Striker

by Lexi Ander

  "Nethus!" The male's rumble caused the water under them to ripple outward. "You drew blood in my waters. Explain yourself."

  Nethus, who looked rather the worse for the wear, waved a blue hand at the creature as he glared back at Nethus. "He attacked me. I simply defended myself." Bravado laced Nethus's answer, but he appeared just as frightened of the large male as Canry.

  "Attacked?" Those dark eyes took Zeus in. He felt as if he were being weighed and measured. "With what weapon? His blunt teeth or his clawless fingers? Tell me how endangered you were by Zeus, who is one hundred times more powerful on land than he will ever be in my sea? What possible threat does he pose to a son of Poseidon?" The blue of Nethus's skin lightened to a pale green. "Did you forget I hear all in the water? You allowed your jealousy to prod you into provoking Zeus when his only concern was for Canry's safety. Your actions caused a need that almost drew the whole of the Vondorian family into the waters. You are lucky I caught the parents before they followed their sons."

  Nethus screamed in fury, causing Zeus’s hackles to raise. Is this what Canry dealt with on a daily basis? "He must break all ties with his past in order to grab onto the future he is meant to have!"

  Poseidon frowned. Zeus knew paternal disappointment when he saw it. "You will work on your temper. I have misjudged your readiness to be a mentor. Canry's tutelage will pass to one of your more experienced brothers. His development is too important for this type of dissention."

  The coil of concern for Canry's safety eased somewhat at Poseidon's declaration.

  "No! You cannot!"

  "Nethus, the youngling's development is dependent upon his ties to all people of the water, even that of his birth family. When was the last time he visited with them?"

  "He spends some days with Shaneva." Nethus avoided Poseidon's gaze.

  "Canry." Those dark eyes switched from Nethus to Zeus and his brother. Zeus wanted to shield Canry, but the hold they were in kept him in place. Instead, he tightened his grasp on Canry, glaring in warning. Poseidon's thin lips quirked up at the corners. "No harm will come to him, youngling. I merely wish to question him." The compelling gaze slipped to Canry. "When last were you permitted on land?"

  Zeus knew the answer to the question. Never. Glancing at his brother, he met Canry's brilliant green gaze. He gave Canry an encouraging nod. "I am not allowed on land." Zeus wondered what Canry's guilty glance at Nethus meant. Why would Canry want to protect that rude, foul-tempered male? Even if the defeated slump to Nethus's shoulders and now-mottled skin looked rather pathetic.

  "Explain yourself!" Poseidon's rage crackled like electricity in the air.

  "His place is here with us. I did not wish to lose him to the land, so I forbade him to ever speak of it."

  If Zeus had not been held securely by Poseidon, Zeus would have attacked Nethus simply for overlooking Canry's needs.

  "That is his choice to make, not yours to take. What has happened to your fair judgment? You know the ties to his family make him stronger. You meddled in something you should not. Only time will tell if you have weakened him. If so, he will fail the tasks set before him. Son," Poseidon gave a tired sigh, the frustration evident in the severe frown that caused deep lines to crease his brow. "Your actions could lead to his death and our demise."

  "Father …" Nethus appeared lost, his gaze bouncing from each person present.

  The words of warning and the undercurrent of what was left unsaid between Nethus and Poseidon stole any satisfaction Zeus felt at Nethus's comeuppance. He was reminded of why Canry had called him to the waters, the dangers his brother warned awaited them in Valespian space, and Zeus’s promise to call upon Canry when in need. Whatever Poseidon or Nethus believed, Zeus swore Canry would not fail. He would remind his brother that his family would stand beside him, and together, they would weather any challenge set before him.

  Poseidon set them all down in the water. Azaes and Mestor slithered across the surface, and Zeus met them with a hiss-click greeting. The time of dawn now long past, the sky bloomed with varying colors of deep blue, the remaining stars slowly winking out.

  "Visit with Canry while you can. Your time in the waters will soon come to a close. Nethus will bother you no more. Canry, come to me when you are done here." Poseidon and Nethus withdrew, sinking below the water once again, causing small waves to rise with his passing.

