“And you have brought me my new pet…” Yul crooned, gazing down at Flint Moscow’s miserable form as Elyes pushed him to his knees.
“Please, Yul, don’t do this to me! I don’t know what those bone-heads you call ‘friends’ told you, but I’ll get you your money—I just need more time!” Flint begged, raising his hands above him in supplication. He looked a sorry sight with his clothes covered in dust and dirt, his face swollen with fresh bruises and caked with dried blood and tears.
“Flint, Flint,” Yul began, clicking his tongue with evident distaste. “I’m getting tired of this cat-and-mouse game. Do you know how many of your hidey holes I had to burn down before I finally got Elyes to bring you in? You were never going to pay me back the money you stole from me in the first place, were you?”
“Yul, you’ve got it all wrong! I would never‒”
“I’ve had enough of this idiot’s squalling,” Yul mumbled menacingly. “Take him down to the prison cells on the first floor,” he instructed Elyes while tearing meat off of a skewer with his jagged teeth like a predator.
“What do I look like to you—a fucking warden? What about my money?” Elyes demanded impatiently.
“You’ll get your money as soon as you finish every little thing I tell you to do. Take him downstairs and then come back up here to see me.” There was no more to be said.
Elyes would have liked nothing better than to put a bullet in Yul Ulari’s smug smile. But it went against his personal code: only shoot someone when hired to do so or if they double cross you. Yul was pushing the line, making Elyes morbidly curious about what punishment he had in store for Flint. But he deemed it best to obey, so he pulled Flint to his feet and escorted him to the door. He and his prisoner were led by the doorman down to the first floor where they turned down a dark corridor with a damp, neglected feel to the air. Elyes’ shoulder brushed against cool metal and suddenly long, gnarled fingers grabbed at him out of the darkness.
“Please, you’ve got to help me!” Elyes shrank back from the emaciated face that stared pitifully out of the blackness.
They marched past cell upon cell, each crammed with men, women and even children. What kind of establishment does this Yul Ulari keep on Plutarch? Though it was no secret that Stratans enjoyed raiding other planets and bringing back living, breathing trophies for their own twisted enjoyment, Elyes guessed that the Plutarchan authorities had been bought off by Yul’s people to ignore such flagrant violations of these prisoners’ basic rights. A second henchmen took Flint from Elyes and threw him roughly into an empty cell. While said goon christened Flint’s face with punches, Elyes found himself inching away slowly, carefully taking in the surroundings. It was then that his eyes fell on a female alone in the next cell.
While the other prisoners had scrambled forward at the sight of a newcomer in the hopes of inciting any kind of pity, this particular female did everything in her power to shrink away from the new footsteps. Elyes realized she was blind. Her eyes were light blue, but opaque. His observation was further reinforced by her awkward shuffling as she attempted to find a low stool in the mouldy cell corner, steadying herself with one small hand on the cement wall. Her posture was, however, so rigid and alert, it was clear she was trying to listen to what was going on around her. Judging by the pale glint of her skin and the fine texture of her hair, Elyes guessed that she was human.
How did she end up in a place like this? She certainly didn’t look like one of Plutarch’s dime-a-dozen hardened criminals or a petty thief to his experienced gaze. Elyes presumed she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time when she’d been taken. An unexpected wave of pity swirled through his cold-blooded bones. He checked himself instantly; it wasn’t his place to question what his clients did. As long as he got his money, he didn’t question anything.
He turned, shocked with himself, at this break in his normally controlled demeanor. Yet another henchmen appeared at his side, handing him a Stratan laser gun. “Thank you. What am I supposed to do with this? Shot myself in the face?” The sarcasm dripped from his words.
The henchmen smirked ominously back at him, shaking his head. “No, dumbass. You’re supposed to shoot Moscow with it. Yul’s orders.”
“That’s not part of my contract.”
“It is now. Shoot the motherfucker and then Yul will square things with you, Elyes.” The henchman waited expectantly for the orders to be carried out.
