Tae: Talonian Warriors (A Sci-fi Alien Weredragon Romance)

by Celeste Raye

  She busied herself with the bandages that she had brought to put over his wound. “You’re lucky. It was a minor wound. You must’ve ducked out of the way just as the weapon went off.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “No, actually it hit a wall or something first they think.”

  She pressed the bandages down and began to fasten them into place. His hand caught one of hers, and she paused in her task. She looked down to see his eyes staring at her intently. Ben asked, “Where did you go? I mean, when you left. Where did they take you?”

  She looked away. She continued to fasten the bandage in place, choosing her words carefully so as to avoid causing him pain. “I was placed on a bride ship, but it was taken by wreckers. I was taken to Orbital by the wreckers, who gave me two choices: work off the debt that I now owed them for my safe passage and the removal of my name from the manifests that ship held, or make my own way throughout the universe.”

  She finished taping the bandages now, and she sat back, staring at him with a sense of wonder. He had lost weight, and his face wore a faint flush of tan. There was something about him though that seemed off; she just couldn’t put her finger on it. He seemed nervous and upset, and not just because they were meeting again for the first time. Something in her stomach, some small warning system, went off, but she had no idea what it meant.

  He asked, “And the people who brought you here?”

  She said, “They own a small private planet. Because I had already repaid part of my debt to them and because… Because they thought I could be of use, they asked me to become an inhabitant of the planet. One of the owners is the being that helped to first create the rebellion and then halt the advance of the Gorlites.

  “They are good. Perhaps…”

  Her tongue ran over her suddenly dry lips. She said, “Perhaps instead of staying here, we could return there. It’s a primitive planet, and there are no cities or governments to speak of. It’s hard to live there. It’s cut off, for the most part, it has very little to do with the other planets in the galaxy, but it’s beautiful has clean air and its new.”

  Tears came up in her eyes. She loved it there. If she had not known before that moment that she truly wanted to return to Revant Two, she knew then. She no longer wanted to live on Old Earth. She wanted to help her people of course, but some small part of her had already realized that if she stayed on until everything they needed was given she would die there without ever having truly lived. It seemed selfish. But it was true.

  Hard on the heels of that thought came another.

  She wanted to be with Marik. Yes, she had been promised to this man lying on the floor before her, but that promise had been broken by someone other than herself. Things had changed a great deal in the time since she had been taken from him and that moment that they were now in.

  Ben sat up. His smile was wide, but it seemed false. Had he somehow sensed what she was feeling? Did he somehow know that her heart belonged elsewhere now? Unnerved by that and confused by her defection from her feelings for him, Jenny looked away, but Ben’s fingers captured her jaw and turned her head back toward him.

  He said, “How much stuff did they bring? I mean, do they have a lot of food and things? I heard that they were bringing credits to help rebuild it. And a whole lot of them to boot.”

  Discomfort set in. “Most of the water and food is gone. It went to help the people here in the hospital, and a lot of it was distributed out on the streets. People are starving. The Federation has given nothing despite all their promises of aid. Everyone says that they came and it was a big ceremony and then they left and there’s been no word. Is that true?”

  Been dismissed her question with an impatient wave of his hand. “Yes, of course, it’s true.”

  She blinked. He didn’t seem upset about it. Then again how would she know how he felt? She had been living a fairly peaceful existence even while on Orbital, and especially after going to Revant Two.

  A pang of guilt struck. It wasn’t her fault that she had not been here for all of the terrible things that happened. She had had no choice in that matter at all. But she still felt guilty that she had not been there. An even larger strike of guilt came when she realized that he had had to live through all of those things. That he had had to suffer. Her hand tried to take his, but he pulled it away slightly.

  His eyes burned brightly as he asked, “And the credits? Are they real? Do they really have them?”

  “I… I don’t think so. I’ve never seen any.”

  His grip on her jaw tightened. “But they had enough credits to buy a private planet. Isn’t that what you just said? They obviously have plenty of them. Planets… I can’t even imagine how expensive a planet would be.”

  A soft whimper started in her throat. She quelled it and said, “Ben, you are hurting me!”

  She expected him to apologize and drop his hand, but he didn’t. Instead, he stared intently into her eyes. His eyes held something she had never seen before in him. She tried to tell herself that war changed people and that he was obviously desperate and tired. Curious too, and who could blame him? But it felt wrong, that rationalization. She didn’t know why, but she did know that she didn’t want to be near him anymore.

  She moved quickly, wrenching herself out of his grip despite the pain that came up in her jaw as she did so. She stood, her hands going to her chest. Her eyes went around the room. There were at least forty new arrivals, and most of them had very slight injuries. She had assumed when they had come in that they were mostly hungry or thirsty and looking for assistance. Only it seemed that almost every face in the room was now pointed toward her and Ben.

  Oh, of course they were! She and Ben had been talking in tones that were quite loud. They’d been making a scene.

  She said, “I have to go. I have more people to see. We have a lot of injured ones here.”

