“Oh… my…. God….” Sera looked at her baby. “Did you really just pull those out of me?”
The child squealed happily and dropped her handful as she reached out for her daddy. Theyn took her from Sera.
“Are you all right?”
“My head hurts a little, but it… I’m fine.” She shook her head and smiled brightly for him. “I’m fine.”
Beno put the disruptor aside and took Kira into his arms. She gave him sloppy kisses, then turned her attention to the collar that he wore. She examined it like any baby would look at something shiny, touching it with one little finger tip. That finger glowed bright green, and then his collar, too, fell to the floor. He could feel where the electrode wires were protruding from the back of his neck, and he pulled them out himself. He tossed them onto the floor beside the collar, where they sat and sparked.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Theyn mumbled, his eyes wide.
Kira clapped her hands.
*
The shuttle streaked away from the city, flying low over scrubby brown terrain. To Asa, it looked almost like he was home in Texas again. He wished that were the case. He wished devoutly that he could forget pole-hooks and slaughterhouses. Joely was clinging to his hand and trying to stop crying, but it looked like she was having a hard time getting it under control. He couldn’t blame her. If he thought he could get away with it, he would sit down and cry his eyes out, too.
The copilot turned in his seat. “Are either of you hurt?”
His voice sounded familiar but Asa couldn’t decide where he’d heard it before. “I’m fine,” he drawled. “Miss Joely here is a bit distraught over the things she saw, because she’s a sensitive soul, but she’s not hurt, either.”
“Good.” He sounded like he was smiling. “I’d hate to have anything happen to either of you.”
The pilot spoke to him quietly, and he turned back to the controls. Joely gripped Asa’s hand and looked around them. She whispered, “Are we sure we can trust them?”
He rolled his eyes. “This is a fine time to be askin’ that, Joe.”
“I just… we don’t know who these people are, or where they’re taking us…”
“They’re takin’ us away from a slaughterhouse, and that’s good enough for me.”
He looked up toward the cockpit. The co-pilot was watching them again. For some reason, Asa was convinced that the man was laughing
*
After the Taluan raid was finished and the threat was over, they were taken from the panic room and into the royal apartments. They stayed the night there, sleeping in a close cuddle, all of them holding tight to one another as if they were afraid to let go. Kira was the first to wake, and her babbling and fussing woke Sera, who was grateful all over again that she had her baby back. She swore that she would never be grumpy about being woken up to change a dirty diaper ever again.
It was strange, she mused, the things that you could get accustomed to, and how the right frame of might could make the most ridiculous situations seem acceptable and commonplace. She would never have believed that she would ever find herself in a situation like this, with two men in her bed, a baby of her own, and – crowning glory – that they were on a planet God-only-knew how far from Earth. If she didn’t think about it, then she could almost fool herself into thinking that everything was perfectly normal.
The rest of the time, she was completely freaked out.
She changed Kira’s messy diaper and took her into the bathroom area with her while she got herself cleaned up. Just for convenience’s sake, she tucked Kira into the bathtub for safe keeping while she saw to her own needs. The tub was decadent, deep and wide with steps leading down into its depths. There was no way Kira was getting out of there on her own, so Sera had a moment to really consider her situation.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror on the wall, a highly-polished piece of art that seemed to be made of something other than glass. Her eyes had always been blue, and a very distinct blue, at that; now, though, they were like Theyn’s and Kira’s, and it was strange to see alien eyes looking back out of her own face. Her skin was more golden than it had ever been before, largely because of the osteoderms that were spreading over every inch. She was less human and more Ylian with every day, and she didn’t understand how that process had taken place, or if it had reached its zenith. She was unsure of almost everything these days.
Her thoughts turned to Asa and Joely, her friends from back in the time before Theyn and Beno, back when her world had made sense. She hoped that they were all right, and that they had somehow escaped the slaughterhouse. If she was the praying kind, she would have said a few prayers for their safety, but she had never really been a believer, and this stuff with the Burning One was confusing.
Everything was confusing.
Kira babbled something that Sera couldn’t quite understand, and she turned to look at her daughter. Are you the Burning One’s reincarnation? She resisted the urge to try to think the words at Kira the way she could think of Beno. The baby looked up at her and grinned toothlessly.
She didn’t know how she would react if she found out that everything Alaia had been saying was true, and she didn’t know how she would react if it was proven to be false. She had never felt so insecure.
‘What’s wrong?’ Beno’s voice was warm in her mind.
‘Kira was fussy, so I wanted to bring her in here so she wouldn’t wake you guys up.’
She could feel him stretching, and she could imagine the catlike way he moved. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘You’re worried and spinning your wheels.’
Sera was amused yet again by Beno’s facility with human colloquialisms, especially juxtaposed against Theyn’s ongoing struggles with the same thing. She looked down at Kira, who was blowing spit bubbles.
‘Babies are amazing, but they can be kind of gross,’ she told him.
He laughed. ‘All living creatures are kind of gross. That’s not what you were thinking about, though.’
‘Guilty.’
‘So talk to me.’
She sighed. ‘It’s all this stuff about the Burning One, and how Theyn is supposed to lead a revolution, and… it’s all overwhelming. I don’t know what to think.’
