Sarazen's Betrayal : Sarazen Saga 1.2

by Isabel Wroth

  Cassie rolled her eyes up and shook her head, trying to roll the burning hot tears back down. Wondering where the hell her emotionless beast had run off to. Now Cassie couldn’t turn the feelings off, they rolled through her like an electrical storm. “As for feeling neglected? That’s not anywhere close to what I feel. I feel stupid. I am angry at myself for ever believing in you or this whole fairy tale you spun for me about fated mates. I’m not your mate. I’m just an annoying burden you don’t have time to deal with.”

  “Cassie.” Falken sounded absolutely stricken.

  His voice was hoarse, his expression matching what she heard. Hell, he even smelled devastated, but Cassie was past caring now. Now all she wanted to do was lick her wounds in peace and focus on a puzzle she could solve. One that would make her feel useful and less of a burden. A complicated, tough, productive hunt for information. A distraction from how hollow she felt inside.

  Cassie wiped her tears away and sank into that hollowness for now as her beast seemed to have retreated, Cassie needed the emptiness. The absence of all emotion to continue putting one foot in front of the other.

  “I’d like you to leave my quarters.”

  “These are our, quarters.” Falken reminded her tightly.

  Cassie felt her brows jump up, hugging herself in hopes of holding herself together a little longer. “Oh really? I can count the times on one hand that you have spent the night in these quarters, my quarters, since we returned from the post festival celebration eight months ago. I can count the times on one hand you have spent more than five consecutive minutes in my presence since…”

  She threw her hand up to forestall whatever excuse Falken was about to interrupt her with. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Just go. I’m sure there’s something else more important than dealing with an emotional female requiring your attention right now.”

  “There are many things requiring my attention. But nothing is more important to me than you.” Falken sounded like he really believed that. His voice rang with his conviction, with the possessive growl of his beast.

  The problem was Cassie didn’t believe Falken or his beast.

  A knock on the door interrupted any further response.

  It was Ne’tare, informing her that the transport to take her to S7 was ready and her escort was waiting. Well. That was expedient. Cassie made herself smile at the elder male in thanks.

  “I’ll be right there, thank you.” Ne’tare gave a slight bow before retreating to shut the door behind him. Cassie drew in a deep breath and shouldered her satchel, licking her lips as she forced herself to look at Falken’s deeply troubled expression.

  “I read your file, Falken, and it turns out you’re on a very short list of intelligence gathering personnel. On such a level as to possibly catch the eyes of the traitors. If I didn’t know better and if you hadn’t been cleared of the implant, I’d have put you on the top list of suspects.

  “If I had argued with you a little harder maybe, or if you hadn’t just assumed your human mate had no skills of any pertinent value, it’s likely together we could have solved this shit show months ago. You assumed I was just another Records’ Keeper. That I didn’t have any use except to keep the sheets warm for whenever you decided it was time to sleep. Here I was assuming I would get to start a new life and leave all that behind. Guess that makes me an ass too, huh?”

  Cassie had been wondering if she could hurt any worse, turns out she could. Falken didn’t try to stop her as she passed him. He didn’t come after her either.

  Cassie knew there wasn’t any reason for her to put a brave face on it. Every single warrior around her could smell how hurt and upset she was. She didn’t bother to make eye contact with any of them as she trudged up the stairs to the transport, didn’t bother to even check and see if she knew any of the warriors. Right now it just didn’t matter.

  One of the warriors got her settled in a private cabin, clearing his throat uncomfortably to tell her his name and that he had been given orders to not let her out of his sight. Cassie honestly didn’t remember his name once the doors closed, only that the smell of his pity remained.

  The trip would take three days to make, two of those traveling on S7 itself, and she had no intention of leaving the cabin. No intention of facing any more pitying glances or judgmental glares.