  Fear started up. Why she was afraid was something she didn’t know. She didn’t need to know why she was afraid either; she just knew that she was. She took a few steps backward. Ben sprang up from where he had been laying. His hands whipped out and caught her upper arms. His fingers tightened along her skin, and she cried out, looking wildly around the room and hoping that someone would intercede on her behalf.

  Nobody moved except to sit up or to stand. Were they going to help her? It seemed that they weren’t because they didn’t move toward her at all!

  Ben spoke in a quiet, soft voice. “It seems to me that they favor you, these creatures that have enough credits to buy a planet to come down here and to bestow their grace upon us like… like we’re some pet that they’ve taken in off the streets.”

  A hard cold lump began in her chest. She said, “They came because they care. They’re here because…”

  Stop! The word rang out loud and clear in her mind. She did not know why but she knew that telling Ben that Jessica and Talon were a couple and that they were madly in love was somehow a vast mistake. She could not understand how or why she knew that and she did not ask, she simply clamped her lips shut and said nothing, standing there staring at him dumbfounded instead.

  Ben said, “I do believe they favor you a good deal, in fact. Perhaps enough to make a decent ransom for you.”

  Ransom? Was he serious? Her lips parted. “I’m just someone they rescued off a slave ship. They care nothing for me.”

  His head tilted to the side. “I thought it was a bride ship.”

  “That is what they said. But that wasn’t what it was. I didn’t find out until after the ship was wrecked that the Federation has been, for years, selling off supposed brides to pleasure planets where they are used until they are dead or too broken to be of any use at all.”

  Cold horror ran through her body as she realized just how close she had come to something so terrible. The fact of it had never quite hit her before but it hit her just then, and a long slow shiver worked its way from her feet all the way up to her neck, causing her skin to rise up and gooseflesh and her heart to beat faste
r.

  Ben said, “My dear sweet little Jenny. You never were much use. I don’t know why I kept you around except you were amusing to me. Now, however, I can see that you can finally pay me back for all that I have done for you.”

  Her mouth sagged open. “What are you talking about?”

  Ben’s eyes, cold as a winter’s day, landed on her face. “I hid you from the Capo. I saved you even though it was a burden. I cared for you when you were weak and sick, which was most of the time. I expected you to marry me. Especially after your eighteenth birthday. Your parents halted that since they still had dominion over you until your twenty-first birthday. I could do nothing about it.

  “I intended to pawn you the first chance I got, of course. Instead, you got yourself dragged off to a…whatever ship it was that you landed on. I doubt you would’ve made a good pleasure slave. But they didn’t know that, now did they?”

  What was he saying? How could he be so callous? Who was this man? He wore Ben’s face, but he was nothing like the Ben that she knew!

  Ben said, “Spread out. Find the aliens. The ones who brought the ship here. You can’t really miss them; hurry up and kill any of them that you can.”

  Jenny opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, Ben’s fist flew outward from his body. A hard blow landed on her chin and darkness followed.

  Chapter 8

  Marik heard a faint scream from above. His eyes narrowed, and he moved by instinct. Talon and the others were already moving as well.

  Too late. It was too late.

  The Rovers had come into the building pretending to be citizens in need of aid. Marik raced along one hallway, weapon drawn, as screams sounded out and the rattle of weapon fire further down the hallway rang out.

  The shrieks of people who were already injured and now facing down fire from within were deafening. He darted right and then into a room to see a group of Rovers ripping possessions away from the frightened and hurt people within. Rage suffused his vision.

  His weapon spat, and two Rovers went down. The others turned to him, and he fired, hitting the floor and rolling hard toward a wall. His foot hit a table, and it went down. He got behind it, using it as cover.

  The Rovers had old weapons but a weapon was a weapon, and one blast splintered an entire side of the table. He swore loudly as those splinters flew through the air. Another blast tore a chunk from the other end. Marik was not sure if the man firing the weapon was toying with him, or if he was just a lousy shot.

  He ducked around the table’s burned and shattered side, fired quickly, and dispatched two more Rovers.

  More yells and weapon fire came to his ears. He peeked back around the table, his eyes already choosing his target. He fired, felling another Rover.

  Talon and Jessica were in the room. Jessica was engaged in hand-to-hand, and Marik made it back to his feet just as he heard someone yell, “They have the healer!”

  The healer. It could have been any of them, but his heart told him that it was Jenny. He went, running past screaming people. He drew down fire on a Rover who had gotten herself trapped but was still firing at everything she saw.

  Death was not the business that he wanted to be in, but that Rover had made death his business at the moment.

  He reached the front door just in time to see Jenny’s limp body being hauled away, tossed over the shoulder of a Rover!

  Marik went after them, but a powerful blast knocked him off his feet. He looked down to see blood running from one thigh. Dammit!

  He went down, still fighting, but there were Rovers everywhere. There were people to protect, and his leg was gushing blood now. Darkness swam in and out, and his hand slipped off the weapon.

  It dropped away from him as he fell into pain so huge it made everything first gray out, then darken to black.

  He woke to see Talon standing over him, a grim look carved into his visage. “They took Jenny, and they want a ransom to get her back.”

