Venomous Heart

by Mary Auclair

  Ava watched in a dazed stupor, her brain unable to process what had happened, what was still happening, her mind rebelling against the influx of information.

  She lifted her gaze and watched things move as if in slow motion. Now the two men whose names she didn’t know were lifted by their throats, their feet dangling six inches above the ground. As she stared, reality snapped back into focus and she felt it like a slap of horror across the face.

  It was Arlen. That sapphire blue giant hissing and showing his fangs like some feral thing was Arlen.

  “You do not touch her.” Arlen’s voice was a low growl, his words almost impossible to decipher. “No one but me can touch her.”

  The men’s eyes were wide with fear and gurgling sounds left their mouths as they fought the large blue hands that crushed their airways. It was no good—Arlen was so much stronger than they, and soon, their movements became slow, desperate in their weakness. Both of them were fading, and fast.

  Ava’s eyes moved back to the sapphire blue giant who was holding both men up in the air, one in each powerful arm. Arlen’s face was unrecognizable, his usually stoic features twisted into a mask of pure rage, his pale eyes blazing with a light from within, his lips drawn back to expose his fangs as a bloodcurdling snarl slithered from him. His huge arms didn’t even look strained as he held two full grown men high above the ground.

  He looked like a nightmare that had stepped right through the doorway between two worlds. He was the bogeyman and all the monsters that had hidden under her bed when she was a little girl—combined.

  She had never been afraid of him before, but she was now.

  As she stared at Arlen, she caught a flash of movement in the corner of her eye. Will Harl was scrambling away as fast as he could on his newly repaired leg. She opened her mouth to shout, but he was already at the forest’s edge.

  Then her gaze settled on the frail body lying on the grass and she forgot all about Will Harl. She scrambled forward on all fours, grabbing Uril’s shoulders, turning him onto his back. He was unconscious, his face slack and his eyes half closed. Her fingers instinctively went to the pulse at his neck and she checked for his heartbeat. It was fast, much too fast.

  But he was alive.

  “Uril, wake up.” But he didn’t, and Ava’s next word became a sob. “Please.”

  He needed help and he needed it now, but she wasn’t strong enough to carry him all the way inside to where she could help him. She cradled Uril’s head on her lap and looked up to see Arlen still holding both men by the throat. Their feet had stopped moving and their eyes rolled in their sockets, their tongues lolling out, their lips turning blue. Arlen was killing them. Or he already had.

  This was too much. Too much violence, too much loss.

  And all so fucking useless.

  “Stop!” she called, her voice broken and full of sobs. “Please, stop.”

  But he didn’t hear her. Arlen’s eyes were full of rage, focused on the men dying in his grasp. She called out again, but without success.

  In her lap, Uril’s breathing became ragged and shallow. Terror coursed through Ava’s veins as she stared at his slack, absent features.

  This put too much strain on him. His heart can’t keep up.

  “Arlen!” Ava shouted, and her cry finally reached the Eok through whatever fog held him enthralled in violence.

  Arlen glanced down at Ava and Uril, then back at the dying men in his hold. His eyes lost their crazed glow and his lips relaxed, covering his fangs. The snarl died down as he tore his gaze from the men and stared at her.

  “You’re killing them.”

  Arlen frowned, then glanced at the men. Disdain spread across his features, but he lowered them until their feet touched the ground. He still had them by the throat, but his hold loosened and they gulped air greedily. Their color returned fast, but they maintained a terrified silence and they weren’t fighting Arlen anymore. It was better that way. Anything they might say or do was likely to get them killed anyway, and Ava sensed she couldn’t save them next time.

  “Uril needs to get back inside,” she pleaded as Arlen looked down at the boy first with confusion, then concern. “I need to examine him.”

  Arlen’s attention went back to the men as another Eok warrior emerged through the doorway, joining them.

  “Kahl.” Arlen spoke without looking at the newcomer, whose Prussian blue skin was covered in marks a shade lighter. “Take these two to the holding cells. I’ll deal with them later.”

  “What happened here?” The newcomer stared at the men, their eyes still bulging with fear, then looked down at Ava and Uril. He frowned at Uril’s appearance, then glanced back up at Arlen.

  “They attacked Doctor Ava and the boy.” Arlen kept his death stare on the two men. “They have a lot to answer for.”

  Arlen opened both fists in tandem and the men fell to the ground in a heap, struggling to get up but not managing it. Khal turned cold, hard eyes on the men, then approached. A single hard growl from him had them cowering like puppies and they stopped struggling, lying there in a tangle, looking every bit as terrified as they should.

  “There’s a third one.” Arlen jerked his chin toward the forest. “He’s limping badly. He can’t have gone too far.”

  “He’s limping, but he can walk farther than you think.” When both Eoks stared blankly at Ava, she shook her head. “He was a patient of mine. I repaired his leg three days ago. I inserted Iridium rods into his tibia.”

