by S. E. Smith
Deppar sped up the video until he caught a glimpse of the blue gown the woman was wearing. He glanced at the time. It had taken the guards almost thirty minutes to find her again. She was coming down the alley where he was now. Behind her was one of the other guards.
Once again, frustration burned through Deppar. This reader model did not have audio capability. He watched as the scene unfolded. The laughter on the men’s faces, the woman’s bowed head, the discharge as she shot the guard to her left. The guard with the vidpod fell to the ground, so the front of the woman and the ground were all that was visible. The woman moved again. This time, Deppar was able to see clearly that her legs were not jointed like a Driserian’s.
She was quick, he noted. The vidpod angled upward as the guard rose. He could see red against the blue of her outer covering. She was bleeding.
The vidpod aimed straight now and for the first time, Deppar was able to get a view of the woman’s face. At first glance, she looked like she was a Driserian, except for her dark brown eyes. His hand tightened on the device when the guard’s arm blocked the view of the camera. A second later, the vidpod jerked as the guard stumbled backwards.
He froze the image on the face of a species he had never seen before. Frowning, he enlarged the image. The woman’s skin was darker than his. Rich, dark-brown hair matched the color of her eyes. Her lips were pressed together as if she were in pain. This confirmed that it had been her blood that he had seen on her outer clothing. He let the video continue playing. Her head turned, but he never caught sight of who she was looking at because at that point the vidpod had fallen off the guard’s vest and rolled until it was facing the back wall.
His hand closed around the recording device. He breathed deeply. A strange species like this, especially a female, would have been brought to his attention. Who had she been looking at? Could it have been the Trivator?
He looked over at the guard with a clean shot between the eyes. A shot like that wasn’t impossible to make, but it was not one most species would have picked first. Was it possible that this female had something to do with the Trivator’s escape? If so, how had she managed to get him out of his cell, through the building, across the planks that had bridged the gap across the alley, and spirit him away without being caught? It was impossible to believe—yet….
“Follow the blood trail,” he quietly ordered.
“Sir?” the guard asked, unsure if he had heard Deppar correctly.
Deppar turned and shot the man a heated glare. “I said follow the blood trail. The woman was injured and bleeding. Follow the blood trail and you will find her. When you do, inform me at once. I want her and whoever is with her brought to me alive,” he demanded.
“Yes, sir,” the guard replied.
Deppar swiveled on his heel and retraced his steps down the alley. He wanted to return to his office and further analyze the vidpod. He wanted to know who the female was and who was with her.
Chapter Fourteen
Pain, that was the first thing that Lina expected when she woke. Well, in all honesty, she was surprised that she was still alive and capable of waking up. After that pleasant surprise, she moved on to expecting the pain. A frown creased her brow. An analysis of her body resulted in her noticing a pleasant numbness.
“I’m paralyzed,” she whispered in horror.
That had to be the reason she didn’t feel any discomfort. She blinked, trying to clear the fog from her brain. Focusing, she imagined her fingers moving.
The feeling of horror changed to puzzlement when she realized she could feel the cloth covering of her bed. She also realized that she could feel the material against her bare skin, including her legs.
“Okay, maybe semi-paralyzed,” she murmured, concentrating on wiggling her toes. “Or, not.”
“You are awake,” a voice grunted, sitting up beside her bed.
Lina turned her head to the side and blinked. Edge was sitting on her makeshift pallet on the floor. She gave him a critical look.
“You look like shit. Are you feeling okay?” she asked in a voice that felt surprisingly weak. “What happened? How long have I been out?”
Edge’s expression darkened. Lina wondered if she should close her eyes and pretend that she had fallen back asleep. From the fire burning in Edge’s eyes, she had a feeling she was about to receive an ass-chewing.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” he growled. “You almost died! You have been unconscious for two days! I told you not to leave, but you refused to listen to me. You are the most hard-headed, irritating….”