  The only positive about this was their enemies might make the assumption she was the weak link. The warriors escorting her would talk and someone would be listening for any hint of weakness. Listening to hear that Cassie might be vulnerable to coercion due to the distance between her and Falken.

  As she curled up on the bed, Cassie gave a passing thought to how crazy it was for her to be hoping their unknown enemies would approach her.

  *****

  S7 was much like S3 in that it was a heavily forested planet. Though the trees and terrain on S7 were far more…creepy. The stone fortress that housed the archives was situated on the smallest continent of the planet deep in the heart of a forest, settled in the center of what Cassie had read was an ancient asteroid crater.

  To get to the fortress, they would have to travel by boat up the main river for a day and a half, then by foot through the forest for the rest. When she asked why they couldn’t just take the transport all the way to the fortress, Cassie was told that not only was the forest so dense as to keep any transport from landing, there was also some kind of natural electromagnetic energy that would have interfered with the transport guidance system around the fortress itself.

  Cassie’s morose attitude had vanished the moment she had stepped onto the large boat, fascinated by the gentle rocking motion of the vessel in the river. It was the oddest, most soothing sensation she had ever experienced.

  The banks and bed of the river were made up of smooth black pebbles, giving the illusion that the boat was coasting through black water. One of the warriors on her protection detail, Zarak, had noticed her fascination with the pebbles and had scooped a handful up for her.

  Studying them, Cassie discovered the small pebble particles were actually translucent when separated. Not pebbles, crystals. Cupped in her hand, the crystals became black as night. It was a fascinating phenomenon, and so were the trees themselves. Unlike the gold and red trees on S1, the trees here were much darker.

  The trunks were a deep brown, the leaves ranging from bright green to nearly black. Under the canopy there was almost no light except what came from the phosphorescent clusters of crystal that grew on the bark and hung from what appeared to be some kind of webbing.

  Zarak told her the crystals were a pervasive fungus that, in a few hundred years, would totally encase the trees and turn the entire forest into crystal. Cassie was awed by what nature had created on this planet. Even more awe inspiring was what happened as the sun began to set.

  The crystalline fungus started to glow.

  It was a soft light, a pale purple, just shy of being white. It cast an eerie, yet breathtaking, illumination throughout the forest. It refracted off the crystal sand of the riverbank and made the water sparkle.

  Until the boat moved through it, the water was so still it was almost glassy, the ripple of the water giving way to the boat made the lights dance magically. To Cassie, it looked like the boat was moving silently through a river of starlight. It was the most beautiful thing Cassie had seen yet.

  Clary would die with glee once Cassie told her about all this.

  All night long, Cassie sat in the padded prow of the boat, watching this fantastical world glide by. Zarak and the others had long since given up trying to get her to go inside to sleep.

  All night long, Cassie made fanciful little wishes on the stars sparkling in the water. Wishes that would never come true, but made her feel slightly better for having silently voiced them to the universe.

  When the boat reached the furthest point it could go the following morning, it was time for them to start walking, Cassie admitted she probably should have taken a nap. It was a strange feeling, walk
ing under the dark green canopy.

  The smell was different here. On S3 and S1, it was a moist smell. Pleasant, a smell Cassie had decided was one of growing things.

  Here it was spicier, just shy of being sharp enough to make her wrinkle her nose. She also realized that it was difficult to smell the individual scents of the males surrounding her. When Cassie made comment of it, Zarak briefly took his eyes off the surrounding forest to look down at her.

  “It is the spoor of these things you call, crystals. It affects the senses of our beasts and makes this journey quite treacherous. If not for our ability to see heat signatures, we could be surrounded by a hundred enemies and be unable to catch their scent until they were immediately upon us.”

  Which explained why all ten of the warriors had their weapons in their hands and were constantly scanning the area around them. A shiver worked down her spine, her hands wringing the strap of her satchel as her eyes darted around the trees, trying and failing to use her own infrared sight. It was a skill she honestly hadn’t thought of practicing and felt stupid for it all of the sudden.

