“I saw her body. Her brille was grey and they were ... they were on top of....” He shuddered then looked away.
Venomous bowed his head, wishing he could succumb to the wrenching draw of grief. “We mourn your loss.”
It would be years before the Rä’Vek recovered emotionally.
Venomous knew he would never recover from his own loss. “Take comfort, she sits at Grandfather’s side with my–”
“Lumen.”
Venomous’ head flew up.
Had he imagined the mumbled word? “Fiercely?”
Swaying as he pushed onto his knees, Fiercely Comes the Night shook himself lucid. “Lumen. She is safe, Venomous. I put her in a vent. The Dei San will not find her there. I sealed it shut, hid it from view.”
Joy blasted through the fibres of his being. “She is alive.”
Rocking back on his haunches, Venomous’ breath released in a hot rush of mind-numbing relief.
Renewed thoughts of finding her, keeping her safe crashed into the void losing her had left behind.
He felt weak to the tips of his claws. “My Rä’Na is alive, but will die if we do not reach her.”
“It may take the cycle, but we shall escape and–”
“Humans are not like us,” he interrupted knowing a cycle alone would be difficult for her.
“Scans suggest humans cannot survive long without water,” Nāga added shifting to face them with a sigh. “After three rotations her internal systems will fall into crisis.”
Mouth opening then closing, Venomous struggled not to growl.
He’d known his human was fragile after their time in the L’Odo slave mines, but this was ridiculous.
Has she no natural preservations?
“Are you certain?” he asked.
Slipping into medical mode, Nāga answered, “Lumen has a high metabolism. She is soft instead of muscular, but will burn through her energy reserves quickly. I estimate we have two rotations until she dehydrates.”
“She does drink a lot of water,” Venomous confirmed.
“After the two rotations, another before she begins to hallucinate, suffers convulsions then death. We have more time if she is in a dry, warm environment. Shorter if cold and wet.”
Fiercely winced. “Cold like an air vent?”
“She can catch cold,” Venomous revealed worry biting his insides. “It will take over a cycle to reach the auctions on Zoi Quay.” His jaw clenched and anger was a blistering well within his chest. “Even if I get to her, all I offer is death at the claws of monsters if they take her from me.”
“She is exotic,” Fiercely said and not unkindly. “They will gentle their urges to keep her.”
“That is no life for my mate,” Venomous snapped. “How can this have happened?”
“You know how. These miscreants have gotten hold of Baxnonian stealth tech. Who knows how many ships have fallen prey to their villainy.” Twitching, Fiercely’s lips thinned. “Is slavery at the hands of the L’Odo so bad?”
“Yesss.” He began the arduous task of escaping his bindings.
Perhaps if I break a wrist and the bones in one hand it will be bendable enough to wriggle free.
“My Lumen needs me. She will not survive unless we figure out a way to retake the ship within three rotations. We must remove these irremovable restrains, bypass the impenetrable force field, defeat the Dei San swarm, and do this without destroying the Trekker as my Lumen will need somewhere decent to recover after this mess.”
“You are not asking much of us then,” Fiercely noted blandly.
“If you knew my Rä’Na and how vulnerable, how dependant and–”
“Babe. Over here. This way.”
Everyone in the enclosure stopped moving, stopped breathing.
Venomous slowly turned his head to the haze.
Hallucinations were not uncommon in warriors who suffered the horrors of a battle.
He had known his guilt over his failure to keep Lumen safe would haunt him the rest of his lifecycle, but this was too much to take.
Fiercely jolted and hissed sharply.
Venomous knew then it was no fanciful delusion that surmounted the reason of his mind, but the flesh and blood reality of his life mate calling to him, much like she had in his nightmare.
Forgetting he was bound, he tried to stand.
He lurched, the restraints connected from his neck to his ankles pulling taut and throwing him off balance, but was saved from falling on his face by the steadying push of Fiercely’s shoulder.
