He hadn’t touched Emerald the night before. He’d explained to her that he was allowing her time to heal since the rawness would negate the effectiveness of her discipline. He didn’t want her to get the entirely wrong impression after what had transpired earlier and begin to believe he was so soft where she was concerned that she could manipulate him. He informed her that he fully intended to resume their sessions as soon as it was effective once more and she needn’t think otherwise.
He supposed it might have been equally effective to leave her wondering. He’d considered that worrying about it might be beneficial. He was uncomfortably aware that he’d been so … unsettled at the results of his poorly thought out and executed attempt to prepare her for breeding, however, that she could get the wrong impression. He supposed that might also have been beneficial in a way, keeping her off guard, but he hadn’t wanted to risk the possibility of her getting that idea into her head at all.
He suspected Koryn thought he was soft where Emerald was concerned, but the bastard was wrong if he did. The only reason he gave a fuck whether she hated him or not was for his own pleasure. If she hated him, she wouldn’t respond to him, which would decrease his own pleasure—once he fucking got to that point!
Just a little longer, he told himself as he studied her sleeping form in his arms. By Koryn’s calculations, she should be reaching the peak of her fertility cycle just about the time she was strong enough for that sort of activity. Of course, he knew he would still have to be very careful with her for a while—especially if he succeeded in impregnating her right away—which he hoped to do.
Under other circumstances, he would’ve been perfectly happy to work at it for a while, but it seemed imperative to insure his claim to her. The others might rant over it, but they would have to concede the importance of his own bloodlines and that would give him time. Very likely, by the time she produced his first heir, the hoopla would’ve died a natural death and everyone would have settled on someone else. If not …. Well, he could work on it. It still might sort itself out in the meantime.
He realized as he studied Emerald that he was still unsettled about what had happened the day before—not especially about the rough handling, although that still bothered the hell out of him. He’d managed to, mostly, dismiss that, though, when he realized she didn’t seem to be traumatized by it either emotionally or physically as he’d feared.
It was the deep fear he’d felt, he realized, that was really bothering him. He wasn’t used to feeling fear about anything, dismay on occasion, but not cold sweat fear and certainly not for anything in the nature of a possession. Anger wouldn’t have surprised him or particularly bothered him. He didn’t like to lose.
It made his chest feel uncomfortably tight all over again, just remembering it. It made him reluctant to leave the bed and go about his business even though he knew it was important—far more important than laying abed cuddling his pretty little trinket.
Shaking the thought and the urge to hold her a little longer for the pleasure it would give him to feel her warmth, he disentangled himself and got up to prepare for his excursion. Koryn was waiting impatiently when he arrived at the docking bay with his prisoner in tow.
“I stowed my gear in the skimmer already,” Koryn announced.
Tariq scanned him. “You need to get a weapon. We don’t know what to expect or what we might encounter.”
Koryn sent him a startled look, saw that Tariq was wearing a holster and armed with a pair of pistols and then looked at Pete speculatively. He merely nodded, however. “There should be plenty in the locker on the skimmer.”
Pete was almost too terrified when they first took off to speak at all or to think. He stammered so badly every time Tariq asked for directions that Tariq finally set the skimmer down. Grabbing the man by the front of his shirt, he lifted him bodily from his chair. “Do you or do you not know how to find the fucking ship you told me about?” he growled through gritted teeth.
The man gaped at him in horror. “It’s west of where we was caught,” he stammered finally.
“Due west?”
Pete’s jaw sagged. “Toward the sun,” he answered finally.
Tariq dropped him and returned to the controls. The skimmer was fast enough it shouldn’t have taken them more than an hour to reach the crash site instead of the nearly three it did. Pete was too frightened or too confused to be of much help, however, until Tariq finally realized that it was the height frightening and confusing him more than anything else. Once he’d taken the skimmer down so that it was traveling no more than a few feet above the treetops, Pete seemed to gather his wits. He pointed out, repeatedly, that that unnerved him, often enough Koryn began to seriously consider throttling the bastard himself. However, he also began to point out landmarks he recalled as they headed in a westerly direction from the capture site and Koryn managed to control the irritation that arose from the man’s incessant babbling.
