by LC Morgans
***
Kyra heard the door close and she shot up in bed. She thought at first it was the sound of Thrayke leaving for work, but when she checked the clock, it was already mid-morning. She guessed it must be him returning for something, so waited for the usual sound of him calling to her to give the all clear. There was nothing but silence.
She climbed up out of bed and silently crept towards the closed door that led to his office and was sure she heard rustling coming from the general vicinity of Thrayke’s desk. As per his insistence, if anyone came in and didn’t announce themselves, she hid. If he came in to find her, she knew they’d both laugh off her foolishness, but if whoever was in his office wasn’t meant to be there, Kyra was determined they would find nothing but a messy bed if they came through to the bedroom. There was no time for her to climb into the air vent, so she ducked down inside the closet instead and covered herself with some long jackets just in time to hear the bedroom door open.
Boots clipped the metal floor as someone wandered casually around, and before long she could hear the intruder rifling through Thrayke’s drawers and belongings. Kyra didn’t know who they were, or why they’d come to search through Thrayke’s personal space, but she immediately started to panic. So far, whoever it was hadn’t found what they were looking for and she had to wander, what it was.
“Here kitty, kitty,” a deep voice called, and Kyra knew its owner without needing to look. The Chief of Defense was there, Rasmos, and it seemed he was onto them. “Where are you, little lady?” he said, and made a puckering sound with his lips that made her want to scream with rage. She didn’t answer or move a muscle though, and so Rasmos immediately began ransacking the room. His earlier rustles were now great thuds as he pulled over the cabinets and smaller units, and when the door of the closet she was inside of was pulled open, it was with so much force the door came clean off its hinges. Kyra flinched and tried to burrow deeper inside. “There you are, pet.”
She didn’t look at him, instead Kyra kept her face buried in her hands, not daring to believe that after all this time she’d been caught, and not by someone she knew they could trust. Rasmos yanked her out and threw her on the bed, but Kyra bounced over to the other side thanks to his forceful throw, where she fell onto the hard ground with a thud. He was on her again in a heartbeat and lifted her up off her feet by nothing but her neck. His hands squeezed tightly and Rasmos pinned her to the wall behind while taking a good look up and down her scantily clothed body. She wished she’d been awake, dressed, and ready to fight, but then all she could think about was her training. Silas’s voice echoed in her brain from years before and she knew she couldn’t fight him off. Chief Rasmos was not only a strong and seasoned Thrakorian soldier, but also a clever one, and they both knew it.
Kyra went limp in his hold and peered up into his hardened scowl. She’d met him before when Thrayke had taken her to his headquarters to discuss her findings on the rebel gatherings, but he’d been far from welcoming. It was clear to her now that he hated humans, or at least that was how he was making her feel, and she trembled in anticipation of what he was planning to do with her.
She figured a trip to Kronus’s chambers where she’d be chastised and bellowed at, before being led away to finish her days as his prisoner, or perhaps his slave like Thrayke had speculated. Her only hope rested on their leader being lenient on her. Kyra had to believe Kronus would see sense and let her go to work in the Intelligence Division’s Gentry liked she was supposed to though, but also guessed her time with Thrayke might be put to a forceful end. She wanted to cry, but forced herself back to the here and now. First, she had to get through whatever punishment Rasmos seemed intent on administering before he dragged her away to be tried for what would undoubtedly be treason.
Rasmos sneered as he watched her internally debate her choices. He let go and lifted the hand still wrapped around her neck to take a better look at her. Pinning her to the wall using his body, he then ran his finger from the top of her scar at her neck all the way down to her breastbone, licking his lips. “So it’s true? You really did take a bullet for him? And you lost your voice in the process…”
He leaned in closer to whisper in her ear, and Kyra chose to play the mute he clearly thought she still was. “Thrayke was such a fool thinking he could outsmart me by hiding you away in here. I’m going to enjoy breaking you to teach him that lesson. It’s a shame you can’t scream or beg for mercy, but at the same time I’m excited to see how much you can take given your renowned resilience for pain and torture.”
