by Renee Rose
“Five hundred stein,” the turtle-like creature demanded.
He shook his head. “Fifteen.”
The turtle shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
Rok, too, went silent, waiting. In his experience, persistence often won the wrangle.
Turtle turned back. “Give me the female.”
Lily shrank against his side, and he immediately cursed himself for bringing her. She was far too beautiful to be safe in a wild place like this.
He took a risk and pulled a dagger, lunging forward, stopping with the tip just a millimeter from Turtle’s throat. “Don’t look at her,” he growled. Beings around them stopped their conversations to stare. Many reached for weapons far more deadly than a blade.
The Turtle showed no sign of fear. He stared at Rok for several moments with watery eyes then shoved his wrist and the weapon away. “Fifty.”
Rok sheathed the blade. “Done.”
Half a planet rotation later, they had a stack of the material outside their craft. Gaurdo and Janu argued over the best way to patch the hole while he ignored them and went to work. He’d love to have the job finished before nightfall. He had no desire to spend more time at the trading station than necessary.
When the ship docked near them took off, he threw an arm over his eyes to keep out the flying grit. His protective instincts kicking into gear, he looked around for Lily.
Where had she gone?
“Lily?” He turned in a circle. She’d been hanging around behind him a short while ago. He jogged onto the ship. “Lily?” Maybe she’d gone to the washroom?
But no, he didn’t find her there, nor anywhere on the ship. His heart picked up speed. Back outside the ship, he called her name. “Lily?”
Gaurdo, Jano, Jaso, and Depri stopped what they were doing to look around.
“Where in the veck is Mierna?” Lily must be with her.
But Mierna came walking calmly toward them, a pouch of brew clutched in her little hand. “She’s gone.” Mierna waved a hand in the direction of the ship that had just taken off. For once she didn’t appear serene when imparting information others didn’t know.
“What in the veck do you mean?”
Mierna pointed again. “She’s been taken—she’s in great danger. We must follow, before it’s too late.”
Vecking excrement!
He threw the material haphazardly over the hole, welding it with a ray gun. He didn’t care if they had to repair it at the next stop; he just needed to get them in the air. Before he lost the first bright spot he’d had in his life in ages. Maybe ever.
~.~
Lily lay on the floor, hands bound behind her back, ankles trussed together and attached to her wrists. The serpent bite on her ankle throbbed in time with her heartbeat. It had taken a turn for the worse that planet rotation, and now she began to feel the poison flowing through her veins. Her head ached and lips felt cracked and dry. A fever made her alternately hot and cold.
This was it. Her life was over.
She’d made the mistake of wandering over to the ship beside them to inquire in which direction they were headed. She’d thought she might stow away on their ship if they were going in the opposite direction from Rok.
The moment the lizard-like beings saw her, though, they’d gone crazy, chattering in a language she didn’t understand. Within seconds, they’d surrounded her, and one of them shot her with a stun gun. She’d woken in this storeroom closet, tied on the filthy floor.
Veck. She should have stayed with Rok. He wouldn’t really have turned her in. He didn’t have it in him to send her to her death. Not with the way he cared for her. She should have had the courage to ask him what his intentions were, or if they’d changed.
Instead, she’d walked into this. Whatever it was.
She was probably speeding on her way to the Ocretion authorities right now. Or perhaps to be sold as a slave to yet another master. Of course, she might die before they even arrived because she needed medical care for her ankle wound.
She thought of Rok and wondered what he would think. Would he know where she’d gone? He’d probably believe she ran away. He probably wouldn’t try to look for her.
Even so, she clung to the tiniest sliver of hope—something she shouldn’t allow herself. Rok might come for her. Somehow, he might deduce which ship she’d left on and he might follow.
Please, sweet Mother Earth, please.
Things felt incomplete. She wasn’t supposed to die this way—to leave Rok in the way she had. She needed to see him again. All her life, she’d been searching for meaning. She’d thought it was about escaping, about setting up a free human colony. Now, she thought it might be much simpler than that. Maybe the meaning in life was just love. Connecting with another being. Sharing oneself. Trusting.
She coughed against the dust filling her nostrils and lungs.
Love. She’d almost had it.
~.~
Rok managed to catch the ship with Lily on it. He attempted communication with it, but either it didn’t have the same channels or they deliberately chose to ignore his messages. Though he wanted nothing more than to shoot their vecking ship out of space, but that wouldn’t help him get Lily back. He chose to follow at a distance, locking all tracking on their ship.
The moment it landed, he’d vecking storm the craft and incinerate every last one of them until he found Lily.
Mierna stared out into the space in front of them, her lips pinched. “You failed her,” she declared.
His fingers curled into fists, horns stiffened with anger, even though he’d been thinking the same thing. “What in the veck do you mean?”
“You let her believe she might come to harm. She was looking for other options when they took her.”
Ice flooded his veins. He clenched his teeth, his vision spinning. “No.”
“No? Did she not think you would turn her over to her masters?”
“Yes,” he snarled. “But I—”
“She is ill, also. Poisoned. She may not last another planet rotation.”