“Lumen?” Disbelieving, his gaze dropped to the slumbering Dei San guarding their prison.
Fear gripped his hearts, and he motioned with his head for her to come.
When she hesitated, a growl rumbled from his throat.
He wanted her away from the beast lying not a foot from her.
“Come to me,” he beckoned. “The haze will not harm you.”
She ran through the force field, darted around the haphazard grouping of warriors shocked to see her, and then slammed into him.
Unable to catch her, or balance himself, they crashed to the ground.
Her arms hugged his neck, and her cheek pressed his. “I found you.” Her moist, warm breath gushed across his armoured flesh.
He shivered.
The enticing feel of her softness sprawled atop him erased his discomfiture from the fall.
“Thsst!” he hissed.
The veils covering his eyes trembled, and his anima infused the olive shades of his scales with iridescent gold.
Much more of her squirming would rouse a primal drive he was in no fit state to relieve.
“My Lumen,” he murmured. “Up.”
“Sorry.” She scrambled off then helped him onto his knees. Her face was bright and animated. “I’m so happy to have found you. I thought you were dead.” Planting a soft hand on his thigh, she lunged over his lap to grip Fiercely’s shoulder. “As for you, mister, you scared ten years off my life.”
“You are here.” Fiercely clicked his teeth. “How?”
“I used the power of my mind,” she answered in a grave voice her fingers touching her temples.
Fiercely’s slanted brille widened, the gleaming black liquid shining with pride. “Humans have the necessary cerebral capacity to link with the Trekker, but I never imagined you would accomplish it so readily. I assumed you would not think to try.”
“Honestly, I didn’t.” She accepted a discarded robe an a’Rä dragged closer with its knee to cover her nakedness. The dark, tattered fabric swamped her frame, but she tied the sash with a happy noise and stroked it as if it were the finest of softsuits. “It happened and I went with it.”
Lumen let Fiercely go, but kept a possessive hand on Venomous’ thigh.
It tensed under the slight pressure.
He didn’t ask her to move it, he needed the connection, no matter how inappropriate.
“You were unseen?” he asked as he envisioned the Pirate Chief dragging her away from him as it had in the night terror.
“The ship is abandoned apart from,” she swallowed, “the bodies.” Her hand clenched. “It’s awful, Venom. The warriors have been left to rot, as if they don’t even matter.”
He wanted to press his lips to hers, but the intimate contact in the presence of the warriors would be improper.
He shouldn’t even think it, but she’d proven herself strong and capable, appealing traits he never knew his life mate possessed, and it was arousing.
Will my Rä’Na ever cease surprising me?
“We must see to your safety,” he said.
She blinked. “I’m not the one tied up and imprisoned.”
“When we reach the slave auction you will be in danger.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders drooped. “I hoped you’d escape and retake the ship.”
“Thsst!” Venomous’ tongue flickered at the seam of his lips. “I cannot launch an offensive with you so inadequately protected. Not only do the Dei San outnu
mber us, you are the only of us not locked out of the ship’s cerebral controls.”
“Their battlecruiser is large enough to house a queen,” Fiercely added. “Only a fraction of her swarm boarded, and look at the damage they wrought.”
Lumen looked between them. Her shoulders squared. “Just tell me what we need to do to make this happen.”
Venomous grimaced.
The thought of asking a Rä’Na to fight was humiliating.
It went against every instinct and nurtured belief they had, and not because she was incapable.
The task she appointed herself was a warrior’s duty.
If those dedicated to protect and serve didn’t have that then what did they have?
Sensing their discomfort, Lumen crossed her arms. “What?”
“You can hear our plans, your perspective is valuable. However, once we decide on a course of action you will go back to the vent and hide.” Venomous made his voice firm. He wanted her at his side, of course he did, but not when being there placed her in danger. “You must be kept safe, away from harm.”