The ship he’d told them about had crashed on the outskirts of another city, they discovered. Tariq hovered over it for a few minutes, studying the ship itself and then the area around it. After a few moments, he took the skimmer up again and surveyed a wider area, using the shipboard scanner to look for heat signatures that might indicate human habitation that could present a threat.
When he was satisfied, he landed the skimmer. Pete hopped up and tried to beat them to the door. Tariq picked him up, hauled him back to the seat he’d occupied, and strapped him in. “You’ll wait here,” he said grimly.
“But …!”
Ignoring his complaints, Tariq joined Koryn at the hatch again and they lowered the gangplank. The city was eerily quiet. Apparently, the skimmer had scattered even the wildlife or sent it into hiding.
They spent nearly an hour removing enough rubble to find a way in, but by the time they’d cleared away enough of the rubble to find the hatch, they’d recognized the design of the craft.
“Dinjin,” Tariq spat angrily.
“We had a gods damned treaty with the bastards!” Koryn snarled. “I don’t know what pisses me off more! The fact that we made a treaty with them at all or the fact that they knew what they’d done when they approached the council for a treaty!”
“No doubt this was the reason for their interest in making a treaty,” Tariq said tightly.
Koryn frowned. “I’m not sure I follow that.”
Tariq was focused on finding a way in. After trying the hatch control, he looked around for something to use as a pry bar and wandered off.
Koryn watched him with irritation. When Tariq showed no inclination to explain his reasoning when he returned, Koryn posed the question again.
“The humans were focused on holding them here to allow the others to escape. They must have put up more of a fight that the Dinjin anticipated. If they hadn’t done a lot of damage, there would’ve been no incentive for the Dinjin to consider a treaty. They wouldn’t have been worried about making one with us if they’d thought they had the resources to take us on, as well.”
Koryn digested that while Tariq worked on the door. “We don’t know that they attacked,” he pointed out after a moment. “We haven’t seen any others. There are other explanations for the presence of the ship. They might have been intent on nothing more than a survey of the planet.”
“No … but we will,” Tariq agreed as he tossed the piece of metal aside, grasped the edge he’d lifted and began heaving at the door.
It took him several minutes to break it open. Breathing heavily from the exertion, he sent Koryn a sour look. “Thanks for helping.”
Koryn grinned. “You seemed to be doing just fine without my help.”
Grunting a response, Tariq stepped inside and looked around. They had to shift more debris out of the way before they could make their way to the control room. They formed a brigade. Tariq, in the lead, lifted the debris and passed it to Koryn. Koryn looked it over briefly to see if it was anything of any importance and then tossed it out.
There were two dead Dinjin in the seats in front of the ship’s controls—which explained the less than pleasant odor, Koryn thought grimly. If the ship hadn’t been so well sealed, however, the bodies wouldn’t have been in any condition to recognize them.
He dismissed that thought even as it occurred to him. Their elongated skulls were uncommon enough traits that it wouldn’t have been that difficult—assuming the skulls had remained—which they might not have if the ship hadn’t been sealed.
“No power,” Tariq announced. “Either it’s been longer since the attack than we thought, or this ship wasn’t involved in it ….”
“Or the power source was damaged and that was what made them crash to start with.”
“Or that,” Tariq agreed. “We won’t be getting anything off the computer here, though.”
“I’m going to collect some samples,” Koryn said, turning away abruptly.
Tariq glanced at him. “It’s Dinjin. I think we’ll get more from their computer with less effort than we would from them even if we revived them.”
“Not necessarily. The DNA has a natural tendency to record memories anyway—at least ours does—and if they developed technology similar to ours they may have enhanced that. We might not get anything at all, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Good point. Watch yourself around Pete. I suspect he thought this little excursion might give him the chance to escape and if that was the plan, I doubt tying him to his chair has dissuaded him.”
