Kael nodded. Striding toward the body, he pulled his particle gun from his pocket, set it to max and aimed it at the body. The smell of burning flesh rose in a cloud that surrounded them and seemed to hang in the air, but it only took a matter of moments to dispose of the remains and leave a thin layer of ash.
Watching him, Camryn pulled his communicator out and spoke into it. “Three to beam aboard.”
He caught a glimpse of Simone and a man dressed in the garb of the authorities just before black out.
Irritation flickered through him when he was reassembled on the transport deck.
“Do you think he saw?” Kael asked.
Camryn considered it. “The beams of light, mayhap,” he said dismissively.
“They will not know what to make of that.”
It still irritated him that they’d come close to being spotted in a situation that might have created problems. It was sloppy and they couldn’t afford to be sloppy.
Ean and Kael fell into step behind him as he headed for his cabin and followed him inside. He frowned, vaguely annoyed, but dismissed it. “Can I offer you drinks?”
“That was … unfortunate,” Kael commented when he’d taken the vessel of ambrose his cousin offered.
“It was,” Camryn agreed.
“It might have been better to have left her to handle the situation herself. She seems … oddly adept at handling herself … in a clumsy sort of way. These are strange beings.” He shook his head. “She is one of the least desirable. You should not have risked exposure.”
Camryn sent his cousin an assessing look. “I believe I will choose her.”
Kael and Ean exchanged a sharp glance.
“I am not certain I understand your reasoning,” Ean said after a moment. “I, myself, find her oddly appealing, but that is not necessary when the objective is to harvest breeders.”
Kael looked at Ean in surprise. “You found her appealing? Her coloring is far too similar to the skeets. That is what you said before.”
“She is not skeet,” Ean responded tightly. “She is not as pale … or as weak.”
“You would be willing to risk having your only son look as if he might carry skeet blood? When even the hint of it could disgrace the House of Jakaar?”
Camryn’s expression hardened but he tamped his temper with an effort. “They are not drak. Short of cloning, we will not have more than a handful of pure breeds for sons. I expect all of the breeders chosen will have some undesirable traits that they will pass to our sons, but we have decided they are acceptable as breeders—not the most desirable—but acceptable given our circumstances.”
“There are others closer to ourselves,” Kael said pointedly.
“And less accessible,” Camryn ground out. “We are fighting on two fronts, now.
The High Council agreed that we could not afford to start another war—at this time.
Discretion is the only way to avoid it.”
Kael shrugged. “Others that we have examined.”
Camryn narrowed his eyes at his cousin. “I will not debate this with you.”
Kael bowed and glanced at Ean. “You are prepared to accept his decision?”
“I am prepared to concede to Camryn’s judgment.”
“Because he is the heir and your brother? Or because you trust his judgment in this matter?”
“Because I trust his judgment in all matters,” Ean responded tightly.
Kael bowed again. “I believe I will continue to observe before I make my own decision.”
Ean glanced at his brother when Kale had left. Removing the hat he was still wearing, he moved to a chair and sprawled in it, crossing his long legs out before him and studying the toe of the miserably uncomfortable footwear he’d had to don to blend in with the natives. “Will I be forced to face you in the ring if I ask why?” he asked with a touch of amusement.
Camryn slid a narrow eyed glance at his brother. A faint, reluctant smile curled his lips after a moment, however. “I thought you trusted my judgment in all matters?”
Ean shrugged. “We are brothers. I would not take our cousin’s side before yours.
In any case, I am content with your choice. I am merely curious.”
Camryn frowned. Moving to the chair opposite the one his brother had taken, he settled in it and removed his own hat. Instead of tossing it to the floor as Ean had, however, he studied it. “I have not yet figured out the purpose of this.”
“It hides our eyes from them—and the ears.”
Camryn sent him a look. “Their purpose.”
Ean grinned. There was very little he enjoyed more than annoying his brother.
“For adornment?” he guessed.
“It is an odd sort of adornment that covers half the face and the hair.”
“We may have been misled,” Ean conceded. “I did not see any others wearing them—not in that place.”
“It is the custom for some of them, then,” he murmured. “They have a curious society. I confess, it baffles me.”
“You are not going to tell me,” Ean said a little irritably.
“It baffles me,” Camryn said sardonically. “I would tell you if I knew. I cannot quite put my finger on it, though.”
Ean grinned abruptly. “You cannot put your finger on any part of it. She is to be a breeder. We already have a concubine and a round dozen sexdroids.”
Camryn felt a flicker of anger at the comment. “There is no law that says we cannot have two concubines—beyond the law of supply and demand—or that a breeder cannot be touched once she has been bred,” Camryn said tightly.
“Ah! So that is behind the decision.”
Camryn flung his hat his brother’s head. A faint smile hovered around his lips, however. “Clever! I would not mind putting my finger on every part of her.” He sobered after a moment. “I would not allow that to cloud my judgment in so important a matter, however. I like her spirit. I would not mind seeing that in my son.”
