Rise

by May Sage

  She hadn’t expected an answer, but it came.

  “Cedar.”

  “I like it. Suitable evil, although perhaps Lord Cedar might have a better ring to it.”

  “I am a Lord.”

  She chuckled; of course he was.

  As he was feeling chatty, she asked:

  “When are your friends going to come and rape me, then?”

  He stared at her again, and left the room.

  Cedar

  Rape. He knew she’d chosen the term on purpose. The clients weren’t raping anyone. They stroke those whores until they were welcoming their advances; that generally happened quickly enough.

  Rape.

  No. Human women loved sex. They were made for nothing more or less.

  He hated the doubts that had entered his mind since the girl had been brought here. He knew he ought to move her down in the breeding rooms with the others, but he hadn’t.

  He was master here, and his word was law, yet he’d never so much as requested one little session from the human girls.

  Until now.

  He’d requested her. She was his – exclusively. So no one could get in and rape her.

  “Are you alright?”

  No.

  “I need another reading.”

  His brain functions were showing an unexpected development. A part of his brain that had never showed any particularity was overly active now. It meant something; what, he wasn’t sure.

  Otherwise, he recognized his behavior. It wasn’t immediately alarming, but it would be within a few years, if he was lucky.

  It happened to the majority of the population before their two hundredth year. Cedar was over three hundred years of age, though – everyone had believed his heritage meant that he was off the hook. Apparently not.

  He would have liked to have achieved more in his life before someone had to put him down.

  They would, too.

  He was becoming insane. Eventually, he’d start the bestial behaviors, and for the safety of those around him, they would kill him.

  Cedar lifted his head when someone walked in his lab, and smiled; just what he needed. A distraction.

  “Trice.”

  His closest friend, Trice, was always good fun. He knew he’d had a session with one of the girls today, and he’d hoped he’d have the time to stop and see him.

  “Cedar. Working, for a change.”

  “Always,” he shrugged.

  He loved his work; nothing else had mattered since the day his mother had taken everything from him, save for his worthless title and the almost resourceless planet where he lived.

  “If the talk’s right, you’ve definitely added some fun to your schedule,” his friend laughed.

  He smiled; obviously, he’d heard of two-two-three. She was entertaining – he liked observing her, especially since she’d started talking.

  His friend probably assumed he engaged into a very different kind of amusement, and he wasn’t going to contradict him.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Mighty fine, to say the least. It looks like I’m going to be a father. Vayn called to let me know – one-seven-nine is pregnant with my heir.”

  Cedar frowned, confused. Why had he been down to breed with another female, then?

  “Anyway, when are you done? I’m staying the night. You’ll join me for a drink, right?”

  “Of course. Two hours?”

  Trice left, heading to his usual quarters, while Cedar swallowed a pill he hadn’t seen coming.

  The program they’d started up was designed to provide families who couldn’t conceive with a child. One. Trice should never have been admitted to a breeder, if he had a baby on the way.

  What did it mean?

  He was working over the latest round of tests when an acute migraine started, so keen he promptly vomited the content of his stomach.

  Something was wrong; so wrong. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint what, but he’d never felt as out of control.

  The madness was advancing at an expected rate.

  Surprisingly, he felt the need to go see two-two-three. He wrote it down, before heading towards the cerebral reader for another scan.

  Willow

  Eventually, she stopped trembling, but the crying was out of control.

  Well, that answered her question.

  The Klint pulled his trousers up and left the room. He hadn’t even said a word.

  She wondered why she hadn’t expected it. Silly. She’d known just what happened in this place.

  Still, she’d somehow fooled herself into believing that she was different; that this strange, silent scientist cared about her.

  Her eyes spotted her food tray left in the corner of her cell. She didn’t even hesitate. The knife was blunt but she did manage to cut her wrists open regardless.

  Cedar

  He’d distracted himself. A shower. A round of drinks with Trice. Eventually, the compulsion was too strong. He got up from his bed and went to see her.

  “No.”

  So much blood. On her sheets, on the floor, on the knife.

  His shaking hands didn’t key in the right access code at first; he had to wait for over ten damn seconds before being allowed to enter it again. Fuck. His eyes could hardly process what he saw. She laid lifeless on that horrible, hard bed.

  No.

  Finally, the door pushed open; he rushed to her and tried to get a pulse. He thanked every god ever invented when he got one. It was faint, but she was alive.

  He carried her all the way to his bedroom upstairs, and raced down to his lab, yelling orders.

  The rejuvenation process was designed to be performed on healthy subjects and right now, she was far from it. First, she needed a blood transfusion. There were dozens of human girls down in the dungeons, he prayed that one, at least, was a viable donor.

  Cedar cursed himself for not using microchips. He prepared the old fashion way – thinking up or researching his information himself. Right now, he could have used the speed of a processor linked to his brain.

  Finally, he managed to run a compatibility matching two-two-three to every other habitant of his home.