Nodding, Koryn left.
“And keep an eye out for an attack!” Tariq called after him.
“If you thought there was a chance of that why the hell didn’t you bring a couple of guards to stand watch?” Koryn demanded irritably.
“I don’t want anybody to know what we’ve found until I’ve had time to examine the evidence myself.”
Koryn peered out of the ship cautiously before he moved to the door and surveyed the surrounding area. Satisfied when he didn’t see any movement, he headed to the skimmer to collect his instruments. It was just as well Tariq had thought to warn him to watch Pete, he thought dryly. The little bastard had managed to free himself and clobbered him with something he’d found to use as a club the moment he opened the door. He dropped his pistol at the blow but managed to retrieve it before Pete could get his hands on it.
The battle was brief. Pete was no match for him in either stature, weight, or speed. Unfortunately, it pissed him off that the bastard had hit him and he retaliated a lot harder than he’d meant to. Looking down at the fallen man with disgust, he finally crouched down to check his vitals and was relieved to discover he hadn’t killed the stupid son-of-a-bitch.
Shaking his head, he picked the unconscious man up and carried him into the bathroom and locked him in—just in case he came around again and thought he was up to another battle.
“I hope you didn’t have any plans for Pete,” he muttered when he returned and saw that Tariq was focused on taking the console apart to get to the memory banks.
Tariq paused, whipping a look at him. “You killed him?” he asked sharply.
Koryn’s lips tightened. “He tried to brain me with something. He’s alive. I just won’t know what, if any, permanent damage I did until we get him back where we can get a scan.”
“Well, fuck!” Tariq said irritably. “I was going to give him to Lady Seana.”
Koryn glanced at him in surprise. “Really? What for?”
Tariq released a disgusted huff. “Gods, Koryn! I know you have your nose in your work all day, but it seems to me you would’ve picked up a little understanding of the way the world works. She’s on the high council and one of the most powerful at that—and she doesn’t have any heirs. It never hurts to do someone a good turn—especially if you think you might need a favor yourself,” he said dryly.
Uneasiness flickered through Koryn. “You think there might be a problem keeping Emerald,” he said flatly.
Tariq’s expression hardened. “The problem is I don’t know and I don’t like to leave anything to chance. Maybe, maybe not, but she’s a friend, beyond that and, according to Merrick, he should be a prime breeder. In any case, I offered to arrange it for Pete if he helped and I’m not in the habit of going back on my word.”
Koryn didn’t especially like the fact that Tariq seemed to be in some doubt about the outcome even though he’d worried about it himself. It unnerved him when Tariq was generally completely confident that he could do whatever he set out to do—mostly because he usually could do whatever he set out to do.
It occurred to him after a few moments that it might not be doubt as much as it was anxiety because of the way he felt about Emerald. He’d been at pains to convince himself, and him for that matter, that his possessiveness toward Emerald was purely a matter of having selected the female he wanted. She appealed to him sexually and she had excellent bloodlines. His interest was nothing but a combination of personal taste and reason.
Naturally they all wanted the best breeder they could get, but they hadn’t actually managed to find that many—yet—and it wasn’t impossible that they might find one that was even more desirable than Emerald—in both respects. If Tariq hadn’t been so fixated on Emerald, he would have considered that possibility and at least waited a while before he made his selection.
He hadn’t even asked about their latest finds, however, either the survivors that had been found or the people they’d found in the tunnels that he was currently reviving. In point of fact, Merrick had reported that not only were more than half the survivors they’d found female, but they were all reasonably healthy and all of an age to be breedable.
Tariq would’ve been given that report long before the ‘gossip’ trickled down to him. And yet, also according to the gossip, Tariq hadn’t even inspected them after they’d been brought back and cleaned up.
