The Melier: Prodigal Son

by Poppy Rhys

  Their sheer numbers made them a profitable client for his father’s business. Jru himself had acquired their contract and it had been one of the few times his father had looked at him with approval in his eyes.

  Now he and his mates were being hunted with the same weapons he’d supplied, and Jruviin was trying his damnedest to ignore how satisfying it felt to kill those scouts.

  Fucking Grabindo hells.

  He wasn’t a psychopath. Tundrin hadn’t turned him into a bloodthirsty lunatic. That’s what he kept telling himself—even when a pleasurable sensation had warmed his body when those Greesh fuckers looked like bloody pulp after he shot them.

  “Maybe I will, you ass,” Dania replied, still pressing Val’Koy.

  The conversation only devolved from there and Jruviin had the slight suspicion they enjoyed insulting each other. Who smiled when they were told to ‘eat shit and die’?

  Val’Koy.

  That smile vanished from his face when Dania sucked back a breath and grabbed her middle, tripping over her own feet.

  Immediately, Jruviin thrust out an arm, catching her before she faceplanted and injured herself further.

  “What is it?” The urgency in Val’Koy’s question mirrored his own alarm.

  “Dania, tell us what hurts,” Jruviin said, carefully lifting her face so he could read her expression. The crowd milled around them and his undertongue shot out, burying itself in her ear. He couldn’t help it, it was involuntary.

  “Ugh!” she cried, rubbing her ear and uncurling her body. “I’m okay, I just...”

  “Just what?” Val’Koy appeared as if he were about to shake the answer out of her.

  “I don’t know, I’m just not feeling well.”

  “Your skin is still fevered.” Jruviin noticed the slight nuance in her secretions, like he tasted before they left the craft behind. It hadn’t been there while on Tundrin, but it had only become more pronounced since they left Equah. His rage grew with every scenario he didn’t want to think about. “What did they do to you?”

  Dania flinched.

  Jruviin didn’t mean for the question to come out so harshly, but the thought of Trik and Raim, or any of those filthy savages, laying hands on his mate—

  “What do you mean? First you say my flavor has changed and River keeps telling me I smell different.” She tossed her arms in the air. “It’s enough to give a girl a complex!”

  Jruviin quickly glimpsed the wolvenk that circled around them, agitated, before regarding Dania again. “He what?”

  ****

  DANIA

  “It’s not like I didn’t shower. Yeesh.”

  Couldn’t they go back to the days when they purred and cooed over her pheromones instead of talking about the flavor of her secretions and regarding her suspiciously? Was it too much to ask?

  “It could be signs of a virus,” Val’Koy said to Jru, and then they did that silent conversation thing. Did they let off scent signals that allowed them to communicate in a way humans would never understand?

  She had no idea, but when the word virus got tossed around, she paid attention.

  “I’m vaccinated.”

  “We are in off-route space,” Val’Koy said, his steely gaze boring down into her. “I doubt you were vaccinated in preparation for that.”

  Well, he had a point. Most of her inoculations from when she was a nomad had expired a year after she’d settled on Dor Nye. There’d never been a need to get another round since she fancied herself no longer a nomad. Instead, she’d opted for the routine injections that all other residents received that protected against the viruses known to Dor Nye.

  But, since then, she’d been on a slave ship, on a Trepnil ship, on a pleasure planet, and the ass-backward Equah before landing on Sau-sai Hub—and they all had questionable hygienic practices...

  Fuck.

  Maybe they were onto something. She scratched her throat nervously. “I should see a doctor, just to be on the safe side...”

  “You think?” Val’Koy wryly countered, earning a glare from her.

  “We have been found.”

  Jruviin’s words sent a chill down her spine. She immediately followed his gaze, landing on another quad of red armored Greesh mercs headed their way.

  “Move.”

  The single command kicked her legs into gear and she took off. Her boots pounded the floor as she ran between her mates. River took lead, spearheading the dense crowd and clearing a path.

  Obviously, no one wanted to be run down by a scary fucking wolvenk tailed by two towering beasts who looked straight out of a dark hitman vid.