  Canry floated a short distance away, and Zeus felt a sharp pang of compassion at the clear expression of longing his brother directed at the twins. He beckoned Canry forward, but at his brother's hesitancy, Azaes and Mestor converged on him. Zeus joined them in greeting Canry with pressed foreheads. A poignant song lifted from their lips; the harmony spoke of finding the long-lost while the twins took turns embracing their shocked brother. Zeus laughed with overflowing joy and joined in the song, greeting Canry formally before embracing him.

  "Meme will be so happy to know you are unharmed." Azaes cupped Canry's face between his palms, his black scales dark against the yellow of Canry's skin.

  "You have been treated well?" Mestor took Azaes's place, brushing his nose tenderly against Canry's chin.

  Canry blinked rapidly, a tremulous smile touching his lips. "At no time have I been harmed. I adore my home and the people within. Please, never wonder if I have been abused or molested."

  "Nethus?" Zeus hissed.

  Canry squeezed his hand. "No. He would not ever lift a hand to me. He believed he did what was best for me. He loves me, I think, and instead of confessing, he holds onto me too tightly."

  Zeus huffed. That kind of possessive infatuation often turned dangerous. He shared a look with the twins. The predatory expression on their faces told Zeus that they agreed. Nethus would find his pursuit of Canry difficult, possibly even blocked completely. Son of Poseidon or not, Zeus would give Nethus no mercy.

  "When will you visit? Meme and Father would love to see you," Zeus asked, ready to take advantage of the cessation of the ban that kept Canry from land. Their father sojourned on Valespia, arranging for Azaes's ascension to the Atlaintician throne after the commitment ceremony to his future mate, Ariafella. But Canry could call on Meme. She remained at home to prepare for the upcoming wedding.

  "I will visit soon," Canry promised. "There are issues I must settle first."

  Zeus sensed the tug, the signal his body called to his soul. He could not deny the insistent command. Embracing Canry once more, he pressed their foreheads together before kissing his brother on the nose. He thought he heard Canry whisper—"I will see you soon. Remember your word,"—before he pushed away to be set adrift upon the water.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Zeus woke to the sound of frantic whispers, garbled and unclear, but the urgency in Dargon's tone made him struggle to open his eyes.

  "I feel him coming around," Alpha’s soothing voice eased Zeus.

  His eyes felt crusty. He wrinkled his nose, a wave of pain washing over him as he attempted to roll over. Hands upon his chest firmly held him on his back.

  "Do not move." Dargon's voice sounded close, but Zeus still could not open his eyes. "Mayra is on her way to tend to your wounds. She stopped for assistance, since your brothers are strangely injured as well." Alarmed, Zeus attempted to move again, but Dargon's strength outmatched his at the moment.

  "The twins?" he gasped through the pain.

  "There is so much blood. At least the bleeding slowed." Alpha sounded terrified.

  "Who is bleeding? My eyes, I cannot see." He refused to panic. The overpowering scent of too much blood filled the air.

  "Give me a moment." Dargon's heat retreated as the staying hand left his chest.

  For the first thirteen years of his life, Zeus had been blind. He grew up honing other forms of sight. He stretched out his other senses. Breathing close by, low and even, told him someone lay unconscious. No, two people who breathed almost in unison. The twins, Mestor and Azaes, by the scent. Why were they in Dargon's cabin?

  Quick footsteps headed his way,
Dargon's gait identifiable even in his hurry. "I am placing a steamed cloth over your eyes."

  "What happened?" The hot material came close to burning his skin, but Zeus held it to his face anyway.

  Fingers gently prodded his throbbing thigh. "Alpha woke me when he sensed something different about you."

  "Your body was here, but you were not. We could not rouse you, and so Dargon contacted Azaes. By the time your brothers arrived, you were thrashing about. When they touched you, they collapsed. We could not wake them. The Monticore are outside the door …"

  The most deadly of all of the Mar'Sani, the Elite Monticore Honor Guard to the royal house, waited in the corridor. The three sons of Emperor Valdor Vondorian were injured and unconscious in the personal quarters of the unharmed captain of the Oethra 7. The situation was not good.

