by Isabel Wroth
Sarazen’s Betrayal
Book 1.2
Copyright © 2016 by Isabel Wroth
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real events, people, or places are entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without the permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review.
All quotations used in this book are part of public domain works and/or translated copies existing in public domain. This book contains mature content, including graphic sex, vulgar language, and violence. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this type of content is disturbing to you.
Acknowledgment
Another anthology down, many more to come!
Thank you to Shelda, Sophie, Carla, Stefanie, and Sonceia for your help editing and proofing!
Friends and readers, your assistance and continued support is what makes my job such a joy.
Sarazen’s Betrayal
One
The citadel was so quiet at night. The hustle and bustle of transports and people moving through the streets now silent. There weren’t any couples milling around, no smells of pastries being cooked. It was the perfect time to walk the balcony corridors in solitude. Cassie could see a few lights still on in the arched windows across the cavernous city.
Leaning on one of the pillars, she could look out and see it all. Every beautiful balcony. Every rooftop of the shops and homes on the lowest level. From this height, the layout of the maze of buildings was rather ingenious. Every square inch of the ground level was designed to be both beautiful and functional. The streets themselves twisted and turned without warning, each able to be used to slow down an enemy invasion.
Too bad it didn’t hold some secret design to say when the next attack would happen.
Cassie was glad to know that whatever was going on, she and the other human survivors hadn’t been the cause. A catalyst certainly, their unknown potential a dangerous anomaly that now forced their unseen enemies to reveal themselves.
Being thrown headfirst into political intrigue had not been what Cassie envisioned when she had been told of her new home on an alien planet, with an alien husband. An alien husband who was absent enough of the time as to make her question whether or not they were actually bound together in any significant manner.
Which was why Cassie was up roaming the halls alone at what would have been three am by an earth clock.
Things with Falken had started off…rough. Mostly because of her. Cassie had been so suspicious of his motives, of the motives of the Sarazens in general. The Aria had only just been invaded by Medusa’s toxic offspring, the Na’ah. She could still smell the sulphuric stench of the viscous fluid they secreted, still hear the rattling slither of their tails on the deck.
She often woke from nightmares, remembering that horrible stench and the sounds of screaming. So to her way of thinking, it hadn’t been unreasonable to be suspicious of Falken and the others.
At first, Cassie hadn’t believed in their fated mate crap, but after spending a week being relentlessly courted by Falken, after trying all her normal tricks of being rude, crude and downright nasty to get him to just leave her alone, he still hadn’t gone away. Cassie had started to consider perhaps, just maybe, Falken meant all the wonderful, fanciful things he said.
Calling her his fated mate, his one, his solace after so long alone. She had just begun to truly buy into it, and the situation changed. Changed the moment she had gone down to medical with the other human women for their required medical checkup.
Falken and Ga’rae both failed to mention the ‘serum’ her translator chip had been injected with had actually been Falken’s blood. Cassie had no idea that one injection would change the course of her life, irrevocably. To their credit, none of the Sarazens had anticipated or even considered the changes that would come from the alien blood being introduced into her human system.
Cassie could now read and understand the Sarazen language, along with over two million other dialects. The translator chip was also programmed to learn other languages, which had answered the question of how the Sarazens had been able to speak English upon first encountering the humans. But that was just the nose of the asteroid.
In reaction to the stress and anger of learning about the details of the Sarazen Breeding Festival, Cassie, Andi, Clary and Gwen’s bodies had taken the alien blood of their mates and used it to mutate.
Cassie and the others now also had the ability to transform into a four-legged, cat-type creature, complete with tail and whiskers. Her very first transformation had been the most horrifyingly painful experience of Cassie’s entire life, and until she had been in the midst of that change, Falken had been too busy to speak to her. That had, at the time, been the crux of her rejection of their mating.
Cassie had portrayed it as anger and she was, in fact, still mad about it. Slightly.
Mad that she had needed to speak to Falken, needed answers from him after all the promises he had made to never hurt her. To never leave her alone, or let anything harm her ever again. Cassie had needed Falken to reassure her, and when she had demanded his presence, he hadn’t answered her.
Perhaps she could have asked nicely. Or maybe with a little bit less rage. But that was beside the point! The fact of the matter was that Falken hadn’t had time to speak to her. He had had time to speak to someone else. Time to instruct that warrior to tell Cassie, Falken didn’t have time to speak to her. Cassie had reacted badly after that.
She admitted it freely, and she did vaguely remember Falken trying desperately to get into the quarantined room Gwen had locked them into, fearing a viral reaction. Cassie remembered Falken carrying her to the medical bay after her change and refusing to leave her side despite how her beast had threatened and clawed at him.
The events that had followed still had the power to make her cheeks fire and her belly clench with mortification.
For days after her shift, days, Cassie had been a ravenous monster.
Not for food.
For sex.
Or blood.
It had been the latter she had wanted at the start of things.
Clary, Andi and Gwen had all changed back to their human form as quickly as possible. Cassie hadn’t been eager on revisiting the painful experience any time soon, so she had allowed her beast to take over and remained furry.