‘Do you want my advice?’
‘It couldn’t hurt.’
‘Stop thinking. Thoughts can’t help us now.’
She sighed. ‘I can’t help it. I’m sort of a thinky kind of girl.’
Theyn’s mental voice joined the conversation. ‘You’re both worrying too much.’
‘I’m surprised you’re so calm,” Sera told him. ‘This impacts you more than any of the rest of us.’
‘I never said I wasn’t worried.’ She could feel the echoes of physical motion through the link, and she assumed that he had just sat up. ‘Worry doesn’t help, though.’
‘What does help?’
‘Having all of us together, for a start,’ Theyn answered. ‘Now that we have Kira back, and since she eliminated those collars, they no longer have the leverage over us that they once did. That’s good. That helps.’
‘What are we going to do when they come back?’
Theyn’s mental voice was tight. ‘We’re going to have a little talk.’
Beno changed the subject. ‘Are you going to be in there all morning?’
‘Just a little longer,’ she told him, smiling. ‘Patience.’
There were no toothbrushes in the bathroom, no soap, and no shower gel. The illusion of staying in a hotel room vanished like smoke. She sighed and picked up her daughter. “I guess we get to have nasty breath today,” she said. Kira laughed.
Sera left the bathroom with the baby in her arms. Beno was lounging in bed, leaning back against the pillows with the sheet pulled up to his waist. Even in repose, his muscles were impressive, and to her, he was the image of masculine perfection. Theyn was sitting on the edge of his side of the bed, just as beautiful, with long and elegant li
nes like a dancer. They were like night and day, but together they were complete. She smiled and looked at them both.
Theyn noticed her attention and blushed. “What?”
Her admiration of her mates was interrupted by the opening of the door. Three guards entered with a full-blooded Ylian woman who carried a tray of food. They all saw immediately that Sera and Beno were no longer burdened with their collars, and they gaped at them.
“How did you get those off?” one of the guards asked.
“Very carefully,” Sera answered.
He brought his weapon up and pointed it at her. “Get back.”
“What? You’re scared of me? I’m not doing anything.” She gestured at the baby on her hip. “Or maybe you’re afraid of her?”
Theyn stood, and he put on a regal air as if he was putting on a coat. The guards looked uncertain, but the Ylian woman had no such hesitations. She instantly went down on one knee and lowered her black-haired head.
“Your morning meal, Your Majesty,” she said. “And breakfast for your Companion and your Selected.”
He looked coldly at the guards, who shared a quick glance before they, too, knelt before the prince. He turned back to the woman with the tray.
“Thank you. Please put it on the dresser.”
She rose and hurried to comply with his wishes. She bobbed a sort of curtsey to Sera and to Beno, then backed out of the room. The guard captain watched her leave, then turned back to the trio before him.
“Which one of you figured out how to disable it?”
“Does it matter?” Beno asked. He rose from the bed, confidently nude, and walked to the breakfast tray. He picked through the offering with disdain. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but really? This is not sufficient for the prince.”
Another guard said, “That was ordered specifically by the Mother of Flames.”
“Well, she can eat it, then. Send it back to her.”
“Sir?”
Beno turned around. “Send it back to her,” he repeated. “If she thinks this is worthy of a prince, then she’ll have no trouble eating it, herself.”
Theyn looked at the plate. “No. It’s acceptable. I do, however, demand an audience with Alaia.”
The guard captain echoed, “You demand?”
“I am the only surviving child of Kina, last Empress of Ylia,” he reminded the skeptical man. “That makes me your king. Do you have trouble understanding that?”
Wisely, he gave his position a second thought. “No, sir. Your Highness. Er, Majesty.”
Theyn nodded. “Good. Go.” One of the guards bent to pick up the discarded collars from the floor, and the prince said, “No. Leave them. And leave the door unlocked when you go.”
One of the guards bowed, and the others clumsily followed suit before the whole group left. They shut the door behind them but did not lock it, as per their orders. Theyn sat down again, satisfied.
“What are you planning?” Beno asked him.
“We’ve obeyed her orders long enough,” he said, folding his arms. “It’s time she started listening to mine.”
Sera shook her head. “This whole in-change thing just seems to come naturally to you. You were totally trained for this, weren’t you?”
Her blond mate nodded his head. “Yes. All of my mother’s children were taught enough to muddle through if the throne should fall to one of us instead of to my sister Thena.” He sighed. “I don’t want this, but if it falls to me, I will carry the burden in such a way that I give credit to my mother.”
“You’ll give credit to yourself.” She sat beside him, eschewing the food, which looked as unappetizing as everything else they’d been given to eat since their arrival on Bruthes. “I have faith in you.”
He smiled, the mild temperament she had always seen in him before returning to his face. He kissed her gently, his lips light as feathers. “Thank you. I’ll try not to let you down.”
“You can’t,” she assured him.
“Just keep your eyes open,” Beno warned. “These people aren’t the same as the Ylians we left behind. They might be capable of surprising you.”
“Well, that’s all right.” The royal steel crept back into his normally gentle voice. “I might be capable of surprising them.”
