Terrible damn timing. That’s what this was.
Once I was sure no one else was outside the door, or even on this floor, I slipped into the hallway, leaving Nix behind.
4
Destiny
I heard his quick footsteps toward the closed door and his nearly silent cursing. He could not follow. Too many patrols on the lower levels of the building. He was not a cleric. Not one of us. Well, I wasn’t really one either, but after all this time in hiding, pretending to be one, I felt like I’d earned the title. Besides, he had no uniform and would stand out—not only because he looked like a sex god on long, muscled legs, but he was dressed like a queen’s guardsman.
I moved like a shadow and slipped into another room within seconds, the door unlocked. It closed behind me without so much as a whisper of sound.
Crazy caveman. Despite the risks of not leaving the way he snuck in, through the window and down the trellis, I heard him open the elder’s door and step into the hallway. Too late. I was gone. Twenty doors on this floor alone. He’d have to check them all if he wanted to find me, and I was already through a servant’s small side door in the adjoining room. He could either take his chances with the patrols that came randomly on the lower floors, or escape out the window and back down the vines.
Not my problem. Nix was a big boy… all over. He let himself in. He could let himself out, too.
With a grin, I disappeared into the shadows to make my way back to my quarters. I’d rather risk being caught here than try to get away from the possessive male I’d left behind. No doubt if he got his hands on me, he’d most likely toss me over his broad shoulder and carry me back to the palace.
He might get caught, but if he pulled that mate stuff with the guards, they’d probably let him go. His cock hadn’t gone down at all after our little sexy bout of fucking, so that would be all the proof they’d need. And, if he did get me over his shoulder, my Ardor would most likely start up again, and I’d want to bite his ass instead of kicking it.
Fortunately, I was new enough to claim getting lost if I were caught out here, alone. And I didn’t want to argue with Nix, nor try to fight him. For some perverse reason, the thought of hurting him was horrifying to me. And he’d fight. Argue, until he did actually toss me over his shoulder like Leo had with Trinity. So, I’d take my chances on the inside. If I were caught on the upper floors, I’d just say I got lost.
I wasn’t in the elder’s office. I was out roaming. I’d have to figure out how to explain that one, and I might get extra kitchen duty, but they didn’t kill people for wandering at night. And Elder Amandine was on my side, although she just didn’t know it. She’d ordered ‘all force necessary,’ but not with me.
My mind returned to thoughts of Nix. His scent, the feel of his cock, even the growl of his voice. Man, he had to be pissed. I had no doubt he’d be beside himself with… fury that I’d slipped away. Perhaps he’d expected me to just docilely follow him since he’d soothed my Ardor a little. But no. I didn’t need him. His cock would come in handy now and again until this Ardor was all gone, but I had a mission to complete and he’d just have to deal. So would my pussy. I just had to hope he wouldn’t be too pissed when I saw him again. And that my pussy could survive without him inside me.
I had a job to do. Find Mom. Chicks before dicks and all that.
Moving like a shadow, I made my way to the lowest level, found the laundry room, grabbed an initiate’s formal robe, put it on over my sex-stained uniform and quietly slipped into the back of one of the chanting sessions. Ten minutes later, I had a firm alibi for the evening as multiple other initiates and clerics wished me a good night once the session was over. I’d been seen. That was all I wanted.
Tomorrow, I’d tail Crayden and find out who the elder’s contact was inside the Optimus Unit. I needed to get into the place called Cell Level C, or at least find the thing. I’d have to alert Trinity, of course. Just in case I didn’t make it back out. At least that way she could send in the Neanderthals to follow up on the lead.
I made it to my room and literally passed out, a smile on my face, my pussy sore and aching.
Visions of Nix swirled like sugarplums in my head. The scent of him eddied around me. God, I smelled of sex and hot Aleran male.
Dangerous, deadly, Nix.
I wanted more. Did I ever.
* * *
Morning reminders were cut short the next day, the elder cleric distracted in a way I doubted anyone else noticed. As always, Crayden and another guard stood at her back, keeping watch on the crazy, chanting clerics.