  Arlen and Khal cursed under their breath in unison. Arlen spoke harshly into his commu-link, ordering a chase of Will Harl through the jungle. The next moment, Khal retrieved the two fallen men by their collars and dragged them unceremoniously inside the building.

  When Arlen finally turned to Ava, his face was still set in harsh, angry lines, but his mouth softened when he looked at Uril’s unconscious form. Without a word, he picked up the boy, then walked away like he weighed nothing more than a doll.

  Those walls weighed heavy on her, and all the concentration in the world wasn’t enough to prevent her from feeling like they were coming closer by the second. Ava cast a wary look around the vast bedroom. The same powder blue walls, the same childish decorations that Uril had put there over the years. As though nothing had changed.

  Except one thing. One thing that changed everything. Knut was gone. There was nothing holding them prisoner within these walls anymore.

  They why do I feel like running away?

  Ava shook the thought away. There was no escape, not until Uril was better, until the Exo-Heart was beating in his chest. He was sleeping now, but a thin layer of clammy sweat covered his brow. Ava pushed a stray lock away from his face and Uril scrunched up his nose but didn’t wake up. With what she had given him, he should sleep until the next morning.

  Ava looked away from Uril and down at her small medical screen.

  He doesn’t have as much time as I thought he did. He doesn’t have enough time at all.

  The thought was laden with pain—pain and guilt. The latest numbers told her exactly what she had feared. The holes in Uril’s heart were getting larger, the membrane of his heart growing thicker as the muscle worked harder to keep oxygen flowing into the bloodstream. As a result, Uril’s heart was already fifty percent larger than it should have been. The muscle was getting weaker as the organ grew larger and less efficient. It would only get worse, a vicious cycle whereby the heart pumped harder and harder, the chambers growing larger, until it became nothing but a large balloon full of holes. And then Uril would die.

  No. I promise you, I won’t let this happen to you.

  Ava put down the screen on the side table and it landed harder than she intended. The noise startled her, and she let out a cry when a tall figure appeared in the doorway.

  She pulled the blanket up higher over Uril’s chest, then went to meet Arlen in the hallway. As he watched her approach, there was something on his face that was different. Something that wasn’t cold and poli
shed, but not exactly warm, either.

  It was like the reluctant attraction she sometimes spied in men’s eyes when they looked at her. Like they resented her for making them feel that way. Tingles of awareness shot up through Ava’s body as she got near Arlen, then shut the door behind her.

  He stood there in silence, looking down at her with his unreadable face, all icy control and unshakable calm.

  Only now she knew there was a beast below the surface. A beast that had nearly killed two men with its bare hands. A beast she would never forget.

  But a beast that had saved her and, more importantly, Uril.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, not wanting to wake the boy. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did…” Her voice broke and she couldn’t finish. She didn’t need to. Arlen was fully aware of what had almost happened.

  “He is sick.” It wasn’t a question, and Ava didn’t answer it. “What is it?”

  She stared at him, this stranger who had come into her life just a few days ago. So much had happened, yet so little. Could she trust him with this? Then again, there was no point in trying to hide Uril’s sickness anymore.

  “It’s his heart. He’s got holes the size of grapes in all the muscles of his heart, and they’re getting bigger.” Now that the words came, it felt good. Good to voice her fears, to share them with someone else—an equal, and not a wide-eyed girl or a dying boy. “The gene editing that mixed the Cattelan and human genetics to create him screwed up his heart.”

  “Can’t a simple myocardic nanite treatment fix it?”

  Ava looked sharply at Arlen. She’d never suspected he had medical knowledge beyond how to kill his enemy in the most efficient way, but then again, the Eok was nothing like what she expected him to be.

  “It’s the very fabric of his cardiac muscle that is the problem.” As she spoke, the horror of Uril’s birth defect felt like a renewed slap to the face. “As soon as we fix one hole with the myocardic nanites, another one appears. He barely has intact tissue for myocardic nanites to fix.”

  Arlen frowned, then nodded with a somber expression. “What does he need to get better?”

  The softness in his tone surprised her, and Ava decided to tell him. Tell him all of it.

  “He needs another heart, there’s no way around it. An Exo-Heart tailored to his specific genes.” At Arlen’s sober expression, she added, “But that is not the problem. Knut knew Uril’s heart wouldn’t be viable for long, so he made Uril’s buyer order an Exo-Heart months ago. He kept it all hush-hush, paid off people at the bioengineering company to keep it a secret, but I never got around to doing the surgery. It’s still out there, in the Vault. All I have to do is retrieve it.”

  “What is this Vault” Arlen eyed her with shock, but also suspicion. It reminded Ava of his accusation the last time they’d spoken. A stab of pain accompanied the memory, but she didn’t have time to think about it.

