"Follow me. Come on.” Sol pulled on the dancer's arm that seemed the less wounded of the two. Both were streaked with blood. In fact, the woman's whole body seemed covered in sticky red. The Marines were laying down heavy cover for them from the shelter of the shuttle. Sol's hearing was still muffled, but she heard the continuing battle clear enough. Bullets still zipped past and zinged through the trees. Men screamed in the night.
"I hope every last one of them dies as slowly, as painfully as that bastard did with his guts hanging out.” Sol's hearing had returned enough to hear the dancer's muttered words.
She turned at the shuttle's entrance, numbed by the sight of the feral grin on the female's face. More blood dripped from a shoulder wound and flowed down from the woman's wounded scalp to her heels.
"Thank you,” the woman whispered just before she collapsed. Asher caught her before she hit the ground.
Sol gave the command to lift off, a distinct, “Get us the hell outta’ here.” Her lieutenant still stood with the dancer in his arms, stark horror reflected in his gaze and in the grim lines of his face. He cradled her as gingerly as a babe.
"Take her to sickbay with the rest,” Sol ordered while looking around at the few Marines that were left of her brave volunteers. “And, Lieutenant—” She waited for his slight nod. “All the medical team is to be female, got that? All of them."
He nodded again and Sol felt his gaze on her as she uncovered the bodies of her Marine dead on the shuttle's deck. No one had been left behind. Before the night ended, Sol would write the parents and relatives of the crew she had lost. They had died heroes, but, when she reached Delta Three, she would face charges and possibly a dishonorable discharge. Soledad would be lucky if she didn't get prison time. She hoped it wasn't here on Hydra.
* * * *
With a jerk, Sol awoke from the lingering nightmare of her memories. Her night clothes stuck to her from the shaking sweats that she hadn't felt in a long time. “Gelli?” she called toward the room where Gellico slept. An ominous quiet rested in the hazy light of dawn. Oddly, there was no sound of breathing coming from there either; no soft snoring, no gentle moaning. “Oh, Gelli, you didn't do this for me, did you?"
Sol picked up the red churvet flower that lay over a note on the table.
Sweetie, Went to see your commander about that vacation trip he plans. Stay healthy and do what Punch says. Don't worry.
Love, Gelli
P.S. Eat your vegetables.
Sol snorted and crumpled the note, then gripped the blossom. Thorns cut her palm. Yeah, like she wasn't going to worry whether or not either Gabe or Gelli would survive their confrontation, let alone a trip to Hydra.
* * * *
Gabriel tossed and turned, twisting the sheets and reliving the nightmare of his birth—his lifelong nightmare.
His first awareness, still the unborn child in his mother's womb, was filled with love and the blissful loving desires of his mother and father. Their hovering presence surrounded him with the most joyful comfort, but in the background, Gabe sensed the sharp bite of their fear, the taint of flight and the sourness of frustration. He remembered hours and days of frantic travel across light years and star systems. He knew his father was a great figure of unsurpassed bravery, a warrior prince to the Chakkra throne. But he was also a warrior who defied his race and took a mate from another world—a woman ambassador from Terra. This was forbidden. Only the Chakkra outcasts were free from death for polluting the Chakkra blood. A blood prince was never allowed that freedom. Gabriel's Terran born mother was light years too different from the Chakkra. Perhaps it was those very differences that attracted the prince. He—born of a warring nature and she of gentle disposition. Their love defied centuries of tradition.
Yes, Gabriel's blessed mother was different from the warring Chakkra, so wonderfully different, so intelligently different. She filled her unborn child, her Gabriel, with gentleness and peace—and such fear. Wisely, his father fled his kin who were intent on killing him and his mate. After months of searching, their only place of refuge became a barren and near lifeless world far out in the Rim of explored space. No one would ever find them there.
How wrong the thought. How fickle the fates.
Not long after Gabriel's mother bloomed fully with the evidence of their doomed love, a lost Rigelian starship landed, badly in need of repair. Over Gabriel's sire's vehement protests, his mate made the crew welcome with hot meals and shelter until their ship was repaired. Even as he ordered the men to secrecy, he knew they would boast of their adventure. The Chakkra prince longed to cut off their heads even knowing that his little mate would plead for their lives. Against his better judgment, he let them go.