If anyone in this room was capable of the patience and political skill required to pull off a three decades’ long coup and chase my mother across the galaxy, I would eat my boots. No way. Nothing here but children playing in grown up clothes, waiting to be told what to do. I mean, chanting? How was that going to save the world? It might as well have been Kumbaya. I sighed. But, they’d been around for eons, and as far as I knew of Aleran history, Mom was the only queen to have had ‘problems’.
When Crayden exited the room through a small rear door, I followed, keeping to the edges, moving like a shadow myself. Adrenaline pumped through my body, and with the fresh supply of energy I’d sucked off Nix like a vampire last night, I felt better than I had in days. I hadn’t exactly sucked anything from him, but I started thinking about what I could suck on him. Yet, I felt good. Revived, better since I’d arrived on this planet.
But the hunger was building again. I could feel it at the base of my spine, an ache that would become a burn, then stabbing pain. The pressure behind my eyeballs would increase until it hurt to see. My head would pound. My skin would hurt. Ache. My clit would throb with the need to come, but not be assuaged. Oh, I’d tried with my hand, and while I’d come, it had done nothing to soothe me. It had only made it worse. And now, I knew what I could have, and I began to hunger for a specific touch and heat. Dammit, it was all him.
I felt odd. Alien. For the first time in my life, I had to come to grips with the fact that I was not completely human, and that was a mind trip all its own. Earth was only half of me. A damn good half, but only half. And despite being told for years, hell, my whole life, hearing it from my mother and knowing I was not ‘Earth’ normal were two different things.
The Ardor wasn’t finished with me yet. And since I’d had a few hours of relief from a few incredible male-given orgasms, I was not eager to go back to where I’d been before Nix. I could go back to Plan A, which was a consort at the palace, but the thought made me cringe. Just, no. I didn’t want a complete stranger getting anywhere near me with his cock.
Nix had been a complete stranger, too, if I was going to get technical, and he’d gotten more than just near me with his cock. He’d gotten in me. In me so deep I hadn’t known where I ended and he began. But my pussy was not interested in technicalities. And neither, apparently, was the rest of me. Too bad. No more naughty time until we had Mom back, and I could keep Nix inside me for a week. Work now, sexy times later.
“Suck it up, Princess,” I scolded myself and slipped through the door into a very dark, very quiet tunnel behind Crayden I’d never seen before. It was cool, every surface—floor, walls, ceiling—made of a smooth gray and pink stone. The sensation of being underground was strong, but I knew that was not the case. Still, I wondered how much stone was in the arches over my head to create the deep quiet I’d only ever experienced below ground on Earth.
Once the door slid shut behind me, I closed my eyes and listened with my new bat hearing. I didn’t know exactly what the citadel had done to my sisters, but Mom had told us about the royal ‘gifts’. Seeing things no one else could see. Speed. Brain power. Fighting skills. Psychic stuff that would give us an edge over the general population. Nothing crazy. We weren’t like Wonder Woman or anything, according to her. Just… more. And I had to admit this super-powerful, vampire level hearing had come in very, very handy.
I used it now, focused like I’d practiced du
ring all those meditation sessions. I’d gotten pretty good, able to focus on one beating heart in the room over all the others, then move on to the next. Listen to that heartbeat while I listened to the kitchen staff talk about dinner on the floor beneath us. All that meditation and focusing had worked wonders, and I could control it most of the time, as long as I wasn’t freaked out or I wasn’t in too much of a hurry. I zeroed in on what I needed and heard the soft sound of Crayden’s feet as he moved steadily away on my right.
Moving that way, I followed. Lost the sound. Heard muffled grunts.
Fighting? I knew the sound of hand-to-hand combat. Of fists striking flesh. Of kicks landing solidly on an opponent’s back or thighs.
Running now, I kept going and going and going. Crayden had been fast, dammit. And a lot farther ahead of me than I’d given him credit for. And, my hearing was better than I’d ever imagined.
