by Jaid Black
“Why?” Gio asked, his hearts rate speeding up at the knowledge that he had nigh unto lost her once before without even knowing it. “Why did she wish to remain behind?”
Kara shrugged helplessly. “I do not know. Leastways, she hadn’t much time and kept looking o’er her shoulder as though she feared she’d been followed. But,” she said in a whisper of a voice, “she did say something, and ‘twas something that ever haunted Jana and I until at last we were reunited with her again.”
“What did she say?” Gio murmured.
“She said there was an evil on Arak,” Kara said unblinkingly. “An evil that needed to be destroyed before it destroyed her…and you.”
Death’s body stilled. Every muscle in his large body corded and tensed. “An evil?” he repeated, needing confirmation.
“Aye.” Kara shook her head, her expression sad. “Yet she would never confess to me what this evil was, not even when we were reunited with her on Galis. She kept insisting ‘twas best if we remained unawares.”
Gio was torn between elation that Dari hadn’t left him for naught but freedom after all, fear that his betrothed was embroiled in a dangerous situation he wasn’t there to aid her of, and a desperate need to find her. Memories of that bedamned male’s voice besieged him.
From beside him, Death’s mind was reeling, his desperation to reach Kari bordering on fear. Fear that if he didn’t capture her anon, something else would. And yet, he said naught of what he knew. He understood now why Dari had held her tongue so many years.
“Dari ventured into Valor City with Kari to seek information she might use to her advantage against this evil.” Kara shrugged her shoulders. “I know naught what she learned from the Chief High Mystik there for ‘twas the same moon-rising Cam found me.”
Gio and Death shot up from their seats, both of them feeling hopeful for the first time. If there was any information at all to be gleaned in Valor City, they would ferret it out for a certainty.
Gio stopped briefly on his way out to place a hand upon Kara’s shoulder. “Thank-you,” he said quietly. And with that, he departed the palace.
Kara took a deep breath as she looked at Cam. She knew they were both hoping Dari and Jana were found alive and well. And Kari. Kara had lived but five years with the fiery wench, yet she had been like a second mani to her.
Just then the bound servant returned, her naked breasts bobbing up and down as she made her way to the raised table. She handed the piece of jewelry to Kara, then quietly left for the kitchens.
“Ah here we go,” Kara said to her mani. “Now let me find the holo-image of Kari Gy’at Li for you.”
Kyra nodded, her eyes widening. She nibbled on her lip, desperate to see it.
Zor studied his wife inquiringly. “Is aught wrong, my hearts?”
“I don’t know,” Kyra said simply, leaving her answer at that.
Kara flicked through the images that popped out of the small charm that had dangled from the chain about her ankle the moon-rising she’d been captured by Cam. “’Tis not here,” she grumbled, flicking rapidly o’er the holo-images again. “I scarce believe it.”
“Damn it,” Kyra muttered, her eyes narrowed in thought.
“Nee’ka?” Zor said softly. “What is wrong?”
Kyra glanced up at him, distracted. She sighed. “Nothing,” she said softly, looking away. “I was just being a damn fool.”
* * * * *
“I love you, pani.” Cam kissed Kara’s temple, his hands stroking lazily o’er the flesh of her buttocks. They had finished making love but moments ago, yet the need for her closeness was upon him as greatly as ever.
“I love you too.” Kara raised her head to look at him, her Q’ana Tal glowing blue eyes shimmering. “I’ve always loved you. You know that in your hearts now, do you not?”
“Aye.” He grinned. “I know it.”
She placed a quick kiss on his chest then raised her face to his once more. “And I know now that you’ve always loved me. We will never be apart from the other again.”
“’Tis a vow amongst Sacred Mates,” he murmured.
“’Tis a vow amongst Sacred Mates,” she repeated.
In a lightening-quick movement, Cam rolled her to her back and entered her wet channel with a long thrust. He groaned at the pleasure, greedily wanting to stay within her as he’d dreamed every moon-rising of doing before he’d had the right of it by the Holy Law. He had spent the longest part of his life awaiting the moon-rising when she would at last be his. Now he finally had her. ‘Twould ever be this way.
“Let me watch whilst a Kefa pleasures you,” he rasped out. “Let me carry you to our bathing hole, pani.”
Kara wrapped her long legs around his middle. “You were ever the wily one, husband.”
He grinned as he bent his neck to kiss her. “Aye. Some things never change.”
Epilogue
Naked under the stolen animal pelts she wore, Jana’s breasts bobbed up and down as she wound her way through the rocky, iced terrain of the cold silver landscape. ‘Twas nigh unto impossible to see where she was going with the night so black upon this planet, yet she had been given no choice but to wait for Yorin to fall in his slumber before attempting to escape him.