Kyra shook her head, pleading with him silently not to hurt her. Imprisonment or rage at Kronus’s hands would be better than being tortured for Rasmos’s own enjoyment, and she began to wonder how none of his comrades had noticed his dark tendencies before. Or perhaps they had, but hadn’t seen the need to stop him.
He didn’t give her much time to think his words over. Rasmos lifted her toward him and then slammed her head back so hard against the wall behind that Kyra quickly began to lose consciousness. Blackness took hold whether she wanted it to or not, and any fight she tried to keep hold of left her as her muscles turned to mush and she crumbled in his hold.
***
When she woke up, Kyra took in her surroundings through aching eyes and a pounding head thanks to Rasmos’s heavy-handedness. She was chained to a bed rail by her ankle, but hadn’t been placed on the bed to rest. That was evidently too good for her. She was instead curled up on a blanket on the floor, and knew right away that Rasmos really did want her to act like his new pet. Defiance gave her strength anew though and she tugged at the chain, only to be yanked back by a second leash that was tied around her neck she hadn’t realized was even there. He then seemed to come at her out of nowhere, and sucker-punched her directly to the gut twice—effectively halting her attempts at escape. Kyra choked and gasped for air, while Rasmos stared down at her with venom in his eyes.
“Naughty girl, you need to be punished,” he said, and kicked her hard in the ribs. “You’ll learn you can’t outrun or outsmart me. You cannot lie to me or make me pity you. All you can do is as you are told.”
Kyra had taken pain before and had trained her body hard over the years, but this was more than torture. Rasmos was a violent and delusional sadist and she knew there would be no reasoning with him or trying to talk him out of this punishment he had decided for her.
When he released her and stepped away, she sat up and positioned herself as comfortably as she could on the hard floor. Kyra then simply waited. She didn’t move another muscle and Rasmos seemed impressed with her ability to overcome her urge to defy him. So, he decided to taunt her further. “You and your kind should’ve all been wiped out along with that cesspit of a planet, not brought back with us to poison our air with your stink. The sooner we have the cure, the better, and then we can dispose of you once and for all,” he spat, pacing the floor in front of her.
Kyra already knew how some of their kind were sick, and also that they were hoping to find their cure using the missing piece of the DNA puzzle she herself had helped them find. The Thrakorian’s needed it to cure an illness that relied on the malformation of abnormal cells, and the eradication of such elements within their species’ DNA had left them without the ability to do it themselves.
Her head snapped up as realization hit, and she scowled back at him. “That’s it, little lady. You’ve got it…”
“Who’s it for? King Thrakor?” she asked, and Rasmos immediately started laughing at hearing her speak. He clapped his hands together as though thoroughly amused that she’d managed to lie to him for even the short amount of time, but then slapped her across the cheek so hard she bit the inside of her lip. Kyra spat her blood out on the floor beside her and glared back up at him.
“Yes,” he said as he kneeled before her. “And his heirs,” he added. Rasmos stroked the scar on her neck and then ran his hand down to her chest again. “Didn’t Kronus tell you? He’s dying too and your discovery co
uld be the very thing that saves his pitiful, ungrateful, elitist existence. You ought to be proud of yourself, pet.”
“I’m proud of nothing I ever did in service to that man,” she lied, desperately trying to hide her sadness at discovering Kronus also had the Ehrad disease. Her snide remark was met with another slap from the Chief of Defense.
“You should’ve stayed mute. I’ll teach you to bite your tongue though, don’t worry.”