“I confess, I found that to my liking, as well. What else?”
Camryn shook his head. “It is the ‘what else’ that eludes me. Instinct? I am not certain. All that I am certain of is that I want her to bear my son.”
Ean studied him for a long moment and finally nodded. “That is good enough for me. I trust your judgment, but I have always trusted your instincts more.” He grinned after a moment. “And I am certain I cannot trust my own in this case.”
* * * *
It had been a hellish day. The hangover from her night out was insignificant beside the nightmare the night had become. She thought it would have been traumatic enough if it had been a simple case of assault by the purse-snatcher. It had gone way beyond that, though, regardless of what the damned cops thought!
Between her shock and the alcohol pumping through her, she knew she hadn’t been in full possession of her facilities, but she hadn’t lost her mind! She knew what had happened, maybe not every detail, but she certainly hadn’t imagined it. She had the bruises to prove she’d tangled with the purse-snatcher. She had more than bruised skin.
There’d been trauma to the tendons and bones—nothing serious, but enough that she could hardly use her hand.
He had existed!
Sharon and Denise had wanted to put it down to the wrestling, but she knew damned well that hadn’t happened during the mud wrestling contest.
What she wasn’t completely certain of anymore was whether she’d been more of a victim than she’d been able to fully grasp at the time, or been intended to be. She only had the stranger’s word for it that he’d killed the purse-snatcher, but she hadn’t realized that until later. She’d thought he looked dead, but she hadn’t checked.
Had they been in cahoots? Was the purse-snatching nothing but an attempt to lure her into a trap?
It seemed unbelievable, but it certainly wasn’t any more unbelievable than what had actually happened—the body and the three strangers had all completely vanished in the short length of time it had take
n her to run around the building and scream murder. It had taken maybe two seconds for the cops to react, but they’d beat her back around the building and there hadn’t been a sign of the strange men or the body.
Cops! Fucking bastards! They’d threatened to throw her in the drunk tank!
Thankfully, Sharon and Denise had managed to talk them out of it and had taken her home. She supposed she should have appreciated the fact that the cops had pissed her off so thoroughly it had diverted her from dwelling on the incident—at least for a while.
The anger hadn’t lasted nearly long enough, though. By the time she’d gotten home she was shaking so badly it had taken all she could do to convince Sharon and Denise to leave.
She hadn’t wanted to be alone. She was scared shitless that the men would know, or figure out, where she lived. But she didn’t think she could handle Sharon and Denise trying to convince her it hadn’t happened without going off the deep end and lashing out at them.
She didn’t understand how they could’ve disappeared so quickly and completely in such a small window of time. The cops had stopped the few cars leaving the lot at that time and searched them.
The only thing that made any sense at all was the possibility that her first impression had been wrong and the strangers hadn’t rescued her by killing her assailant.
She even began to wonder if they’d targeted her as soon as they’d spotted her. What other reason could they have had for their interest?
It bothered her almost as much that she couldn’t completely accept that scenario when it seemed the most logical. The problem was that it seemed unlikely that they would’ve been so obvious about staring at her that any number of people might have noticed their interest. One of them had even approached her when she’d been in full view of just about everyone in the bar.
As brazen as some criminals were, it just didn’t quite ring true.
She wasn’t certain where that left her beyond scared shitless that she’d been a witness to a murder.
The alcohol in her system wasn’t enough to put her out when she was wired with fear. Unfortunately, she was completely against drugs—except caffeine, nicotine, and the occasional alcohol binge. She didn’t have anything in the house to help to tranquilize herself—no booze. Caffeine was the last thing she wanted and she’d chain smoked her last few cigarettes inside of an hour. She spent a while searching ashtrays for butts and finally went into her bathroom to search the medicine cabinet.
All she could find was some cold pills that were ‘nighttime’, which meant they’d make her drowsy. Of course, those suggested that it wasn’t a good idea to take them with alcohol, but she was damned near stone cold sober by that time. She took a couple, barred every window and door and sat in the middle of her bed until it was dawn.
She was tempted to go into work despite the night she’d had, just so she could be around people, but she wasn’t ready to collect her car and she knew she’d just end up screwing up everything she tried to do. In the end, she called in sick and slept fitfully for a few hours.
She’d calmed down enough by the time she woke up to remember her appointment. Satan himself couldn’t have kept her from that appointment. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a complete nervous wreck when she retrieved her car, but she did it, even though she watched her rearview mirror all the way to the clinic for any sign that she was being followed.
“Oh god! I need nicotine!” she groaned shakily when she’d parked the car.
Scratching through her ashtray, she finally found a butt that looked like it still had a couple of drags left. The image of herself as a heroin or crack addict flickered through her mind, but she didn’t care at the moment. She needed something to calm her nerves even if it was just a little.
When she was done with her appointment, she promised herself, she was going to see if she could track down the guy that sold black market cigarettes. Sharon had collected her reward the night before, but they’d been too upset to remember it—she
certainly had. She only had twenty dollars in her pocket to last her until payday. She couldn’t afford legal cigarettes. She wouldn’t have money for gas to get to work!
