by Unknown
“She all but raped him because she was so aroused,” he stated.
Shanee’s eyes widened. “Are you saying I’ll throw myself on Gabriel Leveche and…?”
“No!” Bakari was quick to say. “And he wouldn’t allow it anyway. You’ll never be able to mate with anyone other than Ailyn after the Transference but I just thought you should be told…”
She lifted her arms and crossed them several times in front of her to get him to shut up. “I don’t want to hear any more,” she declared. “Tell me afterward else I’ll not have the courage to do this, Burgon!” She headed for the door. “The con cell is on Five, isn’t it?”
Bakari acknowledged that it was and started after her.
* * * * *
It was just the three of them in the containment cell. Leveche had ordered a crewman to transport a rolling stainless steel table into the cell.
When Leveche joined them—unable to look into Shanee’s eyes now that she knew what had happened between him and his lady after Ardor’s Transference—he carried a small tray upon which set a large beaker of his black blood along with a small glass of the viscous liquid as well as an empty beaker. He handed the glass to Shanee and the tray to Bakari.
“What does it taste like?” she asked as she stared down into the tarry substance. She saw him smile and her eyes narrowed. “Why are you grinning, Leveche?”
“Everyone asks that,” he replied. “It can’t be described, wench. It is what it is.”
She snorted and before another thought could deter her, she lifted the glass and drank. The expression on her face said it all.
“You get used to it,” Bakari said. He set the tray down on the floor but took up the empty beaker.
“By the gods I hope so,” she said as she lowered the glass.
Leveche went over to the table and hopped up, turned and stretched out on his belly. He reached behind him to tug his black silk shirt from his leather pants. “Is your blade sharp, Ry?” he asked.
“Does a Diabolusian warthog stink?” Bakari quipped. He withdrew his obsidian dagger from the sheath at his thigh and went over to Leveche. “Three-inch cut, right?”
“Just above the kidney,” Leveche agreed.
“I remember,” he said. “Here, Shanee. Hold the beaker for me.”
She came to stand across from the ex-Burgon. When he made the incision on Leveche’s back then dug his fingers into the cut, she felt her knees grow weak—especially when she heard Leveche gasp.
“For the love of the gods, Bakari, stop wiggling your fingers inside me! The queen will direct one to you,” Leveche growled. “Hold your gods-be-damned hand still! You’re killing me here!”
“Wimp,” Bakari said.
“I’ll wimp you when I get up,” Leveche warned.
The blood Shanee had ingested was doing strange things to her body. It hadn’t tasted all that bad but it had been thick and much hotter than she would have imagined. As she stared down at the black blood trickling from Leveche’s wound, she was beginning to feel aroused and that really concerned her. But as soon as Bakari pulled the fledgling from the Reaper’s body, all thought of sex evaporated.
It was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen in her life that Bakari dropped into the beaker she was holding. Instinctively she thrust the beaker away from her as far as her arm would extend and just stared in horror at the monstrosity that was whipping and flopping like a beached eel within the glass beaker.
The abomination was covered with horny scales that were the color of green pus. On its back was a ridge of sharp hooked red spines. Beady red eyes that were elliptical in shape like a viper’s bored through the glass at her as it flexed the tip of its forked tail.
“Accept Me, warrior. Protect Me and I will protect you!”
“It spoke to me!” Shanee said, her eyes like saucers. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the creature’s forked tongue inside the triangular head. She saw row after row of sharp little teeth inside the maw of its red mouth.
“Everyone has that reaction too,” Leveche said, and she glanced at him in time to see the wound on his back close as though by magic.
“Take Me unto you, warrior, and I will make you invincible!”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Shanee said and—to her mortal shame—felt a trickle of urine escape between her legs.
Some kind of milky substance was dripping from the eel-like thing’s mouth and where it fell in the beaker, it sizzled.
“Is that acid?” she questioned.
