The Demon's Change

by Donna McDonald

  “Getting any impressions?” Karr asked.

  Boca shook her head. “None that I can share without starting a riot if someone heard me, though that would be a lot less boring than this.”

  Karr laughed at the comment. Outside of his commander, he’d never seen a female so willing to engage in a fight as Boca was. “If you find missions boring, how can you stand life on a ship?” he asked, watching her shrug off the question.

  “I hate it. But I have a sense I am meant to be there,” she admitted.

  “Because of Chiang the Greggor?” Karr was a little surprised when Boca snorted and then laughed.

  “No. I am enjoying the break from Chiang even more than I anticipated,” Boca admitted, frowning as she pondered for the hundredth time why that was a truth. Even her mild concern about spending the upcoming night alone with Karr brought no diversion from her pleasure to be on her own for a while.

  “Are you unhappy with Chiang? I consider us friends, Boca. You can tell me the truth and it will go no farther,” Karr declared.

  Her eyebrows rose. “Unhappy? No. I’m not unhappy in the normal sense of the word. The Greggor suits me well enough as a mate, considering I had no plans to take another one at all. I am simply enjoying my time away from his hovering more than I imagined I would.”

  Karr tilted his head. “Perhaps I am not hearing your words clearly. Does Chiang the Greggor have your full compassion or not?”

  Boca chuckled. Karr was so young, especially in his thinking. “When you are my age, you will see that every mating is a complex agreement. Chiang is my third mate. He has my full compassion, but that doesn’t mean I’m always pleased to admit that as a truth.”

  “Why bother with him if you feel that way?” Karr asked.

  Boca released a slow, long breath as she leaned forward on the table. “Because the Greggor is good for me, and good to me most of the time. I am not a happy person by nature, Karr. This is no great secret. Chiang improves me. What we have in our mating is a more mature version of the kind of compassion you typically feel for the first mate you take. Speaking of that—have you ever taken one?”

  “No. I have never come across a female I wanted to keep.”

  While Boca laughed at his reply Karr stared at her, trying to guess what she considered funny when a gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder. He got a whiff of flowers just before a strange energy shot through him, electrifying his nerve ends. While that one hand remained on his shoulder, he watched another slide a plate of food onto the table in front of him. His gaze rose to a lined and wrinkled face with ageless eyes that creased at the corners when she smiled. Small, brightly-colored feathered areas began at her temples and went back into her very long silver hair.

  Fascinated, he couldn’t coax his gaze away from hers.

  Nor could he have explained why he so badly wanted to ask her to sit and talk to him.

  “Thank you. The food smells wonderful,” he said to fill the silence.

  The female nodded, pulled her gaze from his, and swung it to Boca.

  “Hello, sweet lady. My name is Dayena. I will be right back with your plate. I’m not steady enough these days to carry two plates at once. My leg joints tend to wobble.”

  “No hurry,” Boca said. When her palms burned hotly, she sighed in consternation, but still raised her voice. “Wait—Dayena. Don’t leave. Return to me, please.”

  The female walked obediently back, but had a curious look on her face when Boca stood. Even bent with age, the feathered female was much taller than she was.

  “Please sit for a moment. I am a healer. Let me see if I can make your legs better.”

  “But I have work. . . ”

  “Please,” Boca insisted, holding a hand out. The polite term was a command, not a request. She gestured to direct the reluctant female down onto the seat.

  When the female finally stilled her movements, Boca knelt in front of her. Reaching to the floor, she lifted the loose pants covering the female’s legs to reveal her knees. She placed her throbbing, burning palms over them. The feathered female’s eyes went wide with astonishment, first startled at the hot flash of pain, but then just as quickly moved into accepting the healing.

  When her palms lost their heat, Boca stopped and carefully lowered the female’s clothing back into place. She ignored the stares of the other patrons, most of whom were laughing at her as she climbed to her feet. Most of them were also males. Her gaze flashed with fury, but she let it go.