The promise of cigarettes bolstered her. Her hands were still shaking, though, when she made her way inside and spoke to the receptionist. She’d arrived early for her appointment—damn it all! Finding a seat, she grabbed a magazine and began flipping through it, trying to find something to distract her.
She supposed it was rather like trying to diet while being pelted with radio, TV, and magazine ads about food, food, food! Every damned cigarette ad in the fucking magazine caught her eye. She felt like throwing the damned thing across the waiting room. It took an effort to set it down as if she was a rational human being.
She chewed her fingernails down to the quick and finally got up to pace.
The doctors should be castrated for overbooking, she thought with an inward snarl! Just who the fuck did they think they were? God? They were so fucking important that people had to give up their lives to sit in their fucking waiting rooms just to get five minutes of their fucking time?
“Mrs. Beauchamp?”
The announcement jolted Simone from her internal diatribe. “Yes?” she responded politely, rushing over to the nurse like the hopeful supplicant she was.
“Come this way.”
Simone followed the woman, trying to dismiss her jitteriness and the anger that was the direct result of it. Images flickered through her mind, though, of leaping over the desk and choking the man to death if he’d only called her out here to dismiss her.
It was a good thing, she told herself, that she didn’t carry anything that might be used as a deadly weapon. She wasn’t certain that she could control herself if it turned out this was just more bad news—not after everything else.
She couldn’t read anything into the cold expression of ‘professionalism’ the doctor treated her to when she entered his office.
“Please be seated.”
Her knees gave out. She plopped into the seat hard enough her tail bone hit the wooden support beneath the foam and the taste of blood filled her mouth. Her eyes stung, but she blinked, trying not to show that she was in pain.
He opened a folder on his desk and started reading it.
He couldn’t have fucking read it while she was sitting in the fucking waiting room a god damn hour?
Simone curled her fingers into her pocket book hard enough it would’ve broken the nails if she’d had any left.
The doctor cleared his throat and fixed her with a look she found difficult to decipher. Maybe that was his rendition of sympathy? “As you know, I don’t consider you an ideal candidate. Your finances aside …. Although, naturally, we’d be willing to work with you on that if you can, as you say, pay half up front.”
“I can …. I could! It’s in savings.” It was, in fact, her life savings but what the hell was the point of having it if she couldn’t have what she really wanted out of life?
What point was there to life?
He nodded. “Your age isn’t a factor in your favor either ….”
And just what the fuck did he think she could do about that?
“The smoking ….”
“I’ve quit! Swear to god! I had my last cigarette!”
“Well … if we’re going to do this …. I can’t emphasize enough that this will be a dangerous undertaking and it is absolutely imperative that you take the best care of yourself that you can. Eat right. Exercise—keep your weight down.”
“I’ll do it!”
“Very well, then. If you’ll just take a seat in the waiting room again while we get set up ….”
If the man had suddenly stood up and punched her in the face, she wouldn’t have been more stunned. A shock wave rolled over her. “Waiting room?” she finally managed to echo.
“Yes, for the procedure.”
She stared at him, trying to assimilate what he was saying and coming up blank every time. “You’re … you’r
e going to do the procedure now?”
He looked uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but notice he refused to meet her gaze and in some dark corner of her mind, warning bells went off, but she was in no state to fully grasp what he was suggesting. She certainly wasn’t in any state to try to decipher her instincts.
“You aren’t getting any younger,” he said in a strange voice.
Simone gaped at him in absolute disbelief, but he got up from his desk and hustled her out of his office and into the corridor before she could even begin to consider how to respond to the insult. She stood in the corridor for a few moments like a robot that had been switched off. Finally, dimly, his order to wait in the waiting room flickered through her mind and she looked around, trying to figure out which direction it was.
By the time she managed to find her way back to the waiting room, she was breathless with an imminent panic attack. Wilting weakly into a chair, she closed her eyes and focused on breathing slow deep breaths to calm herself. It was a losing battle.
Every time she felt a lessening in the tension, a random thought would flicker through her mind and she’d tense up all over again.
She waited almost long enough for her nerves to stop jangling and was called to the back. Her belly knotted. The urge to whirl around and run beat at her with every step she took down the corridor.
You wanted this!
Run!
Why now?
Run!
I must have misunderstood.
Run!
Chapter Three
The nurse opened a door and stepped out of the way. “If you’ll just undress in there and put on this gown.”
The doctor couldn’t possibly have meant he was going to perform the procedure, Simone thought a little frantically! It was just wrong. She didn’t know what was going on, but she had to have come unhinged. She had an appointment for a consultation, not a procedure.
They wouldn’t do that, would they?
She hadn’t even paid!
She kept trying to work up an objection, but she couldn’t seem to think of a way to word it that wouldn’t make her look like an idiot if she’d misunderstood.
Alien Penetration Page 3