  Dania doubted anyone even noticed her with those two at her sides.

  Another quad came in from the left. River veered right, splitting the crowd. At that point, people really noticed.

  One of the mercs fired a weapon, and everything went haywire. Flashes of color streaked in every direction as aliens of all kinds ran amuck, no longer parting like a sea of fish for a bounding wolvenk.

  “More salty bitches shootin’ at you, Cap!” Zed shouted in her head, interrupting her concentration. The A.I. had awful, awful timing.

  As if all three males were on the same wavelength, they ducked into a narrow, darkened alley between shops.

  Dania yawped when Val’Koy yanked her into the alley mid-sprint and pressed her up against a wall, both of his left arms crossing her body.

  The quads zoomed by, unaware.

  Out of breath and panting like she just ran a million miles instead of the measly distance, she bent over, hands on her knees.

  “Fuck,” she wheezed, unable to get enough air. “Ahh,” she grunted, straightening and holding her sore middle only to bend back over and gasp some more. “Who does this for fun?!”

  She noticed how her mates barely seemed affected and cursed the universe for her inferior genetics—pretending her love of sweets and loath of exercise had nothing to do with it.

  The alley held an eerie silence, even as people beyond it ran around in panic, until Jruviin absently asked, “How would Zed know how Greesh mercs taste?”

  Dania breathlessly laughed. “Salty means angry, babe.”

  “Babe,” Jruviin groused under his breath, eyes on the lookout for more mercs.

  Val’Koy groaned. “I get a headache trying to understand this A.I.”

  Suddenly, the sight in her left eye went wonky. Dania blinked and her vision frazzled like bad reception on a comm screen.

  “Oh shit!” she breathed, slapping a hand over her left eye. Her mates’ gazes immediately swiveled her direction as a million thoughts raced through her head.

  The number one question: was someone hacking her nanos? It’d happened once, why couldn’t it happen again? Did the Treps get to Dr. Ullem for her new serials?

  Vu’Mal’Su wanted her mates back—why else attack Val’Koy at the Tundrin port? And who the fuck would put a bounty on their heads except the Treps? Maybe Sharn was pissed they’d killed his son, but the Equahns barely used tech. It wasn’t impossible he’d want them dead, but Dania would bet her whole pitiful bank account on Trepnils.

  “What?” Val’Koy asked, pupils widening in alarm.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she chanted, not wanting to uncover her eye in case they were spying.

  “What?” the Melier repeated.

  “I think I’m being hacked!” she whisper-yelled.

  Jru peered over his shoulder. “You are a biological being—”

  “Not completely!”

  “What are you saying?”

  “My eye,” she pointed with her free hand, “remember?”

  “How—”

  “A kitchen accident. It’s loaded with optical nanos,” Dania explained, her heart thumping and it had nothing to do with the unwanted exercise.

  Val’Koy growled low in his chest but Dania was too busy trying to calm her mental meltdown.

  “Zed,” she asked aloud, “do you know what’s going on?”

  “Running dia
gnostic, hold tight.”

  In the next instant, River’s ears laid flat. Feet stomped down the alley from the opposite direction.

  “Fucking hell!” Val’Koy roared and sprang up.

  Dania rasped as he grabbed her upper arm and wrenched her from the alleyway and the cluster of mercs in pursuit. At this rate, she worried she wouldn’t make it out of this without a dislocated shoulder.

  Running with one hand clamped over her eye wasn’t cutting it. She closed the eye and dropped her hand, pumping her arms to keep up with her mates as they zoomed through the chaos. Sirens wailed and gunfire snapped through the air.

  Keeping her left eye closed turned out to be dangerous. Her depth perception was off and Jru yanked her to the side right before she nearly ran into a pole.

  “What is wrong with you?” he shouted, as if he couldn’t believe she’d nearly knocked herself out if he hadn’t stopped her.

  Fuck it.

  Dania opened her eye, her vision blurred, glitching with static.

