No Mercy - Book 2: Trek Mi Q'an Series

by Jaid Black

  Kil’s entire body stilled. His eyebrows shot up as he regarded Rem. “You named your heir for me?” he asked quietly.

  “Aye.” Rem smiled as he passed his son over to his brother. Now Kil held both babies. “For you and Dak.”

  “What’s his name?” Kil asked as one side of his mouth kicked up into a semi-grin.

  “Kilak,” Giselle answered.

  His gaze clashed with hers as he inclined his head. “You do me an honor.”

  “So,” Rem asked as he took the babies from their uncle and bent to place them at Giselle’s breasts, “you haven’t yet said why it is you bothered to come here.” One eyebrow rose fractionally. “And with your hunters no less.”

  Kil sighed. “Mayhap we should discuss this...” He glanced quickly toward Giselle then back to his brother. “...alone.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like to be kept in the dark. And worse yet, some strange premonition was whispering to her that he’d come here expecting trouble. “What is it?” she murmured as Rem settled the babies at her nipples. “I want to know too.”

  “Go on, brother,” Rem said seriously. “Gis and I have been through too much together in so short a time. We’ve no secrets from the other.”

  Kil appeared to think that over. Eventually he relented on a sigh. “Let me come straight to the point then, brother. I came here with my hunters because I expect that we will be hunted.” At Rem’s furrowed brow, Kil gave him the truth in whole realizing it would serve naught to lie to him. He told him about the devolved creature, about its escape from the penal colony of Trukk, and about how the warrior guardsmen had died.

  “So you see,” he finished up by saying, “I feared for your safety. ‘Tis common knowledge that predators do not exist on Joo, leastways no predators I’ve heard tell of.” He shrugged his shoulders dismissively, but Giselle realized the gesture wasn’t as casual as he’d intended it to be. They’d never say the words aloud, she knew, but these two brothers loved each other. “’Twould be passing easy to be ambushed unawares on a planet where the fiercest known animal is the jee-jee bug.”

  Rem had to grin at that. Giselle, however, was growing more upset by the second. She had a feeling that...oh god. “Kil?”

  “Aye?”

  “This...creature...” Her tongue darted out to wet her parched lips. “Is it? Is it...?” She sighed, her worried eyes meeting his.

  “Aye,” Kil said softly.

  Rem took a deep breath. “’Twas what I almost became,” he admitted aloud, surprising Kil.

  “I didn’t realize you had knowledge of your...devolution.” His head cocked as he studied his brother’s visage. “The Chief Priestess assures me that the joining did much to cure you.” He pinned Giselle with his gaze. “If you have a care for my brother you will do as the most revered mystic amongst us advises and milk his rod as often as ‘tis possible.”

  Giselle felt her cheeks pinken at his bluntness. “Of course.”

  Kil nodded, pleased by her quick reply.

  “What else did Ari say?” Rem asked, wanting to know the whole of it.

  Kil found his first smile as he clapped his brother on the back. “If your nee’ka milks your rod often then you will be completely cured in a few short Yessat years.”

  Giselle shook her head and sighed. She should have known the cure would be a sexual one. She shifted her gaze to the babies at her breasts.

  Rem let out a breath of relief. “Thank the goddess.”

  “Aye.” Kil nodded. “Oh—she also advises you to steer Giselle clear of consummation feasts until the predator has been totally submerged.”

  Rem’s jaw clenched. “I agree,” he ground out, the idea of her being touched by another warrior too unsettling to contemplate, “and ‘tis one of the reasons I joined my nee’ka to me without—”

  The sound of discharging zykifs outside of the tent brought Rem and Kil to immediate attention.

  “What is it?” Giselle asked worriedly, her green eyes rounding with trepidation as her head shot up. “Why are they firing?”

  Death’s face appeared in the tent a moment later. He looked over to the two Kings as he bade Yoli with a gesture to go inside. “It’s out there,” he rumbled, his face uncharacteristically blanched. “And it’s already killed two of your hunters, my friend.”