Hours later, Falken had tried to get Cassie to change back so he could get her into the regeneration chamber. Still in the driver’s seat, her beast had hissed, snarled and lashed out every time Falken had tried to get close. Falken wound up changing into his own beast to tackle Cassie to the deck, using his much heavier body to pin her to the floor, and bite down on her scruff.
It was like the small pain and the dominance of the position had flipped a switch in Cassie’s brain, turning off her desire to fight with him. But as soon as she managed to change back into human form, a different switch was flipped.
Falken had barely gotten them back to his quarters before Cassie was tearing his boots and pants off. Until they had finally passed out from exhaustion, they had been having sex on any surface possible. Violent, rough, amazing sex.
The rest of the trip back to the Sarazen home world had been hazed with endorphins and body crushing orgasms. To be honest, Cassie remembered very little of anything important until the night of the Breeding Festival. Niggles of guilt still tugged at her stomach when she thought about it. Clary and Gwen had ingested a pollen intended to deaden their mental bond with their mates. Andi hadn’t, and it wouldn’t have mattered if Cassie had or not. She and Falken’s bond was…unreliable at best.
> Cassie had pretended she couldn’t reach Falken via their bond, because she hadn’t wanted to admit that she was unable to make that connection with Falken. Cassie still couldn’t, not with any regularity.
There were moments, brief flashes, where she had touched his thoughts. Tapped into his feelings really. Those brief flashes had been quickly followed with Falken’s annoyance or some other negative feeling, so Cassie hadn’t made a habit of trying to touch her alien mate’s mind, fearing she would only feel his rejection.
Then again, upheaval. Change. More uncertainty.
After the attempted sabotage during the festival, Tarek’s brother had stepped down and Tarek once again was the king. The Asho.
Clary was a few months away from delivering her babies. Andi and Ohlen were constantly taking little trips around the territory. Gwen and Ga’rae were overwhelmed with medical investigations into the human hybrids and into the autopsies of the spies planted inside the pride.
Falken was the new Asho’s right hand, and these days Cassie rarely saw him.
It was as though she had become invisible to him as soon as her heat cycle had passed. Cassie felt like once she had finally submitted to Falken, relaxed and trusted that her beast wasn’t steering her down the wrong path, or putting her in danger by giving in, her mate was done with her.
Recognizing her own temper and her penchant for resorting to being ugly and crude when she was upset, Cassie had honestly tried to not fall back on such habits when communicating. She had tried, every way she knew how, to embrace this new chance at life on a planet so rich in history and filled with wondrous technological marvels. To turn over the proverbial leaf and explore her new world. But Falken had just distractedly patted her on the head and left with promises to see her later.
To take her somewhere later.
To show her her new home, later.
Always later.
Cassie tried not to take it so terribly personal. It wasn’t as though he was running off to go play with his friends. Falken was the right hand of a king who ruled over fifteen planets simultaneously. Falken was working hard alongside Tarek and Brennaugh to uncover all the players in this centuries old plot. One that had, so far, cost the lives of over six thousand Sarazens.
Andi had been taken right out from under Ohlen’s nose and nearly experimented on and killed.
Tarek’s father had been murdered by the warrior guarding his cell. Both T’kalis and that warrior had been implanted with a behavioral device that had basically made them puppets. The perfect spies.
Niora, T’mai’s previous mate, his false mate, had also been implanted and had also been a spy.
It was a huge mess and it was Falken’s job to assist in cleaning it up.
Which left Cassie with nothing to do but wander around like a ghost.
So far, her skills were unnecessary. Sarazens had no need for glorified librarians. That’s what Falken thought she was, though he called her a ‘records keeper.’ He thought she simply enjoyed reading books, so he had turned one of the small rooms of their suite into a holographic library with access to every book, public record and informational database throughout their fifteen planets, thinking to keep her occupied and out of his way. Cassie’s so-called mate had no idea what he had given her.
“Cassie? What are you doing up so late?”
Cassie forced herself not to jump in surprise.
So lost in thought, she hadn’t even noticed Clary and the ever-present shadows of her personal guard, coming up the hallway behind her. Cassie couldn’t help the smile that spread, watching Clary waddling towards her.
At eight months pregnant with twins, the former lieutenant was the size of a small moon. Clary’s belly entered a room before she did these days, and if she sat down, Tarek usually had to help her get back up.
Cassie gave an idle thought to how odd it was, not bad, but odd that from the amount of sex she and Falken had had, Cassie hadn’t gotten pregnant. At least twelve of the other hybrid humans had been bitten by the baby bug after the festival. Cassie was definitely not ready to add a baby to the list of things she needed to adjust to. It was just odd, a minor thought that continued to niggle, as Cassie had been receiving fertility enhancing hormones ever since she had turned fifteen.
“Couldn’t sleep.” Cassie answered with a shrug. “You?”
Clary made a face and rubbed at her swollen belly. “The kids are getting more restless these days. Getting comfortable is becoming an issue. What’s your excuse?”