Not a month later, Chakkra forces landed. Warriors ran them to ground.
With his great heart heaving, Gabriel's father fell to the rocks under the pounding marstriss’ hooves of the Chakkra king's mounted forces. He could no longer run, but he cradled his mate from the worst of their fall. She lay sheltered beneath his chest, her face hidden in his warmth. Not one hoof scarred her flesh, but she cried out at each jerk his body gave though not a sound escaped his lips. But inside his mate, surrounded and protected by thick amino fluids, Gabriel cried out at the searing pain that wrecked his father. Although yet unborn, Gabriel was still aware of each painful strike against his sire. Along with that, grief and fear from his mother burned and tormented him. He twisted and rolled against her sheltering muscles.
Finally, at a hurled command, the fighters reined back. Gabriel's sire rose and pulled his mate upright, curved over her without loosening his hold. Fierce warriors surrounded them. They jeered and taunted them with their sharpened spears.
Gabriel's father ignored them. He held his mate to him tenderly, knowing this was the last time he'd touch her. Her hot tears flowed onto his chest. His skin burned with her grief. He reached his arms around her swollen girth and laid a hand over where his son spilled his trembling awareness.
"Never forget me, my son. I would have given all to have seen you and held you—for at least one time. Feel me and know my heart.” Love, pride, joy and a fierce sorrow flowed to Gabriel in that one link. He saw in his infant mind the towering warrior figure of his sire. His great stature, his fierce pride was a thing never to be forgotten. Even the death warriors who circled them remained in awe—for a few moments. Their immobility broke when Gabe's sire bent to his mate and kissed her lips. Defying the warriors surrounding them, she gripped her lover's head and pressed her tear-salty lips to his until the fighters pulled them apart. She sobbed and reached out to him. One warrior sneered at her. She spit full in his face. He made to strike her.
"Do not dare,” Gabe's father commanded in a bellow that rang over the crowd. “She carries my heir. A king's grand prince.” He struggled in the grip of the many warriors who held him. Ropes snagged his strong legs apart. More around his wrists jerked his arms level to his shoulders. He couldn't get away.
"She carries filth.” A warrior jeered back. Another warrior stepped forward and stayed the arm that again rose to strike her. He whispered, and Gabriel understood his words to Gabe's mother. She would live only until his birth. The warriors then struck his father in her stead. His mother staggered but willed her legs to hold. She would live to give her son life. Her frantic glance sought her mate's and held his even as the first spear entered his chest. She screamed. Gabe's father made no sound. He absorbed the pain and straightened back to his full seven foot height. Another spear entered and another moan escaped her. Now tears flowed unchecked down her face. Gabriel twisted in her belly. She cradled her arms about him and gave herself up to grief, never once looking away from his father's eyes. It took seven spears to bring Gabriel's father, a royal prince of Chakkra, to the ground. Only then did the ones who held her release their hold. She fell next to her mate in time to see the light flee his pale vision. She kissed his still warm lips; breathed in his last breath.
Gabriel felt the depth of his parents’ love w
hen their lips met, but his mother's terrible grief swamped him. Her abhorrence of bloodshed and death took a backseat to her desolation. She longed for her own death, but she was torn between that and giving Gabriel life. Her deep reverence for life forbade her from taking his life. From his first stirring in her womb, she had named him Gabriel for a winged religious figure of her faith. The Chakkra had no religion. Warriors needed none. They made their own way. No one but the king governed them.
The warriors kicked Gabriel's mother in the head when she prayed over her mate's body. Gabe's father meant nothing to them. He was a traitor to them, mated outside their race. The king had ordered his son's death but he wanted an heir. Even a half breed grandson was better than none. Gabe's mother would die soon, too. She welcomed the black oblivion of unconsciousness.
Only a month later, in the king's cold stone prison, Gabriel's mother lay in the painful throes of childbirth with only one birthing woman present to attend her. No medicines were given her, no comfort of any kind. After all, she was to die soon. Sweaty and fatigued, weak from loss of blood, Gabriel's mother, nonetheless, sent words of love and assurance to her child. Gabe sent back as much as he could. Her human senses could not read him, and she was much too frail to survive his birth even if she wasn't under the king's death decree. She didn't care how death came, only that it came after Gabriel's birth. Since his father's death, she had only eaten the barest minimum for life. She drank even less.
