by Cara Bristol
To cause the betas punishment would draw undesirable attention.
“Do not do that,” she said. “Since I was awake, there seemed no point in rousing them. They had to rise early enough to prepare the morning repast.” She fervently hoped they were preparing the sunup meal, and were not engaged in the idle pursuit of gossip. “Do we not need to resume our travels to deliver the females posthaste? Flogged betas might hinder our travels if they are too injured to assist with driving the conveyances.”
Perce’s truculent expression relaxed. “You are right. Betas do not have the fortitude of us alphas, and they would cry and whine like females the rest of the way. Though I hate to let their dereliction slide, we must focus on the larger objective.”
“You are wise.” Anika stroked his ego. “It is no wonder Commander Qalin chose you for such an important assignment.”
Perce’s chest expanded like a puffer fowl’s in mating before his face clouded. “I hope I do not disappoint him. I have secured a congregation of females for breeding, but I have failed to acquire the one he targeted. Anika.”
A surge of fight-or-flight hormone raced through her veins at the mention of her name, but she maintained a bland expression.
“Initially, I had received numerous sightings,” Perce continued, “but no one has reported seeing her of late. I fear Commander Qalin will be displeased.”
Failure would be punished. Perce’s authority over the mission meant he would bear the brunt of Qalin’s malice, but everyone associated could be disciplined. And if she were stripped before being sent to the flogging posts…hiding within Qalin’s sphere was starting to seem like a very bad idea.
“Perhaps the one known as Anika no longer lives?” she suggested. “These are dangerous times. Bands of brigands roam the territories. Anything could have happened to her. Perhaps you have not been able to locate her because she is dead.”
Perce’s eyes lit with hope. “That is possible! No, in fact, it is most likely what has occurred. And Alpha Qalin’s orders did say that while he preferred her to be captured alive, dead would suffice,” he said, but doubt darkened his countenance. “But Commander Qalin will require proof of her demise.”
Perce paced the shelter, smacking his fist into the palm of his hand. “How can I provide evidence when I do not have a body?” He halted, spun around. “I have got it!” His eyes gleamed. “There is a breeder who bears a physical resemblance to the Anika female. I shall kill her and present her body to Commander Qalin.”
“No!” Anika burst out.
Perce looked taken aback. “It is the perfect solution. I do not understand your objection.”
Anika gaped at him in shock. She had allowed Perce’s manner—his respect toward her because he believed her to be alpha—to mislead her about his nature. He was no different than Grogan or Icor. Beneath his mild-mannered skin, ruthlessness flowed in his veins. He did not honor Parseon, she realized. Or Qalin. He served himself first.
To motivate him, she would have to appeal to his self-interest. “I am concerned for you,” she said, assembling an argument as she spoke. “If Commander Qalin wants this Anika so badly, he will verify her identity with a gene scanner. And then you will be punished for attempting to deceive him.”
Perce shuddered. “Yes, you are right. We will have to devise another solution.” He kicked at the floor. “In truth, I am not sure I could do it anyway.”
That he feared he couldn’t do it boosted him a little in her estimation. Anika dusted her hands on her pants. “Well,” she said brusquely, “let us think of a plan while we travel. A new day has arrived.” She pushed the flap aside and exited the shelter. The sooner they left Icor’s camp, the safer she’d be, and she was eager to find out how Urazi would finesse his introduction.
Luka, the beta who’d assisted her with driving the conveyance, tended the cook fire over which three large rodents were spitted. Of the others, she saw no sign.
Perce emerged from the shelter and scanned the camp. “Where are Ylos and Faja? Why are they not assisting with the morning chores?”
“Ylos is—” Luka looked up from the fire, caught sight of Anika and gawked. “Your face!”
“Anjot battled with the forest. The trees won.” Perce laughed.
Luka did not join in the ribbing; a beta would not dare make jest of an alpha. Thank Protocol. For once. “Yes, where are the others?” Anika attempted to divert attention from herself.
