by Maree Dry
She wanted to shout at him but couldn’t speak above much more than a whisper.
She moved restlessly. Her whole body ached and, any time now, her head would burst apart and put her out of her misery in an act of mercy.
“The doctor will operate shortly.” The way he stood so rigid, spoke even more formally than usual, scared her. He’d acted confident about their equipment and what the doctor could do, but she sensed a tension in him that didn’t spell good things for her.
“Can’t he take it out without operating?” She tried glaring at their blurred figures again. “He put it in easily enough.”
“No.”
Something in his voice made her peer harder at his hazy form. If only she could see him, then she’d be able to read his eyes. “Is it dangerous?”
“You had seizures, Julia,” Natalie said.
Julia saw her friend and Zurian exchange looks. She just knew neither one of them were confident that the doctor could help her.
“Seizures? I could end up with brain damage if that happens regularly.” She would rather be dead than without her senses.
“Yes, that is why we have to risk the operation.” Zurian took her hand and held it, his grip painful. Julia didn’t complain, simply gripped him harder. “I would be with you the whole time,” he said.
“There’s a risk?” This was getting worse all the time.
“You may end up brain damaged from the operation,” Zurian said and his very lack of inflection told her how serious this was. He moved her hair out of her face, fiercely concentrating on the task.
“This can’t be happening.” Fear clutched her by the throat and did not let go. She always thought her family would get her, or she’d die of old age or even illness but not this. Not like this. “So I’m damned either way.”
“The doctor will be very careful with you.”
She couldn’t see how that would make a difference. No matter how careful the doctor was she might still end up a vegetable. Desperate to focus on anything else she asked, “I thought you were going to look for the agent.”
“Zacar and some of the other warriors are going. I will stay here with you.”
That scared her even more. It had to be serious if he was willing to give up the opportunity to fight. It was hard to miss how much they relished battle and any kind of challenges.
“She has to rest. Everyone should go,” the doctor said.
Zurian turned to glare at him. “I am staying.”
“Of course,” the doctor agreed, but he held out his hand to indicate the door.
Julia could see Natalie wanted to object and, although she appreciated her friend’s support, the talking tired her.
“I’ll be back, Julia,” Natalie said gently and left.
Zurian’s grip tightened until Julia thought he would snap her bones. “I will always call you breeder.” The solemn words, his desperate grip, all scared her more than the doctor and his flame. It was as if he’d already accepted she would end up with brain damage.
“Even if I end up a vegetable?” she tried to joke but couldn’t pull it off.
“Why would you become a vegetable? Such a thing is not possible.”
She laughed but tears streamed from her eyes. She wanted to be her. To laugh at the way he always took her words so literal. Fight with him about killing people. She didn’t want to be a body with no emotions or thoughts.
“It’s just a saying. It means--” She swallowed. “--it means I will be brain damaged.” She didn’t want to say it out loud. Didn’t want to give her fears power with words.
“Even then I will call you breeder.” He gently rubbed her tears away with his thumb. “No matter what happens, I will be your warrior.” His free hand closed over the silver gadget in his hand and crumpled it.
She’d never been this frightened before, but she had the urge to comfort him. He seemed calm and tried to reassure her, but red tendrils kept mixing with the black of his eyes in a rare display of emotion. She held onto his hand with every bit of her strength.
“You are a warrior with honor.”
“Thank you, my breeder. No matter what happens, you will always have my best care.”
“That’s good,” she said. Getting through the operation with her brain intact would be better. They were silent for a long time, her lying there while they held onto each other with silent fear.
“If it’s not successful--”
“It will be.”
She still had the urge to say I told you so but she could see how important it was to him that she be okay. She touched her head. “If it’s not, will you make sure my hair is combed if anyone comes to see me?”
“I will have to shave her head,” the doctor said.
Zurian turned and punched the doctor who stumbled back a few steps and fell.
As if he hadn’t just punched the doctor, Zurian turned back to her and held her hand. “I will comb your hair.”
“It would be best to braid it, otherwise it will be all over the place.”
“Yes.”
She was vaguely aware of the doctor getting up and keeping his distance from Zurian. She ignored him and focused on the warrior holding her hand so securely. He could kill with no remorse, lived for battle. He was also driven by honor and, for the first time, she realized he was also driven by the need to care for her. He needed a purpose if things went wrong.
“And will you still feed me.”
“Every meal.”
“Will you bathe me and make sure I’m clean.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Every day.”
They sat in silence again. Julia wanted to talk to him, reassure him and herself, but fear crippled her brain, choked her throat.
“So now I won’t be able to speak your language and you can restrict me even more than you did before,” she meant it as a joke but it came out plaintively. She’d never been so scared.
“I will upload a program on your TC that will teach you.”
“I thought it was too difficult for a mere human to learn.”
“You can do it. You are very clever for a human.”