Lina grinned when his voice faded, and she could see him trying to think of other names to call her. She relaxed against the pillow and raised an eyebrow. It was nice not to be in pain.
“How about lovable, smart, witty, cute, kick-ass, and a good kisser?” she suggested.
Edge glared at her with a frown. “No, those are not what I was thinking at all,” he replied before his expression changed, “but, I do agree with the last one.”
Lina chuckled, then moaned. Her hand slid up to her side. Okay, it did hurt when she laughed.
Mark off laughing from the list for a few days, she thought, closing her eyes.
“I cannot give you more medication for the pain yet. There is not much left,” he said, rising from the floor and sitting on the edge of the bed.
Lina hissed when he pulled away the covers enough that he could gently grasp her hand in his. She fumbled to cover herself. Without the covers, half of her right side, including her breast, was exposed.
He surprised her again when he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed her fingers against his mouth. His eyes darkened with emotion. Lina felt that familiar flutter in her stomach whenever they touched. Hell, whenever she thought of him.
This isn’t good. Not good at all, she thought.
“Water,” she whispered.
Edge nodded. “It is a good thing that Bailey and Mirela kept several containers in reserve,” he commented as he reached over and picked up a container of water on the table beside the bed.
Lina winced when she tried to sit up. A shiver ran through her. She clutched the bedsheet to her chest when he slid his arm underneath her back and helped her sit up to drink some water.
“Thank you,” she muttered.
She raised her hand to hold the container, but he kept one hand on it and the other wrapped around her shoulders. The cool liquid felt good going down her dry throat. She drank nearly a third of the container before the effort became too much and she needed to lie back down again.
Edge tenderly lowered her back to the bed. He brushed a hand along her cheek. His fingers warm against her cool flesh.
“Edge…,” she started to say with an uneasy tremble in her voice.
He slid his hand down and laid his thumb against her slightly parted lips. His eyes flashed with a warning and a determined look came into his eyes. Lina was too tired to fight—at the moment, but she had to let him know that there could never be anything between them. Well, at least nothing serious.
“You are mine, Lina. Mine to care for, mine to protect. You are my Amate,” he stated with a mutinous glare.
Lina shook her head. Her eyes closed despite her desire to stay awake. It was as if her body knew that she needed the rest even if her mind fought it.
“I can’t be yours, big guy,” she whispered.
She couldn’t be his—ever. It was hard to belong to someone when you didn’t have a heart. She had given hers away years ago to someone else.
Edge tenderly tucked Lina’s arm back under the covers and bowed his head. He looked at his hands. They were trembling. The chaotic thoughts and trembling were slowly diminishing, but he still had issues with them. Both issues became noticeably worse when he wasn’t near Lina.
The sound of the curtain moving drew his attention. He turned and saw Gail silently standing in the opening. She looked tired.
“How is she? I thought I heard her voice,” she asked.
&nbs
p; Edge felt an unfamiliar smile lift the corner of his mouth. “Hard-headed, stubborn… but also cute and lovable. The last two were her words, not mine. I used a few others,” he admitted.
Gail chuckled and looked relieved. “I’ll let the others know that she is going to be okay,” she said.
Edge saw her turn, then pause and look back at him. Gail had kept her distance from him since the beginning. She had always looked at him with an expression of suspicion. He couldn’t blame her. He remembered what had happened to her world after the Trivators were sent there.
“I won’t hurt you or any of the other women,” he said.
Gail glanced at Lina’s peaceful face before looking back at him. “It isn’t us that I’m worried about you hurting. Lina can be tough as nails, but under that tough exterior is a warm and loving heart. She would give her life for those she loves. She’s come pretty damn close to doing that more times than I can count in just the few years I’ve known her. I see the way you look at her. Don’t confuse being grateful that she saved your ass for something deeper. In the end, you are still one of the aliens who changed our world forever and someone we can’t trust,” she said.