  “Interference, Cap. No hack detected.”

  She could’ve collapsed with relief, but mercs came from the left, then the right, closing in.

  “How the fuck are there so many?” Val’Koy barked.

  “This is what they do,” Jru yelled, a hint of exertion in his voice. “They swarm!”

  Not good, not good. Already they closed in tighter, overpowering the local authorities and mowing down civilians.

  “Zed! A little help!” Dania shrieked, attempting not to panic and failing.

  A luminescent blue line flickered to life on the gray, paved ground via her left eye.

  “Follow the path, Cap!” the A.I. said.

  “What path?” Jruviin asked, glancing around as he ran.

  “It’s in my eye!” Dania gaped, disbelieving. Finally, her synthetic eye was working in her favor.

  “Interference is coming from informational A.I. in the vicinity, Captain. Mapping your route in real time,” Zed informed. “Guess they hate the Greesh bitches too.”

  Other A.I. were helping them? Dania didn’t bother fighting her incredulous grin.

  The blue path curved a tight corner and she followed it, her mates letting her lead. People screamed when she rushed through the opening of a shop with her guys in pursuit, dodging through the halls and out the back door.

  The narrow alleys and the shops the route took them through slowly tapered off the pursuing mercs until they’d finally lost the tail.

  “Unbelievable,” Val grunted while Dania caught her breath when they slowed to a power walk.

  “Nice save, Zed.” Jru smiled, shaking his head, his shoulder-length quills swaying. “I never thought we would make it out. The Greesh mercs are rarely outsmarted.”

  “We need to get off Sau-sai Hub as soon as possible.” Val kept pace, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

  “And you guys probably shouldn’t use your Drinnish account anymore. Just sayin’.”

  They grumbled. Dania hip checked Jru and chuckled.

  Even with the immediate threat currently neutralized, Rita and her parents cropped up again in her mind. She really needed to make that call.

  “Guys, we’ve gotta get a comm or something.”

  “How do you expect us to pay for it if not with our Drinish account?” Val’Koy dryly countered.

  Dammit.

  Dania chewed the inside of her cheek as they entered a skybridge, blending in with the calm locals that hadn’t been mixed up in the Greesh attack. The worst they were doing was giving River a wide berth as he passed. He continued to prowl ahead on all fours as if he were still uneasy.

  They couldn’t steal a comm. It had to be activated and any tricks she’d learned while working for a networking company was strictly exclusive to that company’s unique model.

  Not that she remembered much anyway. It had been a boring job. Now she kinda wished she’d paid more attention.

  C’mon you she-devil, Dania inwardly pitched at the universe, give us a break!

  Another sharp pain ripped through her middle and stole her breath. Her feet tangled and she tripped into Val’Koy who caught her.

  “What is happening?” he demanded, like she knew how the hell to answer that.

  “I said I don’t feel well!” she rasped, clutching her stomach. At this point, she started to really panic.

  What if there’d been a parasite in the water she drank on Equah? Dania had seen what parasites could do when an eight-legged critter had spread through the intestines of an entire woxikian settlement when she was fifteen.

  People died. After the extreme agony and expulsion of disgusting bodily fluids.

  That couldn’t happen to her.

  “Take me to a doctor,” she pleaded when Jruviin rubbed a hand over her sore cheek. Her knees gave out as the next ripple of misery tore through her stomach. She felt that one all the way to her spine.

  Val’Koy hoisted her up, and she didn’t complain. She looped an arm around his neck and rested her head against his shoulder. If she focused on breathing, she could get through it.

  “Mine hurting?” River pushed, his snout sniffing her hair when he circled back around Val.

  “Little bit.” Understatement of the day.

  “Hospital?” Jruviin asked a passerby.

  “Elo corner,” he pointed with one of his green antennae sprouting from his forehead. “Ward Una.”

  Dania was sweating by the time they found the hospital. Little droplets of perspiration dotted her forehead and occasionally dripped down her temple. Being jostled by Val’Koy felt like a mace rolling around in her guts but the hope of seeing a doctor kept her conscious.