“She will last,” he gritted. She had to. He wasn’t going to lose another female he loved. Especially not this one. Lily was his mate.
He knew that now. His body had known it the moment he’d first seen her, it just had taken his mind a while to catch up. He’d never felt this way for any being before—so in need of her that taking his next breath without knowing she’d make it seemed an impossibility.
Yet he did breathe. One inhale, one exhale. Again and again as they zoomed through space.
They landed at an air station in the far outskirts of Ocretion territory. Rok docked beside them and went tearing out of the ship, weapon in hand, only to find an enormous troop of Ocretion soldiers crowded around Lily’s ship.
“Lily,” he shouted when he caught sight of the soldiers leading her out, wrists bound behind her back, head hanging forward. Her hair looked limp and dirty.
She looked up at his cry, and what he saw terrified him. Her face was pale and sweaty, dark hollows lay her under eyes, and her lips were cracked and bleeding.
Janu and Jaso yanked him backward, into their ship, when the soldiers turned and pointed toward him.
“Shut the veck up,” Janu hissed. “Do you want them to come and arrest you, too? How will you help her then?”
He fought them, not because he believed they were wrong, but because it felt good to fight. He needed to rip someone to shreds. Gaurdo and Depri joined the tussle, and he continued to fight until the four of them had him pinned to the ground, panting and cursing them like a crazed animal.
“Think. Think,” Depri shouted at him. “Think your way out of this. How can you help her? Who can help?”
Who.
His body went slack. “Get off me.”
They must have seen the return of reason, because his friends helped him to his feet. “We need to see Prince Zander. He has battleships, and he wants Lily, too.”
6
Lily sat on the
hard plastic bench, shoulder to shoulder with other prisoners in the death pod. Her head still pounded, but one of the soldiers had taken pity on her and run a medical scanner over her bite wound then delivered the antivenom.
No one knew how long they had to live. The Ocretians kept the death pods largely a secret and, obviously, those who went in, never came out. It seemed they were still filling it, though. Prisoners had been filing in for three planet rotations.
Crazy though it was, she felt certain Rok was working to get her out. He’d been there when they took her. She’d heard his anguished shout, seen his friends wrestle him back into their ship. He did care about her—she knew it!
That thought alone kept her from sinking into the darkest despair. Rok had to get her out, because they belonged together somehow. She didn’t know how, nor did she care. Even if he wanted nothing more than to keep her as his sex slave for his entertainment on his flights, she’d be on board. But he’d already been willing to teach her to fly. Perhaps she’d find some use other than sex. She could be one of the crew—have a family of sorts for the first time, ever.
A human mother and child were led into the pod. The guards split the two, putting the child in Lily’s cell and taking the mother away.
“No!” the woman screamed. The walls echoed with the ripping pain in her voice. “Carmeela! Give me my baby back!”
Something scraped at the back of Lily’s memory—her own mother’s cries. Someone had screamed for her like that. Someone had screamed herself hoarse while Lily was carried away, kicking and crying, from some kind of factory housing.
There’d been another, too. A man had tried to block them, had reached for her as she screamed his name, but he’d been stunned.
Tears burned behind her eyes. She had been loved, once.
The little girl, who couldn’t be more than six sun cycles, appeared in shock. She didn’t cry—perhaps she’d already had that response beaten from her.
“Hey,” Lily said softly. “It’s going to be all right.”
The girl stared at her, brown eyes wide. Her dark hair fell across her face in matted clumps; her skin was too pale. “You can sit over here, with me,” she offered, though there was no room left on any of the benches.
The girl ignored her offer, though, and sat down on the floor, cross-legged. She began to rock, silently mouthing something.
“That just isn’t right,” the being beside her muttered. “Separating them like that. Why not let them die together?”
Lily lifted her chin. “We’re not dying,” she said firmly. She didn’t know what made her say it, except it seemed important to keep that child from floating off, the way Lily had learned to. She didn’t want her to stop living until her body died. And she sure as hell didn’t want that body to die any time soon.
The old human male on her left snorted.
“It’s true. We’re all going to get out of here, and we’re going to live on a planet free of slavery. Things will grow there—beautiful plants and flowers. And the light will come down in rainbows.”
The little girl lifted her head and stared at her.
She nodded, emphatically. “Everyone will be free there. No slaves. Different species will live in harmony, with a fair government that never puts beings to death. The worst punishment will be exile, and no one will ever want to earn that punishment because it’s so wonderful there.”
“People will sing,” a cracked voice spoke from the corner.
Lily peered around to see an old Stornigian. The reminder of Janu and Jaso squeezed her chest, but she smiled encouragingly.
The female cleared her throat. “Music will be everywhere. Songs and instruments. And dancing.”
“There will be enough food for everyone. Delicious food they grow right there,” another being chimed in.
The little girl listened, eyes round, expression rapt.
“Are you hungry, girl-child?” Another being produced a bit of a nutrition bar and offered it.
