The Melier: Prodigal Son
Page 30
The scurrying drew closer.
Jruviin’s vision sharpened, penetrating the low light in muted shades of color. Down the hall a hand-sized critter zipped along the ceiling.
This... was unusual.
He’d seen alien insects, but this one had a metallic sheen whenever it passed through a shaft of light. It couldn’t be organic. It had to be a droid.
Equahn’s hardly utilized the wheel—Jruviin was certain they wouldn’t have a bot roaming the tower.
“Val’Koy,” he called, voice hushed. The Melier woke with a start, hands clenched and ready to throw fists.
“What?”
Jruviin raised two fingers and twitched them.
Val’Koy joined him at the bars, watching as the mechanical insect scaled the crude iron and fixated on the lock. The metal legs upon its segmented body, not unlike a hymenopterous creature, lightly scratched against it before a small click sang their freedom.
“A trick?” he side-eyed Val’Koy as they both stood back. The door inched open, the insect dropping to the floor and heading back in the direction it came from.
“I—”
River rushed past, bounding down the hall on all fours, taking away their choice.
“Too late now.” Val’Koy followed, Jruviin close behind.
Despite their weight, they moved silently. A born dexterity that aided them now more than ever. They emerged from the bowels of the tower, trailing River, who seemed to know exactly where he was going.
Nobody was there to stop them. By looking through a window, he judged it was sometime in the middle of the night.
“No guards?”
Val’Koy’s scowl deepened, seemingly just as disturbed about it as he.
Were the Equahns cocky enough to think they had nothing to worry about while Val’Koy, River, and himself were held prisoner? Maybe Dania’s safety would keep them compliant, but had they lacked the imagination to know they would take any chance at her freedom and theirs?
They’d mow down anything in their fucking path.
Heavy footfalls caused them to freeze mid-step and melt into the shadows around them. Jruviin watched from a bend in the hall as a male walked by, oblivious to their presence...
He paused and looked around.
Maybe not oblivious after all.
The male sucked back a breath—
River ambushed, knocking the would-be-rat to the ground and shredding his skinny throat. Blood thickly fragranced the air, the scent activating a lust in Jruviin he had hoped to leave on Tundrin.
They moved on, silently, up two sets of stairs. River beelined for a threshold at the edge of the corridor.
Jruviin could smell her. Dania’s pheromones clogged this hallway. He could scent her fear, her sweat, and hear her shallow breaths.
If Val’Koy’s tightened scales were any indication, the Melier could too.
He tested the handle.
Locked.
That would’ve been too easy. Jruviin’s eyes scanned the hall, looking for the insect—
A jarring crash fractured the silence. His spine feathers shot up.
Val’Koy bashed into the doors again, bursting through.
Grabindo hells, they’d wake the whole fucking tower!
****
DANIA
Dania sprang to her feet when Val’Koy stormed into the room, too tightly wound with jitters to even belt out a scream.
Immediately, Trik and Raim shot upright on the bed and a buzz of alarmed voices echoed from the hallway.
“Val—” she reached for him, but he shoved her out of the way and into River’s arms. Jru streaked past her vision. Trik and Raim leapt from the bed.
Her mates were going straight for the attack with an eager viciousness.
She’d never seen them in such a state. Add foaming mouths to the equation and they could be a couple of famished, rabid, alien dogs.
The jarring bellows and snapping teeth, from all four males, fractured the once-quiet stillness of night and had her veins drumming with fearful excitement.
They were getting out of here!
River scooped her up, lips pulling back over his cage of jagged carnivorous teeth. Dania could see he wanted to join the fight. The need radiated from his taut muscles that jumped with every blow her mates gave or took.
Jru raised his barbed tail and repeatedly swung it like a mace as he pummeled Raim’s side with his fists. Thump-thump-thump. The muted sound of feathered knuckles hitting flesh.