They were silent for a while. They both knew she might not be capable of learning anything after the operation.
There was so much she still wanted to do, to learn. “Thank you.”
Zacar walked in and Zurian turned to him. Zacar grated something and Zurian tensed even more, his body so taut, she thought he might snap any moment.
“The humans know about us,” Zurian said.
“How?” she asked.
“A news report.” Zurian grunted and the wall lit up with the TC news.
“…we repeat, aliens have landed. They have started terra forming Earth and plan to take over Earth and enslave humans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation have released a statement.”
The image changed, showed a man in a suit in front of a podium. Camera’s flashed while he spoke. “Our satellites detected a spaceship orbiting Earth. More ships are approaching Earth at great speed. We have to defend our country and Earth against these intruders.”
An image flashed behind him. The alien was captured standing against a grimy wall with no furniture to provide scale, but Julia could see he was enormous. Maybe even bigger than Zurian--and purple!
Both Zacar and Zurian hissed at the image.
“Any sightings of this creature should be reported to the following agencies.” Numbers flashed across the screen. “Report any information immediately.”
Zacar grunted then switched to English. “We received an anonymous message that the agent we seek is in Washington,” he growled and played the message for Zurian.
“This message did not come from a human,” Zurian said. “The wording sounded more like Zyrgins would write English than a human.”
“The purple alien,” Zacar said.
“Explorers,” Zurian hissed.
They encountered them every now and then on a new planet and, rarely did it go well for Zyrgin warriors.
They’d never been able to find the explorers’ home planet, in spite of the numerous search parties the Zyrgins had sent out. The explorers were self-righteous, arrogant beings with the strength and technology to back it up.
When they’d rescued Natalie from Murdoch, she’d told them that Murdoch had bragged about capturing and killing an alien woman.
Zurian still could not understand why Murdoch would treat the woman in such a fashion. They hadn’t found any trace of the purple alien since, but it seemed he was ready to make his presence felt. The humans were very much mistaken if they thought they could kill the mate of an explorer without retribution.
“Even as rundown as it is, Washington is a big city,” Zurian pointed out. “How will we find the agent who set the trap for us?”
Zacar silently held up his handheld with the anonymous message. Coordinates flashed across the screen.
“This could be another trap,” Zurian argued.
“I doubt it.”
“If it is, we could kill a few more humans.” Zurian couldn’t see the use in allowing so many of them to live. They were like a plague on this planet. Spawning so many that they couldn’t even look after their own useless young. Zyrgins at least only bred enough warriors to rule a planet. When they reached the limit of population a planet could support, they moved on to conquer a new planet.
“The explorer must have realized the agent was involved with the Raiders.”
“The agent dies,” Zacar said.
Zurian was in complete agreement but for different reasons. He agreed with any plan that culled humans, while Zacar had sworn to kill each and every person related to Natalie’s capture.
“They see us as parasites. It could be a trap.”
“He might see us as parasites, but I am sure he wants to have revenge on the humans responsible for his woman’s death. I am surprised he did not wipe them all out.”
Zurian snorted. “The explorers like to think of themselves as civilized but if you cross them they show their true colors.”
“What better revenge on the people that killed his woman than to unleash us on them?”
Zurian thought about the information they collected after Zacar killed Murdoch. “Murdoch had a sister but we haven’t been able to find her.”
“I can you tell you who will find her--”
Azagor came to attention in the doorway. “More humans are coming to the town.”
“We need to contact the leader and update him,” Zacar said.
They’d sent short reports about the buildup of Raiders and soldiers. But since Julia had collapsed, they had purposely stayed away from the comms room situated in the deepest part of the mountain.
Only Zacar and Zurian were allowed entrance. He’d heard Julia and Natalie talk about this passage and feared it was just a matter of time before Julia’s inquisitive nature brought her trouble.
Chapter 22
Julia struggled upright. The pressure in her head had increased until it felt like her eyeballs would pop. “Why would they target No Name Town? That official didn’t give a location in the TC report.”
“Your cousin.”
“Jack,” she whispered, ashamed that her family would betray her like this. Didn’t they care what would happen to her?
“Yes.”
“The people in town are basically decent people who just want to live their lives in peace.”
He didn’t answer.
“What are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing, my breeder.”
“Please, Zurian, don’t lie to me now.” She tried to get more comfortable without letting them see how much any movement hurt.
He and Zacar exchanged a look and she saw the leader nod in that odd way they had.
Zurian turned back to her. “It is not only your implant that is malfunctioning. Your cousin could get through the block on your TC because our equipment is failing.”
“Oh.” It took a moment for the implications to hit her sore head. “Your weapons?”
“We will defend the mountain, but we will have to do it with only our swords, and the weapons Azagor managed to repair.”
Four of them against thousands?
