Guardian

by Knight, Angela

  Nick stared at the image with the same appalled fascination she felt. “I thought you said the Sela are pacifists.”

  “They are—now. Then, not so much,” Charlotte explained. “With their rivals dead, the Sela had the leisure to continue developing ever more advanced technology and weapons. Soon they moved out into space.”

  “That is pretty much the pattern,” Riane commented.

  “True. But unlike humanity, the Sela home world was located close to the galactic core—Earth is out on one of the galaxy’s arms—which meant their interstellar neighbors were much closer. And some of those neighbors had their own intelligent races.”

  Nick winced. “And given the Sela’s charming personalities . . .”

  “Exactly. They immediately embarked on wars of genocide against their neighbors, wiping them out and seizing their advanced technology. Each acquisition allowed the Sela to move farther and farther out into space in an expanding ring of conquest and bloodshed.”

  Images flashed through the air, portraying alien warships engaged in ferocious interstellar battles. Massive, exotic weapons stalked across burning worlds among ground-shaking explosions. In other images, the Sela fought hand to hand against creatures even stranger than they were. Killing. Dying.

  “Didn’t they ever get tired?” Nick asked. “I mean, humans eventually get sick of warfare and quit fighting.”

  His mother shook her ghostly head. “The Sela evolved to take joy in war, and their culture glorified warfare. They believed you only bought your way into the afterlife by death in battle.”

  “So how did they go from furry psychopaths to cuddly pacifists?” Riane asked.

  “They finally encountered the one race that wouldn’t fight back—because it didn’t have to. The Di’jiri were ancient and unimaginably powerful, with the ability to alter the fabric of reality in ways not even today’s Sela can. They had retreated from space, and were living a pastoral life when the Sela invaded their world.”

  “Bet that went well,” Riane muttered.

  Charlotte laughed. “Oh, very. Because the Di’jiri gave them psychic abilities on the spot.”

  Nick blinked. “Wait, they’re the ones who gave the Sela powers? Why?”

  “Think about it, son.” Charlotte smiled. It wasn’t a very nice smile. “A race of violent killers who glorify murder suddenly given the ability to feel the pain of their victims—without the knowledge of how to block it out.”

  Riane snorted. “Damn, I wish somebody would do that to the Xerans.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “It is not a thing lightly done. It drove many irrevocably mad. Others fled in panic, but wherever they went, they spread their abilities to their fellow Sela.” Now the images showed Sela screaming, killing themselves, being slain by their own kind. “The power spread like a pandemic. The Selan Empire collapsed, and their enemies took violent revenge. Billions died.”

  “Shit.” Riane winced.

  Charlotte nodded. “Now you see why the Sela did not do the same to the Xerans.”

  “How did they survive?” Nick watched the chaotic images with a queasy fascination.

  “A few retreated into hiding while they attempted to learn to control their new abilities. They evolved a philosophy of pacifism and began to embrace their powers.”

  “Nothing keeps the Sela down, does it?” Riane asked, admiring.

  “This came close.” There was no amusement on the ghost’s face. “The survivors began to realize the depths of their own murderous crimes. That was the most devastating punishment of all. So many slew themselves that they were on the verge of extinction.”

  Riane drew up her legs and rested her chin on her knees. “What saved them?”

  “The invention of the T’Lirs. Many of the Sela’s greatest warriors wished to atone for what they had done—but how does one atone for mass murder? It would take more than a lifetime. So it was they created the T’Lirs—a way to pass on the experience of the warrior generation to those that followed.”

  “How?” Nick demanded.

  “The spirits of those who die are absorbed by the T’Lirs, then are passed on to those in the womb.”

  Riane recoiled. “What happens to the child’s original spirit? Is it destroyed?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “Souls don’t die. The old spirit adds to the new. The children don’t remember their ancestors’ experiences at first—that does not happen until each has gained the maturity to deal with those memories. And much of the true grief is never remembered at all.”