  Two-two-three. He didn’t even know her name.

  Thankfully, she was an AB+. Everyone could give her blood; he ordered an extraction and rushed back upstairs.

  It was only ten hours later, after the transfusion, after ensuring that she couldn’t as easily hurt herself in the future, by changing her into an immortal, that he went back to his computer, and saw the file he hadn’t paid attention to, in his rush.

  The file which had run a compatibility to him.

  Twenty-Five

  Unexpected

  Lena

  “Hi, Dad.”

  The hardest thing had been to manage to connect a system to skype. Then, she’d just logged in and called her only contact, called prettygirl1990.

  His father hadn’t been delighted at the pseudonym, but they could hardly have gone for HardAssCaptainoftheDissenters. Might have somewhat blown his cover.

  “Poppet,” he’d smiled, “still fond of aliens?”

  Hardly.

  “Still fighting them?”

  “You bet.”

  She gave him a briefing, explaining what they’d discovered as well as what they wanted to do about it, and Michael nodded.

  “Why don’t you seem surprised?”

  He sighed, before explaining, “Eighteen years ago, when we lost the war, I was approached by one of them. He said the Emperor was planning to enslave us all – exactly what I’d feared. The problem was, that guy was slimy as fuck, I pegged him right away. It was pretty clear that there was a threat: people like him, not the Empire, directly. I know he got to a group of humans, who called themselves the Saviors. I’ve formed the Dissenters to counteract their actions.”

  Lena stared at him for a full minute. She couldn’t believe her ears.

  Her dad had told her, again and again, that he hated every aliens, that th
ey all deserved to go to hell – that was the reason why she’d held her hands up and asked to go to boarding school, first, and then, to be emancipated so she could stay by herself. She hadn’t agreed with his xenophobia.

  “Catching on, yet?” he smirked.

  Fuck. If he’d told her to leave, she would have dug her heels and stuck by his sides until the end of times, so instead, he’d pushed her away and made her feel it was her idea.

  “I kinda hate you right now.”

  Michael Ashforth shrugged unapologetically.

  “It kept you safe. Hate me all you want. Anyway, I like your plan. Give the location of one of our outposts to your guys, and we’ll sort something out. Now, how’s my grandson?”

  Lena was still shaken when the call ended, half an hour later. Never in a million years had she actually thought that she might have been played for the last dozen years. She was too much of a stubborn hardass – not unlike her father – to have even considered it…

  She couldn’t blame him, not now that she had Alek. She knew she would have done the same in a heartbeat, if she’d believed her son was in danger.

  Lena left her bedroom with a newfound sense of humility she wasn’t quite sure what to do about. Somehow, though, it knocked some sense into her, so when she turned around the corner of a corridor and came face to face with Tania Webber, who promptly dropped her eyes and hurried passed her, she wasn’t feeling all that good about the way she’d treated the poor girl.

  “Hey!” she called out, and the small thing actually flinched before turning to her. Shit. She could see dry tears against her golden skin.

  Yeah, Lena definitely had some groveling to do on that score. She couldn’t actually recall saying anything to her, although she’d shared their quarters for over a fortnight, now.

  “So… I’m Lena Smith. My superpower apparently is being an asshole.”

  The girl cracked a smile so, encouraged, Lena added, “An insecure asshole. My Facebook relationship status is still at it’s complicated. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, though.”

  The girl’s eyes bulged, widen like saucepan.

  “Are you kidding?”

  Lena shrugged; everything she’d just said had been completely sincere. Actually, it kinda felt good to get it off her chest.

  “Wow. I wasn’t sure women who looked like you could be insecure.”

  She frowned, wondering whether she’d been complimented or insulted. That either sounded like the girl thought she was pretty, or pretty arrogant.

  “You’re a knockout,” Tania clarified. “And, for your information, Calden is crazy about you – like, literally.”

  Her smile was faint, but sincere.

  “Look, you guys should seriously talk. Being mates – or whatever you call it – isn’t a ticket to a happy ending, from what I’ve seen. You’d better say what you want to before it’s too late.”

  Lena frowned when she heard the bitterness in that statement.

  Oh, hell.

  “So, you’ve heard.”

  Tania nodded. Shit. She knew she was Jaycn’s mate, and she wasn’t happy about it.

  “Jaycn is a good guy – one of the best.”

  From Tania’s humorless laugh, she didn’t think so.

  “Tania…”

  Chip’s voice interrupted her sentence.

  “Shit,” she said out loud. “Come with me.”

  They ran towards the entrance of the palace, at a pace that left no room for questions.

  Halfway through, they were joined by dozens amongst the staff and the government body, who’d hurried to offer their help.

  Lena wasn’t going to forget that.

  At the doors, she felt her heart break in her chest.

  There was at least a hundred women, and each and every one of them looked like they wished they were dead. They walked like ghosts, zombies.