Chapter Twenty
The shuttle flew all night, and Joely and Asa found themselves dozing in their body-hugging seats. The sun was already bright and hot when they finally landed in the middle of an expanse of rocky, barren soil.
The co-pilot stood and told them, “We’re here.”
Joely looked through the transparent walls of the shuttle and shook her head. “Where’s ‘here’? This place is deserted.”
The man chuckled. “Looks are deceiving.”
The seats released them, and the pilot lowered the hatch while the walls of the shuttle resumed their normal opaque metallic gray. The outside air rushed into the cabin, bringing heat and the smell of dust with it. Joely rose and stretched, trying to work out a kink in her back, and Asa rose slowly, stifling a yawn.
The co-pilot waited a decorous moment, then picked up his blaster rifle and said, “Follow me.”
He walked down the ramp, and they did the same. The air was so hot and dry that Joely could barely breathe, and she was already beginning to sweat. As he walked, the co-pilot removed his skull mask, revealing a familiar face.
“Itan?” she asked in disbelief.
He nodded but said nothing. Instead, he went to a large rock in the middle of the barren landscape and pressed his hand against it. Joely could hear a soft hum, and then a rectangular section of the ground began to shake. The rocks and soil fell away as a hatch opened, rising into the air and revealing a set of stairs leading down into a subterranean passageway.
Asa wiped his hand over his mouth, then said, “I guess we’re going underground.”
“Yes,” the pilot said. “And quickly, too.”
Itan led the way, trotting down the steps with his rifle in his hands. Lights set into the walls came on automatically as he passed, bathing the stairwell and the passageway beyond in brilliant white. Joely and Asa followed him down the stairs, and the pilot was the last one through the hatch. She shut it behind herself and came down, too.
The stairs led to a corridor that ran straight ahead, sloping downward on a slight gradient. At the end of the corridor, a set of blast doors slid open. They passed through into another hallway that led to another set of blast doors, and they went through this portal, too. Each time they went through a doorway, the pilot would seal the doors behind them as they passed. The deeper they went, the cooler the air became, and Joely had the unpleasant feeling of being ushered into a tomb.
Asa took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She looked up at him, grateful for his steady strength. He smiled, and she saw trepidation in his eyes for all that he was trying to be brave for her. She interlaced her fingers with his and took a deep breath. As long as they were together, they could face anything.
The last set of blast doors opened onto a military-style bivouac, with rows of bunks on one side and a mess hall and planning area on the other. At the far end of the room, a medical unit of sorts was buzzing with wounded, and from the mess table, a group of full-blooded Ylians and their hybrid compatriots looked up warily.
“Humans,” one of the hybrids said.
“Yes.” The pilot brushed past them and walked to the table where the soldiers were sitting. “They’re associated with the Selected.”
The hybrid nodded sagely. “Hostages?”
“Now, hey,” Asa objected. “We’re nobody’s hostages. I’m mighty grateful you got us out of that hellhole, but ain’t nobody said nothing about no hostages.”
The aliens looked at one another, momentarily nonplussed by the way he spoke fluent Texan.
Itan frowned. “Nobody here is a hostage. These are very special people, and you will all treat them with respect.”
The hybrid chuckled. “Or what?”
&nbs
p; “Or I will burn you to ashes where you sit.”
An uncomfortable silence fell, and then the hybrid laughed again. “And how do you propose to do that?”
Without a word, Itan pointed his blaster rifle at the hybrid and nudged the settings until the piece whined in his hands. He raised an eyebrow. “Any questions?”
“Flames, Itan!” the hybrid complained. “Relax!”
The pilot sighed. “Enough. Itan, put the gun away. Petis, shut up.” She sat down. “Have the others reported back yet?”
Petis, the hybrid with all of the opinions, shook his head. “You’re the first members of the raiding party to return to base.”
Joely looked around her. “Base? This is where the Resistance operates?”
“Yes.” Itan relaxed marginally and powered down his rifle. “At least this cell.”
“Sit down,” the pilot invited them. Asa and Joely sat, albeit hesitantly, uncertain what sort of welcome they were going to receive. The hybrids and Ylians made room for them without complaint. Once they were settled, the pilot continued. “The Resistance is made up of twenty different cells. Some are larger, some are smaller. We often work independently of each other, but sometimes we work together. I was hoping that some of the other cells would help us when they realized we were making a run on the meat plant, but they chose to sit it out.”
Petis muttered, “Cowards.”
“How many other shuttles got sent?” Asa asked.
Itan sighed and collected a small box from a nearby locker. The others stared at it strangely as he sat down with them. “Three,” he answered.
Joely watched as Itan’s long-fingered hands flipped open the lid on the box and took out a small object of unidentifiable technology, along with what appeared to be a kind of medical probe. She had seen similar objects when she’d been inoculated against the mysterious virus on Bruthes.
“What are you doing?” the pilot asked him, her voice both tired and scornful.
“I heard from the doctors that they made an interesting discovery. I’d like to share it with you.”
Ignition: Alien Ménage Romance (Phoenix Rising Book 2) Page 17