The girl looked at it warily then glanced at Lily, as if for permission. Lily nodded and Carmeela took it, unwrapping it with grubby fingers.
“There will be water. Enough water to sink your body into. And colors. Every kind of color you’ve ever seen, everywhere,” a middle-aged human female offered. “And art. Artists from all over the galaxy will go there to create beautiful works.”
The child spoke for the first time. “What is art?”
The woman smiled. “Art is when you make something you love, just because it’s beautiful. Just because you want to.”
“Why?”
“For others to enjoy. Or for your own enjoyment. It could be something you look at, or listen to, or watch.”
“I made a house, once, out of mud,” the child said. “They said it was forbidden.”
“You see?” The woman sounded triumphant. “On the planet we’re going to, it will never be forbidden. You can make whatever you like.”
“Will my mother be there?”
“Yes,” Lily said immediately. “Your mother will certainly be there.”
She held her breath to keep the tears from choking her throat. It had to be true—every promise they’d made. It just had to be true. She would give anything to make it true.
~.~
Rok and his crew disembarked onto the landing dock of Zander’s palatial pod. He had requested permission to land on the basis of having urgent news about Lily, the sister of the prince’s mate.
The Zandian guards met them and bowed as if they were honored guests. He hid his surprise and returned the bow, following the males briskly through the halls to the Great Room, where Zander sat on a raised dais. He wore a white tunic and pants, made of a finely woven material that probably cost more than twice what Rok’s ship had. A ceremonial sword hung at his waist. The prince’s copper-haired mate and her mother stood nearby, and the four male advisors from his previous visit flanked him, also dressed in white.
He bowed to the prince and went straight to the vecking point. “I had her and I lost her. She’s on an Ocretion death pod. I need your help to get her free.”
Zander surged to his feet and stepped down from the dais, responding to the urgency in Rok’s tone. “What death pod? Where?”
“Outer limits of the territory.”
One of the advisors, the huge, battle-scarred warrior named Seke, moved closer to Lily’s mother, Leora, in what appeared to be a protective stance. The woman, whose beauty shone as bright as her daughters’, had gone pale, and she clutched the back of Zander’s unoccupied throne with white knuckles.
Zander addressed one of his advisors. “Daneth, contact the authorities and attempt to purchase her. Tell them I will pay any amount.”
Daneth bowed. “I will do my best, my lord.” He swiftly exited.
Zander paced a few feet then stopped and rubbed his face. “Tell me.”
“She was on Jesel, captive of other humans there. I bought her.” And tortured her. Pain seared his chest. He had mistreated her. After everything she’d been through, he’d used her as a sex slave, had caused her to suffer in the belief she was on her way to her death.
Lamira’s green gaze locked on him, and he felt certain she read his thoughts, knew his sins. “She knows you’re coming for her,” she murmured.
A shudder ran through his body.
If ever he believed in a vecking destiny, he knew this was his. He would rescue Lily. It was an impossible task, but he would do anything and everything he could to get her out of there. She was his destiny.
“I wish to use some of your battleships.” He’d never been one to pussyfoot around.
Zander folded his arms across his chest, mistrust evident in his gaze. “What is your plan?”
He didn’t have a vecking clue. “All six of us can fly.” He indicated himself and his crew. “We’ll attack and force the death pod out of territory. There’s a unincorporated planet not far from there. If we can get them to land, then I’ll storm the pod and rescue Lily.”
“That will never work.”
He glanced at Lamira, hoping she’d entreat her mate, but she remained silent, breath held, watching them both.
Zander, too, looked at Lamira. She didn’t move, didn’t blink, but her wide green eyes pleaded.
With a frustrated gesture, Zander turned to one of the guards. “Show them to guest quarters.” To Rok, he said, “We’ll see what Daneth finds out from the Ocretion government. Then we’ll talk.”
Rok wanted to smash the colorful walls of the well-appointed palace. He didn’t have time to wait. Lily was speeding to her death as they stood there. But what else could he do? Gnashing his teeth, he stalked out behind the guard, knowing courtesy demanded he bow first but not giving a veck.
“Rok.” Zander called him back.
He stiffened.
“The crystal bath will be made available to you if you need it.”
This time, he forced a stiff bow, though he couldn’t bring himself to thank the male. His body did crave the crystal light, though. Just being in the palatial pod, where the crystals were embedded in every skylight, made his body hum with energy and vitality.
He made his way straight to the crystal bath, stripped his clothes off, and lay down on one of the beds, absorbing the rainbow light. He closed his eyes, allowing the color to permeate his skin, to recharge his life force. He wanted Lily to see this room. Though before, he’d hated that he had to come here, seen his need for the light recharge as a weakness, now he imagined it through her eyes. She would find it beautiful. He would feed her chocolate while she lay in a bed beside him and… What?
What was this ridiculous future he was imagining? Did he think he’d be living here at the palatial pod with Lily and her family? As if Zander would have him—a smuggler with three warrants out for his arrest and a ragtag scrappy crew.
And yet, he knew for certain that if—no, when—he got Lily back, he would never want to let her leave his side again.
Veck.
