The ground changed. She ran onto a steep incline, grabbing hold of a tree limb when the sheer willpower of her legs couldn’t make the trip up and over the edge.
“This was not well done of us, bride,” a man said as Riona crawled onto a cushion of yellow plants. The words caused her to press low to the ground. She found the bearer of the voice easily. Bron carried her sister in his arms. Aeron wasn’t moving. Her limbs flailed uselessly as he turned her. “You will understand, woman, that you are my wife. You will not leave me. I cannot let you go. Once we’re in the mountain fortress, you—”
Riona gave a soft gasp of alarm. The man glanced around the forest. She buried her face in the yellow groundcover and closed her eyes tight, careful not to move.
Chapter Four
Draig Northern Mountain Fortress, planet of Qurilixen
Aeron?
Riona tried to lift her head. It felt heavy, as if a weight pressed down upon her skull. She flung her hand over her face, swatting at the air. Nothing was there. Her vision was blurred, light and shadows dancing in chaos.
What happened? Where was she?
She swung her arm again. It was the only limb that worked. A strange, dull lethargy vibrated along her nerves. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t feel like this. Her legs were there, she felt them, but they were paralyzed. Her feet itched but she couldn’t scratch one foot with the other’s toenails.
What’s happening?
Aeron?
Thinking of her sister, Riona forced her unwilling body to move. She felt the cold press of metal against her hand and grabbed it. With a groan, she pulled. Her body slid a few inches. Unfortunately, the act used up her reserve of strength and her arm fell, shaking and useless.
“Stop moving,” she whispered to her vision. The dancing lights and shadows did not listen. She closed her eyes. It helped a little, but then her mind began to spin, making her nauseous. A tear slid over her cheek. What was happening to her?
The numbness began to burn. Every nerve lit with instant heat. And still she couldn’t move her limbs. She was trapped in the ever-growing blaze of invisible fire.
A scream ripped from her throat. The sound didn’t help, but it was the only thing she could manage.
* * *
Mirek jerked awake and leapt out of bed. He was completely shifted into dragon form by the time his feet hit the ground. He followed the sound of the scream, ignoring the stone steps leading down to the main level of his home as he jumped over the curving metal rail to land on the floor below. His shifted legs absorbed the fall easily. He kept running. Riona’s screams only grew louder.
At the far end of his home, he slid to a stop and pressed his taloned fingers into the door sensor. It scanned his biometric signature. The privacy setting was activated on the door so he couldn’t see inside. He kept it that way to give his wife privacy when visitors came to his home. The screams blasted now that the isolation room was opened.
“Riona,” Mirek said, hurrying inside. He knew she wouldn’t hear him. She never had in all the months she’d been in the isolation room he’d built for her. Still, he kept talking. “It will be over in a moment.”
He grabbed the handheld medic unit and went to her side. The sight of her red skin blistered and peeling still alarmed him every time he saw it. The Medical Alliance doctors had likened it to being thrown into a fire that never completely snuffed.
He’d only spoken to his wife while she was conscious for a short time at their wedding ceremony, but he could well remember what she looked like without the wounds. When he closed his eyes, the rush he felt upon first seeing her, his life mate, came over him anew. He tried to hold on to that moment, those few words spoken. It was hard in light of her screaming in agony.
Mirek held the unit against her arm and pressed a button. Medicine was injected into her. The screams fell into moans filled with pain. The medicine was working. He couldn’t touch her, couldn’t hold her. If he tried to physically comfort her it would only hurt her more. Helpless, all he could do was wait and pray to his gods that her illness would end soon, or that he may take it from her. Mirek would give anything to take her place so her suffering would stop. Months might have passed, but it felt like a lifetime. At first, she’d been deathlike, a limp doll in his arms. Then the screaming had started. It was becoming worse and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He stood over her, watching until she settled into a dreamless sleep. Taking her arm that had fallen aside, he gingerly lifted it and placed it next to her. His touch made her groan in protest. Her position on the bed was off center, but he decided not to try to move her.