  "I need Warlord Sohm'lan on the comlink."

  Zeus waited through a couple of communication switches before the raspy voice of Sohm'lan greeted him. "Prince Zeus, how may I help you?"

  "Could you please come to Dargon's quarters? An incident has occurred. Azaes, Mestor, and I have returned from the Waters of Poseidon injured. The medic is on her way here, but there are Monticore outside. If they smell the blood, they will react without question. I do not have the strength—"

  Zeus heard hurried footsteps echo through the com as if Sohm'lan ran. "I am on my way."

  Zeus sighed with relief. The Monticore were the only regiment allowed to guard the royal house of Atlainticia. Their loyalty to his family above question, they would move to protect him and the twins from any threat, actual or perceived, with lethal consequences. The weight of unconsciousness beckoned him to fall down its dark hole. He could not guarantee Dargon and Alpha's safety in his condition. The guards outside would assume Dargon to be the threat.

  Zeus rubbed his eyes with the now-cool cloth. "Dargon, I need you to go to the lavatory and lock yourself inside until you hear from me."

  Removing the fabric, he opened his eyes and blinked. Dargon's massive shape appeared as an unclear haze. He could not quite see the frown, but he knew it was there all the same.

  "Please, I will not be able to keep the Monticore out. I am injured, as are Azaes and Mestor. Any orders I give will be superseded by the rigid laws the Monticore follow. I do not want you in the middle, where you or Alpha might be injured in their haste to protect us."

  Dargon chuffed and Zeus accepted a quick, chaste kiss before Dargon retreated to the other room. Shortly after he heard the lavatory door lock, the hail came at the main cabin door. His vision continued to be fuzzy, but improved enough that he could make out details on the larger objects in the room.

  Swinging his legs off the side of the sleeping platform, Zeus staggered around his brothers' prone figures to the door. Apprehension, worry, and possessive need to protect his mates warred within Zeus. He considered not opening the cabin door for Mayra or Sohm'lan. What would happen if he locked them out until he was better able to defend Dargon and Alpha? Even as he thought about it, he knew he could not deny his brothers medical treatment. How injured were they? He could not see well enough to tell. Zeus vehemently wished for another go at Nethus so that he could tear the barbed ears from the foul-tasting male.

  He slapped the button and the door whooshed open. Mayra stood on the other side with a large duffle. As a Gaziniti, she stood a little over a meter tall and was covered in short, light brown fur. The fringe of longer hair around her face resembled a lion's mane. Even though her facial features appeared feline, with particularly large, curved ears and huge, brown eyes with slitted pupils, Gazinitis were herbivores, more closely related to primates.

  Surprisingly, two Fal'Amorics, Athena and Altan, flanked Mayra. Both closely resembled Zeus with their alabaster skin, dark blue streaked hair, and nearly colorless irises. He was unaccustomed to seeing people so similar to himself in appearance, and even knowing they were biologically related to him, he found the likeness unsettling. Behind them milled a half-dozen restless guards. The Monticore prowled about as if they sensed something wrong. Zeus realized he did not know how long the twins had been in the cabin.

  The Monticore came to attention when they sighted Zeus, the lashing of their dark scaled tails the only sign of agitation. Forked tongues tasted the air and when they hissed in warning, he knew they scented the blood in the cabin.

  Ignoring Mayra and her two helpers, Zeus addressed the guards. "I have just returned from the Waters of Poseidon. Prince Azaes and Prince Mestor will be returning shortly. An altercation happened on the other side and all three of us are injured." Any Mar'Sani away from Atlainticia could visit the Waters of Poseidon in their sleep, anchored by relatives, returning to their bodies rejuvenated. It was unheard of for someone to return injured. "Not everyone can fit in the room while Mayra attends to their wounds. There is a mezzanine above, where you may watch from." From the corner of his eye, he saw Sohm'lan exit the lift. "Until Azaes resumes consciousness, Warlord Sohm'lan is in charge."

