil. Though the Bak-lal had been made alien, some of their thoughts wriggled through to her mind.

  He checked their number again. The five unmated warriors, as well as Steve, Jadd, Brittany, Talia, Brask, while Willow and Stom were off to the side near the window. She seemed to like looking outward or perhaps being locked in upset her? From his few past attempts to communicate, it didn’t seem likely he’d ever figure out what was going on in her head...or body.

  “I’m going out to reconnoiter. I don’t need anyone else. Stay here. Keep alert. When I return, we will plan how to attack this factory queen.”

  If he could find her. He was only person he could trust to come back alive and even he wasn’t invulnerable. It was why the Ascend were careful in combat. What if the Bak-lal obtained a tissue sample and somehow had more success at reproducing Ascend cells than they’d had during all their decades of trying? Unlikely, but not impossible. A cloned Ascend controlled by the Bak-lal would be a terrible thing to set loose upon the universe.

  He visited Ally and Rimmil before leaving, and entered the large office they’d taken over. Ally was lying on the sofa, peeking out through her fingers at him with Rimmil beside her, holding a cup and a plate of Igrakk military rations. Simple food, but filling.

  “How is she?” He smiled at Ally. The two of them together were almost an overdose of blondness. Ally’s hair seemed whiter each day, her eyes a paler gray though her face markings had darkened into feminine versions of Rimmil’s yellow – three thin grooves that underscored her cheekbones.

  “I’m good...better than I was,” she answered while Rimmil was still opening his mouth.

  “Good.” He walked over and kneeled before her. “Ally, I’ll be honest. Just neither of you say anything about what I’m going to reveal. Okay?”

  They both nodded.

  “I had planned to use all of you witches in this attack but truly...” He sucked in a breath. “I don’t see how anymore. I thought there’d be an obvious sign of some sort. I thought this very planet of yours was somehow responsible for you coming into your powers, but now, I admit, I’ve lost that hope.”

  Rimmil looked uncomfortable. “Lord, I don’t think you should lose that hope.”

  His mouth twitched as he considered answering that. “When we go, it will be without you, Ally, or the other females, though I must take Rimmil and all the bondmated warriors.”

  “Rimmil?” She glanced at him, her forehead creasing with worry lines.

  “I have to do my duty, Ally.”

  “Yes. We are this planet’s last chance.” If he excused the bond mates there’d be no one left to fight. He was down to nine warriors, four of them bond mates.

  He wouldn’t tell this couple of the imminent arrival of the Bak-lal fleet. He wouldn’t dash their dream of surviving. They might kill this queen yet still perish tomorrow. There would be many tens of thousands of Bak-lal soldiers borne in on the coming ships.

  “You’re right, I guess.” Ally stared at the floor. “More right than you know. I have a problem I’ve not told anyone about.”

  “Oh?” He tilted his head.

  “When I ported from that house, to escape? I lost the nerve chewers that were in me...all except one. I still have one in my head.”

  That brought a stunned silence. “You could’ve turned into a Bak-lal and you didn’t say?”

  “Lord.” Rimmil bowed his head. “Ally told me. It was my fault. I should’ve thought to tell you.”

  “Yes. You should.” All that time and it hadn’t moved, hadn’t changed her? That was unusual. “You’re certain it’s one?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I wish it weren’t. It even stayed in me after the second port. It’s chewing gives me headaches. Rimmil said it could be removed at one of your hospitals?”

  “Ahh.” He stood slowly, thinking. What difference did it make, now? None. “Yes, that’s true. It will be done. Thank you for telling me.”

  All this did was cement in place his decision. The witches were near worthless.

  His reconnoitering of the few square miles around the bank was fruitful at least. He found an entry to the factory queen’s nest. He squatted on the fourth floor of an overlooking building, watching.

  Now that she had no need for subterfuge, she’d ceased to be careful. In the middle of a nearby park, her soldiers emerged from a doorway to a restroom, one by one, and walked away while different ones entered. One tunnel. It would be suicide perhaps, but this was an entry into her subterranean base. Wherever it led to, he would fight his way to her brain pod and destroy her, or he would die with the others.

  He must keep Brask alive. With Talia left behind, it would be the best he could do for them. If they killed the queen, he’d take them off planet. One person he could carry. Then he’d come back for the other. There’d be orbiting satellites up there, circling this Earth. He looked up at the sky. Human ones. If he could somehow get to a manned one? The humans had one. The Bak-lal might miss seeing it.

  So many variables. Most of all, there was the crucial one – his belief that even if they killed this queen, their fleet would be harder to dislodge than a barbed sword sunk into flesh and bone. This Earth would bleed to death b
efore the Bak-lal let it go.

  Still, there was hope. Rimmil was right. He’d been right in what he told the engineer. He’d cling to that hope until his last breath.

  Until he reached a point a quarter mile from the bank and heard the shooting. Somehow the Bak-lal had found them. Small armaments only. Not the turrets but then the semitrailer was underground.

  Talia. Brask. He shook off the dread that fell upon him at the thought of their deaths, abandoned stealth, and launched into the air.

  The few seconds it took him to fly there were the most agonizing of his long life. His heart pumped ice.

  Below was the twenty-story building housing the bank. The Preyfinders had spilled out onto the streets and he could see why. Some huge creature, almost two stories high, stood in the center of the thoroughfare, with one foot on a partly crushed car, flailing at them. The front of the bank had been smashed open and from the length of the creature’s arms and the long cuts scoring along them, chances were it’d reached into the ripped open building to try and grab people.

  One Igrakk warrior lay crumpled on the pavement leaking darkness from his skull. No helmet. Of the warriors he could see, most were helmetless.

  Brask stood off to the side pouring rounds into the side of the thing.

  It was human, yes, he recognized that, just bigger, and somehow armored against most rounds. Cry-steel, they needed that – the turret guns or even the micro missiles. Someone with presence of mind was opening the underground car park. The door grills were rolling up. The hood of the truck showed, glinting white and chrome in a flicker of sunlight.

  The roars of the thing, the screams, the blam blam of weapons were loud enough to alert the factory queen and every bak-lal for miles. Yet none showed on a quick survey just before he slammed onto the creature’s shoulder, feet first. His feet sank into its flesh and blood spurted high.

  Nothing was allowed to hurt his people.

  He couldn’t use godly powers but he could damn well use his strength. Vows were being broken today. Any naysayers he’d condemn to the hot core of a sun.