  “We need a medic,” Jruviin announced as soon as the doors slid aside and they rushed through the emergency entrance.

  Dania’s gaze darted around. The place was packed with aliens in various levels of injury. One continued to leak white blood from a severed feeler that was badly wrapped.

  Younglings and fully-grown aliens moaned, trilled, or clicked their discomfort.

  “Payment is required up front,” the lavender skinned female said from behind the transparent wall. Rope-like blue hair atop her head moved and waved as if it defied gravity. Beyond her, staff rushed about in white uniforms from patient to patient behind frosted glass room dividers.

  “She is in pain,” Val growled, his chest vibrating against her body.

  “I can see that,” she patiently responded and glanced around the room. “So are others. Payment is required up front.”

  Dania clenched her teeth against the twinge that felt like someone dancing on her abdomen. She saw the glance her mates shared. “You can’t,” she wheezed, taking another rough inhale as she guessed what they were about to do.

  “We have—”

  “Use my money,” Dania urged, interrupting Jru. She rattled off her account numbers and citizen identification.

  Seconds ticked by.

  “I’m sorry, but the transaction was denied.”

  “What?” She gritted her teeth and it took an extreme amount of willpower to not scream, “Why?”

  “Insufficient funds.” The receptionist’s bored demeanor made Dania want to shove her damn fist through the glass and choke her.

  “Use the Dri—”

  “No,” Jruviin sighed and shifted, fists flexing like he was inwardly debating something. “Try this account...” He listed coordinates and numbers she didn’t recognize.

  “Payment accepted.” She smiled, revealing neon green teeth that startled Dania. “This way, please.”

  A doorway in the transparent barrier rippled like disturbed water and allowed them through. Val’Koy set her down on a clean, single-sized examination table. Dania grabbed one of his hands before he could pull away.

  Silly as it may be, she didn’t want to let him go. Her mind swam with conjured images of the most horrific looking parasites and what they might be doing to her insides that very moment. Probably nibbling away at her guts and burrowing
out holes.

  Dania cringed so hard it stung her skin.

  “A medic will be in shortly.” She left.

  Jruviin’s feathered face had a blank expression as he paced the small section at the foot of the examination table. For some reason the sound of the gold beads tinkling in his quills calmed her. Dania might lose her mind if she only focused on the chaotic wails coming from the patient in the next bed or the growling and snapping jaws from across the room.

  “How did we pay for this?”

  Jruviin didn’t miss a beat in his back and forth marathon at the foot of the table. “My personal account.”

  Val’Koy’s head snapped to Jruviin.

  Was that a big deal? What had she missed? She opened her mouth just as a white-clad staff member strolled in, tugging a machine behind her.

  “What hurts?” she immediately asked, her three fingered hand jabbing buttons on the hovering machine that had a screen with odd symbols and a flat keypad.

  Dania wiped the back of her hand against her brow. “My stomach.”

  “Species name?”

  “Uh, I’m human.”

  The female went silent and punched keys, more symbols in a language Dania couldn’t read scrolled up.

  The silence got awkward as the woman stood there.

  “Are you a medic?” Val’Koy impatiently asked, though it was nearly lost in the growling tone he used.

  Startled, the female blinked, her white lids flicking across her pink eyes. “I am medic Kiven, yes.” Then she pulled out a handheld device.

  She looked like the receptionist’s twin, except with different color hair. Her gravity defying strands were such a pale pink they almost bordered on white.

  “I’m scanning you now. Hold still.”

  Dania barely breathed while Kiven pointed the device at her middle. Jruviin’s pacing ceased and River’s bushy tail had gone rigid.

  “I...” Kiven blinked, her forehead turning a dark purple. What the hell did that mean?

  Dania’s prey senses weren’t pinging, but certainly the coloration meant something.

  “What?”

  Kiven turned the device off, her brow pulled low and, if Dania weren’t mistaken, a look of downright displeasure crossed the medic’s face. She suddenly felt as if she were being scolded and Dania had no damn idea what for!