  Kil’s nostrils flared. “By the sands!” he swore. Readying his weapon, he inclined his head to Rem. “’Tis best if you remain behind to guard the wenches and panis.”

  Rem was already taking up a position by the door, his weapon prepared to detonate. “Aye,” he agreed. “I will seal the tent when you take your leave.” He hesitated for a brief moment. “But be careful, aye?”

  Kil realized his brother thought him too battle-hungry as it was. Unfortunately, he conceded, ‘twas naught but the truth. “Aye,” he said softly.

  And then he was gone, Death fast on his heels.

  Wide-eyed, Giselle clutched the babies a bit tighter. She was quiet for a moment, but could only stand the suspense for so long. She needed a question answered.

  After exchanging a worried look with Yoli, Giselle glanced toward Rem. “Is a devolved creature that powerful?” she whispered to her husband’s back.

  He stilled. She saw his muscles clench. “Aye,” he murmured.

  * * * * *

  Rem kissed his wee hatchlings atop their fluffy golden heads, then bent his neck to sip from his nee’ka’s lips. “Do not look so troubled, my love. I know in my hearts that Death and my brother need me. But I will come back to you.”

  Giselle closed her eyes briefly as she dragged in a breath. “But what if the creature comes here and hurts the babies while—”

  “Nay.” Rem shook his head. “When I seal the tent, ‘tis impossible for anything—anything—to break the shield.”

  She didn’t like this, not one little bit. But neither would she try to keep him from doing what he felt was right. Giselle knew that if anything happened to Kil and Death when Rem could have aided them...

  She sighed. He would never forgive himself.

  “Gis,” he said gently, nudging her chin up to force her to meet his gaze, “I will be back the soonest. ‘Tis a vow amongst Sacred Mates.”

  She forced a smile to her lips. “I love you.”

  “And I love you.” He kissed the tip of her spotted nose. “They’ve been gone for nigh unto two hours. I best leave.”

  As she watched him go, as she listened to the laser-like sound the tent emitted as it sealed, Giselle knew that Rem hadn’t told her the entire truth. It wasn’t just a worry for Kil and Death that had caused him to go.

  He had also left for the creature. Rem didn’t want any warrior save himself to extinguish the life of that which he’d almost become.

  Chapter 19

  For an hour Rem tracked the creature through the carnage it had left behind. Mangled, bloody body parts were scattered every few minutes or so, a testament to the creature’s brute strength that it could make short work of at least five armed hunters.

  But then, as if it had disappeared into thin air, the trail of dined upon carcasses stopped abruptly. For another solid hour Rem continued to track it, further and further into the silvered jungles of Mount Lia until he at last realized he was being led in a loop of sorts.

  Coming to an abrupt halt, he breathed in deeply and allowed something to happen that he knew was dangerous to arouse. He invited the predator in him to surface. ‘Twas mayhap foolhardy, but he sensed that his brother and best friend’s lives might hinge upon it.

  His eyes flicking a warning green, his teeth baring slightly, Rem invited enough of the predator to emerge that his senses might be tripled in their intensity. He smiled without humor when, a moment later, he detected three scents that under normal circumstances he would not have been able to track unless the scent had belonged to his Sacred Mate.

  All three scents were male, he noted, but only two were familiar. Allowing the predator to emerge a bit more, his head shot up an
d he darted his glowing green gaze in the appropriate direction. The scents were headed south. Toward Giselle and his hatchlings.

  Fangs exploded into his mouth fully, the challenge to his territory and possessions not allowed to go unpunished even though ‘twas impossible to break the tent’s seal should the creature find them. As his body darted through the silvered trees with unnatural speed, his senses following the scent of warm blood and beating hearts, it occurred to Rem from somewhere in the haze of his mind that only a small part of who he was remained. The rest was all predator.

  * * * * *

  Giselle and Yoli huddled together with the panis and dogs and screamed while the creature made yet another attempt to slice through the tent. The sound of its razor-sharp nails scraping against the sealed structure was terrifying in the extreme.