Edge rose to his feet. Gail didn’t move. She straightened and stared back at him.
“Lina is mine. I have claimed her as my Amate. It is my responsibility to protect and care for her. This is not about gratitude,” he replied.
Gail shook her head. “You can’t just claim her, Edge. Lina isn’t a pet. You say you won’t hurt any of us, and part of me believes that you mean it. I don’t think you would intentionally hurt any of us, especially Lina, but….” She shook her head and was silent a moment before she spoke again. “Just a word of caution, Trivator. You might want to protect your own heart,” she quietly said before she stepped out of the room.
He stood there as the curtain swung closed behind her. Returning to his position on the bed, he picked up Lina’s hand and studied her pale, slender fingers. Lifting them to his mouth, he pressed them against his warm lips.
“You are mine, little goddess,” he murmured, rubbing her hand against his cheek. “You keep the insanity away, giving me peace, and warming my soul. We will find a way out of here, and I will keep you safe.”
Chapter Fifteen
Oculus IX
“Prymorus,” Deppar said grimly. “You arrived early.”
Prymorus’ mouth tightened at the expression of consternation that crossed the younger male’s face before Deppar hid it. He didn’t need to ask if Deppar had been successful in finding the Trivator—his expression told him that he hadn’t been. Pushing past Deppar, Prymorus entered his half-brother’s office.
“I suspected you would need assistance,” Prymorus stated, walking over to the wall of windows. “What have you discovered?”
Behind him, he could hear Deppar walk over to the bar. The sounds of Deppar removing the stopper from a liquor bottle and pouring the liquid into two glasses echoed through the otherwise silent room. In the reflection from the window, he observed Deppar’s nervous movements.
“He was helped,” Deppar said, walking over and holding out the glass of liquor.
Prymorus took the glass. His mouth tightened in irritation. He wanted information he did not already know.
“What have you done so far?” he asked.
Prymorus watched as Deppar gazed out the window and down at the levels below them. If it wasn’t for the fact that Deppar was useful at times, he would have already eliminated him long ago. Deppar’s only value to him had been the way he oversaw the Spaceport. Now he wasn’t even beneficial for that.
“There is a woman who I believe helped him,” Deppar admitted.
Prymorus turned and stared at Deppar with a look of disbelief. “A woman? You are telling me that a single female infiltrated your stronghold, overpowered your guard, broke through a locked door, and carried out a Trivator warrior—all on her own? Who is this incredible female warrior?”
A flash of anger crossed Deppar’s face at the sarcastic tone, and he walked over to his desk. Moving to stand behind Deppar, Prymorus watched him enter a series of commands into his computer. A moment later, the image of a woman’s face appeared.
“I don’t know her species yet. She was dressed as a Driserian, but as you can see, she isn’t one. She wasn’t alone. She, and whoever was with her, killed three of my guards in an alley near the Trader’s Market eight levels below,” he explained.
“Human,” Prymorus replied with a curl of his lip. “The woman is a human. How did she get here?”
Prymorus watched the play of emotions cross Deppar’s face as he studied the woman’s features for a moment.
“There is no record of her or anyone else like her arriving on the Spaceport. I’ve searched all the arrival documents for the past year. No one has ever seen her before. I’ve ordered reward notices posted for her capture on all levels. Interviews conducted with all the vendors in the Trader’s Market came up with the same response. No one recognized her,” Deppar replied in frustration. “It is like she suddenly appeared, then vanished. Even before this incident, I’ve had every departing spacecraft thoroughly searched, so there is no way she could have coming and going without notice. I do know she was wounded in the attack. My guards are tracking the faint residue of her blood. The process has been hampered by the activity in the area.”
Prymorus could almost feel his half-brother’s frustration. It matched his own. He rubbed the tender flesh of his gun wound. Gripping his drink, he returned to the window to look down at the activity on the Spaceport.