  Nick’s eyes widened. “You’re waiting to be reborn.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He leaned forward as a new thought occurred to him. “Am I the repository of one of those spirits?”

  Charlotte spread her hands. “That I cannot tell you.”

  “Cannot or will not?” Riane demanded.

  She merely smiled . . . and faded away like mist in the sun.

  Nick bounded to his feet. “Mother! Dammit, don’t leave! I need to know . . .” He turned to stare into the darkness before his shoulders finally slumped in defeat.

  Riane rose and moved to rest a hand on his shoulder. “She’s gone, Nick.”

  He gave her a look boiling with frustration. “But there was so much I wanted to ask her. Who was my father? Why didn’t she tell me this stuff when she was alive? And where the hell are we?”

  “And most of all, how do we get back?” Riane walked to the front of the cave and stared outside. “Maybe she’ll—”

  Something made a low, menacing sound.

  “Warning!” her comp shrilled. “Unidentified life-form approaching . . .”

  Riane whirled. “Nick, look ou—”

  Something dark exploded from the tunnel in a rush of claws and teeth. It slammed into Nick like a starshuttle, knocking him flat. He yelped.

  Nick! Riane started to leap toward them—and found her body wouldn’t obey. She tried to shout, but she couldn’t make a sound. She was completely paralyzed, frozen in place.

  Struggling to force his attacker away, Nick bellowed in mingled rage and pain.

  The wolf worked his way down the corridor, his nose to the floor as he sought the enemy who had stolen his child.

  A cheerful female voice spoke in a waterfall of incomprehensible words. He caught his name, but he was too busy hunting to stop.

  She said something else, half-laughing, but he simply kept going. He had to find the child thief.

  Jessica Arvid watched Frieka pad down the corridor, nose to the floor, questing back and forth as he sought some scent. “What’s his problem?” It was out of character for Frieka not to stop for an ear scratch and a joke.

  “He’s worried about Riane,” Galar Arvid told her.

  Jess looked up at her handsome new husband and lifted a brow. “What, he thinks he can track her by scent?”

  “Frieka’s a lot smarter than that.” The Warlord stared thoughtfully after the big wolf. Galar wore his blond hair short and disdained the traditional tattoo, though, like Riane’s, his father had been genetically engineered by House Arvid. “Looks like he’s definitely trying to track something. Wonder why he isn’t using sensors?”

  “You could ask.”

  He snorted. “I don’t think so. His temper is a little too short right now, and his teeth are a little too sharp.”

  The wolf stopped short in the corridor, breathing deeply. He could smell countless layers of scent, most of which he recognized.

  But there was a trace of something else, too. Something faint and alien. A hint of Xeran reek, mixed with a scent he knew. His lips drew back from his teeth, and a deep growl rumbled in his chest.

  He’d found the child thief.

  • 25 •

  The creature that had attacked Nick was a Sela, but not the pacifistic, kittenish aliens Riane had described. This thing was a primitive Sela, with fangs and slashing claws on all six limbs. Its eyes shone a glowing, malevolent green, and its thick fur, striped in black a
nd blue, smelled of alien forests.

  And blood. Nick’s blood.

  It had caught him across the belly in its initial charge, failing to disembowel him only because he had shielded himself with every erg of power he could pull from the Stone. Nick had gone for the knife he usually wore across the small of his back. There was nothing there.

  He had no weapons at all except for his strength and his guts and the Stone. Even Riane was denied him. She stood frozen at one end of the cavern, an expression of horror paralyzed on her face. Only her eyes moved.

  The alien had done something to her.

  Now the Sela circled with him, moving in a low, feral slink, its tufted ears folded flat to its head.

  “You are not worthy of the T’Lir, half-breed,” its voice growled, not in his ears or even his mind, but in his very bones, his muscles and flesh. “I will kill you and take it as my right.”

  Nick peeled his lips back from his teeth. “Kiss my half-breed ass.”

  “I’d rather drink your blood.” It charged him again, vicious and incredibly fast. He spun aside, avoiding another swipe of deadly claws by a hairbreadth.