There had never been a time in Elyes Mort’s life where he had hesitated to carry out a plan. From the time he decided to set a Stratan bluebottle starlet butterfly free into the wild against the wishes of his teacher to the multitude of times he had prevented his father from turning his mother into a human punching bag, he followed through. The ending of a man’s life under these circumstances didn’t sit right with him, but Elyes nevertheless gripped the laser gun tightly in his calloused hand and stalked through the open cell door. Flint Moscow’s face was in even worse shape than before, blood pouring from new orifices. He was on his knees like a sacrificial lamb, wheezing hoarsely from exhaustion, clutching his stomach in agony. He gazed up at Elyes through bleary, swollen eyes and once more, Elyes wished he could flee from the unfamiliar sensations searing a hole through his conscience.
“Please don’t,” Flint pitifully begged one last time, blood dripping from his nose, puddling on the filthy, rough-hewn floor.
The sound made Elyes’ jaw grow rigid with tension and determination as he pointed the gun at Flint Moscow’s forehead with renewed commitment. And when he squeezed the trigger and felt the laser barrelling through the cool metal and making a hot, irregular hole the size of a baseball straight through Moscow’s skull, he felt liberated—relieved. The human collapsed face-first onto the hard floor and moved no more. Elyes let the gun drop next to Flint’s left temple with a loud echoing clatter.
“You did good, Elyes. Yul will see you now.”
Elyes followed the same henchman back along the hallway of cell doors; he averted his eyes so he couldn’t see the blind woman again. But when he got upstairs, things didn’t go according to plan.
“Is he dead?” Yul asked as soon as he entered.
“Yes. Now what about my payment?”
“I’ve got your payment right here‒”
Elyes sensed two goons move behind him, but not before they pinned his arms behind his back and forced him down hard, onto his knees. Then a third man stood in front of him and landed a bone-crunching punch to his face. In rapid succession, he was nailed in the stomach, folding him almost face down on the red carpet. Blow after blow fell on him until blood was gushing from his nostrils and torn lip.
“It’s nothing personal, Mort. Things are unstable these days on Plutarch and I have a reputation as a hard-ass to uphold. This is my new policy for dealing with my ‘guns for hire’—I hope you understand.”
Elyes hardly registered being drug out of the room, down the stairs and through that heavy, ornate front door until he was face-planted into the dirt. Then a wave of blackness swept over him.
Chapter 2
Somehow Elyes managed to drag himself home to nurse his newly acquired injuries. No one heard or saw anything of him for an entire week. The town grapevine worked overtime in the interim, and stories of his encounter with Yul Ulari grew. Most assumed that the infamous hired thug had gone into hiding.
But they were wrong. While Elyes tended to his wounds and recuperated, he plotted revenge. I have always seen a job through, no matter how grisly or demeaning, to the very end. I deserve to be respected. And paid! His thoughts of retaliation percolated day and night. And for some reason—the Stratan-human hybrid wasn’t sure how or why—the blind prisoner in Yul’s house had become an integral part of his payback plot. In the delirium of his slight concussion, he had dreamt of her pallid face and mirror-like eyes every night.
Now, a week later, he was setting things in motion. He borrowed an armored stealth drop-ship from Ivos, a friend who specialized in smuggling alien tr
ansportation and weaponry. Elyes found himself surprised to feel thankful that his father—that violent SOB—had actually taken the time to teach him to fly all those years ago on the off-plant mining vessel. He easily navigated the desert route to Ulari’s stronghold.
Elyes put those lessons to further good use as he cruised low over Yul Ulari’s fortress and opened fire on the armed guards positioned around the perimeter. When he’d dispatched them and a few more goons that came pouring out of the main house, he landed in the front yard and stealthily disembarked, carrying a few lethal toys with him. Besides being an expert marksman, Elyes Mort was remarkably strong. After blasting a man’s face half off of his skull, he lifted several others out of his path, throwing them like dolls into the walls of the enclave. Still more came at him only to be beaten till they stopped moving. The rancour over his treatment by Yul Ulari had awoken the feral Stratan in him and it could not be contained by man or machine. His thirst for vengeance would not be quenched till blood ran like a river through the desert sands.