  There was one notable exception. While she seemed as absent, one of them didn’t have to walk; a tall, platinum-white haired Klint was holding her in his arms, carrying her and looking down to her like she was the most precious thing in the universe.

  He was also crying.

  Lena had never seen a Klint cry – not even her child, the day of his birth. The tears were translucent but blue, marring his skin as well as his long white coat.

  The man stood in front of her, recognizing her although they’d never met.

  “Your Grace,” he bowed. His gazed went behind her just as she felt Calden approaching behind her.

  “Cedar,” he called, confused. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  The stranger managed a faint smile.

  “Come on, old friend. You knew I was one of the minds behind this farce we called an improvement over your rule,” he replied.

  “Yes. No one else could have hacked into our security, or kept us blind for so long,” Calden replied. “I meant, what’s your game now?”

  The man glanced down the frail thing in his arms, before tilting his head back to indicate the others.

  “I have names, locations and information. I have half of the breeders we’ve taken from you. I surrender.”

  Twenty-Six

  Plead

  Calden

  Cedar was on his side. Calden couldn’t even begin to put his head around that notion.

  Obviously, many amongst his advisors weren’t enthusiastic, Jaycn included.

  “You know he is more cunning than all of us combined, Calden.”

  A euphemism. Cedar wasn’t cunning, he was a genius – quite literally.

  Three hundred years ago, his father – a scientist, like him – had the idea to attempt impregnating humans, and observe the results. Cedar, one of the first specimens, had been recorded as the quickest mind in the Empire at age ten. By age twenty, he’d designed most of the systems they now used, including their microchips. He didn’t use them, because his mind worked faster than any computer.

  Calden met him in their youth, around the same time as Jaycn, and he’d always looked up to him as an unattainable goal… until eighteen years ago.

  Calden, taking most of what Cedar said for truth without proof, had despised humans. Then, he’d seen what his father had done, as soon as he’d been at liberty to.

  It wasn’t the old Emperor’s fault: obviously, he’d been taken by the madness, like so many of them. But if turning to beasts and hurting innocents was their nature, Calden refused to believe they were better than humans.

  The problem was that ultimately, it was Calden’s decrees that mattered – and he’d opted to give them their freedom.

  Cedar all but disappeared; his name had popped in once or twice when he’d passed a patent, sold to one or another of Calden’s enemies, but that was it.

  And here he was, now.

  “He is,” Calden admitted.

  “And you’d still give him your trust?”

  Yes.

  In any other circumstances, Calden would have been suspicious… but the way he looked at the girl in his arms had clarified his motives.

  Besides, Cedar was no liar. He’d always made his positions and his opinions perfectly clear.

  “I will hear what he has to say. Recall that Cedar is a Lord of this realm: it is his right to speak amongst us.”

  There were nods all around the table; reluctant ones.

  “Ok, I need a crash course – what the hell are we actually discussing?” Lena asked.

  Nothing; they were arguing on semantics, which was the reason why he hated calling to the entire council.

  “Some amongst us don’t think we should hear what our prisoner has to say,” Calden replied. “I was reminding them that we have no choice.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Hail for the first words that made sense over the course of the last hour.

  “And it also sounds a lot like some amongst us are stalling.”

  Calden smiled; Lena was damn smart. He knew at least a few in the council were partisans of what Cedar had been part of.
They weren’t quite sure of their positions now; was Cedar going to give them up, or was he playing Calden?

  “Enough of that. Let’s hear the girls.”

  They left the privacy of the room where they’d had their meeting to go to the high tribunal where every journalist, noble, and citizen of Magneo seemed to have gathered.

  Cedar stood alone on the accused bench – he hadn’t sought any legal council. Opposite, high up on a platform, to be seen by the surrounding crowd, the first witness was already waiting.

  He’d asked Lena to pick those who were up to talking, to give an account of what had happened to them.

  They heard dozens of females, and they had the same story all around. They chose to be breeders. Their flights were hijacked, they had been taken, and raped. Most of them had given birth to children, some were currently pregnant.

  They said the raping didn’t stop during the pregnancies. Cedar closed his eyes when the first one revealed that fact, and didn’t open them again. Calden knew him enough to be certain that he had nothing to do with that.

  All of them also were unanimous on another matter. No, the accused before them hadn’t violated them. Not once.

  Finally, it came to the woman who’d been in Cedar’s arms.

  Calden wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. He had every intention to pardon Cedar of his crimes, on sole ground that he had saved all those girls, eventually – but he knew what she had to say would incriminate him. There was no way he hadn’t touched his mate.

  Willow

  She had been confused at first. Willow had thought she’d figured it all out: aliens equaled baddies. They’d lied and imprisoned them all.

  But it turned out, she had been imprisoned by a faction, a minority – fanatics.

  She’d seen two human girls who lived in the palace where they were all staying, and both of them had ordered Klints around, fully accepted as equals, comfortable in this world.