  “There, now. That should help those painful joints a bit.”

  Dayena stood and straightened to what Boca thought might have been her original height. She took a few cautious steps, and then walked around a bit on legs that seemed renewed with vigor.

  Boca bowed her head, pleased to see the female’s obvious ease of movement.

  “Thank you. I can walk without pain now. You are a great healer,” Dayena said.

  Boca shrugged. “The gift chose me, not the other way around, but you are welcome.”

  “I find the best healing comes from the strangest creatures. Let me get your food now,” Dayena said, moving away quickly to fetch it.

  Boca glanced around as she returned to her seat at the table again. “Sorry, Karr. I’m compelled to respond to my healing urges sometimes. If I don’t act, my hands burn until I do.”

  “She seems like a nice female. What kind of species do you think Dayena is?” Karr asked.

  Boca shrugged at his question about Dayena, marveling that Karr said nothing about her burning palms, or her actions that brought them a lot of unwelcome attention. He seemed too preoccupied with their elderly server to care about much else.

  “I don’t know what she is, Karr. Many species are descended from feathered creatures, but I’ve never seen temple feathers growing back that way. Usually feathers grow up on the head, the way hair grows there on most beings. I have seen feathers covering genitals, but only once. I concluded the female had purposely had them affixed there, but then I’m a skeptic about most things.”

  Suddenly Karr found himself wondering if Dayena had feathers anywhere else on her body. Then he thought of her potential age and felt embarrassed over his musings. Was he truly so desperate for female company that he could be interested in an elderly female, regardless of how fascinating?

  He shook his head and felt his face flush as he met Boca’s curious gaze. This was going to be a long mission if this kept happening.

  Dayena came back before he had to answer the question in Boca’s eyes and slid a plate of food in front of her. “There you go. Thanks again for the healing.”

  “You’re welcome again,” Boca said. “Tell me—you’re not Norblade, are you?”

  “No,” Dayena said. “I’m unknown. I was abandoned when I was young and have had to work my way through life. Maybe one day I’ll have myself tested to find out my origins. In the meantime, Edias gives me work here and a place to sleep, at least on nights when he doesn’t need the room for other purposes. I’ve learned to make do with a couple chairs now and again. It’s not so bad. I have enough to eat and a relatively safe place to be.”

  “You don’t need to justify anything to me. I’ve done plenty of adapting in my time,” Boca said, nodding in sympathy as she began to eat. She was quite familiar with sleeping in odd places. She had done plenty of that on Lotharius to avoid sleeping with her captor. It was one reason she never took the great pleasure of sleeping with Chiang for granted.

  Dayena turned her attention to the male whose gaze had never left her face. “Food not to your liking, sir?”

  “No, it’s fine,” Karr said. “You’re way too old to be sleeping on chairs.”

  Dayena laughed at his concerned tone, while bristling at his comment about her age.

  “Your empathy for my situation is appreciated. What’s your name?”

  “Karr,” he said.

  “Oh. Karr,” Dayena repeated, rolling it around on her tongue. “Nice name. I like it.”

  “Y
ou make my name sound like the finest music,” Karr said, flushing when Boca’s surprised gaze swung his way again.

  Dayena laughed at his reaction too, but a smile lit her face because his friendly interest warmed her, even if he was mated to the healer.

  “I’m sure you know that females my age don’t hear many compliments. Thank you, Karr.”

  When she had walked away, Karr turned his attention to his food. “Sorry about that, Boca. I don’t know what possessed me to say all that to her.”

  Boca studied Karr’s bent head and then lifted her gaze to watch Dayena stopping to visit another table. The older female was taken with the young ensign, which was quite understandable. Karr was an attractive male.

  Suddenly, her instincts sizzled. Maybe Dayena would be willing to talk to them if Karr asked her the right questions in the right way.

  “Don’t sell your charm so short, Karr. It could prove quite useful in our situation,” Boca said, digging into her food. Norblade tavern cuisine wasn’t as good as the Guardian 13’s regular fare, but it was nourishing.