The garbled yells from Trik further alerted the other residents. Lights illuminated the hallway and shined through the broken doors that barely hung on by their hinges.
“We gotta go!” she dared to warn them amid their battle, glancing back just as Trik’s momentum bashed Val’Koy into a wardrobe. It didn’t have a chance against his massive body, bursting into splinters. Shards went flying.
River’s arm shielded her face, deflecting debris.
Alarmed voices grew louder. If they didn’t leave now, they'd be trapped!
Dania had only seen one firearm the whole time they'd been on Equah. It gave her hope. Jruviin and Val’Koy could take on a bloodthirsty group with their bare hands, she'd seen it before, but if they pulled out firearms...
The odds wouldn’t be good.
River tightened his grip and dodged to the left when Jruviin body-slammed Raim into the stone floor they'd just been standing on.
Jru rose up and pulled back his hand only to bring it down, his curved talons shredding Raim’s throat like soft fruit.
Dania flinched when hot blood splattered her face.
Her mouth fell open, her eyes staring at gashes so deep she could see his spine. It was a miracle his head wasn’t rolling across the floor.
Trik bellowed, that one ear-shattering call saturated with so much despair when he saw his dead mate. She nearly felt sorry for him.
Val’Koy gained the upper hand. With a lightning-fast maneuver, and a nauseating crunch like giant knuckles being popped and crushed, Val twisted Trik’s head at an unnatural angle, breaking his neck.
Her eyes stung as she wanted to hurl. Why? Why should she feel pity for the foul men who would’ve killed her mates and abused her?
“In here!” someone yelled from the hall.
“Out!” Jruviin shouted, running headlong toward a window. He jumped through, shattering the glass. Men spilled through the broken doorway at their backs, and River booked it, followed by Val.
Dania buried her face into his chest and squeezed her eyes shut as he dove.
“Oof,” she grunted on impact two stories down. Her teeth chattered in her head, sending spikes of pain through her tender jaw. River rolled off a ruined pile of animal feed in the paddock. Val’Koy landed on his feet, the ground thudding beneath his weight.
“Go!” he hollered.
River took off, Jru and Val mounting the spooked steeds. Dania held onto River’s fur as he leapt over the paddock’s stone wall. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before paws beat the ground beside them, kicking up sand as they made a break for it.
Lights flickered throughout neighboring towers as an agonized, baritone howl pierced the night. That had to be Sharn discovering his broken, bloodied son and his mate.
More lights flickered on, their race through the city streets waking the people within whatever dwellings they passed.
An alarm went up.
Goddammit!
More windows lit, the hum of commotion—voices and mounts braying.
No one had to say it—they just pushed faster, harder. River panted and Dania felt the heavy grunts his lungs exhaled where her body held onto his.
The edge of the walled off city came into view... The gates had been closed.
Dania’s heart screeched to a halt.
The doors! The fucking doors! Sentries guarded them and they were sealed shut!
“River?” she voiced as no one seemed to be slowing the pace.
Didn’t they see the wall?
Her eyes bugged as her mates rose up to stand crouched on the mounts, and—
River launched himself at the wall.
Dania’s face bashed into his furred, muscled back on impact. Agony seared through her jaw, and her vision doubled as she glimpsed her mates flying off their mounts, using the momentum to catapult themselves.
Claws dug into the stones, etching deep lines as all three scurried, scaling the remainder and dropping over the other side as the sentries scrambled to open the gates for pursuit.
“Dania?” Val’Koy checked-in nearby.
“I’m—I’m alive,” she announced, even if she felt like passing out.
“They may not have weapons—”
“Yet,” Val’Koy grunted, interrupting Jruviin.
“But our ship cannot withstand a barrage of whatever these savages might attack it with.”
He had a great point.
“Zed?” Dania called.
“Yo, Cap.”
She startled at the informal comeback and stammered, “W-what’s the status?”