“Ylos has led the females into the woods for a constitutional, but I have not seen Faja or his alpha, Wolak, since I arose.” Luka rotated the spit. Melting fat dripped onto the hot coals and sizzled, the delicious aroma causing Anika’s mouth to water. She’d eaten only stale panna and dried meat since the night Urazi had caught the rodent.
How long would it be before Urazi showed up? He’d surprised her with every visit; like an apparition, he appeared and disappeared according to his own schedule. She wondered where he’d slept—if he’d been able to stay warm—and how he would finagle his way into the group. The convoy did not need additional people.
Another pop and sizzle caused her stomach to grumble. “How fortunate you were able to acquire fresh meat for our morning meal,” she said.
“Ylos and I found them in snares set by Icor. We appropriated them in the name of Commander Qalin.”
Though hungry, she wished they had not found the meat, for it delayed their departure. Anika let out a soundless breath. The longer they tarried, the greater the likelihood someone would stumble across Icor’s body. Her gaze nervously zipped across the tree line. How far would Perce’s beta Ylos venture into the woods with the females? She wasn’t certain how far away she’d been when she had killed Icor, and, even under the low lunarlight, Urazi had spotted the signs.
But Urazi said he covered up the trail. He will not let me down. Show no fear. Be bold. Fear is often disguised as courage. “Where is Icor?” she asked.
“I have not seen him, either,” Luka replied.
Perce frowned. “Strange.”
“Indeed,” Anika said.
By the time the rodents were ready, Anika heard the clanking of shackles, and Ylos arrived with the females. He motioned for them to sit outside their shelter, and joined them around the cook fire.
“Did you happen to see Wolak, Faja, or Icor while you were out?” Anika asked. She would act as if she believed Icor to be alive—and then feign great shock if his body were discovered.
Ylos shook his head. “No, alpha.”
“We shall not wait. Let’s eat,” Perce announced.
“What of the breeders?” Anika inquired. There were twenty-five of them. Three rodents—large though they were—would amount to a mere taste for all.
Perce blinked. “What of them?”
Anika winced at her gaffe. Females did not eat until the males had finished—nor would they be served fresh meat when it was in short supply. The females’ morning meal would consist of a ration of stale panna and brined, dried meat—if they were lucky enough to receive the latter.
“Should we not secure them better?” She scrambled to cover her mistake.
Perce waved his hand. “Not necessary. The manacles will hamper them should they try to escape. I doubt but a few would be bold enough to consider it.”
The breeder who had eyed Anika when she joined the convoy stared at them now, a curl of dislike on her lips. She would run if she could. Anika wished she could counsel her to shield her emotions, but all she could do was glare at her in a censuring manner until the breeder averted her mutinous amber gaze beneath a mass of dark hair. Anika had a hunch it was the bold one whom Perce would have sacrificed.
With three large rodents split between four individuals, the meal proved more than ample. The males ate heartily, but Anika feigned enjoyment, the rodent tasting like wood shavings. She could imagine how the breeders felt to smell the food, watch them eat. Their rations would hardly mute the rumblings of their hunger.
I’m sorry.
By the time they finished
, tossed some panna at the females, and secured them in the cages, Wolak and Faja still had not returned. Perce’s good humor eroded under impatience. He stomped around like a petulant child, kicking everything in his way. “Their tardiness will delay our start.”
Wherever they’d gone, they should have returned by now, and she wondered if Urazi had had a hand in their disappearance, if their bodies lay beside Icor’s. Anika did not rue killing in the heat of battle or in the self-defense—but she rebelled against coldly dispatching another for personal gain. But the ability to do so without compunction had made alphas fierce warriors, feared by their planetary neighbors. And why Parseon channeled those urges by providing sanctioned outlets for aggression and violence.
Could Urazi have killed Wolak and Faja? He acted more alpha like every day.
Perce ceased pacing to stab a finger at Ylos and Luka. “Find Wolak and Faja.”
“Yes, alpha,” the betas spoke in unison and hurried off. An angry alpha was an unpredictable one, and Perce’s pique was rising. Anika’s stomach churned with nervousness. Even though he believed her to be a male of status, Perce was the caravan’s leader with authority over all: females, betas, and alphas.
