by Jade Waltz
Kaede and his sisters had been their greatest successes. Their mother had been part of the second generation of humans who were genetically enhanced and spliced with an unknown alien species that allowed their offspring to inherit more of their sire’s traits. Each sibling had been born to a different father. The Yaarkins had added an AI system based on theirs and forced them to work as a unit, thus creating the deadly squad that now served the Aldawi.
The female in front of me seemed too normal to be a demi-human. She lacked the solemn stare that was the default expression of most demi-human experiments, frozen into place by all the terror they had faced over the years. Instead, she appeared full of life with no signs of past trauma in her bubbly demeanor.
Who was she? What was she?
“Can’t you touch the patient to communicate with her?” Zyxel demanded. “Or do I need to get the commander in here?”
Celyze’s icy blue eyes widened as he shot a glance between Zyxel and me, his mouth wide open.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, squinting as I sat up. I didn’t know what this Celyze was capable of and didn’t want to find out, even with Vowels protecting me. “I’ve had it with everyone wanting to touch and prod at me, so don’t you dare try it.”
“You can understand us?” Tori asked, standing beside Celyze at the foot of my bed. Her bright-green eyes locked onto mine as she gave me a gentle smile. Pressing a hand to Celyze’s chest, she pushed the blue male back to take his spot beside me. She thrust her hand out, her blonde hair streaked with multiple colors bouncing around her as excitement filled her face. “Hi! I’m Tori, and this is my mate, Celyze—”
“Tori!”
The cheery female’s expression instantly morphed into a scowl as she glared at Zyxel across my bed. “Don’t you dare Tori me. I remember how you welcomed me when I first came aboard the ship. You have a worse bedside manner than the commanders. Do I need to remind you about your failed attempt?”
The crimson-and-gold male pursed his lips as he returned her glare, annoyance etched onto his face. Was I about to witness a fight on my bed?
Scanning the room, I realized I wasn’t in the same bare guest room I had first woken in. This one looked more like a long-term personal infirmary, fully equipped with medical equipment and spacious furniture. A second bed sat in the corner, resembling the one I had woken in, wrapped in Zyxel’s nest of coils.
There was a clear division in the room on how they wanted to address me. Zyxel seemed to want to force answers out of me through brute force while Celyze seemed to be on Tori’s side, since he hadn’t argued with her moving closer to speak to me.
“Should I be worried?”
“The three of them mean you no harm.”
“Not even Zyxel?”
“He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you. Though he seems to be under a lot of outside pressure to get you to cooperate.”
Was that why he had been so kind to me when I had woken up alone with him? Why was he acting so differently now? I assumed the other bed in the room meant that he was still sleeping near me for some reason.
Didn’t they have cameras, sensors, and alarms to supervise a patient? I would have expected any infirmary to possess such a basic system, regardless of the supervising species.
Trusting that Vowels was right about Tori being a human, I reached for her outstretched hand. Clearly, she was the friendliest out of the three and seemed to genuinely want to give me a welcoming first impression.
All three sets of eyes shot to our enclosed hands as if no one could believe I would accept her peaceful gesture.
“Hello.”
Tori beamed with joy. “Hello!”
Squealing in excitement, she covered my hand with both of hers, shaking it excitedly. Biting my lip, I glanced at the two males, unsure of what I should do.
It would be foolish to trust the three of them, especially so soon. My faint mental threads to my nestmates were proof that I was still a great distance away from them—and thankfully, they were still alive. Our separation only heightened my urgent need to figure out why I was here and escape to return to my clan.
“What’s your name?” Tori asked, releasing my hand. “You have nothing to worry about. I won’t allow these two to do anything to you.”
“We know what her name is,” Zyxel hissed. “Why are you even asking her that?”
Snapping my head toward the male who I had mistaken for Kaede, I gaped.
I had known this was too good to be true.
Had they hired kidnappers to take me? I remembered the Trr’kiki mentioning there had been two parties who had wanted me before I’d slipped into the drugged haze. Were these people one party or just a crew who had stumbled across my escape pod?
“What do you want from me?” I demanded, jolting upright in my bed. Thankfully, Vowels had been right to call my body completely healed. Nothing felt stiff or sore when I moved my limbs.
Eyeing the three people in the room, I tried to put together my escape plan. They may have surrounded me, but it was clear that Zyxel was in charge. If I grabbed one of the others and used them as a shield to escape, I wondered how far I could get.
“You suck at this, Zyxel,” Tori snorted. “No wonder you work alone.”
“Stop avoiding my question, Tori,” I snapped, keeping my eyes fixed on the three of them. I didn’t trust them not to act when I wasn’t paying attention. They were hiding something from me, and I intended to figure out what. “I’ve had it with whatever mind game you’re playing. If you know my name, then it’s safe to assume you know who I am. Why am I here? Why haven’t you returned me to my people?”