***
Thrayke searched high and low for Kyra, but it was fruitless. His quarters had been ransacked and his bedroom utterly trashed. Whoever had done it had found exactly what they’d come looking for. She was gone, and not only that, but there had been droplets of her blood leading to where the suitcase had been stored. They were the only two things missing from his quarters and in the two days since he’d last seen her, not a single person aboard the ship was acting shifty enough for him to suspect that it could be them who’d taken her. Everyone was too busy getting ready to re-enter Thrakor’s atmosphere so were bustling around busily. The end of their journey was just hours away, but he was completely lost. Minic had tried helping, as had Sylvana, but there was simply no sign of Kyra anywhere. There wasn’t a single lead and Thrayke was growing desperate.
Kronus was still locked away in his wing and by all accounts hadn’t had any visitors in weeks, so Thrayke didn’t suspect she’d been taken in front of him. Instead, it was as if she had disappeared completely and in his panic, Thrayke knew he had to have failed to notice the clues available to him. Instead of looking for someone out of sorts, he realized at the end of the second day that he should’ve been looking for those skilled enough not to give their truths away. The Inquisitor’s weren’t able to access the Kings Guards’ quarters, but their master was, and slowly but surely Thrayke began to recount the times he’d spent with Rasmos over the past few weeks. He’d asked no questions, but had been working closely with him in the build up to their return home. Now that he thought about it, he remembered how Rasmos had often watched him come and go from his shifts with interest.
Thrayke was sure it was he who had stolen Kyra from him, and he ran to Rasmos’s room immediately. He was met by one of his men who informed him that the Chief was in council and had been for days. Thrayke didn’t believe it for a moment and forced his way inside. True to the report though, he was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Kyra, and Thrayke hated how he was back to exactly where he’d started. Maybe he’d been wrong? Everything was off and Thrayke simply couldn’t put the clues together properly—not that he had many at all.
He returned to his room and grabbed the ships manifest and read through the sections again, before accessing the schematics from the file database. There were no convict cells aboard, but there were numerous unused rooms that’d been allocated to lost Thrakorian souls who hadn’t made it aboard in time, so he set off to check them out. He would search each and every one of them if he had to, but had to believe that there was no way he was getting off this ship without Kyra’s hand in his.
***
“I wonder just how much you could survive, little healer,” Rasmos spat, following his final attempts to try and break her will. Kyra didn’t dare answer, but wondered if perhaps he’d had enough of trying to break her after all and was ready to call it quits in the most finite way, so she waited for the pain she believed he was about to deliver. But, his torture was halted when the door to their room burst open.
Please be Thrayke, she thought, but the lack of a fight or raised voices coming from the doorway gave her all the answers she needed and her head span. She wasn’t saved…
Laughter brought Kyra back to reality, and she finally looked up in time to watch as the two Thraks greeted each other warmly before her eyes. She recognized the other man immediately, and cowered away with the fear she’d refused to let Rasmos elicit from her but couldn’t fight at seeing the cold, blank stare of their new arrival.
“I’d like to see what she can take as well, but have to admit I’m disappointed you started without me,” the third member of their unlikely trio, Lorde Greegis, said to Rasmos, but his eyes were on Kyra.
She recoiled and tried to clamber away, trembling uncontrollably in fear. She didn’t know whether to believe what she was seeing, but it seemed real, and when the scientist who’d treated her with nothing but distaste and even violence in the past laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, she actually turned to Rasmos in panic. She grabbed his leg, shaking her head. The last thing she wanted was for Greegis to join in with her torture. Kyra had been on the receiving end of his violence before, and hated him far more than anyone else she’d known in her life.
“Well look at that, you really must’ve made an impression,” Rasmos said, swatting Kyra away with a swift kick that sent her flying.
“Perhaps, but now you’ve broken her in for me, how about we discuss your fee? Two of my girls for this one,” Greegis said, and while Rasmos seemed impressed with the offer, he evidently couldn’t resist upping the price.
“Three and you have a deal,” he replied, and they shook on it. Rasmos then released her ankle from its cuff tying her to the bed. “What’s so special about her anyway?”