And escape him she would.
The things that she had been made to endure—how could any wench humbly submit to them? She ignored the shamefully brazen voice that declared she’d not only endured them, but had in fact enjoyed them, and sprinted at a speed no wench of her species could have moved without having undergone a metamorphosis to make it possible.
She wanted her mani and papa, she thought wildly. She cared not of any recriminations that might stem from having fled all those years back. She would gladly take any of them did it mean she would feel her mani’s hand upon her brow once again, or feel her sire’s arms clasped about her.
Jana cried out in mental anguish, wondering if ‘twas possible they might reject her when they learned of the species she had become. She was no longer like a Trystonni, she thought in horror. She could do—things. Bizarre, frightening things. And the way she drank of Yorin whilst they mated—good goddess it didn’t bear dwelling o’er.
She put her bad thoughts from her mind, concentrating once again on the mission at hand. She had to escape. ‘Twas now or ‘twas never. She had done the unthinkable and thwarted the warriors of Tryston once before. So too could she thwart the Khan-Goris, making them believe she’d died.
Jana was sharp enough to realize that her only hope of successfully fleeing her mate was in finding a holo-port that would transport her to her own galaxy. She refused to consider the fact that in her sennight on Khan-Gor, she had seen not even one holo-port dotting the landscape.
Yorin had firmly told her that there was no sense in running from him for ‘twas impossible to leave Khan-Gor without a ship, yet she refused to give up hope that mayhap he had lied to her. Even if he had been telling her naught but truths, she was a warrior woman now, and a warrior woman would simply find another method of escape.
Jana’s nostrils flared, her will growing stronger by the Nuba-second. And yet, she admitted, she could scarce contain the little girl words that kept swimming through her mind:
Papa, she thought desperately, sending out the fiercest wave of emotion she had purposely emitted in years, please come for me…
* * * * *
“My god,” Kari breathed out, her silver-blue eyes wide. “I don’t believe it. The Brekkons were correct.”
“Aye,” Dari murmured, her eyes seeking out Bazi’s. “Khan-Gor is real.”
Bazi took a deep breath, then nodded. “What will we do now?”
The women gazed out the wide porthole, their eyes taking in the sight of the large silver-ice planet none in Trek Mi Q’an had even known existed. ‘Twas unbelievable. And if the Brekkons had been correct on this score, mayhap their legends of the Barbarians who dwelled here had a basis in truth as well.
“We will land,” Kari decided,
realizing as she did that they had come too far to back off now.
Dari nodded. “And we will find the key.” She sighed, looking back at Bazi. “Mayhap then we can destroy the Evil One,” she murmured.
His young eyes were troubled. “Are you certain you wish to do this?” he asked quietly. “Mayhap it should be me who does it alone.”
“Nay,” Dari said firmly. “We made vows unto the other. Leastways,” she insisted, “I would sooner throw myself into a nest of heeka-beasts than not see this through to its fruition.”
“But he will never forgive you,” Bazi said quietly, guilt lancing through him. “Your betrothed will never forgive—”
“I know,” Dari said softly. She sighed, her eyes flicking back toward the primitive planet coated in ice. “I can never again return to Gio.” She closed her eyes. “He will never forgive me for murdering his own sire.”
* * * * *
Her thoughts a million miles away, her memories filled with the days so many hundreds of years ago when she’d lived on earth, Kyra swore under her breath when she lost her footing and tripped over—she didn’t know what.
“Damn it,” she muttered, crouching down to pick up a charm that had fallen from her daughter’s anklet. “I am having one hell of a bad—”
Her eyes widened when it dawned on her that the charm no doubt contained holo-images within it as most anklet charms did. She clutched the crystal charm to her breasts, her breathing growing labored as she stood up. “Maybe this charm holds the holo-image Kara lost,” she said shakily.
She didn’t know why she was breathing so heavily, or why sweat had broken out all over her body. But she felt desperate to open the charm, to view whatever images lay in waiting within the piece of crystal jewelry. She fiddled with the unlocking mechanism, cursing when it didn’t immediately pop open.
“Damn it!” she swore, her nostrils flaring as she continued to fiddle with it. “Why won’t this thing…open,” she finished softly.
When the charm gave way, when the holo-images displayed before her, her hand flew up to cover her mouth. She backed into a wall, her eyes filling with tears, as the image of a red-headed woman who could have been her twin shimmered then appeared before her.
“Oh my god,” Kyra breathed out, chills racing up and down her spine. “Oh my god.”
* * * * *
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Next in the Trek Mi Q’an series:
Naughty Nancy & No Fear
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