  The women had tried to remain quiet at first, hoping it would give up and go away after meeting with a lack of success. But after several minutes had passed by and it began to sound as though the creature was making some headway into getting through the seal, they had both started screaming in the hopes that Rem would hear their cries from wherever he was and come save them.

  The clawing stopped altogether, inducing the women to cease their yelling and dart their eyes about the tent nervously. Her breathing ragged, Giselle closed her eyes and silently cried when she realized the new sound she heard was a sniffing one. The creature was running its nose about the fortress, making certain its prey was still inside. Satisfied that it was, it began to claw at the tent’s material again.

  Giselle could withstand no more. If they were all slated to die this day then she wanted to be prepared for whatever it was that meant to take them out. She needed to see this thing, didn’t want any heart-stopping last minute surprises as the creature clawed its way through the structure and snuffed out their lives.

  Handing Kilak over to Yoli who was already cradling Zari, Giselle slowly crawled to the front of the tent, preparing not to open it, but to peep through the portal that permitted one to see outside. Her entire body was shaking as she fixed her eye against the portal peep and, dragging in a ragged breath, scanned the perimeter for the creature.

  There it was.

  Giselle sucked in her breath at the hideous sight that greeted her. This creature, this...thing, was a gross caricature of its former self. Its naked body was gigantic and as thickly muscled as any warrior’s, but was also possessed of a metallic blue skin that doubled as a shield of armor. Red, razor-sharp nails jutted out of each of its digits. Its face was hideously distorted, veins bulging at the temples as though they meant to pop through, serrated dagger-like teeth protruding from its mouth, still dripping of blood from a fresh kill.

  But it was the eyes that got to her, the eyes that looked so much like Rem’s during his bouts of near-madness. They were a dull glowing green with piercing rays of light flecks that brought to mind old reruns of the TV show The Incredible Hulk when mild-mannered Bruce Banner would snap and his eyes would light up as he prepared to transform into his other, baser self. Those eyes gave her the shivers.

  Giselle bit down on her lip nervously when the creature moved from out of her sites. “Where did you go?” she murmured, pressing her eye closer to the porthole. “Where are—oh Jesus.”

  One lit-up green eye appeared on the other side of the porthole, pressing itself against the crystal viewer to gaze back at her. Instinctively jumping away, she fell on her buttocks to the ground.

  Her heart-rate picking up so rapidly she could feel blood rushing to her face, Giselle crawled back toward Yoli and her children in fast movements and huddled with them. She met the bound servant’s gaze. “If it finds a way to break in,” she whispered, “we’ll never survive it.”

  Wide-eyed, Yoli nodded her understanding. “’Tis glad I am,” she whispered back, “that I will not have to die alone.”

  Giselle closed her eyes briefly. “Me too,” she murmured. She reached out and squeezed the bound servant’s hand. “I don’t know how you were captured or why, but for whatever it’s worth I’m sorry your last moments might end in captivity.”

  Yoli squeezed her hand back. “I’ve less than a Yessat year’s worth of servitude left, but it hasn’t been so bad.”

  Giselle was curious about her despite the dire circumstances. Besides, if they were going to die, they might as well calm each other with talking rather than spend their last moments worrying about what would happen anyway. She picked Zari up and kissed the top of her head before turning her gaze back to Yoli. “If we were to survive and you returned to Death’s sector with him, what would you do when he released you?”

  “I’d stay with him if he’d have me, but ‘tis well known that warriors grow bored with bedmates who are not nee’kas very quickly.” She shrugged absently, her massive breasts jiggling a bit as she did so. “Leastways, I’ll perchance have enough credits by then to make a better life for myself than I’d had before my capture.”

  “How so?”

  “Bound servants are permitted to keep what their masters adorn them in when they are released. In truth, the quality of just one of the qi’ka skirts we wear is fine enough to be traded at market for many credits.” She grinned. “Besides the promise of pleasure, ‘tis the reason why you’ll often times find that servants compete mightily for the master’s attention. The more he covets you, the better he’ll adorn you, dressing you up like a favored doll.”