After a day and a night of pain, Gabriel wriggled free of his mother's warmth. He cried loud in the cold air. He struggled and longed for her. Finally, someone roughly wrapped him and placed him in his mother's fragrant warmth. She hugged him. Her wet face rubbed his hot cheek. Her voice whispered to him like that of the softest breeze. She tasted of the sweetest mother's milk. Somehow Gabriel knew it was the only time he would be so blessed.
"Do not forget me or your father, my son, my angel. Remember we loved you with all our hearts. Hate and violence is not the way of a wise man, my son. Learn, grow and bring peace."
Suddenly, Gabriel was ripped from her arms. A great pain entered her chest. Metal pierced her heart, but she gave a joyous cry on her last breath. A beauteous smile remained on her lips. The Chakkra who saw it averted their eyes and never looked at her again. Her body was dumped outside on the midden heap with the other rotten waste.
"Ahhhgh!” The baby Gabriel cried long and loud. No one answered. He quickly learned that crying availed you nothing, and so he quit. He also learned about kicks, slaps and pain as he grew. Bruises faded, broken limbs knit, but memories still lingered. He never spoke of his parents in the cold, stone halls of the Chakkra. In his growing years, he learned quickness and stealth, along with cunning and reasoning. He never revealed that he was able to read the warriors’ thoughts and intentions. He grew adept at staying clear of trouble. Only the old king's hidden grief consoled him. Better the old warrior suffer in solitude than Gabriel breaking his mother's wishes. He longed to kill the bastard despite her whispered admonitions. The king slowly went mad. The old beast never got over the execution of his oldest son. Gabe thought that was poetic justice.
Years later, after escaping to schooling on another world and entering the Diplomatic Corps, Gabe learned of his grand sire's final death. The warrior king had been dying inside for years. A lesser princely offspring took the Chakkra throne, but the old king had sent word to Gabriel. He longed for Gabriel to return to Chakkra and take his rightful place, half breed or no. Fat chance of that. Gabe snorted aloud—
—and awoke.
Gabe jumped from his bed and paced the floor. Why? For a long time, he swayed in place, lost in his past, in the violent memories. Why, after all these years, did he dream that awful nightmare again? As if he gave a good damn about the Chakkra. He had left them and their warrior philosophy long ago. He would never be like them.
Later, he would remember his vow.
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Chapter Twelve
"Commander?” Tetra chirped on Gabriel's com. He pushed the button and noted that her multiple frog-mouths opened and closed several times but no further words croaked forth. Anyone who knew Mulanians would know Tetra was perturbed. She had been that way since thwarted from discovering Sol's sister's identity. Mulanians prided themselves on their ferreting abilities. No secret was safe. Gabe knew that well enough. Tetra was the only one who knew his true princely identity and nature. But he didn't worry about her revealing anything; Mulanians were noted for their fierce loyalty and secretive natures. They were also notoriously nosey.
"Yes, what is it now?” Gabe growled. If he had one more interruption, he'd shoot the insolent bastard that dared. He had very little time to prepare for this meeting. Before an operation, he'd usually spend days going over topographic maps and intelligence reports. But there were next to none of those for Hydra. It was almost as if someone was hiding something.
"There is a Gellico de’ Marco here.” Tetra spoke the sentence as if she didn't know what species a "Gellico de’ Marco" was.
"Send her in.” Gabe's irritation vanished in shock. Several times in the past week, he had considered sending a message to Sol, but he still smarted over the way she had run off and hid from him again. Perhaps she was sending the dancer with a message—one that said stay lost. He ran a hand over his head and snorted. He'd never understand females—any of them. Gabe drew a deep breath, smoothed his straggling hair. He was tranquility itself when the black beauty entered, her scowling stare daring to dismiss him as she idly gazed around his modest office. But she wasn't as disinterested as her outward appearance let on. Her distress was easy to read. Something that had to do with bloody horrors and nightmares troubled her. Black waves of dread poured out from her mind, and Gabe fought against their pull. The strength of them threatened to tow him under in a miasma of terror. He still felt the remnants of his own nightmare. Silent, he waited the dancer out, fidgeting in his chair. The wait was an effort.