I was out of breath when I reached another door. I pushed it open and blinked at the bright daylight. The tunnel led to a large park within the fortress. Tall trees, bushes and trails for walking surrounded the area. And this one was used fairly often, a gathering place for initiates, when the weather wasn’t blistering cold. After being in the tunnel, I rubbed my arms against the chill. It hadn’t been cold in the city, but up here in the mountains. God, I was ready for a Hawaiian vacation.
I caught sight of steam, which rose oddly from the ground behind a short bush. I walked around the corner to find that it wasn’t steam… exactly. Crayden lay sprawled on the hard ground in a pool of blood, the cold air causing the soft wisps of heat to rise from the pools of hot red liquid like fog from a stream.
I winced and looked away. “Shit.” I didn’t need to feel for a pulse to know he was good and dead, the slice across his throat big enough to take down a lion, let alone a man. Still, I went over to him and knelt, blood soaking through the knees of my pants, coating my palms as I felt around for a pulse, tried to officially determine if he was well and truly gone. Beyond saving.
Nothing. The ReGen wands and pods they had out here in space were amazing, but dead was dead. And Crayden was gone. I had no idea how a pod could heal having his carotids severed.
I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to listen again, to find the sound of someone running away. Breathing hard. Or laughing. Anything. All I needed was a noise, a direction to go. Something.
A scream sounded at a distance. Then another. The pounding of at least a dozen feet. Shouts.
I stood slowly, paralyzed for a few heartbeats, anger beating inside me. They were ruining everything. A fleeing killer was lost in all the racket.
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
I couldn’t hear a damn thing with them all carrying on like panicked idiots. The murderer was going to get away.
A hand closed around my upper arm, a big hand. My heart leapt into my throat. My instinct was to spin around, karate chop him in self-defense. Do anything to keep my head attached to my body. The instinct was there, but for a split second, I thought it might be Nix.
Whipping my head around, I looked up into the eyes of a fortress guard. My hand flew to my chest as I tried to calm down.
“Are you all right?” His gaze looked me over, then scanned the area, as if the killer may still be about. “Did you see anything?”
I shook my head, held my hands out in front of me, saw the blood covering them. “No. God, the poor man. I came out of the fortress and found him like this.”
The guard looked up and around the walls of the building. “I’ve been on patrol. You didn’t see or hear anything?”
“Did you?” I countered.
The guard frowned, staring down at me like I was a child. “Cleric Crayden exited. I saw him when he stepped out. He does this often and we see him here after morning meditation and reminders, so I thought nothing of it.”
He spoke into his comms unit, announcing the murder and requesting backup and a sweep of the area.
“You saw him get killed then?” I asked when he was done, wiping my hands on my pants, leaving streaks of damp.
He shook his head. “No. I walk patrol along the top turret on the south corner. I saw him, walked around, and when I came back to this side, I saw you exit and kneel down. It was then I saw his body. You are the one who had an opportunity to witness the killing. Or hear it.”
He didn’t say I’d done it. If he suspected me, we wouldn’t be standing about, idly chit chatting. “Did you see anyone? Hear voices? The sounds of a fight?”
I had, but nothing useful. “From the tunnel I heard muffled noises, like fighting, but no talking. I ran this way, but when I came out the door, he was dead and alone.”
His frown told me in no uncertain terms that he was not satisfied with my answer. It wasn’t thorough, but again, I wasn’t in handcuffs. “I’m sure Elder Amandine will want to speak with you.”
Other guards appeared, knelt before the body.
“As will the rest of her guard,” he continued. With the body attended to, he continued, “Come with me.”
“But—“
“I said, come. Now.” He pulled me, none too gently away from the guards and Crayden’s dead body. The concern I’d first seen in his eyes completely gone, replaced with resolve and anger. I couldn’t blame him. I’d followed Crayden out of the building and now had his blood all over me. It didn’t look very good.
“I don’t know anything,” I insisted.
He ignored me and pulled. I curled my bloodied hands into fists and walked with him. I had nothing to hide.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but I had nothing to hide in regards to this murder.
