Lords of Mayhem

by Angelique Anjou

  Anya felt a strange little twist to her heart at that. It was almost as uncomfortable as the resentment she’d felt before when they’d spoken and behaved as if it was a foregone conclusion that she belonged to them. She tried to prod the resentment to life but discovered that she felt sad instead.

  They couldn’t stay, even if she wanted them to. She had to make them understand that. So far, they’d managed to evade the net she knew the military had thrown out to capture them in the belief that they could either destroy them or use them. Sooner or later, though, and probably sooner, someone would figure out where she’d gone, put it together with Legion’s possessiveness toward her, and they would have to leave.

  She discovered she didn’t really want to think about that at the moment. They had some time, a little peace. Aside from being excellent lovers, they intrigued her and they seemed content, at least for now, to refrain from using the power they could wield at will and simply study her … and fuck her blind.

  She didn’t know whether to be relieved, amused, or disappointed that they seemed satisfied with the one coupling. They finished bathing and dried themselves and then she led them into the kitchen, bade them sit in the straight chairs and examined their bruises.

  Zavier was noticeably revolted when she handed him a piece of raw meat to put on his black eye, explaining to him that it was an ancient remedy but actually worked pretty well.

  “I will not put that on my lip,” Legion said flatly.

  Anya bit her lip to try to refrain from laughing, but a chuckle escaped her anyway.

  He looked disconcerted. She straddled his lap and coiled her arms around his shoulders, aligning her nose with his. “Not even for me?” she purred.

  He reared back to bring her into focus. She could see he was trying to decide whether she was serious or not and chuckled again. “That isn’t the remedy for a cut lip,” she said, relenting, and leaning toward him to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Only bruising and swelling. An ice pack would have done as well or better—and been less messy—but we don’t have ice.”

  He caught her hips when she tried to scoot off his lap, studying her face. She realized after a moment that he was intrigued by her playfulness, wanted more, but didn’t quite know how to respond. Her throat tightened. On impulse, she put her nose to his again and crossed her eyes.

  He smiled faintly. “Why did you do that?”

  She grinned back at him, pushing his hands away and getting up. “You never made funny faces?”

  “What is a funny face?” Zavier asked curiously.

  She sucked her cheeks in to make fish lips and wiggled them at him while crossing her eyes. He looked taken aback. “That is attractive.”

  Laughing, she swatted him playfully on the shoulder. “It isn’t supposed to be. It’s supposed to look funny and make you laugh,” she said wryly. “Except usually kids do it. Let me have a look at that eye.”

  He eased his hold on the slab of meat as she placed her hand over his and then lifted the edge to peer at his face. “Uh oh. I think this might be too late to be very helpful. You should’ve been doing this instead of humping me in the shower—with hot water.” Removing the piece of meat, she slapped it back in its package and tossed it into the refrigeration unit again.

  Zavier was studying his bloodied hand when she returned with a wet cloth and carefully bathed his face off. “Yep. That’s definitely going to be a shiner—almost as bad as the one Robbie got … my oldest brother had once,” she finished with an effort at lightness that had suddenly vanished. She handed him the cloth to wipe his hand and moved to the sink, trying to shrug off the sadness that had descended upon her with the memory.

  “When I was a little girl, we had a swing in that tree. Daddy put it up for us and we spent half our time fighting over who’d get to use it.”

  One of them—Legion, she thought—moved up behind her, slipping a hand around her waist. “This place makes you sad?” he murmured near her ear.

  She knew, then, that it was Legion and lifted her hand, settling it over his at her waist. Thinking it over, she leaned back against him, enjoying the feeling of closeness. “It’s called bittersweet,” she murmured after a moment. “Most of the memories are good and it makes me happy to remember. It’s just … they’re gone now.”

  She twisted her head to look at him, wondering what he really thought of her. He didn’t look bored or uncomfortable, though. He looked almost … content, even though his gaze was distant, as if he was thinking of his own past.

  She smiled at him when he met her gaze. “What should we do with the rest of the day? Chores? Or play?”

  He smiled back at her. “You chose. I have not done either.”

  “I think I’d like to go for a walk and just look at the place.”

  She turned to look for Zavier when Legion had stepped away. Looping her arm through Legion’s, she held out her hand to Zavier. “Come on, blacky,” she said teasingly.

  He sent her a curious look, but rose and took her hand. “What is this ‘blacky’?” he asked suspiciously as she led them out the back door.

  She squinted one eye at him and chuckled at the look he sent her.

  “You find it humorous that my little brother blackened my eye?”

  “Not that,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I am only sextants younger,” Legion informed him tightly.

  Anya batted her eyelashes at him. “I’ve always been intrigued by younger men.”

  Surprise flickered across his face, then gratification before he frowned. “I am reasonably certain that I am a great deal older than you.”

  “Don’t tell me! Let me enjoy my fantasy! Zavier is my older man fantasy and you’ll be my younger man fantasy!”

  Legion’s lips twitched. “You are in a … strange mood.”

  Anya chuckled instead of taking exception. Pulling away from them, she danced in front of them and then flung her arms out and twirled in a circle. “I feel wonderful!”