He justified her fears when he stormed off to his conveyance, and then returned brandishing a barbed talia. “Wolak and Faja must be reminded of the import of our mission,” he said.
The talia hissed as he tested his aim.
Anika thought of the hard seats, the jostling on rutted road that tossed driver and passenger. The males’ backs and legs would be torn open by the whip. The conveyance ride would be unbearable. She took a breath for courage to ask the obvious: “Will they still be able to drive a conveyance?”
“Faja will be useless,“ he conceded. “We may as well leave him behind. But pain is of little consequence to an alpha. Wolak will work through it.”
She doubted even an alpha could do that, having witnessed a flogging by talia at the BCF. Director Sival had attempted to thwart the will of Alpha Dak. Parseons were a stalwart race who recovered quickly from injury, but the whip had left Sival permanently scarred.
“My sire is always telling me I must wield a firmer hand, that my tolerance is my greatest failing.” Perce compressed his lips and snapped the talia. “That, to be respected, I must show no mercy.”
Ylos and Luka—unaccompanied—charged into the camp. They halted and paled at the sight of the talia. This was not the time to be the messenger of bad news.
“Well? Where are they?” Perce demanded.
Ylos nudged Luka. “They have deserted the mission,” Luka answered.
“What!” Perce’s face suffused with color. “How do you know?”
Urazi emerged from the brush. “Honor to the brave and glory to Alpha Qalin,” he hailed.
Anika’s knees shook with relief. She’d never been so glad to see him in her life.
“Who are you?” Perce demanded.
“I am a former denizen of a small village pillaged by Commander Marlix. My name is Urazi.”
Perce spat on the ground. “Marlix!”
“He has news of Wolak and Faja,” Ylos spoke up.
Perce narrowed his eyes. “News? What news?”
“This morning, before sunup, my path crossed three males whom I believe match the description given me by Luka and Ylos,” Urazi said.
“Three males?” Perce frowned.
“We believe Icor traveled with them,” Ylos said.
Perce tilted his head. “I do not understand. Where were they going?”
“They did not inform me of their destination, only that they no longer wished to serve Commander Qalin. They imparted that their honor would not permit them to support the war on his behalf and accused Alpha Qalin of hiding behind the might of his guards and Commander Artom. An alpha with a misshapen face said Commander Qalin had sired his poltroon son from an impure breeder.” Urazi balled his hands into fists. “Commander Qalin would never have sired a coward. I would have killed the traitors on the spot, but they escaped.”
Perce’s face twisted with anger. He swung the talia over his head, and it sliced through the air with a frightening sizzle. The betas fell back to dodge the whip, and, from across the camp, the shackled females cried out. Perce snapped the talia again, wrapping it around one of Icor’s shelter posts. He yanked, and the pole fell like an axed tree. He struck again and toppled the opposite post. The roof caved in with a yawning crash.
Systematically, he razed a camp that had taken Icor months to build. When he’d reduced the shelters to rubble, Perce grabbed a small burning log by its unlit end and proceeded to set the collapsed structures ablaze. Anika tore through the debris for the sleeprolls and her carryall. She extracted her bloodied shirt from her pack and dropped it in the rubble then hauled the rest of her belongings to the center of the camp moments before Perce set the hut remains ablaze. She sidled over to where Urazi stood with arms folded.
“Why would you say such a thing and incite his ire?” she hissed.
“To close a door,” he murmured cryptically.
With fire in his eyes, Perce watched the camp burn. The genial alpha who’d welcomed her into the convoy had vanished. Had she met this male first, she would have had serious qualms about enlisting.
Woe to the absentee alpha and beta if they showed up now. Anika swayed closer to Urazi, “Are you responsible for the disappearance of Wolak and Faja?”
He dipped his chin in a slight nod. “With two males down, the convoy will be too short-handed to manage the females and drive the conveyances. Perce will be forced to accept me as a driver.”
