by Mina Carter
The women were herded to stand in front of him in a large room. Long and high-ceilinged, it resembled a throne room. An impression that was aided because Varish sat on a damn throne. He leaned forward, dark hair falling across eyes so cold that Cat shivered.
“Who is in charge here?” His voice was silky smooth. Although they should know better, a few of the women glanced toward Jane near the front of the group.
She stepped forward, chin high as she looked Varish in the eye. “That would be me. Major All—”
In a move like lightning, he pulled the heavy pistol and fired. Jane cried out, clutching her leg as she collapsed on the floor. Cat gasped, her immediate instinct to go to the fallen woman, but Varish motioned with the pistol.
“Correction. I am in charge.” He stood, heavy boots clumping against the steps as he descended the dais. When he reached Jane, he looked down at the fallen woman as she panted in pain, her forehead pressed against the floor. No sympathy showed in his expression. Then he looked up at the rest of them.
“You belong to the T’Laat now. And you have two choices.”
None of the women responded with so much as a murmur. They were all too wary to risk a response that would get them all shot.
“Good, you’re learning already.” Varish smiled, walking around the small group with a measured tread and praising them like he would a puppy that had mastered a new trick. “Either you behave or you suffer. Simple as that. I’m not K’Vass… your sole purpose aboard this ship is to offer comfort for my men.”
He paused in front of them, caressing the barrel of the pistol in a very unhealthy manner. “Remember that you do not have to look pretty, or even be able to move, for them to use your soft cunts. Do you understand?”
No response. There never would be to a declaration like that.
“Good.” He clicked his fingers at Cat. “You…K’Vass’s woman. Come here.”
A chill swept over her skin, but she took a step forward, then another, forcing her unwilling body to approach him. Every instinct within her urged her to run, to get as far away from him as she could as fast as she could but she knew it wasn’t possible. He’d cut her down before she’d taken three steps and would laugh as she died in agony.
She came to a stop in front of him, her eyes on the floor. Not the modesty of a slave faced with her master but pure self-preservation. If he looked into her eyes, he’d see she wanted to gut him. Slowly.
“I can see why K’Vass chose you. You are lovely.” He reached out and ran a hand down the exposed length of her arm, strong fingers shackling her wrist and he pulled her up against him. Revulsion filled her, bile rising in her throat as strong arms wrapped around her. Cat scratched at his neck and shoulders, doing no harm to the battered leather but using the movement to cover as she snapped the chain around his neck. She tore free of his grasp and stepped backward.
His face contorted in fury and he lashed out, backhanding her across the face. Pain flared in her cheek and she spun around, stumbling as she fell onto Jane on the floor.
“Bitch!” he hissed, standing over her. “Never, never say no. Ever!”
“I’m sorry, my Lord,” Cat sobbed noisily, keeping her hand concealed beneath her body as she pressed Varish’s ident tag into Jane’s hands. The other woman, lips still pressed together in pain, gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“You’d better be,” he snarled, wrapping a hard hand around her upper arm and hauling her bodily to her feet. “Get the rest of them prepared for the choosing ceremony,” he ordered the guards, already dragging Cat from the room. “Leave that one there until it dies. As a warning.”
He said nothing more. Instead, he stormed from the room, dragging Cat in his wake. She didn’t try to pry his fingers from her arm, knowing that the reprisal was likely to be deadly.
“Please, my Lord. I’m sorry,” she whined, keeping up the pretense of a panicked slave. All the while though, she kept an eye out for something, anything she could use.
Hopefully, the throne room would be cleared and Jane allowed to move freely. If she were able. Cat had been in the computer core then unconscious for most of the Lathar attack on the base so she had no idea how bad injuries from those pistols could be. The Marine had been conscious, at least. And conscious was good, right? It meant they had a chance.
“You will be,” he muttered as they reached the end of a corridor and a door swished open in front of them. Unlike Tarrick’s, which were neat and military-sparse, Varish’s quarters were opulent and decadent.