  “What do you mean?” Karr asked, keeping his attention on his food so Boca wouldn’t see his embarrassment again.

  Boca stopped eating to answer. “I think you need to be very friendly to Dayena. In fact, I think I need to disappear so you can have a private chat with her. She favors you. Who knows what she might tell you?”

  Karr’s gaze swung guiltily to where Dayena chatted with another tavern customer. He flushed again when she caught him looking and winked.

  “See? She favors you,” Boca said.

  “Aye—perhaps. But you and I are supposed to be mated, and she’s . . .” Karr’s words drifted off as he thought about how to describe his inner disgust with himself.

  “She’s acting inappropriately interested in a male much younger than her,” Boca supplied.

  “Aye,” Karr said. “I mean—I don’t mind her admiration—but what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Nothing. Just be friendly,” Boca said with a shrug. “Make her laugh again. Invite her to spend the night in our lodge room if she finds herself with no place to sleep. There was a reclining couch close to the bed. We’re all adults. You and I can share a bed without a problem.”

  Karr nodded. “Okay, but it doesn’t feel right to use that nice old female for information. I understand that we’re on a mission, but she doesn’t seem to have anyone looking out for her.”

  Boca sighed. “Dayena is right. You are a good male, Karr. Just remember that you’re not going to take serious advantage of her friendly nature. You’re just going to be nice and ask her if she knows about anything bad going on in the village.”

  Karr nodded. “You’re right. I’m just . . . ”

  Boca nodded back when his words drifted off. “You’re just being yourself, Karr. You’re being a good guy. That’s not a bad thing, but it has no place on a mission.”

  ***

  Ji shook the device. When that didn’t affect the settings, he smacked it with his hand. Still the readings changed every few seconds.

  “We’ve circled the village twice. If the ID chip isn’t being scrambled, how is it that we’re not finding it? Maybe we made a mistake somewhere.”

  Seta shook her head vigorously. “The problem is not our judgment.”

  Grabbing the now abused device from his hand, she tuned to Warro’s ID. His was not currently being read even though the device was physically located right next to where it was installed in his body.

  “How is this situation possible? Is the village using a cloaking device?” Ji demanded. He was beyond being exasperated with the primitiveness of their location.

  Seta snorted. “Yes. It’s called an absence of repeaters within acceptable ranges of the transponders in the area. Signals have nothing to bounce off of so all signals just disappear here, including the coding in our ID chips. Those flat red rocks being used for everything aren’t helping either. They disrupt technologies. Why do you think there are so few modern upgrades here?”

  “Explain this failure in a way I can understand it,” Ji ordered.

  “I just did,” Seta said, gritting her teeth at his tone.

  Ji stopped walking and took a couple deep breaths. “Then please explain in a way that makes more sense to me.”

  “We’re in the middle of a village that shuns progression. Add to that, they seem to use signal-absorbing rocks for everything, and signal disrupting crystals for heat. Did you see any communication devices on our first or second trek? No, you didn’t and neither did I. That is likely because nothing works out here in the middle of Norblade nowhere.”

  Ji sighed heavily and nodded. “I saw no prisons either.”

  “Precisely. We did all that we could. Now I’m tired from walking and too hungry to think clearly. Let’s retire for the night and start our search again tomorrow,” Seta said.

  “Agreed,” Ji replied. “Do you think the lack of technological support could possibly have affected the original tracking device reading that brought us here?”

  Seta thought about looking around for a large object to use to hit the Siren over the head. Maybe she could knock the information into his brain and save her breath. The male never ceased to annoy her.

  “Since calibration can’t occur, it is only logical to assume that was a possibility.”

  Ji swore in Siren. It didn’t make him feel better, but he liked the sound of it. “Then we could be looking in the wrong place.”

  “We could be, but we are not. The Allurean is here,” Seta said. “Or at least I’m ninety-nine percent sure of it.”