“Aye,” Leveche said. “You won’t feel it inside you.” He got up from the table and tucked his shirt back in. “Up you go.”
Shanee took a step back at that command. She was staring at the hideous thing in the beaker. “It looks like a tomato hornworm,” she complained.
“My thought exactly,” Bakari said, taking the beaker from her. He looked at Leveche. “Are you going to do it or do you want me to?”
“I’ve been through this before,” Leveche said. “Once I make the incision you can leave. I’ll see to her.”
“I can do it,” Bakari said though his voice said he’d just as soon not.
“Go,” Leveche commanded. “But don’t go far. You and I are going to have a little talk about your wimp insult, Burgon.”
Bakari grinned. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He reached out to pat Shanee’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right, dearling.” He patted the table.
Shanee wiped a hand over her mouth. She was sweating as she cocked a hip onto the table then slid her butt along the steel surface that was still warm from Leveche’s high body temp.
“Lie down on your tummy,” Bakari instructed, “and pull up your tunic for us or do you want me to?”
“I’ll do it,” she said. She lay down on her side then shifted to her stomach. She had to reach both hands behind her to pull the heavy wool material up to bare the small of her back.
“It will sting,” Leveche said. His own black volcanic glass dagger was now in his hand. “When the parasite is dropped on you, it will feel cold and slimy. Try not to move. It will sense the cut and shoot down into it under the first layer of skin. As soon as it burrows to your kidney, it will attach itself there.”
“And that will hurt like hell,” Bakari said, only to frown when Leveche flung him an annoyed look.
With her hands to either side of her head, her fists clenched, she felt the initial sting as Leveche made his incision. She heard him tell Bakari to drop the parasite.
The slimy weight plopped on her and she felt it crawling. Goose bumps popped out all over her.
“Go, Ry!” Leveche snapped, and she heard the con cell door close.
The parasite wriggled on her back.
“Here we go,” Leveche said in a soft voice.
She knew it was going to hurt. She’d seen the vid-seqs of Transferences on the Reapers on R-9. She understood that the creature would sink its sharp fangs into her organ and begin sucking her blood. She thought she knew how bad that pain would be but nothing could have prepared her for the gnawing, tearing misery that came as soon as she felt the creature slither down into her body.
Leveche quickly sheathed his blade and scooped her up in his strong arms. He carried her across the cell to the opposite wall and slid down to the floor with her, his legs wrapped securely around hers.
The Transition began as the pain increased tenfold within her back. She felt her body temperature soar to an unbelievable height that drenched her in sweat as the clothing on her body ripped apart as her flesh expanded. Fur wriggled out of her flesh, her bones popped then cracked then compressed. Her sinews stretched, her muscles cramped then re-formed themselves. Her nose thrust out, her jaws snapped and fangs erupted where teeth had once sat. Her eyes seemed to expand, her vision sharpen and her sense of smell elevate, her hearing intensify. She could barely move within the firm restraint of Leveche’s arms and legs but she could feel her organs rearranging inside her, making hideous squishing sounds as they altered. Her fingern
ails became claws and she dug them into his forearms. She struck out at him with her back legs that were now paws and heard him grunt as her claws raked him but he kept a firm grip on her, not allowing her to move all that much and that—in itself—was agonizing.
“It will never hurt you this bad again, Shanee,” she heard him say, but that meant nothing right then for she was in such pain she would have begged for death had she been capable of human speech.
Leveche was surprised when her shape-shifting ended and he found himself holding a very beautiful cinnamon red wolf with thick hair tipped in black—around fifty pounds of very mad, very strong lupine.
“Easy, sweeting,” he said in its ear. “I’ve got you.”
Shanee threw her head back and howled, her fangs bared but she made no move to snap at the vulnerable neck that was within inches of her mouth. She struggled against him and made a keening sound of misery.
“I know, baby. I know,” he whispered.
When it was over and her body began to return to its human form, Leveche released her and she scrambled away from him to press into the corner of the cell, hiding her nakedness from him as best she could, her long hair covering her like a living blanket.