Cassie fumbled for one that didn’t sound pathetic. “I suppose being cooped up in my quarters all day is just starting to get to me. And I like the view.”
Clary joined her at the rail to look out on the sleeping city, Ne’tare and Te’sha hovering close behind. Cassie relaxed, thinking she had dodged a micro asteroid. She really shouldn’t have opened her big mouth, but had she lied, Clary would have been able to smell it.
“Cooped up in your quarters?” Clary finally prompted.
Asteroid not dodged. Damn.
Cassie wrinkled her nose. “Falken turned the small room off our bedroom into a holo-room so I could enjoy the public library database.”
Clary made an interested noise, shifting to press her hands to her low back. “Find anything good?”
“Good, by whose standards?” Cassie could hear the bite in her own tone.
Clary looked sideways at her, arching a crimson eyebrow. “We’ll start with mine.”
“Well, then yes.” When Cassie failed to elaborate, Clary gave her an expectant, leading look. “I’ve found lineage charts. Clan reports during the time when T’kalis began his unification of the pride. I’ve found recorded communications that might offer insight into why this whole, plot behind the scenes to take down the pride, is going on.
“I’ve also found patterns that link some of the recently deceased warriors and females to those clans that rebelled against the unification. I may have even identified how the spies were chosen.”
Clary had turned to face her completely by the end of her testy little rant. Her lashes blinking in rapid fire. “Falken hasn’t mentioned anything so important to Tarek.”
Cassie snorted derisively. Stubbornly staring out onto the sleeping city, resisting the urge to let the ugliness of her temper spew out all over the other woman.
“Have you not told him about all this?” Clary asked, slightly incredulous.
A muscle ticked in Cassie’s forehead. “Telling him anything would require his presence in my near vicinity. Also, he assumed when I told him I was a data analyst that meant ‘librarian.’ Records Keeper is what he said. Apparently Sarazens don’t need any more records kept, so he set me up with the holo-room, patted me on the head and told me to have fun. I didn’t tell him to shove it up his ass because I’ve been trying to work on my temper.”
Cassie shot the other woman a dirty look when Clary choked on a laugh.
Opting to ignore Clary’s outburst, Cassie went on. “With nothing else to do, the project has taken on a life of its own. I finally had to ask Ga’rae to do the same kind of data download Ohlen did for Andi, only with the public records. I’ve got so much crap in my brain now, every time I close my eyes, I have a new idea. Or a new thread to follow the spider back to its web. And as I haven’t had to bother with the distraction of a mate, I’d say I have a shit ton of stuff that is likely quite relevant.”
“Nice biology reference.” Clary commented dryly.
“Thank you.” Cassie snapped back in annoyance. Clary didn’t seem to mind Cassie’s outburst of temper.
Sadly, it felt really good to vent.
Clary cleared her throat. “We’ll be having a meeting with Tarek, first thing tomorrow.”
*****
The following morning, Falken seemed extremely surprised to see Cassie at the meeting Clary called. It really sucked that Falken was so attractive. Cassie had an incredibly difficult time tearing her gaze off of him. Unlike most of the warriors, Falken didn’t wear his
hair in a long tail. He kept the dark mane trimmed to his neck so it was more of a traditional Mohawk.
Couple that with his chiseled features and the gorgeous gold of his eyes and Cassie was sunk. Not to mention his gigantic hunky body and the way he knew how to use it.
Cassie admitted to herself, rather unhappily, she missed him. She missed the time they had spent sequestered away in his quarters and how close they had seemed to be before and during the breeding festival. Cassie was disappointed in herself for having bought into all the stupid, fated mate crap.
Thankfully, Falken didn’t have time to ask her why she was there as Tarek arrived and immediately demanded Cassie tell him everything she knew. Cassie set up her little data-cube and prepared to launch into it, but Falken interrupted.
“I don’t understand why my mate is here. She is a Records Keeper.”
Cassie took a slow, deep breath to quell her immediate reaction to swear and snap at him. “I am here because I am a data analyst. Having analyzed the pertinent data you provided me, I have compiled a list of ideas on how to identify the masters behind the puppets.”
“I haven’t provided you with any data. Pertinent or otherwise.” Falken stated. His tone held nothing but fact. He truly believed he hadn’t given her anything important.
Sad, angry, more than a little bit hurt, Cassie gritted her teeth. “You provided me with plenty of very pertinent data, and nothing to do but sit in our quarters and go through it.”
Well, that didn’t come out very bitter, did it?
Cassie shook her hair back and ignored everyone in the room, feeling the heavy weight of their attention bouncing back and forth between her and Falken.
Brennaugh, Clary, Tarek, all three of them watching and judging her. Cassie cued up the program she had created to keep track of her findings, glad she had been able to so quickly pick up the flow of the Sarazen technology.
“Initially I went looking for information on the clans, why they all came together, how it came about. Not knowing much about your history or the stories of your people, it caught my interest. And let me just say, for such long lived beings, your records are not very well kept. I was very surprised to find quite a lot of the history texts had been redacted. But I read what was there and came across some interesting stuff. Which led to other interesting stuff. What piqued my interest, was this.”