Fiercely said, “The Dei San would do great evil if they captured you. They would use you to control the strongest of us. Venomous would do whatever they said if it kept you from suffering.”
Ducking her head, she studied the length of her arm where a dark brand marred her fragile skin. “I’m out of my comfort zone, hell, out of my galaxy, but I’d rather die with you, Venom, than be without you.” Her head lifted and she met his stunned gaze. “I promise to stay out of the way. Deep down, you must know there’s nowhere safer for me than with you.”
Fiercely clicked his teeth in irritation. “Rä’Vek, you are not listening to her? She must be kept safe!”
Sighing, Venomous flexed his aching arms.
They could argue the point until the end of time.
A decision had to be made.
“She made it this far,” he said. “I trust my female to know her limits.” Breaking Lumen’s stare, he looked the a’Rä in the brille, his tone commanding and final. “We must break free and retake the Trekker.”
“The Dei San will have the remote to our fetters,” Fiercely said in a tired voice.
“Maybe I could lure him in here,” Lumen said.
“No,” the two males barked then huddled closer together to plot their escape.
Standing in a huff and glaring, Lumen stalked off.
“We do need to in some way entice him into the enclosure,” Venomous said.
“Yesss, but how?”
“My mate is too precious to risk, but perhaps if it catches a whiff of female scent on this side of the barrier it might.... Lumen!”
While they’d bent their heads to discuss their plans, she’d snuck through the red haze.
She crept towards the slumbering Dei San.
In the faintest of whispers, Venomous heard her muttering, “This was a dumb idea. Dumb, dumb, dumb....”
She reached the ungainly sprawl, studied it then looked back towards their prison and made a frightened, unsure face.
“The remote is round,” Fiercely whispered limping forward. “Grey with a black glass face and blue lights.”
Biting her lip, Lumen bobbed her head.
She squatted.
Her knees stuck out from under the robe as it pooled between her spread thighs.
Her little hand darted forward.
Venomous’ breath caught.
Easy, he thought. Quick and with care.
Slender fingers flitted in erratic bursts over the pirate’s grubby, mish-mashed armour.
An edgy nanosec later, she pulled back.
The Dei San was too large, and she was too far away to search the pockets on its far hip.
Lumen scrunched her eyes closed, and breathed in measured pulls.
Mouth setting into a firm line, they opened and flashed in determination.
She eased onto her hands and knees then crawled closer.
Leaning over a mound of violent male three times her size, her hand slid over a folded pocket at its waist.
A fat, circular shape bulged the fabric.
Spine hooked, body coiled with tension and ready to spring at the first sign of movement, she happened to inhale as the Dei San expelled gas.
Chronic flatulence was one of the more unpleasant traits of the foul species.
Even as far back as they were, and shielded somewhat by the haze, the sensitive noses of the Rä burned.
A few heaved with the effort of not vomiting.
Eyes popping, Lumen blanched and gagged.
Her cheeks puffed then she turned her face away to retch into her shoulder, whole body bucking at the fetid stench of decayed meat and rotten eggs.
Venomous didn’t breathe.
Gaining control, she cringed then carried on.
Her eyes watered as she unsnapped the fastened pouch, and as she tugged the device free, her fingers shook.
Clasping it in her fist, she inched back.
She jerked onto her feet then spun towards them, holding up the remote with a triumphant grin.
Slouching, Venomous swore the ground beneath him slanted, but it was merely his own body swaying.
The sleeping Dei San snorted and inhaled, nostrils flaring.
Blood-stained eyes snapped open.
Fiercely hissed. “Run.”
Eyes blanking with dread, Lumen broke into a sprint.
Without looking back, trusting them, her arms stretched out to reach.
She knew just her fingertips past the haze meant they could yank her to safety.
She wasn’t fast enough.
On its paws in a nanosec flat, the Dei San grabbed the back of her head, its hand span so large, its claws caged her terrified face.
I am going to watch her die.
Venomous’ hearts crashed. “No!”