“She’s my masterpiece,” Greegis replied as he took hold of the leash still attached to the collar around Kyra’s neck. He pulled her to him and then stroked her cheek with his hand when she fell into his embrace, ignoring her obvious upset.
Kyra had no strength left to fight him, but still couldn’t hide her distaste at having been sold to him after such swift and merciless negotiations between the two Thraks. “She’s the one and only living testament to my work. The one that got away, but now I’m determined to keep her.” He tried to scoop her up into his arms, but she could think of nothing worse than letting the horrible Thrak hold her, so tried to scurry away. “Please, Kyra. Don’t be so damned pathetic. You’ll never see the inside of my lab again just so long as you do as you’re told.” He grabbed her again, gathering her up in his arms. “I’ve done great things in the search for answers from your race, but every one of my lab-rats was taken for dissection or put in stasis to be used for the cure. Not you though. Thanks to Thrayke and his foolish assumption he could keep you for himself you’ve been allowed to live with my treatment flowing through your veins. Even Kronus thought you could belong with him, when all along you belonged to neither of them. You were always mine.”
Greegis yanked Kyra to her feet by the arm. She stood on wobbly legs, and was then forced to follow him out into the hall thanks to the leash he still held tightly. Rasmos watched her with a smirk, and inside she wanted to lash out at him—to go for the eyes or the balls and make sure neither worked again. However, her starved and exhausted body was in no mood to co-operate with her brain’s command. She was a zombie, mindlessly following the lead of a man she despised, but knew she was in no position to argue with him either. Rasmos had won in the end, after all. Despite her withstanding his beatings, she was broken. Kyra wanted to scream. In fact, she realized Greegis didn’t know she was no longer mute, so she did. Kyra screamed at the top of her lungs for help in the hope that someone might hear her and come to her aid, but it was no use. She was met with nothing but silence from the empty corridor.
Greegis came to a stop, slapped her across the cheek, and forced her into one of the other empty rooms where he instructed that she take a shower. Kyra did as he asked and then sobbed her heart out the entire way through her wash routine. She was in there so long he had to drag her out of it again, but she simply hadn’t been able to get clean. No matter how hard she’d scrubbed, the dirt wouldn’t come off and she’d scoured so hard her skin was raw.
Kyra dried off in silence, trying to ignore her captor who stood watching over her, but then had no choice other than to let Greegis dress her when she realized he was holding the only set of clothes in the otherwise empty room.
A new day was dawning and the planet Thrakor was on the horizon. She was meant to be leaving the ship with Thrayke so
they could start their life anew, but now had to accept that her arrival on Thrakor wasn’t going to happen the way they’d both imagined. Unless by some miracle he found her in time, she would instead start her refuge there as whatever Greegis decided was befitting of her. She assumed she was heading off to become another of his apparent slaves, but guessed only time would truly tell.
Chapter Five
Bella and baby Junior waited until the ship was almost empty before she took the strategically well-fed bundle and hid with him in one of Minic’s huge cases. It thankfully wasn’t long before they were in one of the small crafts heading off towards their new home and she soon began to relax. Minic had been honest and told Bella how he would be severely punished if they were discovered, but had assured his lover that she and their child were worth the risk and early on in the journey had hinted how they weren’t the only stowaways aboard the ship.
Kyra and Thrayke had proved as much and Bella wondered what’d happened to her the last few days. Minic had told her there’d been a problem, but wouldn’t say anything more, so she just hoped Kyra was currently in a case on her way to a new home as well. As Lawbringer, Minic had told her how he was powerful and wealthy enough to have many contacts across his home planet and that he’d secured them a new home in an incredibly small village far removed from the everyday socialites and high society Thraks atop their hierarchical ladder. He would continue working for Kronus, but commute back and forth to the city rather than live there. Minic had already spread the lies that he was done with the hectic city and wanted some solitude. Much like many in their race, he’d always been the private type, so none of his peers had found anything wrong with his need for peace and quiet now that their mission was complete.