He shoved her into a large room. She had a fleeting impression of large couches and sumptuous rugs before he pushed her into a bedroom. Her mouth dropped open. It looked as though it had been pulled from a bad romance holo-movie she’d once seen, the Space Sultan’s Harem.
There was already someone there, a tall, slender woman wearing robes in the corner of the room. Cat sucked in a breath. Was Varish into voyeurism as well?
“Out!” He barked the order at the other woman, who slipped past them without a word of complaint.
Cat got a look under her hood at her face as she did so. It was a long face, not human or lathar looking at all but more like a human version of a cow. The creature scuttled out before Cat could say a word.
He pulled her around to face him, her back to the bed and looked down at her. He was as well built as Tarrick was, and he was handsome, even with the scar, but she felt nothing other than a mixture of anger and fear.
“You’re a pretty one,” he mused, as though he were talking to himself. Like she wasn’t even present…or didn’t matter. Given his words earlier, she was going with didn’t matter. She tried not to flinch as he reached out and touched her cheek. A gentle touch, now. She doubted it would stay so.
“I can see what K’Vass saw in you. It will kill him to know I’ve got you now…that it’s my cock buried in your silken depths. Plowing you over and over until you scream my name.”
“I’ll never scream your name,” she promised and struck. He was so close he couldn’t block and a man was a man all over the galaxy. Even the Lathar kept their balls between their legs, just like humans. Bringing her knee up, she clocked him hard in the groin.
He grunted, folding at the waist. She tried to slide to the side, escape him, but his hand shot out and grabbed her arm in a punishing grip. Screaming, she fought like a wildcat, landing blows where ever she could. It made no difference. Straightening up, he backhanded her again, the power of the blow knocking her backward over the bed. On her in an instant, he pinned her to the soft surface with his body, the bulge in his groin pressing hard against her.
“I didn’t say you’d be screaming in pleasure, did I?”
The Latharian Emperor was the greatest warrior in their culture, a man both revered and feared as the physical embodiment of the ancestor gods. He was also Tarrick’s uncle, on his mother’s side. Family connections didn’t mean that Tarrick could duck out of a holo-connection with the man early though, not even with a red alert ringing in his ears.
“Thank you, Imperial Majesty,” he murmured, bending into a low bow. Light years away his “body,” a non-combat avatar, bowed before the Emperor as he swept from the room, followed by his entourage. Tarrick curled his lip at the soft-bodied, useless courtiers, safe in the knowledge the bot didn’t have the facial muscles to pick up the movement. Straightening, he brought the bot back to a stable position and released his hold on it.
Instantly, he was back on an uplink couch in the pilots lounge. Tearing the headset off, he looked up. Other recliners surrounded him in rows. They were all occupied, each warrior wearing an identical headset to remotely pilot the avatars.
A yell from the other side of the room made his head snap around. A warrior fell from his couch, tearing his headset off as he went. “Fuck, avatar down! There are too many of them.”
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, levering himself up and handing his headset off to the warrior hovering next to him. Before the impression of his bo
dy had smoothed from the padded surface of the couch, the other man slid onto it and put the headset on, the visor covering his eyes. A second later, lights flashed active on the front, the red and blue lights showing a local link rather than the subspace link Tarrick had used.
“The T’Laat attacked,” Jassyn, waiting by the door, informed him. “Hit us hard and fast…took the women. They’re fighting a ferocious rear-guard action that’s slowing us.”
Tarrick froze as fear lanced the center of his chest and his body forgot to breathe. Varish T’Laat had Cat. The thought of his little human in that monster’s clutches… He gritted his teeth. Varish’s reputation preceded him. Ruthless and determined in battle, he was sadistic and vicious in more intimate pursuits. So much so, most pleasure facilities refused to take his credit. Only those that catered to specific…tastes would allow him and his men entry.
“How much time?” he demanded, marching past Jassyn. “They’ll have taken them back to the flagship. Do we still have that hunter-seeker program on lockdown from the B’Kaar?”
“Yes, my Lord. Want me to break it out?”