  Giselle’s lips pinched together in a frown. It was so deplorable to treat women as sexual chattel, but she knew none of the warriors saw it that way. They felt it was their right to take what they would.

  She thought about the skirts that made up the bottom half of the qi’ka and could see the truth in what Yoli had said. What Giselle knew about otherworldly clothing material was next to nothing, but the way they shimmered brought to mind precious gems and she could only assume that somehow the material was spun with them.

  A deafening thump on the top of the tent broke the women from their talking. Giselle sucked in her breath, staring up at the ceiling in horror when she realized that the creature was trying its luck up there. And if her ears hadn’t deceived her, if what she had just heard was indeed a tiny tear in the seal, then the monster’s luck had just turned for the better while theirs had just run out.

  The women huddled closer together, the children between them. Bryony and Tess, sensing that they were being stalked by something that they could not get away from, made little whimpering sounds as they settled bodily against Giselle.

  The women screamed as the tent seal popped and the creature burst through the roof, landing on its feet in front of them.

  * * * * *

  Rem followed the two familiar scents, bursting through the trunk of a silver tree to get to them. He was so relieved to find Kil and Death intact and uneaten that before he’d realized what had happened, the predator within him had submerged and he was fully a warrior once again.

  His eyes flicked a final warning green before returning fully to blue and shutting off. Panting heavily from his earlier run, he squatted down over the two bodies and felt for hearts beats. He let out a breath of relief. They were both alive.

  Kil was the first to emerge from unconsciousness, rubbing his temples as he slowly sat up. “By the sands,” he grumbled, accepting a hands up from Rem then turning around to offer the same to Death, “never let it get out you found me thusly, brother.”

  Rem found his first smile in many hours. “’Tis strange indeed to find the mighty warlord Kil Q’an Tal in the after-effects of a swoon.”

  Kil’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I did not swoon,” he gritted out.

  Rem merely chuckled.

  Realizing he was being teased, he let his brother’s insolent remark go by and threw a hand toward a mangled carcass a ways back. “It struck without warning. We had no time to discharge our weapons, not even a moment to use our powers.” He shook his head. “The creature burst through the trees with such a show of force that I s
uspect ‘twas the catapulting trees themselves that knocked Death and I out.”

  Death nodded. “Aye,” he grumbled. “I saw them shower toward us a fraction of a Nuba-second before we were sprayed with them.”

  Rem glanced over at the thick, heavy trees that were topped off with sharp branches. They were lucky they had been merely knocked out and not impaled by some of the sharper fronds. He glanced back to the carcass, his eyes closing briefly when it dawned on him ‘twas one of his own men lying over there half-eaten. “How many are dead?”

  “Before we were knocked out about nine,” Kil answered, brushing off the back of his leathers. “I’ve no idea how long we were unconscious so now ‘tis hard to say.”

  “I wonder,” Rem said as his forehead wrinkled, “why the creature didn’t bother taking the deuce of you out whilst you were knocked out unawares.”

  Kil and Death had no answer to that. “’Tis hard to say. Mayhap it prefers tracking moving prey.”

  “For the thrill,” Death agreed in his baritone rumble.

  “Where were the remaining hunters,” Rem asked, “when last you knew?”

  “I had them spread out to all areas of the mountain to hunt.” Kil shook his head. “They could be anywhere do they live.”

  “Is there a rendezvous time?”

  “Aye. In approximately three more hours.”

  Rem nodded. “We’ll have a better idea of the death toll in three hours time then.”

  Kil let out a breath, feeling as though he’d led his own men into a death trap. “Aye,” he agreed in a murmur.

  The sounds of female screaming reached all three warriors’ ears simultaneously. Rem’s eyes widened and his hearts rate picked up. “Nee’ka,” he said softly. With one last burst of unnatural speed, he set off through the forest.

  Chapter 20

  Giselle and Yoli scooted away from the devolved beast, a reflexive action destined to serve no purpose. The remainder of the tent had been scattered to the purple winds, leaving them completely bared to the elements. The primal instinct to stay alive, to protect her children, took over and Giselle’s eyes began darting about seeking a method of escape.