When the moans finally stopped, he hoped she couldn’t feel what was happening to her. He had a lot of time to think about it and knew this punishment should have been his. He was the one who’d defied the gods and taken her before the council so that they may marry without spending the traditional night in the marriage tent. It was his haste to be married, his vanity and pride, that had brought this upon her. What other explanation was there? He should have waited a year for the next ceremony. The gods had revealed her after the ceremony, they’d wanted to give him hope for the coming year, but he’d failed their test and claimed her early. This was a steep price to pay for his impatience.
“I’m sorry, Riona,” he whispered, sinking to the floor. The cold metal of the isolation room stung his naked flesh, but he didn’t care. Why should he be comfortable when his wife was in so much pain? “This is not how it should be.”
Mirek remained well past the moment the cold chilled his flesh and the hard floor caused his body to ache. He wanted to suffer. He deserved to suffer. Yet for all the physical discomfort, the worst part was watching his sick, unmoving bride. He stared at her chest, counting her breaths, desperate for the moment her anguish would end.
* * *
Watching Lady Clara of the Redding reunite with her parents was painfully awkward to behold. The visiting nobleman, the Great Lord of the Redding, demanded the customary pleasantries—not that there was much pleasantness to the great lord. In fact, the man was as emotionless as his daughter had been when she’d first arrived at the Breeding Festival. Mirek had almost rather invited the Lithorians over for drinks and stare sideways for an hour while reciting the proper talking phrases. At least at the end of that meeting the women would have their chocolate.
Then again, Great Lord of the Redding was assisting them with ridding Qurilixen’s mines of an alien menace. The Tyoe aliens had tried to take over their ore mines and had pumped nasty chemicals into their mountains to do it. Clara’s species of humanoid had telepathic powers that interfered with the Tyoe’s biochemistry, basically boiling them from the inside without having to touch them. Needless to say, the Tyoe did not want to fight the Redde armies in battle and had flown away as fast as their gelatinous little bodies could take them.
Mirek reminded himself to be a little more understanding of the Redde’s stoic ways. And technically, these people were family since Lady Clara had married Mirek’s brother, Vlad. Even now, after she’d settled into her marriage, it was hard to determine what Clara was thinking. He’d give her credit for trying to smile, but sometimes the gesture seemed forced, giving credence to the fact she’d not been allowed to show her emotions growing up.
Despite her limitations when it came to facial expressions, Clara was a very caring person. She visited Riona every day, even though the sleeping lady was a stranger to her. That alone gave Mirek a high opinion of his new sister. So when she’d asked him to greet her parents, he’d agreed without question.
They were in the scroll room, one of the few rooms in the fortress home that the visitors deemed suitable to their nobility. Mirek suspected it had to do more with the comfort of the wide chairs to accommodate the great lady’s large clothing than anything else. Mirek watched as Clara lifted her hand and let her wrist hover before her mother’s painted face. Their towering wigs had amused him at first. He remembered thinking his nephews might ha
ve cone-shaped heads.
Great Lady Jaene’s dress must have weighed more than her spaceship. It was constructed with more jewels than material. The heavy stones formed a giant fat bell of a skirt and glistened in the light when she moved. It was the same type of dress Clara had donned at her wedding. Now Clara wore a shapeless bag of pink and purple stripes over her frame, which she referred to as a traditional Redde maternity gown, due to her advancing pregnancy. Otherwise pregnant-shaped daughter bell would probably fall over trying to lift her hand forward to greet mother bell. Both women’s faces were pale from white paint with bright spots of color to accent the cheeks, lashes and lips.
Clara did not dress like a Redde noblewoman when her parents were gone. In fact, Mirek thought her much happier when her parents were away. Or rather, she looked happier.
“Welcome to my home, Great Lady,” Clara said solemnly to her mother, not showing any emotion in her expression. The Redde people did not do anything warmly.