  “You need not fear, Cassie. We will see you safely to the fortress, no matter what.” Zarak told her gravely.

  Cassie was definitely regretting not having slept when their walk started to climb uphill. It wasn’t until about midday that she realized they were walking up the side of the crater. They turned a corner and suddenly she was looking out across the treetops. There was a sheer drop to the left, the wide path zig zagging up the outer face of the crater.

  Cassie shaded her eyes and looked up, unable to see the top, but they would have to climb all the way up, then all the way back down the other side. When they stopped to eat lunch, Cassie noticed the gradual variation of color in the rock. It went from a blackish gray to a paler gray shot with small crystal particles. Sort of like the walls of her quarters on S1.

  As they climbed higher she felt a weird charge race across her nape, like someone had just rubbed her fur the wrong way.

  “This way, Cassie.” Zarak waved her forward around a large boulder in the middle of their path.

  She took his hand when he offered it, pressing herself to the surface of the stone, having to step sideways on the foot of space that was all that kept her from plummeting to her death. Cassie hadn’t noticed she had been holding her breath until she reached the other side of the boulder. Zarak gave her hand a squeeze before releasing her, tilting his head to keep her moving forward. Not further up the path, but into a dark, deep looking cave in the side of the mountain.

  “We’re not going up?” she ventured, reverting to nervously strangling the strap of her satchel in her suddenly sweaty hands.

  Zarak offered her a quick smile and stepped into the darkness. “No. The unease you feel is because of the electromagnetic field. It will pass as soon as we are on the other side.”

  One of the warriors ahead lit an actual torch, three more igniting as the other warriors followed suit. Cassie shamelessly curled her fist in the back of Zarak’s tunic and let him lead her forward.

  The torches cast ominous shadows along the sides of the tunnel. Her beast shivered and paced inside her body, growing more and more restless with every step forward. Only a handful of minutes had passed, but to Cassie it felt like a century before she felt fresher air on her face and saw sunlight at the end of the tunnel.

  A few of the warriors chuckled when she picked up her pace to power walk the last few feet, pushing through all of them to get out into the light.

  Cassie sucked in desperate breaths to push away the feeling of having been suffocated. It seemed ridiculous that all of the sudden she was claustrophobic, having grown up on a spaceship and having lived the last eight months inside a mountain.

  It took her a little bit to get it together, to convince her beast to settle down. When she opened her eyes, she lost what little breath she had managed to suck in.

  In the heart of the crater below, a glittering collection of white stone spears, towers, shot out from the ground. They were part of a circular building, a wide stone wall, connecting all seven white stone towers. From up here the construction looked like a crown. Cassie hadn’t found any images to have prepared herself for this.

  It was like the earth had shot up around the perfection of the fortress to ensure it would always be protected. To ensure it would survive the eons without a single threat to be cast over the white stones. The air inside the crater felt different, close to being effervescent or something bubbly. Like she was breathing in carbonation. Cassie felt energized, brighter, and steadier than she had been in a long time.

  “Come, the Keepers are no doubt waiting for us.” Zarak’s voice at her shoulder made Cassie shiver.

  Walking downhill was ten times easier and they reached the bottom of the crater just as the last of the sunlight disappeared from the sky. Instead of the crystalline fungus lighting their way, the stones from the fortress illuminated everything in a glorious white light.

  Beyond excited, Cassie asked Zarak if it was the same inside, if the stones glowed like that inside the fortress. The warrior shrugged, glancing up over his shoulder to where five of their party had remained up at the entrance. It was the only way in or out of the crater and so Zarak had ordered it be protected at all cost.

  “I do not know. I have not ever been to this place before.” he told her.

  Cassie’s head whipped up to stare at the male, spluttering a little in surprise. “What? Then why did Tarek pick you to bring me here?”