  Zavier grinned at her abruptly. “And why is it that you feel wonderful?”

  She gave him a knowing smile but refused to pander to his ego. “Because I’m home and I haven’t been here in forever!” Discomfort wafted through her when she realized what she’d said and what thoughts it might bring to their minds, but she pushed it away determinedly. “And I have no responsibilities … for the moment, anyway. Maybe for a very long time if I get fired for leaving without giving any notice, but I don’t really care at the moment,” she added wryly. At least she was pretty certain she wasn’t facing charges and jail time anymore—thanks to Legion.

  Not that the committee had actually handed down their decision before she’d left, but she didn’t see how they could possibly find anything to charge her with when she hadn’t even been conscious at the time of the accident, or directly before it—hadn’t been in any shape to take part in the mutiny at all.

  It distressed her that Laine the others might be facing charges, at least of some kind, but she rather thought Laine’s dumb luck would hold and he’d figure a way out of it. He’d been the commanding officer, after all. He hadn’t mutinied or been directly responsible for it.

  In any case, she was fairly certain no one had much on their mind besides Legion and Zavier since the battle in the city. Between the shock of what they were capable of and the discovery that there were two of them ….

  She felt pleasantly tired when they returned to the house later. She’d been right. It was bittersweet to return to the home of her youth, but she felt more relaxed than she’d felt in so long she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d felt so carefree … or happy.

  Of course, she knew being home was only a part of it, maybe not even the biggest part of it.

  Probably not.

  She was pretty sure if she’d returned alone and Legion and Zavier hadn’t come that she would’ve been bored and probably miserable on top of that. She wouldn’t have been able to push aside the grief for her losses and focus on the happ
y memories.

  Discontent fluttered in the back of her mind, and anxiety, but she refused to consider a future that seemed bleak. She didn’t want to think about her job or the possibility that she’d been fired either because of the accident on the space platform or leaving without notice.

  She didn’t want to think about returning to the life she’d had, for that matter. The best case scenario—that she hadn’t been fired and would be prepping for a new mission—wasn’t any more appealing than the prospect of hunting work. She knew it couldn’t last forever, that sooner or later the world would come crashing down on her, but she didn’t want that certainty to ruin her enjoyment of the moment.

  When they returned near dusk, she dragged Legion and Zavier into the kitchen to help her prepare the evening meal instead of merely watching, instructing them on the meal she’d decided to prepare as she took out vegetables and meat.

  Legion whacked his thumb off with the butcher knife instead of chopping up the carrot she’d given him. They both stared at the severed digit in shock for several moments. Finally, glaring at it, Legion picked his thumb up, carefully realigned it and … his hand glowed. He sent her an uncomfortable glance as he flexed the reattached digit.

  Anya, who was still trying to decide whether to throw up or faint, smiled at him weakly and wobbled to a chair to put her head between her knees. “Is it still bleeding?” she asked Legion when he crouched in front of her and tipped her chin up to look at her.

  “No.”

  She dragged in a shaky breath of relief and then burst into noisy sobs, flinging her arms around his neck. He wobbled, caught his balance, and wrapped his arms around her.

  “You are distressed about the thumb?”

  Sniffing, Anya nodded.

  “Of course she is distressed about the thumb!” Zavier said testily. “You have bled all over the food!”

  Anya uttered a horrified, watery chuckle, lifting her head. “I’m not worried about the food! I was upset that he hurt himself!”

  “I did not hurt myself. It was the knife. In any case, it did not hurt,” Legion said promptly, “so you need not be upset.”

  She mopped her face with her hands and sent him a look. “I know it did. It had to.”

  He studied her curiously. “You are a doctor, Anya. You must be accustomed to wounds.”

  She sniffed. “I’m actually not—people hardly ever get hurt on the ships or stations where I’m on duty … or cut parts off. Anyway, it isn’t the same! I never see the accident … and it’s never … never ….” She stopped and swallowed hard. Never anybody she cared deeply about, she realized.

  She pulled away from him abruptly. “I was just shocked, that’s all. I’m alright if you’re alright.”

  He held up his thumb and wiggled it and she was torn between the desire to bawl all over again and the hysterical urge to giggle. “I think I’ll cut the vegetables,” she said decisively. “You two can watch.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The meal turned out surprisingly well, all things considered. Anya found that she wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the food for all that, mostly because she was still jittery from Legion’s accident. Even so—with the exception of the thumb incident—it had been a good day and she wasn’t in any rush for it to end. Searching her mind for a ‘safe’ topic of conversation that she thought might allow her to avoid anything uncomfortable, she glanced at Zavier when they’d finished eating and abruptly recalled a word he’d said to her in his native tongue that had intrigued her. It had piqued her curiosity at the time, but she’d been too focused on ‘something’ else to ask what he meant. It took a few moments of mental trial and error to formulate the unfamiliar word in her mind and even attempt to replicate it. “What does meenoots mean?”

  Amusement flickered in Zavier’s eyes. He glanced at Legion and asked a question—in their language. She could tell it was a question, though, by the way he said it.