Jaene lifted her hand to greet her daughter, holding her wrist out to hover before Clara’s face before letting it fall. They didn’t touch. In a whisper Mirek could easily hear, the visiting lady said, “I am glad to see the barbarians let you have your cosmetics.”
“I had them on last time you visited,” Clara reminded her.
“But not the first time. I still dream ill from seeing your naked flesh.” Jaene gave a sidelong glance to Mirek. This was the third time Great Lord and Lady had deigned to visit their daughter’s new home world. If there was affection in the family, Mirek couldn’t see it. Great Lord acted more concerned with his powdered wig and long jacket remaining immaculate than his daughter’s new life. Being a Redde male, he did not wear the cosmetics.
Clara also looked at Mirek briefly before gesturing to her gown to redirect the conversation, “I received your noble maternity package. Thank you, Great Lady.”
They kept speaking, but Mirek didn’t really listen. He tugged at his sleeve to reveal the thin white band around his wrist, taking comfort in seeing it was there. He hadn’t wanted to leave his wife, but after months of pacing his home waiting for her to wake up, he didn’t have much of a choice. He had duties to attend to. As the Mining Ambassador, he couldn’t keep putting off his responsibilities. He was, quite literally, his people’s link to the outside worlds, and it fell to him to deal with any visiting aliens. Normally, he enjoyed his work.
The band on his arm began to tickle. He dug a finger under it and scratched. When the bracelet vibrated it indicated movement inside his wife’s isolation chamber. Itching probably meant he needed to charge the device or the sensor was broken. When he’d checked on her that morning, nothing had changed, and her bouts with pain only seemed to happen during the night hours. He shook his wrist several times to get it to stop.
Lady Jaene moved her hovering wrist to Clara’s stomach. Her eyes darkened slightly. “Your grandson does very well, Great Lord.” This seemed to please the man, who nodded a couple of times. Clara’s mother wasn’t the only one with special sensing abilities. The Redde women communicated with things most people could not. Clara, herself, carried a telepathic link to the ceffyl herds. Mirek rarely rode the creatures, but many of his people did. He spent most of his time on space ships.
“How is the next generation?” Clara asked. “And my siblings? Are my sisters adjusting well after their pregnancy stasis?”
“Thirty girls,” Great Lord stated, as if that was answer enough.
“They are very happy you finally married so that your sisters were allowed to wake up and start their families,” Jaene said. “Great Lord was perceptive in his resolve to send you here. Your son is proof that he is very wise in his decisions and should not be questioned.”
Did Jaene just give credit to her husband for the Qurilixen blue sun’s genetic-altering properties?
Mirek absently scratched at the band. The tickling sensation grew worse and he stiffened, making a small sound of realization.
“Lord Mirek?” Clara asked, her eyes rounding slightly. She looked from his face to his wrist? A ghost of a smile began to play over her features but she quickly subdued it. “Your presence is not required at this time. I wish to hear about my nieces. Please rejoin us when it is convenient for you to do so.”
He nodded his thanks as she gave him an out. Mumbling what he hoped was the proper phrases, he walked quickly from the room. The vibration against his flesh grew. Mirek forced himself to keep walking until he reached the end of the commons area. Clara’s parents would be insulted if he ran.
Alek stood with his wife, a very pregnant Kendall, in the corridor joining Mirek’s home to his brothers’. Her cheeks were flushed from their daily walk around the forest. When Alek tried to smile at him, Mirek simply shot past, turning the corner to run down the hall leading to his private wing.
“Mirek? What is it?” Kendall called after him. “Do you need help?”
“My wife,” Mirek yelled in excitement and fear. The vibrations grew more insistent and the fierceness of its silent alarm could only mean one thing. “My wife is finally awake!”