Tariq was a decisive man, but he was also intelligent. He wasn’t in the habit of ignoring new developments and clinging to his decision only because he’d already made it. If anything new surfaced that affected the original decision, he reviewed it and adjusted accordingly as necessary.
Granted, having looked all the possibilities over himself, he’d concluded that Emerald was still preferable to any of the others, but he’d at least looked. The fact that Tariq hadn’t was telling, he thought.
Apparently Tariq didn’t realize that, though.
After considering it for a while, he finally decided that he needed point it out, whether Tariq would particularly welcome it or not. He waited until they’d collected everything they thought might be useful from the Dinjins’ craft and loaded up for the return trip.
“I heard they had found thirty or so breedable women among the survivors they found.”
Tariq slid a glance at him as he powered up the skimmer. “Thirty three.”
“I didn’t know the exact count, but I did go down to the hold to check them out.”
“Did you find anything of interest?”
Koryn’s lips tightened, anger flickering through him at Tariq’s tone. “If you’re asking me if I’d rather have one of them than Emerald, the answer is no.”
Tariq shrugged. “I’m at a loss as to why you brought it up, then.”
“Because there’s already talk,” Koryn said tightly. “You were clear enough that the only reason you were willing to allow me to get near Emerald was to prevent that kind of talk. They’re going to speculate if you don’t even have enough interest to look at them.”
Tariq looked like he might explode for several moments, but after he’d wrestled with his temper for a moment, he relaxed fractionally. “Point taken. I’ll take the time to look them over when we get back.”
“Fuck one or two while you’re at it.”
Tariq’s jaw tightened. “If I see one that appeals to me, naturally I will,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Do it if you don’t find one that particularly appeals to you! You haven’t touched a woman since you fixated on Emerald and it�
�s been noticed. If they knew you were fucking her, it wouldn’t be so bad, but they know she isn’t strong enough for that yet.”
“How the fuck would they know that?” Tariq growled.
“They know how long these things take,” Koryn said dryly. “It isn’t as if we’re doing anything radically different here than all of them are completely familiar with. Gods! Half of them have been cloned themselves at least once!”
“She’s taking care of my needs, regardless,” Tariq said stiffly, “aside from the fact that I’ve been focused on training her.”
“That’s exactly my point!” Koryn snapped. “We also don’t want it common knowledge that we’ve had to discipline her!”
Tariq was too pissed off to think straight for a time. It occurred to him as the ship came into view, however, exactly why he didn’t want to fuck any of the others—aside from his dislike of being told what to do. He wanted Emerald with an intensity that made it impossible to consider an alternative. Beyond that, he realized that he was deeply concerned that Emerald might learn of it and either be hurt or angry about it.
It made him so furious when he realized that that he immediately decided Koryn was right. There was every reason for everyone to believe he was fixated on Emerald—because he was!
He was still so angry by the time he’d deposited Pete with Merrick to patch the stupid bastard up and stalked to the hold that he was radiating fury and all of the humans flew to the back of their cells and cowered there. He was dead set on putting the rumors to rest, however, by that time. After scanning the women, he picked one at random and hauled her off to one of the interrogation rooms. She screamed and fought him all the way and then promptly fell into a dead faint the moment he dragged his cock out of his uniform.
“Well fuck!” he growled, wondering whether to wait until she came around or head back to collect another possibility.
Grimly determined to finish what he’d started, he hauled her back and tossed her into her cell on her ass. She came around then, which made him suspect she hadn’t actually fainted to start with, but he decided to ignore her and pick another one. The second was worse than the first. It wasn’t until later that he realized it was a combination of his anger and the condition of his first ‘victim’ when he returned her that prompted her hysteria and he was certainly in no mood to see the humor in the situation even then. The second female screamed all the way to the room and kept on screaming while he stripped. He wasn’t sure if it was the screaming that did it, or she just didn’t have that much appeal, but he discovered that time that he couldn’t get his cock hard enough to do anything.
Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I Page 15