Beating his way with fists and blasting lasers, he finally reached Yul Ulari’s private chamber, having only sustained a few cuts and bruises from the men who foolishly tried to resist him. He had two laser guns left, each containing 12 bone-incinerating blasts apiece. There were only 10 of Yul’s best and most able bodyguards left to spar with. He dispensed with the first three with blasts to the face that melted the skin right off their skulls; the next five were impaled and mounted on the four walls like prey, taken down with miniaturized spears of his own design. He eradicated the last two with brute force, shattering pelvic and knee bones before wringing and snapping their necks like a pair of hapless chickens.
This last display he did so that Yul, who was now cowering in terror behind a marble pillar, would know exactly what was coming. When the infamous gangster emerged, it was to defend himself with a traditional Stratan scimitar, its jagged edges gleaming. Elyes ducked and danced from side to side to avoid the stabs and swipes, finally aiming a powerful kick at Yul’s left wrist, shattering the bones and dislodging the knife from his grip. While Yul howled in rage and agony, Elyes wrapped a single hand around the man’s throat and hoisted him up, slamming his back against his beautiful wall.
“You…son of a whore-bitch, Mort,” Yul snarled through parted lips.
“You should choose your next few words very carefully. They’re going to be your last.” Elyes deliberately let his thick fingers press painfully into the gangster’s collarbone for emphasis.
“Fuck…you.”
Elyes scoffed with mirthless laughter at this mistaken show of bravado on his enemy’s part. With his free hand, he retrieved one of his laser guns from the holster and forced Yul’s mouth open with the barrel. Yul Ulari’s eye’s bugged out of their sockets as he heard Elyes Mort switch off the electronic safety button on the back of the gun.
“I’m going to make you eat your words, Yul. Now we’re squared.” Elyes pulled the trigger and the laser ripped away most of Yul’s throat and the back of his head, leaving behind a fiery trail of smoking blood and sinew sprayed on the wall behind him.
Elyes let the man’s body fall to the ground and moved rapidly to a control panel he’d spotted in the room the week before. He pressed several buttons and heard ear-splitting sirens ring through the entire building. He sprinted swiftly down the stairs and into the dungeon, a multitude of prisoners rushing against him, escaping from their unlocked cells. He finally arrived outside the blind girl’s cell and saw one of the male prisoners manhandling her. He put a stop to the impromptu kidnapping by shooting a laser through the man’s back. Then Elyes snatched the girl up, throwing her over his shoulder cave-man style.
Much to his surprise, she kicked and screamed violently, trying to free herself. She seemed unaware that this was a rescue mission. Elyes ignored her squirming and battering, retrieving a bottle of kerosene he’d secreted away in his coat and soaking the floor with the incendiary fluid. Prisoners ran past the scene, not registering the man who had singlehandedly killed Yul Ulari and all of his henchmen. After igniting the floor with a final laser blast, Elyes carried his captive away as flames began licking away at the building.
By the time they made it to the front door, half of the mansion was blazing, causing the windows to explode with shimmering fury and the wooden pillars to collapse. Not all of the prisoners made it out safely in the end, but Elyes didn’t care very much. He had killed Yul and taken a prisoner for himself. It was shaping up to be a good week after all.
Chapter 3
After returning the drop-ship to Ivos, Elyes took his captive, secured to his hover-bike, to his home. She had grown eerily quiet since the rescue, but marks of her bitter tears traced down her soft cheeks. He untied her from the seat, hoisted her once again over his shoulder and took her inside. Though still silent, she seemed to be trying to make sense of the journey she’d taken and her new surroundings, as she found herself forced down onto a hard chair. The sounds of rattling metal and running water next filled her ears.
She whimpered and shrunk from the rough hands that tore off her ragged clothing. But Elyes soon divested her of every rag till she sat stark naked and shivering. Hers was not a particularly pleasing figure to look at; but what it lacked in pure sensuality, it more than made up for in the delightful pallor of her skin and her ample bosom. Elyes found it was impossible not to admire her body and felt something stirring in his lower regions.