* * *
“Aw-ow!” Riona groaned as she pushed up. The medical unit she lay on retracted its needle. The sharp, fat point alone looked bigger than some of the knives she’d carried in her travels. Automatically reaching for her back to feel where it had been inserted, she winced. Her fingers came back smeared with blood and a sticky green substance. Whatever it had been doing to her, it hadn’t finished the job.
Beneath the smear of blood on her fingers, her skin was red and bumpy. Tiny blisters ran their way up her forearm covered in a fine white powder. She examined her skin, flipping her hand back and forth, as if staring would make the blemishes go away. Riona slapped at her arm, trying to wipe the blisters off, only to realize her other arm looked just as bad. She was covered.
Touching her face, she searched for a reflective surface. The best she could find was the thick door. It would have been clear but for the privacy setting obscuring the outside from view. She made a move to stand only to feel a tug at her waist. She lifted her arms, recoiling from the sight of thick yellow tubes inserted into her side. Shaking, she pulled at them, wanting them out. The medical tubes must have been inside her for a while because the friction of removing them burned, indicating her body had begun to heal itself to them. She gave a small cry as they finally tugged free. Yellow fluid tinged with blood trickled from the wounds.
The small room was built as some sort of laboratory. Handheld medics, injector refills and other more primitive medicines lined the transparent cabinet on the wall. She walked past the bottles, seeing tight handwritten script on the apothecary containers. The air smelled sickeningly sweet, like a decontaminator after its cleaning cycle. The only real furniture was the medical bed she’d been resting on.
Holding her side, she limped to the door to see her face. A drop of blood trickled down her back and trailed over her naked skin. Her blurred reflection revealed red splotches along her entire body—her very naked body. She belatedly covered her chest with a gasp and looked for her clothes. It didn’t take long to deduce there was nothing for her to wear.
Frightened, she went to the door sensor and placed her hand against it. The unit tried to suck her finger into the wall. She jerked back just in time to see an electrical snap inside the formed indent where her finger had been. The sensor molded back into a flat surface.
Drawing attention to her naked self was the last thing she wanted to do, but what choice did she have? It was quite possible sensors had detected her movements the second she’d awoken and alerted her captors.
The room looked a little too technically advanced for the primitive Draig people. Had they sold her? Or worse, had Range found her? She remembered intense agony and being paralyzed. It would be like him to take out his frustrations in such a way. She looked at her skin. Well, she wouldn’t have taken him for being this sadistic, but then she’d never skipped out on owing him fifty-thousand space cred
its before.
Who was she trying to fool? The money would be secondary to the man’s pride. Insulting the pirate didn’t seem as funny at the moment. The thing about criminals was they didn’t have a problem breaking the law. Kidnapping, torture… Riona looked at her hips and legs. What else had they done to her? Her lower stomach hurt, but then so did the rest of her body.
“Hello?” Her voice was raspy and her throat ached.
Riona couldn’t think about it. If he’d sexually assaulted her, that very act would have begun her biological countdown.
“Range?” she called, leaning her forehead against the door. There was no one else angry enough with her to do this. The only way she would have such a rash was if it was intentional. It wasn’t like they were living in the twentieth century. Medical booths could cure just about anything. If someone had enough technology to put her in this room, they could have easily given her medical treatment. The fact her skin was flaking off in strange patches meant her current state was on purpose. “I know you can hear me. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to deal.”
He didn’t answer.
“You have to listen, Range. Think about your crew. What’s more important? Revenge or loot? I can get your money for you. In fact, I was working on it when you came for me. That little planet you picked me up on, you saw it, you know the kind of primitives they have there. Well, they also have an ore that’s worth a fortune.”
Still, no answer.
“I was going to get you jewels,” she whispered, thinking of the royal crowns. She should have taken them. At the time, she hadn’t wanted to be that kind of thief, but in light of her painfully real alternative, she was quickly changing her mind. Tears threatened her eyes and she hated the weakness of them. Her voice barely sounded as she added, “I had a way to get a reward. I was going to save them from…”
The Impatient Lord Page 6