Leveche looked away from her just as Ryden Bakari came in with a blanket. He walked to her, leaned over and covered her with it.
“I’ve brought the tenerse,” Bakari said. “And I am having the duplicator fashion a Reaper uniform for her. One of the yeomen will bring it to her.”
“Shit, I’d forgotten all about that,” Leveche said. His own black silk shirt was drenched with the combined sweat from her body and his own. He pushed up from the floor. “Will you give her the tenerse?”
“Sure.”
The ex-Burgon drew a vac-syringe from his pocket then hunkered down by Shanee. “I must give you this, dearling,” he said in a gentle voice.
Shanee was trembling and made no sound as he swept her hair aside and placed the needle of the vac-syringe to her neck. She barely flinched as the fiery payload spread into her carotid artery. She shuddered once then laid her head on her knees, the blanket tight around her.
Because she had withdrawn, they left her there alone to come to terms with what had happened. They knew when she was ready she would come to them.
Chapter Thirteen
Polemusa had been too nervous to just sit still while her only child was becoming a creature whose very existence made the defense queen uneasy. There had been times in the history of the Amazeen when the tribes had tried—unsuccessfully—to incorporate a male Reaper into their bloodline. That time was still spoken of in hushed whispers for it had not been one of Amazeen’s finest hours. Because she could not allow herself to dwell on what was happening to Shanee, Polemusa had volunteered to pilot the Raptor toward R-9. She was expertly maneuvering the massive Class 9 Star Destroyer through asteroid fields like a hot knife through butter. Such things kept her mind occupied and her thoughts away from Deck Five. She had already outdistanced the three Delta Division Sub Cruisers that had been assigned by Fleet Command to aid the mission.
“We received a message that Captain Breva along with three other Star Cruisers have reached R-9, your grace,” the com officer informed Leveche as he and Bakari took the bridge.
“Open a channel to the Sangunar, Lieutenant,” Leveche ordered.
The happy face of Raoul Breva appeared on the vid-com. “How goes it, chanto?” he asked his half brother.
“Slowly but surely,” Leveche replied. “Are you in position?”
“Aye, and we’re cloaked and waiting for you,” Breva reported. “And that’s the new cloaking device just in case you were worried.”
“I knew you’d handle it,” Leveche said. “Have you done any recon at all?”
“We know there are two ships on planet. One is a Diamhair LRC and the other a short-range sub cruiser with a Riezell registry. We are reading six life forms—four female and two male—and three ’bot heat signatures.” He frowned. “One life form is very weak.”
Leveche and Bakari exchanged a look.
“Keep us informed, chanto,” Leveche said. “We’ll be there in less than an hour at the rate our pilot is pushing this baby.”
“Make sure no one leaves that planet before we arrive,” Bakari commanded.
“Will do, Burgon,” Raoul acknowledged then his handsome face vanished from the vid-com screen.
“You’re going to have to take back the Burgonship from Ben-Alkazar,” Leveche said. “Authority becomes you.”
“Aye, well it’s sat on my shoulders for so long, I don’t know how to act without it,” Bakari replied. “I…”
Colonel Shanee Iphito took that moment to come onto the bridge and every eye snapped to her tall, lithe frame. Before her Transition from human to Reaper she had been a beautiful, alluring woman. Now, she was extraordinarily stunning with skin that was perfectly flawless and dark gray eyes that seemed to pulsate with sensuality. Her white hair had changed to an unusual silvery shade that was breathtakingly lovely. She had about her an allure that every man—Reaper and humanoid alike—felt to the very pit of his soul.
“She shifts into a red wolf,” Leveche told Bakari, “and I thought that was extraordinary but now…” He shook his head. “Ailyn is going to have his hands full with this one.”
Rory Quinn was staring at his ex-lover as though she were a banquet that had been placed before him to devour. He had to shake himself to remember that he was a married man and that he dearly loved his lady.