  The Sela whirled, displaying fangs the length of his hand. “Soft ape-thing. What are you without your weapons? Your guns, your knives. Helpless.” It darted in again, rearing to slash with its four front limbs. He knocked one set of claws away with his forearm and spun into a kick, slamming a boot against the side of its head. The Sela roared in rage and leaped at him, jaws snapping.

  Nick scrambled back, blocking its claws with a wave of force from the Stone. Something hot rolled down his forearm, and droplets of blood flew from his left foot, leaving a trail of scarlet on the cave floor. It had bitten him when he’d kicked it.

  He was so fucked. The thought flew through his mind, was instantly suppressed as a potential self-fulfilling prophecy. That was the kind of shit you didn’t think in a fight.

  He had to find a way to beat this thing.

  The only weapon he had was the Stone, but the Stone wouldn’t allow its power to be used in direct attacks. Damned pacifists.

  So where did this furry bastard come from?

  The Sela charged in again, and Nick ducked—not quite fast enough. Vicious claws tore his flesh. He dodged another lethal swipe and spun away like a bullfighter. Blood rolled in a hot rush, pattering on the dust.

  Too much blood.

  The Victor hefted the quantum sword in his hand, eyeing Nick’s T’Lir. Just as He was about to lift the energy blade, He stopped, staring at the Demon’s arm, which Gyor held straight off the bed. “That is odd.”

  Gyor looked down at the half-breed’s wrist. And started. As he watched, six gashes appeared across the Demon’s forearm. Instantly, blood began to roll down it, bright scarlet.

  Glancing over the Demon’s body, Gyor noticed blood flowing from a set of cuts over his belly. There was a third set across the man’s thigh, and one on his foot

  “It is as if he does battle, Most Victorious,” Gyor said thoughtfully.

  “With something that has claws. And it would seem he loses.” The Victor deactivated the sword and returned it to Gyor. “I wish to observe further.”

  “Coward! Come and die with dignity,” the Sela snarled.

  “I have no intention of dying at all.” Nick slammed a spinning kick at its head, but it leaped away like the cat it resembled.

  “You haven’t the will to use what you have, soft ape.” The Sela gaped its jaws in something that bore a chilling resemblance to a grin. “I will kill you and eat the beating heart out of your female.”

  And that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Fury surged in Nick, bringing the familiar darkness he had learned to fear—and use, when he had to. He’d never needed it more.

  Nick let it come, surging through bone and blood, strengthening him, enhancing his speed, his agility.

  But as he watched the creature stalk him, he realized it wouldn’t be enough. The bastard was just too damn big.

  His mind worked furiously. He couldn’t blast it. He’d tried that before in earlier fights with the Xerans. The Stone just wouldn’t allow its power to be used that way.

  But it could enhance his strength, reinforce his bones and his skin into something more like armor . . .

  The Sela barreled into him in that moment of distraction—Idiot, you don’t think in a fight! It’s all training or nothing. Its massive weight flattened him. Jaws opened wide, the Sela lunged for his throat . . .

  Nick struck out in an act of raw instinct, a vicious open-handed swipe right across its eyes. The Sela screamed, convulsing away from him, blood flying from its muzzle.

  He staggered to his feet, bleeding, automatically lifting both hands to block.

  They were tipped in green, glowing claws.

  He’d created them from the Stone’s power. Which made sense. Though he couldn’t use the power against enemies directly, the Stone would allow itself to be used to change his own body. What he decided to do with those changes was on his head.

  You haven’t the will, the Sela had said.

  That was the key. Will. It was will that shaped the power. Nick looked at his hands again, and his claws lengthened, sharpened. His skin began to glow a soft fluorescent green.

  He bared his teeth at the Sela as the dark joy of battle filled him again. “Now. Let’s try that again.”

  Riane was a cyborg, and she had fought against and beside other cyborgs all her life. She was no stranger to superhuman speed and strength, no stranger to acts of agility that mocked gravity. Yet she had never seen anything like Nick’s fight with the Sela.