“I alerted the repairman when Jru jumped outta that window like a badass and he said some of his bots have worked a little jam-jam on the ram-bam.”
The fuck?
“What the hell are you saying?”
The A.I. sighed in her head and clarified, “They temporarily patched the hull for atmospheric breach.”
“Now is not the time for complications,” Val’Koy warned as they fled, sounding a bit breathless. The ship grew closer, glinting in the moonlight.
“What did Zed say?” Jruviin asked, throwing a glance over his shoulder.
“He’s...” she didn’t know what. “I think he’s glitching, but he said bots patched the hull.”
“That’s just rude.”
He had to be experiencing damage of some kind. The formal speech most ship A.I.’s had—including Zed—had clearly been snafued.
A loud snap cut the atmosphere. She ducked on instinct. Something whizzed by.
“Guns,” Jruviin grunted, and immediately they started weaving.
River dodged to the left, then to the right, and somehow all three males avoided crashing into each other as the gun blasts increased.
“These salty bitches are bustin’ caps, Cap!” Zed shouted in her head.
What the fuck is going on?!
Three giant, flying ants zoomed toward them, circling and taking up the tail-end. Dania cranked her neck, unsure what the hell they were.
A mechanical whirring preceded a red holographic shield. Bullets ricocheted. Ping, ping, ping, like they hit metal. These had to be the bots Zed talked about.
And they were covering their asses.
The ramp on their stolen b’oto ship extended once they were in range. Dania glimpsed the mob headed their way. They were far enough back that she’d have time to start the engine sequence without bullets and spears being chucked at them.
Her knees wobbled when she rushed toward the bridge after River released her. “Strap in!”
They knew the drill, and Dania nearly cried tears of relief when she felt the hum of the ship vibrate her soles. She wanted to fucking kiss the console, the beauty of tech saving their asses once again.
“Welcome aboard The Toothless Wench!” Zed announced, drawing suspicious scowls from her mates.
“I don’t know!” she claimed, tossing her hands in the air before strapping herself in. She grinned when the craft lifted off and clouds of sand kicked up, forcing the mob back. “I told you! I think he’s glitching.”
“So insulting,” Zed bemoaned.
Dania reclined in the captain's chair, sighing.
I really need a drink.
FORTY-SIX
DANIA
“You’re hurt.” Dania reached out, gingerly touching the corner of Jruviin’s mouth once they landed inside the mech ship’s bay. His chin feathers were wet and dark with blood from his oozing busted lip.
“Am I?” Jru scowled and his pink tongue darted against his lip. He didn’t even wince. He reached for her, hands clamped around her middle, and stooped down to kiss her. Roughly.
His mouth pressed against hers, the blood leaving a salty, rich tang on her tongue. His talons got tangled in her sheer dress, slicing slits that could never be repaired.
She moaned, burying her fingers into his crest feathers, scraping her blunt nails against his scalp. The throbbing of her jaw didn’t even matter at that point, nor the fact they were all splattered with blood. The surge of rapture that Jruviin, Val’Koy, and River were in one piece and at her side again—that mattered.
A second mouth touched her. Warm, firm lips pressed against her shoulder from behind, inched up her neck, heated the curve of her ear, and circled back down. Val’Koy.
“We missed you,” he whispered against her skin, his hot tongue flicking her lobe.
Her toes curled in her protective footwear. Stars, she’d missed them too.
Hands roamed her, so many hands, and their fingers massaged. Claws pricked and gently scratched, burning their predatory hunger into her mind forever.
“Ahem,” Zed coughed. It was enough of a deviation from normal A.I. speech patterns that Dania broke the kiss and stared at the dingy ceiling. “We’re being hailed. Again.”
“Answer it.” She got her breathing under control and tried to pay attention as her mates continued to feel her up and plant hot kisses against every exposed part of her. She struggled to keep her focus, was this a game to them?