“Please, don’t…” He knew from the way she said it, she’d uttered those words so many times before they had lost any real hope long ago. Numerous hands and bodies had claimed her against her will, leaving her a broken shell.
Elyes saw all too well the marks of those unwanted encounters imprinted on her flesh and it made him even more determined… His jaw grew rigid when she cried for help again. He gripped her chin between his massive fingers, staring straight into her fearful face. “Shut up and sit still.”
With a long and drawn-out sigh, he took a stained rag and dipped it into the metal basin he had filled with hot, soapy water and began washing his new “pet”. Unaccustomed to caring for anything, his scrubbing was rough on her skin, but filled with unexpected tenderness that for some reason made her even more afraid. But she kept silent, her breath coming out in shuddering gasps, trying to gauge her kidnapper’s sudden compassion. Elyes, meanwhile was thinking it had been a long time since he’d been so close to a woman, so long he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to touch one’s soft, yielding flesh…
This simple transformative act of kindness, it turned out, would be the beginning of the end of him.
Chapter 4
It had been several days since he brought his human pet home. And while he’d been occupied with many a job, the blind girl became better-acquainted with the layout of Elyes’ house. She traced her pale hands over the oval walls to construct a mental image in her mind. When Elyes was remiss in remembering to feed her, she found her way around the kitchen and cooked for herself. She tended to the house in Elyes’ absences and often left a plate of food and a glass of something to drink on the small table near his bed. When he was there, she would make herself scarce, disappearing into the small bare room he designated for her to sleep in. She would wrap her arms tightly around her frail body and lay in the fetal position on the mattress Elyes had put out for her.
This day was much like all the rest, with the woman making herself useful tidying as best she could and readying food for Elyes’ return. He had been contracted to kill a man, a normal day for the gun-for-hire. And this contract was proceeding like so many others until, as the man fell from the laser blast Elyes delivered, he managed to stab the hybrid with a syringe filled with poison derived from a spider deadly to Stratans. Elyes cursed the primitive looking syringe as he pulled it from his arm, but it was too late. The toxin had already begun to attack the Stratan part of his DNA. He knew if he could just make it home before passing out, the human DNA his mother had donated would counterac
t the poison. He quickly mounted his hover-bike and sped towards his refuge.
When Elyes reached the house with a raging fever and near the brink of death, the woman was sweeping the living room area. She heard the sound of shallow breaths, heard him gasping for air and she stiffened. But when she heard his body crash to the ground, she dropped her broom and felt her way quickly across the walls toward him. The musky mix of sweat and diesel confirmed that it was her captor even before she felt his feverish brow beneath her searching hands.
With some difficulty, she knelt beside Elyes’ trembling form and ran her hand over his neck to find his pulse. The thumping she felt under her fingertips was feeble and erratic. She leaned closer still and held her nose to his parted lips as he struggled to breathe, catching a whiff of acid—she knew it was spider venom. Many of Yul Ulari’s prisoners had “met” the same spider but had not lived to tell the tale.
Because she was wary of moving him, the woman chose to try to make him comfortable where he fell. She opened his shirt first. His massive chest was bathed in a thick layer of sweat she could feel, so she made her way to the kitchen and managed to pour warm water from the always present kettle on the stove into a metal basin. She found the rag he had used to clean her with that first day and brought both to his side. Dipping the rag into the warm water, she commenced to bathe his over-heated form with gentle hands, soothing Elyes’ trembling body. When she was through, he came out of his stupor long enough to turn on his side. I wish I was dead… he thought dramatically. He could see his pet go to his bedroom to retrieve a moth-eaten blanket from his bed. She returned once again to kneel beside him and wrapped his upper torso in it to comfort of his aching bones.
Romance: Alien Romance: Simply Aliens: A Ten Book Alien Romance Collection (Paranormal Scifi Interracial Romance) (Fantasy New Adult Alpha Short Stories) Page 33