  Marik groaned as pain lanced up his leg. “They will kill her even if we pay it, most likely.”

  His fingers went to his leg. He probed at his leg, and then he felt his gift kick in and start to heal it up.

  The pain was intense and terrifying. He groaned again as a salty, bitter taste filled his mouth and left him both dizzy and sick. He managed to open his eyes again to see the room shifting all around him. His injury had been more severe than he had thought and it was clear that someone had tried to help him, but the injury had been beyond their skill level.

  He fell back into darkness despite his efforts to fight it back. When his eyes, gritty with fatigue and pain, came open again, he found his leg was healing but still torn and wracked with agony. The bone had knit together, and the tissues had closed, but the rest would take time.

  Which he didn’t have.

  He managed to get up and stagger across the silent and empty room. He fumbled his way out into a hallway and saw Jessica kneeling beside a body. He said, “He’s dead.”

  “I know.” Her voice was soft and pained. “I knew him. Once. Not a friend, just someone who lived nearby when I was a child.”

  She stood. Her face was gray. “They took her.”

  “I know. I intend to get her back.”

  Jessica nodded. “I thought you might say that. We will all go with you of course, but you should know that starting a war with the Rovers is the worst thing we could do right now. They are vicious, like dogs, and they keep growing in numbers because…well, because, goddammit, they…”

  Marik sighed. “They’re desperate, and they are angry, and they are hungry, and they are ruthless. All of it or none of it. Take your pick.”

  Her fingers went to her forehead, and she soothed back her eyebrows. “When we get her back, you should take her to Revant Two and keep her there. Some people are not cut out for this, and she isn’t.”

  He spoke. “I think you underestimate her, and a great deal too.”

  Jessica didn’t answer. She just looked back down at the body. “When this trip is over, and it is almost over, I’m going back to Revant Two. I give up. They don’t deserve us. They really don’t.” She walked off without another word.

  Marik understood her pain. This was more than anyone should have to take. That made him think again of Jenny. He went down the hall again until he found Talon and the others all gathered around the maps that someone had laid out on a table.

  Talon said, “There you are. We have intel that says the Rovers may be here, near the outskirts of the city, but opposite the ship docks. We have to get in there, get her, and then get all the way back. If we have a hovercraft that we can keep up, and that is a big if, given the hostility and the fighting, then we can get there faster.”

  Marik said, “You’re pulling out, aren’t you?”

  Talon nodded. His eyes rested on Marik’s face. “The Federation won’t help and we can’t. We have tried. We have brought in food and supplies, and healers, and all we keep ending up with is more of our own dead and lost. I can’t anymore.”

  Marik didn’t argue.

  Marik said, “We need a plan, and we need it now. I agree that even if we pay the ransom, they will likely kill her anyway.”

  Or would they? The man who had helped to take her had once been her lover. Could it be possible that he was going to ransom her simply as a matter of survival but keep her as a matter of love? Did he think that he could demand a ransom for her and then refuse to return her?

  He would undoubtedly refuse to return her. The larger question was would he kill her or keep her alive?

  It was something Marik was not willing to risk.

  It was possible that they could pay the ransom and that she would live. That she wanted to be with the man who had taken her.

  He said so, and Talon looked at him. “She was unconscious when he carried her out of here. Several of the crew members tried to intervene, and he dropped her at one point. She was badly injured. It seems to me that if she had wanted to go with him, she would’
ve walked out of here and not had to be carried out of here.”

  Marik’s heart sank even further. Rage boiled up within him. It didn’t make sense, her being carried out that way, not if she had been willing to go with her former lover. The only thing that made sense was that she’d been taken against her will.

  He said, “She had been looking for him. Is it possible that when he showed up that he said something that caused her to not want to go with him? Could he have told her his plans perhaps?”

  Talon said. “There are so many pouring in the doors every single day that we don’t get a chance to check all of them. That’s something that we need to work on. Unfortunately, everyone who was in the room with them was part of the Rovers so we have no idea of what he may have said to her before he knocked her out and took her.”

  Marik asked, “Do any remain alive?”

  Talon nodded. “But I think he’s too far gone to question.”

  Marik looked down at his leg. The pain was still there, and he knew it would slow him down some, but he had to get busy and try to save Jenny and soon. It could not afford to wait. “Show me where he is.”

  Weapon fire had shattered interior walls, and there was rubble everywhere. Talon had to assist Marik in stepping over a large pile of shattered plaster and fragmented stairs. With every step, his leg pained him more and more, but he just kept going. There were other things that were far more important right now.

  The injured Rover lay in a courtyard. More anger hit. Yes, the man was an enemy, but to throw him outside like trash? He shot a furious glare at Talon who merely said, “We don’t know if he is dangerous still.”

  One look down told Marik that the man was too far gone to be dangerous to anybody. He shoved his anger at Talon’s callousness aside. This was war whether he liked it or not. Whether Talon liked it or not. He knelt beside the Rover. His hands went to the man’s chest and the gaping wound there. Nothing would save his life. All Marik needed was to know the location of the Rover hideout.