“No, Zurian, please don’t. I don’t want you to be hurt. Just stay in the cave. Maybe we can help the townspeople get to safety.”
The fact that he didn’t get all puffed up about his abilities as a warrior brought home how serious the problem with her implant was.
“We have battled worse odds.”
“There’s only four of you. Please don’t get all offended again, but you simply cannot take on thousands of Raiders.”
“More warriors are coming from the ship.”
She groaned and lay down. “How many warriors could possibly be on the ship?”
“Forty six,” Zurian said and grunted at Zacar, who grunted back and walked out of the infirmary. He cupped the side of her face, his hand gentle. “I regret that your head hurts. That you have to go through the operation.”
If she’d had the strength, she would have ranted at him for putting their alien gadget in her head. “What about the doctor’s equipment? Won’t that malfunction as well?”
He hesitated and she closed her eyes. How much more could she take?
His hand caressed her chin with his thumb and lifted her face. “Look at me, my breeder.”
A day ago, she would’ve blown up at being called that. Remembering the reverent way he had said he would call her that, even if she were brain damaged forever, held her tongue.
She opened her eyes and he leaned down to speak against her lips, his breath, smelling of coffee, warm against her skin.
He stroked her hair. “The doctor will use only the equipment he can trust. It is enough to do the operation. Viglar is centuries ahead of any Earth doctor that might do such an operation.”
“Okay,” she whispered, seriously scared. But she wanted to show him humans had courage too.
He moved his lips over hers, softly, caressing, enticing. Would she feel this again? If she ended up damaged after the operation, would she be aware of him at all? Would some part of her know that he was with her? Would he sometimes kiss her in the hope that she was aware of him?
She had to believe that or she wouldn’t be able to face this operation. “Promise me something.”
“Anything, my breeder.”
“When I come out of the operation, please be there. Please kiss me like this. I would know you are close to me and I won’t be so scared.” The way her eyes blurred, and she sometimes couldn’t see at all, terrified her. She didn’t want to wake up to darkness alone.
“It is time to prepare,” the doctor said behind them.
She smiled up at Zurian. It probably looked as trembly as it felt. “May I quickly talk to Natalie alone. Just girl stuff, you know.”
Zurian nodded and walked out, but she could see him standing just outside the door, legs spread, arms crossed over his chest.
Natalie came in, her face white as paper. “What can I do, Julia?”
“I’m worried about Zurian. He doesn’t show it but I know he blames himself. I’m worried that if something goes wrong--”
Natalie blinked and wiped at her eyes. “No, Julia, I’m sure it will be all right.”
“If I don’t come out of this intact, promise me you will make him find another woman, after a while. I know his honor won’t let him leave me, but I don’t want him to be alone.” In spite of her brave words, the thought of Zurian with another woman sent shards of pain into her heart.
“I would promise that, Julia, if it gave you peace, but he would never consider it.” She smiled, tremulously, and pressed Julia’s hand. “They don’t shift focus. Let’s be positive. I believe you will be all right.”
“We have to start now,” the doctor said.
Zurian stood behind him, his hands clenched.
The doctor pressed something against her neck.
“He’s so alone,” she mumbled as her eyelids grew heav
y.
***
“She will be unconscious soon, I will start the operation in a few minutes,” Viglar told Zurian.
Zurian walked out of the infirmary and beckoned for Viglar to follow him. He waited until Viglar focused on his scanner again and then grabbed him. He lifted him and held his knife against his throat. “You move, you die.”
“Yes.”
“She is not weak.”
“I never said she was,” Viglar said very carefully.
“You will not allow her to die. If you have received orders to let her die, you will not follow them.”
Viglar didn’t move and kept his claws where Zurian could see them. “I received no such orders.”
Zurian pressed the knife tighter against Viglar’s throat until a thin line of blood seeped out of his skin. “If you harm her through your actions or lack of action, I will find every blood of yours and wipe them out.”
“I am a healer.”
“You are a warrior, bred to protect the strength of our race and your instincts might tell you to allow my breeder to die.”
Viglar gave him a straight look--warrior to warrior. “I chose a name reflecting my healer status and not a warrior name.”
Zurian relaxed slightly, but not enough to allow the doctor freedom. Viglar might be a healer but he was from a warrior bloodline, much stronger than Zurian’s.
“Are you saying you will not harm her?”
Viglar was the only person on this cursed planet who could save Julia’s life. Did Zurian dare trust him?
“I am a healer first. I would never, through action or inaction, allow anyone to die from illness or wounds.”
They stared at each other. They’d been through much together and Zurian did not want to harm him but he would do whatever it took to protect Julia.
“Zurian,” Zacar said behind him.
Zurian stiffened and shifted slightly. Once he killed Viglar, he’d have to move fast. Zacar had the strongest bloodline among them. Taking him down would be near impossible.
“No one will harm your breeder,” Zacar assured him.