Striding forward in the Reaper uniform that hugged her shapely body as though she’d been poured into the black silk and black leather, Shanee seemed totally oblivious to the commotion she had created on the Raptor’s bridge. She walked up to Leveche and stood there with her hands on her hips.
“Thank you, Lord Gabriel, for your help. It was greatly appreciated,” she said, and every male there felt his groin tense at the husky tone of her voice.
“It was my honor, Lady Shanee,” Leveche replied in the time-honored greeting of one Reaper to another.
“I have programmed my ’bots to take out those of the Ceannus,” she said. “Unless there is any reason you can think of for us to keep them intact.”
“None that I know of,” Leveche said. “You might instruct your constructs not to destroy the mem-chips just to be on the safe side.”
“I already have,” she said then switched her gaze to the vid-com. “I would like to see the planet.”
Bakari ordered R-9 brought up.
The planet was covered in a red haze that gave evidence of the desert sands that continuously swept over the barren sandstone rocks. Dust storms were a hazard on R-9 and one of the reasons it had been chosen by the Alliance as a penal colony in the beginning.
“I’ve a stronghold on the other side of the planet,” Leveche told her. “It’s sealed but it can be reopened if need be.”
“Are there provisions there?” she asked. “Water?”
“Everything you might need,” he said. “Would you like to make use of it while Ailyn is recouping?”
She looked away from the vid-screen. “I would.”
“Consider it yours for as long as you need it then,” he said. “I’ll make sure there are additional provisions—Sustenance and tenerse—transported in. There are two fully fueled runabouts still there if you need them.”
“Once again, your help is appreciated, Lord Gabriel,” she said.
“I would not like to be in Elspeth Harmattan’s shoes,” Quinn said softly to Polemusa. “She’s going to make mincemeat out of that old hag.”
“It is her right to do so,” Polemusa replied. She was staring at her daughter, unnerved by the power, the authority and the strength Shanee had in spades. She wasn’t so sure she liked seeing her only child in such a way.
Bakari put a hand on Shanee’s shoulder. “Gabe and I need to go over some things with you before we reach R-9. Is now a good time?”
Shanee agreed that it was and the th
ree of them left the bridge.
Once in the Raptor’s conference room, the three Reapers sat down at the long oval table and Leveche leaned forward, his fingers threaded, elbows on the polished oak top.
“You heard the hellion speak to you and you heard Her promise. Listen to Her. She will not lead you astray.”
“You are younger and in better condition than your opponent,” Bakari added. “She also has the disadvantage of having been near death. The parasite will be working overly hard to vanquish all the poisons and diseased cells in her body so it will not be up to strength.”
“You are also a warrioress—bred and trained,” Leveche reminded her. “Though at one time she might have been a warrioress as well, many years have slipped under that bridge and I seriously doubt she’s stayed in shape or kept up on the advances in fighting. You should defeat her easily.”
“But as Gabe said, listen to your hellion. It will not allow you to do anything foolish, believe me,” Bakari commented.
“Have you ever witnessed Ailyn fashioning clothing?” Leveche asked.
“Rearranging molecules?” she countered.
Leveche nodded. “Aye. You will be able to do it too but it takes a great deal of energy for such things. Don’t do it unless you have the time to recharge that energy. It can weaken you at the wrong time. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“While you are engaging her, she might shift into animal form,” Leveche told her. “Let her but don’t be tempted to do the same in order to duel with her. That will have taken a lot of energy and it will have weakened her. Maintain your human shape. Understood?”
“Aye.”
“You can’t kill her when she’s in lupine form but you can break her back, her neck and disable her to the point that she will be forced to change back to human form. As soon as she does, take the killing blow,” Leveche said.
“Which is?”
“Take her head,” Bakari said. “That’s the only way you’ll be sure to kill her. Her head must be separated from her body and the juvenile queen growing in her burned to a crisp. Otherwise, she can rejuvenate.”