  A wave of dizziness made him grasp the door frame for stability, but his knees buckled and his hand slipped. He heard Athena call his name, but everything sounded indistinct, as if the voices came from a distance. The gash in his thigh pulsed with each beat of his heart, dark blood coloring most of his leg and leaving a gruesome footprint on the floor. As Zeus toppled into Sohm'lan's outstretched arms, he noticed distractedly that he had answered the door in the nude.

  *~*~*

  Dargon pressed his ear against the cool metal door. As a Dar Massaga, he had exceptional hearing in both of his forms, and he needed to know whether Zeus was being treated yet.

  "You know you will not hear anything. Prince Malek spared no expense when he commissioned this ship. The captain's quarters were designed for defense. No sound, short of an explosion, will greet your ears," Alpha chided.

  The Galactic Crown Princes, Malek and Vipre, had put together the crew of the Oethra 7 to discover what lay behind the disappearance of the Fal'Amoric and their Bespoken. A scout ship had been retrofitted to appear as a merchant vessel. The reinforced captain's quarters could be locked down and used as a place for a last stand, the whole of the ship controlled from his room.

  "How long have we been in here?" He did not have issues with small, enclosed spaces. Being separated from their Marked, he did mind.

  "Not long at all."

  Dargon inhaled a slow breath through his nose, hoping to catch some of Zeus’s scent not intermingled with blood. Were the Mar'Sani guards taking care of him? Would Mayra be able to help him? They should not be locked up in the laboratory. What if Zeus needed them? He understood Zeus’s desire to keep him and Alpha safe: he would have made the same call if the tables were turned.

  "I hate this."

  "I do, too, but Zeus is only thinking of the safety of the kit."

  He stroked Alpha, attempting to soothe his symbiote as well as himself. Alpha sat in his normal torque shape against Dargon's collarbone. From the edge of his wide shoulders to the base of his neck, Alpha's dark green form was marbled with pink veins, draped across his upper chest and back. Alpha gently stroked Dargon’s lightly-furred skin.

  "I have no weapon." He glanced down at his heavy hyde skirt. It was all the clothing he had been able to don before the twins stormed into his quarters.

  "Zeus has fallen unconscious." Alpha and Zeus were connected in the same way Alpha was linked with him. The three of them made up an Alpha Trine, one of the few spread across the galaxies.

  He rested his forehead against the smooth door, struggling with his duty to their unborn kit and his duty to Zeus. "Has a Dar Massaga been in a situation like this before?"

  "Not since the war that decimated the females on your planet. Once we and the Zetas had offered our partnership, the Dar Massaga congregated on the moon of Hedisa Gamai to breed and birth our young. The moon is neutral territory, a sanctuary of safety, and no kit has been conceived or born outside of its walls in over a Millennia," Alpha replied.

&n
bsp; "Our young will be the first to be born in space? Your condition is fragile, Alpha, and we cannot chance an accidental strike. None other than Zeus are aware of your condition."

  "And yet, sitting in here, hiding when our Marked is on the other side injured, goes against all that we are. Remember, Prince Azaes and Prince Mestor are hurt as well. The Monticore would do their duty with extreme prejudice and subdue any who they deem a threat."

  "I am the only one sound of body. I would be suspect. I know."

  "The safety of the kit comes first. Even if we prefer otherwise."

  "I should not have called Zeus’s brothers for assistance." He had been berating himself ever since the two collapsed as they hovered over Zeus.

  "I believe they would have been pulled into the Waters of Poseidon wherever they stood. Our ship, their ship, I doubt it mattered. One minute the twins were talking to each other, and the next, unconscious. Something went terribly wrong on the other side."

  "Do you think Zeus’s distress pulled them in?"

  "If not Zeus, then someone or something else did. We have much to learn about his people."

  The door vibrated under Dargon's palms, barely perceptible, but still there if he concentrated. When they first entered the room, he had engaged the manual locks which secured and sealed the door from electronic manipulation. Glancing down at the control panel, the lack of light told him someone on the other side had cut power to the door mechanism. The door vibrated again and Dargon stepped back. They would not be able to come through with even a battering ram, as the internal metal frame had been extended and anchored to the ship's skeleton. However, in his short acquaintance with them, Atlainticians had struck him as a rather resourceful, determined race.