Thank god this guy had seen me the moment I walked outside. If not, I’d have to call Trinity and beg for royal intervention. I wasn’t sure what the clerical order did to cold-blooded murderers, but if they executed someone for walking into the elder’s office without permission, I knew I didn’t want to find out.
And since the clerics ran the Optimus units, the legal side of things on Alera, I didn’t want to get locked in a cell before I could break Mom out of hers. Although, I could end up on Cell Level C, but this wasn’t the way I’d considered getting in there.
Who had killed Crayden? And why? Because he was digging around on behalf of Elder Amandine? If so, she’d just given him his orders last night. That was awfully fast for things to move from zero to murder. Because he knew something and had to be eliminated like it seemed everyone else I’d heard about on the news? Lord and Lady Jax, Lord Wyse. Had Crayden been next?
If so, then perhaps I was closer to the truth than I’d ever thought.
The guard pulled me along until I was in the very same office I’d been hiding in the night before. He pushed me down into the chair opposite the elder female, and I stared at the caked blood on my hands. Crayden was dead. I was pretty sure he was one of the good guys, so that really stunk. Or had he been? Had he been like a double agent, working for the bad guys and cozying up to Elder Amandine?
God, so many questions. And zero answers.
The guard updated Elder Amandine on what had happened. When he announced Crayden had been murdered, her lips pursed and her cheeks went pale, but she gave no other outward response.
When he was done, her gaze turned to me. “What were you doing this morning, Initiate? Why were you in the elder tunnels? Those areas are restricted to my personal guard.”
Oh, shit. The elder did not sound amused. She’d really freak if she knew what I’d been doing with Nix up against the corner right behind me. And also in the other room.
I crossed my legs, looked up and tried not to blush as memories flooded me, memories of Nix’s hard cock, my orgasms, the hot sex I’d stolen from him in this very room just a few hours ago. Staring into the elder’s eyes was like trying to lie to a very wise grandmother—or at least that’s how I imagined it.
Still, I was a princess. And now, thanks to that very same midnight escapade and overhearing her conversation with Crayden, I was confident that
this woman was firmly on my mother’s side of things. Loyal to Queen Celene. Which meant loyal to my sisters.
And me.
We could use a few more allies. And I was tired of chanting and praying and sneaking around. That was soooooo not my style. I was more the smash and grab type.
“Young woman, you will answer me. Now.”
Oh, yes. Total pissed off mom voice. If she knew all three of my names, no doubt she’d be scolding me with every syllable right now.
“All right, but just a moment. I need to make sure we are truly alone,” I said.
“I dismissed my guard. I assure you—”
I held up my hand, pointer finger up in the just a minute signal as I rose slowly and walked along the walls in her inner office, listening. Listening.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Checking. Please, don’t make any noise. Just for a couple moments. I know there are no guards nearby. Which was foolish of you, by the way.” The Aleran language flew off my tongue easily, as it had for as long as I could remember. But I saw her eyes narrow at my implied threat.
“I may look helpless, child, but I am far from it,” she scolded.
That made me grin. “Same.”
Perhaps out of sheer curiosity, she watched me silently as I continued my journey around her office. I was less concerned with the outer rooms, as she and Crayden had spoken quietly. No, if someone had a listening device in here, it would be close to her desk. As close as they could get.
When I had circled the room, I asked her to stand. Looking annoyed, she did and I walked around her desk at a snail’s pace.
There. A buzzing so slight the bee making it would have been the size of a grain of sand. But I could hear it. Freaking amazing. I could hear everything. And the more I used it, the better I got at controlling what came into my head and what didn’t.
Sliding my fingernail beneath what looked like a natural whorl in the wood-like surface, I lifted a flake from the bottom edge of her desktop, midway between her chair and the desk’s corner. I began to peel the glue flake from the back of the small transmitter, but her wrinkled hand wrapped around my fingers and I looked up to see her shaking her head.
Ascension Saga, Book 7: Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga Page 4