  “Minotez,” he corrected her. “It does not translate well.”

  She studied him suspiciously for a long moment and then glanced at Legion. A faint smile played on his lips, she saw, and was immediately certain they just didn’t want to tell her what it meant. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to tell me,” she guessed.

  “You will have to learn our language, minotez,” Legion said gently.

  Warmed as much by the look in his eyes as she was by the way he said it, Anya blushed, struggling with conflicting emotions. Predominant among them was the unhappy realization that it wasn’t likely she would get the chance or that she would have them to talk to even if she learned enough to put a sentence or two together. Determinedly, she shrugged it off. “Then you can start by telling me the words for things I already know. What’s the word for brother?”

  Legion and Zavier exchanged a look she found hard to decipher. “There is no word for it,” Zavier said finally.

  Anya studied him with surprise and a spark of anger as it occurred to her that they didn’t actually want her to learn their language. Or maybe they thought she wasn’t intelligent enough to learn it? “How could there not be a word in your language for brother?”

  Anger flickered in Zavier’s eyes, as well, which made her realize that he wasn’t merely teasing her or trying to be difficult. “There are not words for things that do not exist.”

  Anya digested that with more than a little confusion. “No one has more than one child?” she guessed finally, although she found it almost impossible to believe.

  “No one had,” Legion corrected her. “Most did not have even one. Only the niztheria were allowed.” He frowned, obviously considering the meaning of the word. “This is like rulers … but different … ruling class?” He shook his head. “That is not just right either.”

  Anya searched her own vocabulary for a word that might be similar to what he meant. Remembering what she’d thought of the place Zavier had shown her where they had lived, an archaic word popped into her mind. “Aristocrats?”

  He lifted his brows, but it was obvious that he’d ‘collected’ an impressive English vocabulary himself. “Much like that except that it was not determined by birth, but by their powers. Only those with the strongest were allowed to breed, and thus each generation was more powerful than the last.”

  Anya stared at him in shock, but her thoughts were chaotic as she considered the implications. “You bred yourselves to be as you are? How many generations?”

  Legion shrugged. “I do not know. There were no records before the time the gods visited our world and begat off-spring. It was their offspring who had the powers and only those who were allowed to breed thereafter.”

  “Whoa!” Anya exclaimed, holding up her hand. “Gods?”

  Amusement flickered in Legion’s eyes. “The ancient ones believed them to be gods, worshipped them as gods. This is why I asked you if your ancient ones spoke of gods who looked as we do and had the power.”

  Momentarily diverted by that interesting possibly, Anya considered it for the first time. “I don’t know. I’ve never been much for history, particularly ancient religions, but there are paranomals who have abilities similar to yours—telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation and so forth. As far as I know, though, no one has more than one ability and, even at that, their gifts aren’t nearly as strong as yours.”

  He studied her speculatively a moment. “There is only one power—the ability to manipulate atoms and energy. Those who have it must learn the skills to use it in various ways—even we did. Although we received only a little training when we were very young, we were taught certain skills and from those we taught ourselves the rest.”

  “So … your people very carefully nurtured alien DNA and basically ignored their own?”

  Zavier grimaced. “Yes … though in the beginning they did not understand that that was what they were doing. They merely wanted to emulate the gods they worshipped.”

  Anya studied both men for several moments, abruptly remembering some of t
he history of her world. They hadn’t ‘embraced’ the differences in Earth’s past. In point of fact, she distinctly recalled that great efforts had been made to stamp out those with abilities similar to Legion’s and Zavier’s. In ancient times, they’d been considered witches or demons and killed by the ‘normals’ if they could get their hands on them. Maybe, she thought, that was why there wasn’t anyone on Earth that had powers even approaching theirs? They’d done just the opposite of the people of Legion and Zavier’s world.

  She pushed those thoughts away with an inward shudder and focused on the present, realizing with a touch of surprise just how extraordinary Legion and Zavier were—even on their own world. She smiled at them a little teasingly. “So … you two are more special that anyone else from your world.”

  They both looked confused and vaguely amused. “Why would you think that, beloved?” Legion asked curiously.

  “No one but your mother had twins—and I know you don’t have a word for that either, but we do because it’s fairly common to us—and we still consider it a very special and wonderful thing. Conception itself is a miracle of nature, where all things must come together in just the right way at just the right time for it to happen. With you—you were truly unique and nothing can be more miraculous or wonderful than that.”

  Zavier’s lips curled derisively. “We divided. It made each of us less powerful than one would have been.”

  Anya gaped at him. “Good God! You mean that you’re only half as powerful as the typical … uh … what do you call yourselves?”

  “Comptz,” Legion responded absently, obviously deep in thought. “It means ‘the people’.”

  Anya noticed he was staring at Zavier thoughtfully, though, and not her. After a moment, the two exchanged a spate of words that were completely incomprehensible. Realizing after a few minutes that whatever it was that they were discussing wasn’t an argument, but wasn’t winding down either, she got up and cleared away the dishes. They were still discussing it when she finished clean up and finally leaned back against the cabinet behind her, folding her arms and studying them.