“Did you kill them?” She held her breath. Could Urazi be that cold and calculating? They had both killed out of necessity. Had taken a life to save one. That did not apply here, and she recoiled from the notion Urazi could kill without a stab to his conscience.
“No,“ he replied. “Perhaps I should have. It would have been safer for us had I done so. I merely presented them with a strong inducement to leave.”
“An inducement?”
“I broke Wolak’s arm.”
Anika flinched.
“He will heal.” Urazi shrugged. “But I got some interesting information in the process of convincing Wolak to abandon camp.”
“What is that?”
“Perce is Qalin’s son.”
Chapter Thirteen
Perce eventually calmed, returning to the affable alpha Anika had first met. But misgivings about her enlistment had grown. Luka and Ylos had withdrawn, becoming quiet, and she suspected they worried, too. Anika hustled eight breeders to the transport. Connected by a length of chain attached to their ankle manacles, they hopped into the cage as if safety resided there—except for the last in line, the one who dared to stare. She hung back.
Anika motioned. “Get in.”
The female bowed her head, but instead of boarding, inched closer to Anika. “I witnessed you leave camp in the middle of the night and saw Icor follow you.” Her voice was low, but heavy with insinuation. “I heard screams and shouts, and then you returned, and he did not.”
Cold sweat beaded on Anika’s nape. In the wagon bed, the closest breeder to whom the bold one was chained sat cross-legged, her back to them. The others had begun to talk, their chatter melding into a buzz. Perce was off doing whatever; the other males, Urazi included, were occupied boarding their females. Luka had been assigned to the second conveyance with Urazi. Driving solo, Anika would bring up the rear.
She grabbed the female’s elbow and dragged her as far from the wagon as the chain would allow. Releasing her, Anika pretended to scan the horizon. “Why is that a concern of yours?”
“No concern, alpha. Merely an observation. One male disappeared last night. Two more this morning….”
Admit nothing. She is guessing. And she is female. No one will trust her word anyway. How well she knew that. “What are you suggesting?” Anika hardened her features.
“I suggest nothing, alpha.” The bold one lifted
one shoulder. “But if my manacles were to become loose, and I happened to be left behind, who would notice the absence of one female?”
Anika wished she could free them all. It gnawed at her conscience that she had fought so hard for her freedom, yet served as an instrument to deny it to others. One day, she vowed to herself, I will make it so none of them are shackled. But, until then, she would have to live with her complicity.
Beyond Dak’s province, they would pass through Artom’s before arriving at Qalin’s. Many moons remained of their journey. Unpredictable, dangerous weeks. And Anika did not like being threatened. She would allow no one to undermine her security and freedom—not even if the other person deserved it, too.
“What is it you are called?” she asked.
The breeder tossed her head. “I am Zala.” How apt the appellation. In Parseon, Zala meant bold. Perhaps, if her sire had named her Xera for prudence, she might have developed some.
“Perce would notice if you disappeared, Zala. Your audacity has drawn his attention,” Anika said.
Zala regarded Anika’s bruised cheeks. “Then, perhaps, since I have his attention, I shall share my observations with him.”
Anika wound back her fist and punched Zala in the face. Without a cry, the breeder stumbled, tripped over her chain, and hit the icy ground. Blood streamed from her split lip. “I observe that you should keep your mouth shut,” Anika said.
Urazi’s head snapped in her direction, but the other males continued with their business, an incident with a female not worthy of their attention. In the conveyance, chatter ceased, and the females huddled.
Is this what it means to be alpha? What has the uniform done to me? A bitter taste tainted Anika’s mouth, but she could not afford remorse—not if she wished to live. She could not permit Zala to challenge her and win—for, if she did, the others would doubt her alphaness, look at her with sharper eyes, and discover her ruse.
During war, sometimes, the only choices were bad ones.
Zala spat out a tooth. Her hand throbbed, but Anika hauled the female to her feet and dragged her close. I am sorry. “Next time, you will feel the wrath of the talia.” She shoved her so that Zala bounced off the back of the wagon. “Get in the conveyance!”