"Nice decor,” she finally quipped with a wrinkled-nose snort at the room's nondescript but orderly arrangement of desk, chair, cabinet and visitor's chair. No window, no art work, no statues, just a benign beige place to work; a shielded and protected place where leaking emotions couldn't get in to bother him. Unlike the spewing fount in front of him who destroyed his sanctuary.
"Yeah, and I like your outfit, too. What is it, a bandana and a belt?” Gabe didn't wait for an answer. “I don't have time for idle chitchat, Miss de'Marco. What do you want?"
"Soledad sent me.” A white-toothed grin creased the dancer's elegant, strong features, and she smoothed a graceful hand over her thigh-high black leather skirt whose hem ended just a little south of the border. A scrap of white silk bandana did drape around her neck and down her breasts. And it didn't meet in the middle. The ends were tucked in her waistband, and a broad band of ebony skin shone all the way from neck to belly button. Gabe was sure her back was bare, too. Pointed nipples poked the thin fabric covering them. Did she wear anything under her skirt? She couldn't miss the look of real appreciation that Gabe gave her or the speculative gleam in his eye. She smiled another flash of white, no doubt, mocking his typical male response.
"Sol, huh? I figured as much,” Gabe nodded and sighed. He ignored his cock that rose at the thought of Sol. “Why didn't the captain come herself?"
"B-a-b-y.” de'Marco spelled the word, her brows rose as if Gabe was an idiot. And idiot that he was, Gabriel felt the prickly heat of a flush but couldn't think of a quick put-down. Thankfully, the rest of him quickly deflated as well.
"What does she want?” He kept his tone neutral and was surprised by the burst of heated anger that came from the tense woman in front of him. He didn't need empathy senses to read that.
"How the hell do I know what Soledad wants? She doesn't even know.” The dancer ran a hand over her close-cropped hair and glared at him. “You might think you know her, Commander, but you don't. No one does. The woman you met that night under the Dome wa
s so hopped up on hormones and fertility drugs she'd just as likely have fucked a robot. You were just a convenient dick, at the right place and the right time, so to speak.” Her frown deepened. She waited, hotly glaring at him as if daring him to deny it.
He waited a moment, as if really giving the idea some thought, then he cocked his chin. “Nah,” he shook his head and grinned. “Contrary to your thinking, Miss de’ Marco, I know some things about Sol that you don't.” His tone softened, and he lowered his voice. “And, for that ... I am sorry for your pain.” Gabe watched her from the corner of his eye. She struggled mightily to maintain control.
A few moments later, the heated tension faded. He felt the exact moment when the dancer's shoulders relaxed. The stiffness went out of her stance.
"Drink?” he offered and opened a recessed panel next to his desk. The room was full of secrets, not all of them in the walls.
"Sure. Whatever you're having.” de’ Marco folded herself neatly into the guest chair, moving with such grace that her abbreviated hemline never exposed a thing. The contour chair molded to her curves.
Lucky chair. Gabe stifled the thought and handed her a heavy crystal tumbler filled with ice and an imported golden whiskey.
She sniffed and sipped a quick taste that raised her arched brows. “Wonderful blend, Commander, but illegal here, isn't it?"
"I get a lot of perks with the job.” Gabe sank back into his chair, toasted her silently, and gulped a fiery swallow that blurred his vision. Whew!
When he could see again, he frowned down at the sketchy Hydra report that taunted him from his desktop. “Sometimes, contraband's the only thanks I get. Now—” He rose on steadier legs and came around his desk to sit on its corner. “—what does Sol want?” He could tell his higher position didn't intimidate de’ Marco one bit although she stiffened again and leaned back from him.
"It's what she doesn't want.” The dancer took a deep breath. Under the thin silk, her rounded breasts rose, perky nipples poking their outline. Gabe ignored his natural male response to the sight and read the internal struggle in her hesitation. He gleaned some of the hidden nightmares she covered behind her shield, the ones she couldn't quite forget. de'Marco didn't want to talk about whatever was troubling her. Finally, she cleared her throat.
Pleasure Dome Page 13