  “Because, we are trusted by the Asho to protect you in the absence of your mate.” Zarak’s tone was devoid of judgment, but Cassie could smell his disapproval for the absence of said mate. Not just Zarak’s disapproval either, the five warriors that walked under the canopy of the dark trees with her reeked of it.

  “Thank you, for escorting me here.” Cassie made herself say.

  Zarak shot her a hard look, “It is our honor.”

  Cassie’s cheeks turned bright pink under the hardness of his expression, as though thanking him was akin to an insult. She struggled with her feelings of inadequacy, wondering what the warriors were really thinking.

  Wondering if they thought she was somehow responsible for Falken’s absence.

  Wondering if they thought she was lacking in some way that made Falken stay away from her.

  Cassie didn’t know of any of the other Sarazen males who would have let their mates out of their sight, let alone off the planet without them. That Falken didn’t seem to have a problem with it made Cassie have to truly face how full of shit he’d really been.

  The next time she managed to lift her eyes from the dirt path, they were approaching the entrance to the fortress. Cassie was surprised to see a female with a full head of gray hair, standing on the steps to the fortress. Except the woman didn’t appear to be old enough to be so gray.

  Her face said she was in her early twenties at the most, but Cassie felt like the other woman was seriously old. It was something heavy in the silver swirl of her eyes. She wasn’t beautiful by what Cassie would consider to be conventional standards. Neither tall or short, plain or gorgeous. There wasn’t any one thing about her that screamed beauty.

  But standing like she was, framed by the white stone of the fortress, she was the most beautiful thing Cassie had ever seen.

  “Welcome, Cassie.”

  Three

  “Tell me of your people.”

  Cassie lifted her head from the dusty book before her. She had to stretch her neck up a little to see Ilaria, hovering about ten feet off the ground as she searched the stacks for more dusty books. The alien female was fascinating. A being called a Matavei.

  The Matavei were apparently humanoid creatures. Space seemed to be full of humanoid aliens, and when Cassie commented, Ilaria claimed humanoids to be the most efficient physical form for colonization.

  Cassie supposed that made sense.

  As she understood it, Matavei were beings who, at the age of majority, w
ere put into a medically induced coma. The point being to allow their spiritual bodies to depart their physical bodies for hundreds of years. It was a process that allowed those spiritual bodies to travel to every corner of the known universe to gather knowledge without the Matavei ever having to leave their planet.

  Once free of their physical bodies, the Matavei became entities made of pure energy. They migrated to different worlds, popping here and there, gathering information about other cultures and civilizations. They could slip through walls and listen in on conversations, recording everything to then take back to their council upon waking after their allotted number of years.

  There were apparently thousands of Matavei on a schedule that rotated in and out of their stasis state, recording information from all over the universe. Cassie had considered that Ilaria could have been a very effective spy, but Ilaria was so literal and blunt that it was difficult to see the other female as some kind of threat. She was using psychic energy to communicate and to physically move objects like books, and Ilaria explained this was also how she looked human.

  Matavei automatically took on the form easiest for a being of another species to understand. So when Cassie had first assumed Ilaria was a human of some kind, it was more like the energy that made up Ilaria’s incorporeal being had been able to read Cassie’s mind and taken the form Cassie would be least afraid to converse with.

  Cassie was still trying to wrap her head around it, but basically Ilaria was a ghost. Except she wasn’t dead, she was made of energy. When Cassie had asked to see Ilaria’s natural form, the human figure had disappeared and, in its place, a wisp-like creature had formed. So fascinated, Cassie had spent the day asking Ilaria every question under the sun.

  The Sarazen warriors thought Cassie had gone off the deep end, convinced she was experiencing the beginning stages of blood-lust as a direct result of being separated from Falken. Torn between incredulous laughter and outright fury, Cassie had opted to ignore them all and continue her work.

  Zarak was the one Cassie had most contact with. The hulking warrior had kept her updated on how many days had passed since their arrival, brought her meals and made a general nuisance of himself.