The Dei San dragged Lumen, his brave female who’d made it so close to refuge, kicking and screaming into its gargantuan frame.
It turned her around to sniff at the crown of her head.
A monstrous shaft swelled and jutted out of its codpiece.
She raked her flimsy claws across its eye.
Screeching then shaking her like a rag, it slung her across the corridor.
Her back thudded the wall.
She hit the floor on her front, forehead rebounding with a sickening smack.
Squirming, her fingers and toes scrabbled against the tile.
Sobbing his name, crying out for him, Lumen crawled in an aimless daze then collapsed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Crazed out of his mind, Venomous beat against the haze with his shoulder.
His anima rose in a painful surge.
Not enough.
It was not enough to break the restraints that hobbled and bound him.
Agitated by his distress, roused into frenzy, the warriors in the enclosure snarled.
They banged on the walls.
Armoured scales rippled and flashed threat displays to attract and intimidate the pirate.
Snuffling, senses muddled from its abrupt waking, the Dei San clumped towards them.
It snapped its jaws, paced their frenzied line grunting vile taunts, reacting to their aggression with its own instinct to assert dominance.
Jerky, hunched in an awkward knot of limbs, Lumen dragged herself onto all fours.
She lurched onto her feet using the wall as a crutch.
A fist punched the air.
Clutched in her trembling fingers was the remote.
Swaying as her nose dripped blood, she whimpered as she fumbled with it.
The locking mechanism on Venomous’ sternum bleeped, and with a faint click, the lock disengaged then the indicator switched from yellow to red.
The restrains slackened.
He shrugged off the chains, the manacles on his wrists, ankles and waist snapped open.
Around the enclosure was the echo of metal shackles crashing to the floor.
Startled, t
he Dei San squealed.
It slapped a blackened hand to its waist, searching for the remote Lumen bashed on behind him.
“Drop the haze,” Fiercely bellowed slamming a fist to it. “You must drop the haze.”
She glared at him then scrunched her eyes shut.
A heart-stopping moment later, the haze vanished.
Venomous and the warriors exploded into the corridor as a stentorian tide.
They fell upon the Dei San then dismembered it into gummy chunks.
Fiercely snatched Lumen into his arms.
Pressing her face into his neck to silence her painful wail, he hurried her into the enclosure.
He carefully set her down then ran frantic hands under the torn robe, checking her flesh for lacerations.
Nāga knelt to examine her injuries.
He shoved the warrior aside when he protested, barking, “Are you a healer?”
Chest heaving and spattered with gore, Venomous stormed into the enclosure.
Striding up to his mate, he bent over double to thrust his face in hers. “What in the name of the Serpent were you thinking? Tell me! Explain what went through your mind.”
“Venomous....” Fiercely warned.
“Be silent,” he snapped then faced his Lumen. “Well? Speak?”
“I will never act that s-s-stupid ever again.” Haunted eyes were so dark and wet they reflected his snarling image like glass. She leaked until her face and chest were soaked, and her terror scent filled the enclosure. “I s-swear.”
Venomous went to his knees.
He cupped her beaten face between his sticky palms then pressed his cheek to hers.
He gasped for air.
It felt as if the Dei San were alive and crushing his windpipe. “I couldn’t get to you.”
“I s-swear, never again. I d-d-don’t know what I was thinking.”
Pushing past the stormy thicket of his wrath, Venomous pulled back then used her robe to clear the blood he’d smeared on her cheeks, annoyed he’d marked her with filth. “I did not mean to shout.”
“S’okay, babe.” She inhaled on a shudder. “It’s d-dead, right?”
“In pieces.”
“Good.” Lumen peered at the Rä re-entering the enclosure.
The warriors were exhausted, battered, but steady on their feet, and they bared their fangs to click their teeth at her.
He could see it took her a moment to realize they were being respectful, not indicating an intent to bite.
Venomous: Erotic Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 1) Page 22