The blue male wrapped an arm around the bubbly blonde human female, pulling her close to his side as if to shield her from my wrath. They both sent me apologetic grimaces as Tori leaned into his embrace.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way, Selena,” Celyze sighed, combing a hand through his blue-and-white highlighted hair. “It wasn’t our intention to take you by force. In some ways, it’s my fault—”
“But we won’t hurt you. That isn’t the reason we took you,” Tori explained. “Something happened to our commander’s brother while we were under attack, and nothing we’ve tried has been able to pull him out of unconsciousness. I don’t know the finer details because it all happened so fast and no one openly talks about it, but we were willing to do anything to heal him.”
“I’m sorry, but what does your commander’s brother getting injured have to do with me?” I glanced between the three of them. “The Aldawi are a peaceful yet powerful species, along with all they govern in their territory. Unless you are supporting the Quaww, there should have been no hostility between us. You have made a grave mistake by taking me. I pray to the Stars that whoever finds you first is willing to spare you long enough for an explanation.”
“Thanks to my Tori here, I have become one of the most powerful Cosmic Souls in existence.” Celyze glanced down at Tori and squeezed her shoulders. “I asked the Stars for guidance and they led me to you. They told me you were the solution to our problem, even though I don’t agree with how we got you here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Celyze is a Cosmic Soul, a member of the Cosmic Order and speaker for the Stars,” Zyxel explained. “He is capable of communicating over long distances and healing wounds by touch, but his strength lies in reading the Stars’ path for our gain. A Cosmic Soul as strong as Celyze can read our destinies and warn us about the future. The Stars told him that our commander needed you to save his brother.”
Chapter Six
Selena
The sound of the doors sliding open filled the silence in the room.
“Good. Just what I came here for,” a voice from my past chuckled. “I was hoping you would be awake by now, but I wanted to meet you in person to make sure.”
Standing in the doorway with his fists clenched was the last male I had ever wanted to meet.
I would have classified him as
a demi-human, but the strange aura he radiated from him told me that wasn’t the case, along with his glowing cyan eyes and rune-like tattoos that covered every visible part of his body. Standing tall in a black sleeveless vest and baggy pants, his cold attitude paired with his coloring told me exactly who he was.
“Xenak of the Verya,” I spat, throwing my blanket off my body as I climbed out of my medical bed. Nervousness marred Tori and Celyze’s faces as they backed away, leaving plenty of open space between my cyan stalker and me.
“I should’ve known it was you as soon as they explained that they stole me to save their commander’s brother. Didn’t you understand when you invaded my mind that I don’t know your brother or what you were talking about? You must be a dimstar. You crossed a line when you kidnapped me from my clan. Now you expect me to somehow fix your brother when I know nothing about him?”
“So dramatic, Selena.” Xenak rolled his eyes. “You have always been over-dramatic. I would know; I’ve studied you. As soon as you do as I say and give me back my brother, I will return you to your clan and we can forever part ways.”
“One problem with your plan: I don’t know what you want me to do. Even if I did, paying someone to kidnap me, drug me, and slice me open is no way to convince me to do your bidding. You’ve only given my loved ones a reason to seek revenge for my treatment.”
“That’s the downside of hiring mercenaries to carry out your plans. Sometimes, they get too greedy for their own good.” Xenak crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “You see, Selena, if I weren’t banned from the Euph Galaxy, things wouldn’t have to be like this. I didn’t want to lose any more of my people, so I had to find a way to bring you here. Fortunately for me, the black market is full of shady people willing to do anything for the right price. Unfortunately for those we hired, they tried to earn twice the credits for doing the same job. You see, the late Aldawi Sovereign wanted you gone because of your relationship with Zirene and the Quaww wanted your eggs to build a hybrid army.
“I just wanted you alive and in one piece. I never planned for you to get injured along the way, though I take full responsibility and apologize for that. In the end, I tricked the Quaww’s connections to meet with the mercenaries and leaked their location to the Aldawi. While I may have hired them in the first place, I felt it was my duty to punish everyone involved for abusing you, since they all played a part in damaging my goods.”
Growling, I stormed toward the arrogant male and slapped the cocky smirk off his face. His eyes widened on impact as his head snapped to the side, the smack filling the room. Ignoring the delayed sting, I shook my hand to regain feeling as I held myself back from hitting the frax one more time.
“You took me away from not only the love and safety of my clan but from my children! How dare you walk in here and demand my help when you have been such an ishing frax to me! I don’t know who you are, and quite frankly, I don’t care, because I am not going to stoop to your level.”
Turning away from my cyan stalker, I addressed the room. “If you know so much about me, then you should know that I was born from a test tube, raised in an illegal research vessel, and tortured for years before I was rescued by my mates. You stole me from the very males who scouted space for me, took me in, and gave me a voice. You took me away from my children, who will grow up without both of their parents if I am not returned soon.”
I whirled around to advance on Xenak again. “Why would I want to help someone who has done nothing but be a pain in my frax? And for what—your brother’s life? I don’t know you and I certainly don’t owe you anything.”
“No, you don’t owe me anything, but you are here now,” Xenak mocked, rubbing his cheek. “If you want to return to your luxurious life, then you must save my brother’s life first. Simple as that. You cannot escape without my help, so stop wasting both of our time and just do what I exhausted resources and worked tirelessly to get you here for.”
“How can I trust you after everything you’ve done?”