Tarrick nodded. Although most Lathar clans focused on militaristic pursuits, some, like the B’Kaar, specialized in different forms of warfare. The B’Kaar took digital and subspace combat to the highest level. A hunter-seeker program had cost Tarrick a lot of credits, but he’d never had cause to use it. The prospect of losing Cat though meant he was prepared to put all his cards on the table.
“I don’t care how you do it, but get me onto that ship. They are not keeping our women.”
Jassyn nodded, heading for his console on the bridge as soon as they cleared the doors. All Tarrick’s senior warriors were present, and Karryl threw a blast assault rifle his way. Tarrick didn’t slow his pace, catching it mid-air. “Jassyn, you coordinate from here. Gaarn, power up a Kelaas assault flyer.”
“Already done, my Lord. It’s waiting on the flight deck,” the pilot confirmed, falling into step behind Tarrick and Karryl.
“Now, let’s get our women back.”
The flight between the two ships was short. Barely had they left the flight deck of the Velu’vias than Gaarn had settled the small assault flyer on the hull of Varish’s flagship. The hull cutter hit metal with a clunk and cut through the tri-plated covering with a squeal. Through the flyer’s viewscreen, Tarrick watched other units touchdown, the bigger, hulking forms of the bot transports between them. Impatience made him shift from foot to foot and anger tensed his body until his vision faded to red at the edges.
“Easy, boss.” Karryl dropped a big hand on Tarrick’s shoulder, his expression both sympathetic and concerned. “We’ll get them back, I promise. Just think, they’re confusing the fuck out of that lot right now.”
“Yeah, ain’t that the truth.” Unbidden a smile curved Tarrick’s lips.
The human women were the most contrary creatures he’d ever come across; fascinating and frustrating by equal terms. But he knew just as well as Karryl that spirit could be crushed under a Lathar fist. They’d already had the women for hours…he bit back a growl. Who knew what they’d been subjected to.
“We’re through.” The shout came from the back of the flyer. Like a well-oiled machine, the Lathar warriors formed an attack formation and swarmed through the blown hatchway into an empty corridor. Empty was good, it meant either the ship’s internal defenses were offline or engaged elsewhere.
“K’Vass here,” Tarrick spoke, triggering his comms line. “We are boots on deck. Confirm hunter-seeker program active.”
The comm line crackled and Jassyn’s voice filled his ear. “Active and in their system, sir. Half their bots down. Others on a different codex. Working on them.”
Farther down the corridor, more of Tarrick’s men poured through similar boarding holes, followed by the metal combat avatars. He watched as they organized themselves into a slick, well-practiced march of death, and moved farther into the ship toward their objectives.
“No resistance so far.” He kept up the running commentary as he and his men made their way down the empty corridors toward the center of the ship. Varish would be on the bridge, or—Tarrick didn’t want to think about it, but he had to—he’d be in his quarters.
With Cat.
At the thought of his little Cat in the vile warrior’s arms, fury threatened to rise and overwhelm him again. Tarrick fought it, his eyes narrowing as they approached the central hall of the ship and heard sounds of combat from around the next corner.
“Jass…do we have units this far in?” he asked, his blast rifle tucked into his shoulder, ready to fire. They were the only group on this boarding vector and their time had been fast. It was unlikely another combat team had gotten ahead of them.
“No. All other units are at least a kilisec behind you.”
“Okay…” Tarrick lifted his hand from the trigger grip and gave rapid-fire combat signals, rearranging his men to turn the corner. A female yell made him pause and blink. There were no female Lathar warriors…
“Move!” Tarrick gave the order, and the warriors swarmed around the corners to find a scene they hadn’t expected in a million years. A small group of human women held the corridor, bottlenecking the T’Laat combat bots and warriors. Somehow they’d broken into a weapons cache, and were wielding the big assault rifles with an ability and violence that astounded Tarrick.
“Target the joints,” a woman near the front bellowed as she stepped out of cover behind a support strut, favoring a leg and took aim. She fired in short, controlled bursts at a bot trying to break through their line, and shattered its knee joints.