“The Drethulans on the warship will assist in the search for her and the Trivator,” Prymorus informed Deppar.
“The Drethulans…. Can they be trusted? We supply them with weapons which they could easily use against us,” Deppar replied with distaste. “My men will find both the woman and the Trivator. I don’t want the Drethulans on my Spaceport.”
Prymorus’s chuckle was soft and mocking. Deppar thought he was in charge, when truly he had lost his command position on the Spaceport the moment Prymorus had stepped onto it. With the Drethulans behind him, not even the Prime Ruler was a match for Prymorus and his power.
“This is no longer your Spaceport, Deppar. I will oversee the search for the human and the Trivator henceforth,” Prymorus stated.
“The Prime Ruler will…,” Deppar snarled, rising from his office chair.
Prymorus waved his hand in dismissal. “Our uncle is old and weak, Deppar. Be careful how you challenge me, half-brother. The star systems are about to change.” He turned to study Deppar’s outraged expression. “The Alliance will fall.”
Deppar gave him a skeptical look. “Just as it happened on that primitive planet? There was only a small regiment of Trivator warriors there. What about Dises V? You are the one who will fall, half-brother. You and your overweening ambitions will drag all of us down with you. If the Alliance doesn’t retaliate against us, then the Drethulans will. If I had my choice, I would choose the Alliance,” Deppar snarled.
Rage swept through Prymorus. Throwing his glass against the wall, he pulled the pistol at his waist and aimed it at his incompetent relation. Deppar’s sneer changed to wariness.
“Do not test me, Deppar,” Prymorus warned in a soft but dangerous voice. “The Trivator you allowed to escape could provide us with valuable and much needed information in the coming conflict.”
Deppar shook his head. “He would die before he would talk. Not even the drugs I gave him would loosen his tongue,” he argued.
Prymorus’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t need drugs to make him talk. I only need the human who helped him escape,” he replied, lowering his weapon and looking thoughtful.
“Why would that matter?” Deppar asked, confused.
Chapter Sixteen
Rathon:
Razor studied the information that Jordan had discovered. Once again, he appreciated that she was on the Alliance’s side. Her skills rivaled the best programmers in the c
oalition, but it was her tenacity and intuition to search through data others would dismiss that gave her an edge most lacked.
“I know you have men searching for Prymorus. I had a program running in the background searching for anything concerning him. I never would have connected him with Edge’s disappearance. I shouldn’t have been surprised though, considering what happened to Dagger,” Jordan said.
Razor’s gaze focused on the Spaceport in orbit around the Waxian home world. It would be suicidal to send a team to extract Edge. At the moment, they could still only guess which Trivator the Waxians claimed to be holding. If by some miracle, a team was able to infiltrate the Spaceport, they would have to locate him and then retreat through hostile territory.
“It might not be Edge. He has been missing for over two years. From the content of the transmissions, the Trivator warrior they are talking about hasn’t been in Waxian custody for very long,” Hunter observed.
“Edge is the only one who keeps coming up on my filters as a probability. What I would like to know is why would they want a Trivator warrior in the first place. I checked through all the information I could find and neither Deppar nor Prymorus have had dealings in the fight rings the way Kelman did with Dagger,” Jordan said with a perplexed expression.
Dagger frowned. “Kelman was greedy for credits. Prymorus is greedy for power. The Waxians have always dealt with the Drethulans on a business level. This is something else. The attack on Earth is evidence of that,” he said.
Hunter shot Razor a wary glance. “If you know anything you aren’t sharing, now would be a good time to divulge it. I know the Alliance Council has been convening almost daily behind closed doors in secret sessions since we returned from Dises V,” he reflected.
Razor’s jaw tightened. Yes, the council had been meeting. The increase in Drethulan forces and the attack on Earth had initially drawn the wrath of many of the council members, but since then they had quickly dismissed the hostile action as a rogue attempt at colonizing a new world and not as a threat to the Alliance.