“I guess you will have to take a chance and see.” Xenak cocked his head to the side, studying me. “Let me know when you come to your senses.”
“Commander Xenak, even if she agreed right now, she just woke up,” Zyxel advised, slithering next to me. I didn’t miss how his tail loosely encircled the floor around me as if creating a short protective wall between his leader and me. “My patient needs more time to fully recover before she attempts anything.”
Xenak eyed the crimson male for a moment before stepping away.
“If you believe it is too soon for her to wake my brother, then I trust your judgment.” His cyan gaze met mine and he smirked. “But know that every day you waste here is another day you spend apart from your clan. For the sake of your conscience, I hope they survive.”
I slumped in defeat, unable to form a reply. Tears pricked my eyes as I watched him exit through the sliding door. He gave me a slight wave without looking back as if he knew he had already won.
“Vowels. How many days have we been together?”
“About forty days, your time.”
I didn’t have much time left before my mates started feeling the effects of our separation—if they hadn’t already. It was a gamble to hold out and wait for someone to find me.
If Kaede could find me twice, he could do it again. This time he had the help of his sisters.
“How far can you sense people around us?”
“I can sense all the lifeforms on this asteroid, but I’m incapable of picking up their thoughts unless you touch them. That is how most of my abilities work.”
“Let me know whenever Xenak comes near. I don’t want to be alone with that male if I can help it.”
“Understood,” Vowels replied, his calm mental voice like a soothing balm to my nerves as I processed what had just happened. “That male is useless against you now that you have me. He and Celyze have both tried to communicate with you. While Celyze stopped after two unsuccessful attempts, Xenak kept trying to pierce my shield to reach you, to no avail. He finally stopped after you slapped him, but I believe I will be able to defend you if he tries anything, even if he catches you alone.”
“You really won’t try to save Commander Ryzen?” Tori murmured gently. “You aren’t curious to even see him? There has to be a reason the Stars led us to you.”
“They have a sick sense of humor, Tori.” I looked over my shoulder, eyeing the female embracing Celyze with envy. While she could seek comfort from someone she loved, I had been torn away from mine. “Instead of asking me to come here, he kidnapped me after accusing me of working with your enemies and getting mad when I didn’t know what he was talking about. Over the years, I was taught that I was nothing but property to my masters and as long as I behaved, I was rewarded. Just when I thought things were finally going right for me, my freedom was stolen and I was thrust back into the same nightmare. Tori, he just threatened my children’s wellbeing and my mates’ lives. If this isn’t some cosmic joke at my expense, then I don’t know what it is.”
“He’s not such a bad guy—”
“My children, Tori,” I snapped. “What did my children do to deserve losing their parents?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but no words emerged.
Reaching for my ear, I checked to see if my communicator was still missing—it was. Its spot was completely healed, with no scar remaining.
Glancing at the crimson male, I studied Zyxel’s face and was relieved to recognize the differences between him and Kaede. I would never mistake him for my faithful guard again. They shared the same profile, which meant that Kaede’s DNA had been spliced with genetic material from this alien species. If I ever saw Kaede again, I would finally be able to give him the answer he had been seeking all this time.
“I take it you are some sort of healer to this crew.”
Scanning his body, I couldn’t find any markings that would signify his rank—although I wouldn’t be able to understand what they meant if I d
id. His species had to be like the Circuli, unaccustomed to wearing clothing or jewelry.
“Yes, I am the lead doctor on this base.” He nodded, then tilted his head to the side. “Is something wrong?”
“Where is my communicator?”
“It was damaged beyond repair and removed for research purposes.” He shifted closer. “I can scan the spot on your skin, if it’s bothering you, and give you something for the pain.”
“That’s not why I asked,” I explained, stepping backward over his coil wall and away from the crimson male. “Why would you go through the trouble to remove my communicator, considering how difficult they are to install and how dangerous removal can be for the wearer?”
“The commander requested I do so while we had you in a drugged slumber,” Zyxel replied, a flash of hurt crossing his face as I backed farther away from him. “He wanted to attempt to recover any uncorrupted data left found and upload all the stored languages into our system. I meant to replace yours with one of ours, but the commander wanted to wake you first so you could work on his brother as soon as possible. He assured me he and Celyze would be able to communicate with you telepathically if necessary, but he must have forgotten how strong human minds are. In fact, I am surprised that you can communicate with us now since you weren’t able to when we first met.”
“About that—who sleeps with their patient while they’re unconscious?” I demanded, purposely dismissing his curiosity about my sudden ability to communicate with him. “I woke up thinking I’d had a nightmare and sought comfort from my nestmates only to find some stranger had wrapped himself around me in some coil nest. Do you know how terrifying that was? Especially after everything your commander has put me through.”
A fit of coughs filled the room, making me remember that we had an audience. Tori was covering her mouth, failing to hide the laughter that escaped her. Celyze looked down at her in horror, his wings unusually still.
“Our lead doctor has terrible bedside manner,” she chuckled, elbowing the sapphire male. “If I woke up surrounded by a strange male with the tail of a snake, I would be screaming until my voice gave out. You’re lucky she didn’t attack you, Zyxel.”
