Tynan

by Bonnie Burrows

  Unrelenting, Tynan said, “Not if you try. You have to try. No one else can do this. You were in close, repeated contact with Liona over a long period of time. Your telepathic senses and memory know the signature of her mind. You’re the only one who can find her.”

  “But you don’t understand,” insisted the little alien. “Tracking one telepathic signature means sorting through the output of every mind in a large area. It’s the most difficult thing we do. It’s draining, exhausting. It takes our maximum concentration, my greatest energy. It would be that way even if I possessed my full power. But you’re asking me to do it with my powers dulled from months of disuse under the influence of a drug. I won’t have the strength and the sensitivity…”

  Tynan could barely keep his patience. He slammed his palms down on the table and reared up, leaning over it and into Daxav’s face. The anger, the fear, and the desperation radiated from him, frightening Daxav and making him recoil, leaning back into his own chair.

  “Listen to me,” Tynan said in a tone that along with his posture made his friends want to grab him by the shoulders and pull him back. “There is no time for excuses. There is no time for doubt. I cannot listen to your reasons why your powers won’t be sharp enough, or strong enough, or clear enough, or whatever you want to call it.

  Sierra is gone. She is in the hands of a female who must hate me. Liona must have something planned to turn that hatred on her. Whatever it is, she may have done it already.” His voice raised with a hundred fears for which he had no names. “Sierra is in danger. She could already be hurt. She could already be DEAD! And if anything has happened to her—anything…”

  Tynan’s hands turned to dragon talons, his claws digging into the surface of the table. The scales and horns broke out on his face. It made Daxav want to bolt and run and curl up in a corner. His voice quivering with impotent fury and growing desperation, Tynan said, “That is why you have to help me.

  Because Sierra came here to help me, to help my family, and we…I…have put her in harm’s way. Because Sierra was with me, Liona is turning her anger and her revenge on her. Sierra is innocent. She doesn’t deserve this. And I…,” his voice almost cracked, “…I cannot bear the thought that I’ve done this to her, that I’m the reason she could be…” Losing his voice, Tynan sank back down into his seat. The energy spent on fear and desperation took his talons and scales and horns away, leaving only a man beset by something unthinkable. But still he kept his eyes fixed on Daxav.

  “Listen to me,” Tynan said. “We are going to arrange a temporary release for you into our custody. We are going to give you a counteragent for the telepathic inhibitor. You are going to concentrate with all your might on clearing your mind and recovering as much of your powers as you can. And you’re going to come with us and help us find Liona. You’re going to turn every bit of your effort into finding her.

  And in exchange, I’ll arrange to have your full release expedited. On that you have my word as a Prince of Nest Moran.” He did not raise his voice again, but his tone took on the hardest edge that it had ever had in Tynan’s life. “You are going to do this. And you will be successful—because the consequences of your not succeeding are not acceptable. So, you WILL do this. Do you understand?”

  Frozen in his seat by Tynan’s look and his tone, Daxav simply said, “Yes.” And truth be told, more than anything that might befall Sierra Smith, the little Visanian feared the full and unfettered wrath of a dragon Prince if he did not do exactly as Tynan said. He had every feeling that his own life, as well as that of Sierra Smith, depended on his success.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When her eyes slowly opened, Sierra saw red. All around her, red.

  The room was all in shades and tones of red. There was a round bed on which she was inexplicably lying, when she was supposed to have been lying on a table at the Dragon Cloud Spa. There were pillows, cushions, divans and Ottomans, silken curtains—all in shades of red. The scanty and flimsy clothing that she was now wearing over the false reptile skin strips that that woman—that Barbara—had put on her were of the same color scheme.

  Sierra felt her mind coming out of what felt like a thick bank of fog between her ears. She wiped her brow, sighing, recovering her awareness from a deep sleep. She’d had the idea of possibly taking a short nap while at the spa—but she had the distinct and definite feeling that the unplanned nap from which she was now awakening was not a natural one. She had no recollection of having meant to fall asleep, not while she was being worked on by that spa attendant; not while she was being done up in scales to please Tynan.

  All of which meant that her presence in this place was not so much by invitation as by abduction. And Sierra did not care for that at all. Whoever had brought her here, for whatever reason, was not going to enjoy having her as a captive. Not one bit.

  Sierra recognized what this place was. She had been in places like this before—with men. Very hot, very horny men with whom she’d had a good deal of fun. That was what this kind of place was. It was a pleasure room. Stashed in the walls and ceiling, no doubt, would be the accoutrements of all kinds of pleasures. Some of them were to her taste; others were not.

  Frankly, Sierra was your basic “hot sex without the trimmings and acrobatics” kind of girl. She was going to have to know more about her “host” and exactly what she was facing, as well as exactly where she was. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed to hop down onto the floor and head over to the hatch at one side of the room that suggested that she was aboard a spacecraft.

  That was when she noticed something else about her present wardrobe.