“Welcome aboard my ship,” said the same voice that’d spoken of rescue. “We are enroute to Sau-sai Hub. My shop is there where I can repair your ship properly. We can discuss payment then.”
“Thank you,” Dania sighed. “We are grateful.”
“For security, stay in your vessel while being transported. Do you require any medical assistance?”
“No, but we are out of food with barely enough water.” They’d taken the last of the rations when they arrived on Equah.
“I will send supplies.”
“Gratitude,” Jru said, and the connection closed.
“Let me look at your cheek,” Val’Koy murmured, pressing a thumb to her chin and turning her face. His voice dipped to new menacing depths, black eyes seemingly endless pits, as he asked, “How much pain are you in?”
“I’ll be o—”
“That is not what I asked,” he ground out. Why a thrilling sensation fluttered through her abdomen, she didn’t know.
Or maybe she did.
Okay, she did.
Something about the barely concealed rage—like he’d rewind time just to kill Trik and Raim again—pinged her prey senses and—having a fucked-up sense of turn-ons—had her mouth salivating.
She swallowed, the action not unnoticed by her mates. “It hurts a little...”
“Dania,” Jruviin rumbled.
“Alright, it hurts a lot,” she amended. “But I’ll be fine. It’s just a bruise.”
The increasing tension made her nervous. “Don’t get your tails in a knot. I said I’ll be fine.”
“Grindage delivered, Cap,” Zed said, once again interrupting but this time she was thankful. Dania needed to figure out what the hell was going on with the A.I. though. Maybe a scan could tell her what needed to be repaired.
“Zed?”
“Waaazzzuuuuup, Captain?”
All three of them turned to stare at the console.
“Why are you talking that way?” she blurted.
“I have been updated and reprogrammed to use speech that is comforting and familiar to your species. We went back through Earth’s files and pulled popular slang.”
Her brows shot to her hairline. “We?”
“The tech crew operating this mech ship. A show of good faith.”
“How far back?”
“Earth years
1990 to 1999, Captain.”
“Wow.”
“Is there a problem, home skillet?”
Dania involuntarily snorted. “How’d they know I love Earth’s nineties?”
“The team reviewed your Dor Nye purchases and activities linked to your citizen identification number via your optical nanobytes data storage.”
“Err... that seems like an invasion of privacy.” Her nerves kinked. Were they capable of watching through her nanos? She had the sudden urge to cover her synthetic eye when Val’Koy and Jruviin quizzically stared at her.
She’d never explained to them about her nanos, just that she’d had visions of Jru and seen horrible things.
“Yeah, it’s a violation of intergalactic law p1900982 section three point five for registered planets.”
“Uh huh...”
“Equah is not a registered planet.”
“So, they weren’t legally held to Coalition laws while we were down there...”
“Word, Cap.”
Dania rubbed her forehead, suddenly not feeling so hot. Her stomach churned and her mouth salivated.
She knew what that meant. Before she could explain, she turned tail and dashed to the cleansing room, barely reaching the toilet before she vomited.
“Dania?” Val’Koy’s tone was worried and she felt Jruviin’s claws on the back of her neck when he held back her hair.
She cringed as another gush of bile burned her throat. She hadn’t eaten in two days and her stomach was empty of anything except what little water she’d drank.
She yelped when something wet quickly dipped into her ear before retreating. Jru’s undertongue.
Damn him and that sneaky thing!
“Your skin is fevered,” he noted. “And there is an odd... flavor in your gland secretions.”
“That—” she gagged and heaved but nothing came out, “is not what I need to hear right now.”
“Mine okay?” River pushed, and she could see him pacing outside the door.
“I’m fine.” She knew hunger could cause nausea, and at the thought of food, her stomach rumbled. “I’m just hungry.”
“Are you... sure?” Jruviin seemed confused.
“It’s a human thing.” She shrugged and leaned back, swiping a hand across her mouth. Ugh, she needed to get rid of that bitter taste as soon as possible.