  “Based on what?” Ji demanded, feeling his temper flare as her calm increased.

  Seta put a hand over her mid-section and the reason for her surety fluttered under her fingers. “Let’s just say I carry a more infallible detection tool around with me than the one Chiang gave you. It does not require technology. All the time I spent studying the Allurean race has paid off because I educated the being within me as well as myself. We are of an accord about this. The missing Allurean is here in the village somewhere.”

  Ji nodded, but his throat was tight with questions. “I didn’t know you could communicate with the creature within you.”

  Seta shrugged. “No one has bothered to ask me, but yes, I communicate with her. I am aware of her all the time. More and more, I find her willing to help me, even in small tasks. I have almost stopped wondering if she means me harm.”

  After the uncomfortable epiphany, they strolled for a while in silence. When Ji heard laughter coming from an approaching crowd, he reached down and snagged Seta’s hand in his. Her fingers curled around his very naturally, the fit of their linked fingers exquisite to his Siren sensibilities.

  “You have nice hands,” Ji said, squeezing her fingers tightly as the noisy crowd passed by. He became frustrated when Seta studied the ground and didn’t answer. “It is customary after receiving praise to respond with gratitude.”

  Seta snorted. “When I hear genuine praise, I’ll be sure and do that.”

  Ji stopped and tugged on her hand until she looked up at him. “You are the best tracker I’ve ever known and the most appealing female I have ever met. Now I said you had nice hands. Your response should ‘Thank you, Ji’. We will stand here until you reply correctly. It is what any mate of a Siren would do.”

  Seta frowned up into his face. “Since I am not the mate of a Siren, what does it matter if I like your words or not?”

  Ji gripped her arms. “It matters because Norblade males are too intuitive to be fooled for long.”

  Leaning down, he slid his lips from the bottom of her lobe to the tip of her left ear. At the top most point, he let his tongue flick out to stroke the silken edge. He was smug with satisfaction when Seta groaned and fell against him. He let her remain there for a moment while he imagined this ruse was part of their preliminary mating ritual, instead of just something they were doing for a mission. The reality of Seta in his arms was heady,
and way too much temptation.

  Gripping her arms even harder, he set her firmly away from his body. He instantly missed her heat and sighed in rebellion.

  “What’s the matter? Why did you do that?” Seta asked.

  “I did it because I needed to mark you at least in some minor way so Norblade males will believe we are mates. While you were learning all about Allureans, I was learning all about you, so I know stimulating your ears can cause arousal,” Ji said.

  “I don’t like you knowing that about me. Why did you learn to do that?” Seta demanded.

  Ji looked down and lifted her chin so she had no choice but look at him. “I’m making myself an expert on how best to pleasure you, even if my learning is just through education instead of practice. Hope lives in me still.”

  Seta was shaking her head even as she backed away. Another crowd appeared and Ji reached out to yank her back up against him. Evidence of his arousal pressed against her, but to her great relief, he made no further moves to increase their intimacy. Instead he smiled and said hello over her head as the crowd passed by them. Despite her initial reluctance to be in his arms, a need to press against him became equally strong. She had no doubt that the Siren was in the process of beguiling her with his pheromones. There was no other explanation for her strange reaction.

  “They are gone now. Let me go,” Seta ordered.

  Ji let his hands slide around the back of her and down to her hips until he cupped two perfectly formed mounds in his hands. Whispering his pleasure in Siren, he lifted her against the evidence of his need for her.

  “You can ask me to let go. You can even demand it. But one day you will accept that this is the truth of us.”

  “It may be your truth,” Seta said. “But that does not make it mine.”

  “It is our truth,” Ji said firmly, murmuring Siren pleas into her ear just before he ran his tongue along the edge of her lobe again. This time when he came to the top of her ear, he suckled the end. The groaning female in his arms gripped his shirt with both hands.

  “I will hate you if you force me to service you,” she said.