  With a muted gasp of alarm, Sierra saw what she had adorning one wrist and ankle: a pair of bracelets in a material resembling both silver and ivory—but not just for body ornamentation. While she had never worn such things before, she had seen others wearing them, and had recoiled with loathing at their purpose. These were discipline bands, capable of firing the pain receptors of the brain at someone’s command through the use of a control device. Sierra now had no question that she was someone’s prisoner.

  Right on cue, the hatch to the pleasure room hissed open, and two figures, a male and a female, stepped inside. The female, short-haired and dark, was clad in a Lacertan skinsuit and had a manner about her that was anything but friendly. The male was smiling—a decidedly sinister smile. He was big, massively built, clad in a tunic and a sash. And he was not human. Sierra recognized his species immediately. His people had a very bad reputation in space. They were mean, dangerous, often brutal customers, known to be sadistic. Sierra had not liked the few of his kind she had met and always went out of her way to avoid them. He had blue-violet skin, three fingers on his hands, hooves instead of feet, and a prehensile tail.

  Sierra instinctively frowned and tensed up at the entrance of these two, especially the male. Of all the creatures to be captured by, did it have to be a Chithisian?

  “You’re finally awake,” said the Lacertan female. “That’s good.” She gestured to the Chithisian at her side: “Kharno has been looking forward to meeting you.”

  As unsmiling as the dragon female, Sierra said, “You’ve got me at a disadvantage—right now. You seem to know who I am, but…”

  “My name is Liona,” said the Lacertan.

  Sierra blinked, immediately connecting with the name. “Liona? You’re…Liona?”

  And now, Liona smiled, as sinister as her hoofed and tailed friend. “Tynan must have told you all about me.”

  “He told me enough,” Sierra replied.

  “Good,” said Liona. “I wouldn’t want you to think you were in the company of strangers.”

  “Too bad,” said Sierra, “because I only know you from what Tynan and his family told me, and from the media. And I don’t know your friend at all.”

  “You will know me much better soon,” said Kharno, “assuming that I keep you. I haven’t yet decided whether you’ll be for trade—or just for me.”

  “Neither,�
� Sierra said with a hostile and defiant stare.

  “You mustn’t be that way,” Liona said, loving the sight of the defiant but ultimately powerless human before her. “I know you had very different plans when you came to Lacerta, but plans have a way of changing. You should learn to accept the life you’ll have now.

  You may not live in a palatial and luxurious aerie with Tynan, but I’m sure Kharno—if he decides to trade you—can find you a wealthy owner among his patrons. And you’ll be spared having to carry and bear Tynan’s child. You should be grateful for that. No, instead you can look forward to all kinds of other…experiences. It will be a very different kind of life for you.”

  “It’s no kind of life for anyone,” Sierra said, examining all the parts of Liona’s body that she would like to cut open or break at this moment.

  “It is a life for a great many,” Kharno rebutted. “I have given new lives to many beings—females and males of many planets, who now live with masters in all the high places, and some of the lower places, in space. It is a life of service and devotion. And obedience—always obedience.”

  “I’ve never been that good at obedience,” said Sierra, clenching her teeth.

  “You will learn,” said Kharno, licking his lips.

  Sierra focused her attention on Liona. “So, don’t tell me: this is your revenge on Tynan. Get back at him for throwing you over because you were a criminal and a smuggler. Take your revenge on him by taking away the woman who was going to have his baby, and everything else that you thought you were meant to have. Take me away, give me to your friend here, punish me for having Tynan, punish Tynan for giving you up. Especially punish Tynan, that’s really what this is about. Am I right?”

  “You’re a very perceptive human,” replied Liona.

  “I’m also a human who’s not going to play this little game of yours,” said Sierra.

  “You’re a human with no choice,” Liona answered. “You belong to Kharno now and he’ll decide your fate—the way Tynan decided mine.”

  “You’re the one who decided your fate!” Sierra snapped.

  “He could have stood by me!” Liona snapped back. “The years I gave him, the years I meant to give him, the future I wanted for us! He could have supported me—defended me! But instead, he treated me as if I were a stranger! He gave me up, discarded me, as if…”

  “…as if he never loved you at all,” Sierra finished, cuttingly.

  Liona's face turned to scales. The horns budded on her brow. “Don’t you dare pity me, you single-bodied wretch! I will have satisfaction! I will have satisfaction for everything that I’ve lost and everything that I’ll never have! And I’ll take it from your miserable human hide!”

  “Listen to me, Liona,” said Sierra. “Tynan did what he had to do. He and his family aren’t above the law. There was nothing else for him to do but let the law have its way.”

  “Yes,” Liona scowled. “the law. The precious law. The love that he said he had for me wasn’t above the law, either. When the law came for me, he forgot everything we ever said to each other, every promise we ever made…every time we lay in each other’s arms…” She trailed off at that, and for the first time Sierra heard a hint of the broken woman inside the angry dragon.

  And she pitied Liona all the more. “To the Inferno with the law, then. To the Inferno with Tynan, and to the Inferno with you! Kharno will do with you as he sees fit! In the unlikely event that Tynan ever sees you again, you’ll no longer be the female that he so prized to give him the heir that he wants.”