  She’d thought in those first horrified moments that she was going to have to watch him be ripped apart and eaten. He had no weapons at all, against a creature that was one big weapon. And she could do nothing to save him.

  Riane’s heart seemed to contract in her chest until it felt like a stone, cold and hard and aching.

  Feeling helpless, she watched Nick do dogged battle, refusing to give up despite the odds against him. Her heart climbed into her throat as she watched him dodge, duck, and backpedal, somehow avoiding the Sela’s vicious attempts to disembowel him.

  But the outcome seemed inevitable—until the Sela threatened to kill her. Then claws sprang from Nick’s hands, and it was the Sela who bled.

  Just like that, his fighting style changed. He’d always been a graceful man, but now he began to attack with a ruthless speed and agility that seemed more than human. It was as if his spine was abnormally flexible, as if he had muscle where no human should have muscle. And there was a look in his eyes, a chilling, dark joy she’d never seen on his face before.

  He began fighting like the Sela he fought.

  Still, by all rights the alien should have torn Nick apart. After all, it had six sets of claws to his two, along with that mouthful of tearing teeth.

  Yet every time it tried to tag him, his skin sparked and glowed green, blocking its strikes. She’d seen his ability to withstand blows that should have killed him, but this was an order of magnitude greater.

  Yet the change was more than that. Nick fought with a kind of savagery he’d never shown before, his face contorted with a blend of rage and sadistic pleasure.

  Sweet Mother, what the hell is happening to him?

  It was agony, watching him fight, unable to help, unable even to speak.

  Her mind kept flashing back to the way he touched her when they made love. The strength of his hands, the tenderness of his mouth, the soft moss green of his eyes. Now those eyes were hard, feral, more animal than man.

  Yet that was better than watching him die. If she had to, she would find a way to bring back the man he’d been.

  Somehow.

  Nick fought in a bubble of mindless instinct. His every sense seemed heightened. He could hear the puff of dust under paws and boots despite the growls and grunts of effort and rage. He could smell the musk of fear.

  As he watched the flicker of the Sela’s huge eyes, he
knew what the alien was going to do next. He could feel it in his own muscles, sense it like a scent in the air. He met each swipe of those great paws with a shield of power, blocking the strikes before they could sink into his flesh.

  His own strikes sent alien blood flying in violet arcs.

  For the first time in his life, he fought without fear, without doubt. Instead, there was only a savage delight in his own strength, his own invulnerability.

  And the sight of his foe’s violet blood. It splashed hot across his lips. Unconsciously, he tongued it away.

  It tasted good.

  Nick felt his lips curl in a vicious smile. His opponent’s eyes widened.

  Oh, yeah!

  What the fuck am I doing? The thought stabbed through the battle madness, almost jerked him sober. This isn’t me.

  The Sela reared over him on two back legs, preparing to smash down on him with the other four. Nick dashed in beneath the creature and slashed his claws across its haunches, hamstringing it. The leg gave under its weight, and the Sela toppled.

  Nick was on his foe before the alien had time to rise again on its good legs. Leaping astride its back, he grabbed its jaw and jerked its head back. Closed a clawed hand around its throat, preparing to rip and tear and kill.

  Years of battling Xerans had taught him to kill quickly, without mercy, as a matter of simple necessity. A dead enemy could not come after you again.

  The Sela struggled, trying to throw him off. Nick tightened the grip of his thighs, riding it. He could feel the alien’s life pulsing in frantic throbs, its muscled sides heaving between his legs, the fur thick and fine.

  He wanted to kill it. Ached to kill it, to feel the beat of its life slow beneath his hands.

  Abruptly he remembered all those the Sela had killed in their quest to build their empire. Species rendered extinct, worlds destroyed, entire interstellar civilizations laid waste. He thought of the horrible guilt they’d felt when the Di’jiri had forced them to feel their victims’ pain. How they’d turned their back on war because of it.