“They’ve taken the thermal safeties offline.” Surprise rang in Karryl’s voice. It was the only way the big weapons would fire that fast. “They’ll kill themselves.”
It might be dangerous, but it was damn effective. As was the weird way they fired, in bursts rather than precision single shots to take out the central processors on the bots. The Lathar warriors ran up behind the women, settling into positions beside them.
“About time you boys showed up,” the woman controlling the action threw at them as Tarrick and Karryl slid into place next to her. She didn’t take her eyes off the action ahead of them, continuing to fire until the rifle she held whined.
Tarrick’s heart pounded. The rifle was on overload. Both he and Karryl reached out at the same time to snatch the weapon from her hands, but she stood and launched it at the T’Laat warriors, yelling, “Fire in the hole!”
As one, the women turned away, shielding their heads and faces as the whine of the rifle grew to ear-splitting proportions. Tarrick and his men barely had time to throw themselves into cover before it exploded, rendering the approaching avatar bots twisted hunks of metal and leaving the warriors behind either dead or mortally wounded.
“Holy fuck,” Karryl breathed the words, but they were the ones on every K’Vass warriors’ mind. “You’re…scary.”
“He gave us two choices. Slavery or suffering. So we made them suffer.” The woman turned and smiled. Tarrick recognized her as the human soldier who had impressed Karryl. Now he could see why.
Her gaze flicked over him and Karryl and he realized she was wounded, a large dressing around her thigh. Reaching around her neck, she unlooped something and held it out to him.
It was an ident tag. Shit, now he knew how they’d gotten into the weapons cache.
“He has Cat. Go get her.”
His fingers brushed hers as he took the tag. He nodded, a mark of respect from one warrior to another.
“Thank you.”
He took off down the corridor, the chain wrapped around his fist and activated his comm. “Jassyn, locate Varish.”
Less than three kilisecs later Tarrick crashed through the outer door into Varish’s quarters. An Oonat cowered in the corner, her large, doe-like eyes wide with fear.
“Where?” he demanded, knowing he was scaring the creature but not able to do anything about it at the moment.
; She shrieked, huddled into the corner and pointed toward the bedroom. Tarrick’s head whipped around to the door. Shit. They were in…He had Cat in his sleeping chamber.
The inner door was no match for his boot as he kicked it in. What was it with Varish and this archaic décor? They might have been desert nomads way back when but they didn’t need to live it now.
“You fucking bitch, you will submit.” The snarl was punctuated by the sound of a fist hitting soft skin. Varish knelt on the bed, a smaller figure pinned beneath him. The spill of gray silk and human-dark hair were all Tarrick saw before fury overwhelmed him and he launched himself toward the bed with a roar.
8
Cat’s world had reduced to two things: pain and ensuring her tormentor didn’t take her quickly. He wouldn’t kill her, not with women in such short supply, but she made sure he wanted to. Death would be a release. The final escape from a situation in which she saw no other way out. And if she were lucky, she could take this asshole’s ability to procreate away so he’d never rape another woman.
He roared as he hit her, landing blows when she couldn’t block fast enough, but still she fought. And when she couldn’t fight anymore, when her arms were too heavy to hold him off, he still roared.
But the blows stopped.
Blessed unconsciousness beckoned and she welcomed it. She hoped she wouldn’t wake, but even if she did, she’d find another way to make sure she escaped him. Permanently.
A different roar filled the room, followed by another and she struggled to open her eyes. What was it? Did the asshole get off on howling like an animal? Large bodies danced in front of her and she squinted to bring them into focus. They stumbled toward her and she gasped, rolling to push herself off the soft surface of the bed. She landed on the floor with a thud and cried out in pain as they fell on the bed where she’d just been.
“I’ll kill you for touching her.” The snarl was low and almost unrecognizable, but she focused enough to spot Tarrick, his hands around Varish’s throat as he throttled him. He’d come for her. Warmth spread through her chest, relief, and something deeper filtering through her bruised body.