  “You’ll fetch me a high price,” Kharno said with a mercenary lust. “A female like you will command a price so high that I’ll be unable to refuse the bid. I’d rather keep you for my own pleasure, but the money you bring will be too great to resist.” Sierra felt nauseous at the way the hoofed and tailed creature groped her with his eyes. “Still, before you go up for bidding, I reserve for myself the pleasure of relieving you of your false scales—and perhaps more.”

  At the look of carnal lust on Kharno’s face, Sierra snarled, “Touch me one time. I promise I’ll strangle you with that tail of yours.”

  The alien stepped forward. “You have spirit, female. But it’s out of place when addressing your master. Before you’re sold, I must teach you better…”

  Liona stepped to one side, smiling with an evil glee. She was going to enjoy this.

  Sierra’s training kicked in. At once she assumed a battle-ready stance, legs apart, arms raised for attack and defense, hands flattened to deliver chopping blows.

  Kharno stopped advancing and balked at Sierra’s defiance. From a pocket in his tunic he produced a bracelet-like device that he squeezed with his thumb. The result was awful.

  The pain was unlike anything else that Sierra had ever felt. She twisted, staggered, convulsed in its grip. It felt as if she were wading in a tide not of ocean water but of lava, while being stung by Travanian death wasps. A scream tore itself from her throat; her legs buckled, and she dropped to her knees, the pain turning her to a mass of tremors.

  The plum-hued alien loosened his grip on the pain inducer, and Sierra convulsed one last time with the last of the violent pains. She fell over and used one hand on the floor to stop herself collapsing completely. She stayed there on the floor, gasping, refusing even now to surrender. To make her surrender they would have to strike her unconscious—or worse.

  How ironic was the term “pleasure room” for this place where the red carpet muffled the sounds of Kharno’s hooves stepping over to the fallen Sierra? She looked up from his hooves, along his thickly muscled, tunic-clad body from which his tail curled, to the face glaring down at her from atop his wide shoulders.

  “I trust we now understand our positions,” he said. “We’ll be departing this planet shortly. I leave you in Liona’s charge.” He handed the pain inducer to the Lacertan female who looked on, loving every second of Sierra’s pain and humiliation. “When next we see each other, I’ll expect better compliance.”

  Kharno strode away through the hatch, leaving Sierra alone with Liona. “Shall I help you back up onto the bed?” Liona smirked.

  Dragging herself, a bit wobbly, back to her feet, Sierra growled, “Don’t bother.” To which she added in her thoughts, …you reptilian bitch.

  Smiling with sinister, mock sweetness, Liona said, “Then I’ll leave you to be comfortable for a while. Don’t bother trying the hatch; I’ll lock it behind me. You may look forward to our takeoff—and await Kharno’s pleasure.” And she spun triumphantly on her heel, holding up the pain inducer to remind Sierra of what would happen if the human woman tried to rush her, and stepped out through the hatch.

  Sierra fell back onto the bed with a combined sigh and growl of furious frustration. She shut her eyes and brought Tynan’s face to her mind.

  Tynan… You should be out there looking for me by now. You’d better find me soon or my life is going to get a lot more complicated…

  _______________

  I have actually done this. I have brought a Visanian—a member of a species considered persona non-grata in much of the quadrant—into my family’s aerie. He’s sitting in that room right now.

  Pacing the floor outside his family’s contemplation room, with Elaina and Brogan looking on, Tynan considered his predicament and his actions, and knew that to find Sierra he would have brought a hundred Visanians to his home, damn the widespread distrust of their telepathy and their surreptitious ways. Nothing mattered now except Sierra.

  And that last thought sat on his shoulders and pressed itself into his soul: Nothing matters now except Sierra.

  Contemplation rooms were where Lacertans and their visitors often went for mediation and moments of quiet reflection. Inside the room was a space of planted grass around a fountain with a softly laughing splash of water over rocks into a shallow pool; a space arrayed with planted trees and shrubs and flowers. It was a little slice of nature in a world that had learned well to balance nature with artifice and te
chnology.

  Daxav sat on his knees at the side of the pool, filling his mind with nothing but the sound of the water on the rocks, clearing his brain and recovering as much of his powers as he could after taking the telepathic inhibitor antidote, for the task that had been set for him. And trying his best to dissipate the fear and anxiety that were now upon him.

  In the parlor outside the contemplation room, Elaina and Brogan watched both the room and their pacing friend.

  “Relax, Tynan,” said Elaina. “Daxav knows what he’s doing.”

  “Just like he knew what he was doing when he helped Liona and the smugglers by pinging on the thoughts of undercover Corpsmen,” said Brogan.

  Tynan halted in his pacing just long enough to shoot Brogan a pained expression. Brogan and Elaina did not need telepathy to know that Tynan’s look meant, that’s not helping.

  “What I mean,” said Brogan apologetically, “is that he knows what kind of job he has here, how big a thing he has to do.”