  Whether Arlen thought she had been Knut’s lover or not, it changed nothing.

  “It’s where Knut keeps all his most valuable possessions,” she explained. “I’m sure there are enough jewels and gold to keep a small army afloat for years in there. But there’s also the Exo-Heart. It’s worth so much, Knut had to keep it safe. He told me so.”

  Arlen’s pale eyes became sharp and dangerous. “Where is it?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I think it’s in the Southern Hemisphere.” Hope reared its head inside her heart as she spoke to Arlen. “I’ve been looking for the Vault ever since we were freed, but I can’t find any clues as to its location. Knut hid it too well. All I know is the Southern Hemisphere is the best place on Aveyn to hide it.”

  “Southern Hemisphere?” A cloud passed over his face and Arlen’s lips flattened into a straight line. “What Quadrant?”

  “Maybe the Fourth, that’s my best guess. Somewhere past Facility Twenty-One.” Ava smiled, buoyed by the prospect of finally freeing Uril of the curse that had plagued him since his birth. “The magnetic storms are powerful down there. Anything south of Facility Twenty-One risks being destroyed by them. It’s a perfect place to hide a signal.”

  Arlen looked up and away from her. His eyes lost their focus as he thought about something, then he looked back down at her. His full focus was on her, but she wasn’t scared.

  “The Exo-Heart Knut ordered for Uril is worth millions of Ring Credits and it takes almost a year to grow…” She didn’t finish what she was about to say: that there was no time or money left to save Uril. The Exo-Heart that was waiting in Knut’s vault was his only chance.

  “How long does he have?” The question was blunt, and it hurt to hear it, but it was necessary. She had been deliberately ignoring the answer for too long.

  “A few months at best.” Ava shook her head, forcing the emotions that welled up in her throat back down where they belonged. “But after what happened today, maybe less. I still have to see what damage all that excitement did to the membrane of his heart.” She spoke faster now, the familiarity of the scientific facts giving her confidence. “Cattelans have twin hearts, with the complex circulatory system that goes with that. It’s one of the many reasons the genetic engineers had problems when they made Uril. The embryos weren’t viable with twin hearts and a human’s circulatory system. It just didn’t work. This is one of the many reasons why humans and Cattelans can’t naturally breed together. There are too many differences…”

  Her voice trailed off as she was engulfed by thoughts of a past filled with pain and fear.

  “Knut isn’t one to shy away from a challenge.” Arlen spoke softly, encouraging her to continue. “He wouldn’t let a little thing like genetic compatibility get in his way.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” Ava smiled sadly. “I was sixteen when Uril was born. It was no surprise when his heart turned out to be so full of holes, he needed myocardic nanites on his first day. No surprise and no heartbreak, either. Knut made sure all Uril’s needs were fulfilled from his first breath, but he never cared about him. Uril was just another specimen to him and it didn’t matter that he was raised under Knut’s own roof.”

  Silence descended between Ava and Arlen, wiping away the intimacy of the seconds before. There was no place in her life for comfort, or for closeness to anyone else other than Uril.

  “Knut was a monster, but that doesn’t explain what happened this morning.” Arlen shook his head. “Why did those men attack you and Uril?”

  “They’ve always hated us. They hated us for being different, for living in the mansion with Knut while the rest of them were kept in the residential buildings like lab animals. They hated everything about us.” Sadness wrapped itself around Ava. She could take the insults and the barely veiled disgust, but things had never escalated to violence before. “It was an ambush. They must have known I take Uril to the clearing whenever I can. He does love to see the flowers.” She stopped as her voice faltered and took long, deep breaths.

  “He’s not safe in the medical facility anymore,” she added when she was sure her voice wouldn’t betray just how distressed she was by what had happened. She took a step toward Arlen, looking up at him with what she hoped he would read as sincere gratitude.

  As she got nearer, Arlen’s face changed; the corners of his mouth lifted just a tad, enough to reveal the sharp tips of his fangs. His eyes took on a feral look and for the second time that day, she was afraid of him.

  Then it was gone and the Commander was back, all ice and authority.

  “Neither are you.” Arlen shook his head slowly. “I should have known your status as a hybrid would foster hostility within parts of the human population. I cannot allow you to go back there now. Another doctor will arrive in a few days to replace you.”

  All her pain, her guilt and fear froze in surprise, then were wiped out. For just a second, she wasn’t sure he meant it. Then his expressionless, cold face told her that he was serious.

  “You’re replacing me?” She stared, stunned, but her shock didn’t last long. Anger
came, her temper flaring as it always did, making her disregard the danger of provoking the Eok. “My patients need me. I delivered a baby just yesterday. You’re fooling yourself if you think you can keep me away from them.”

  “I have authority on all security questions.” His tone was cutting, and his polished expression turned icy. “That includes the medical clinic, and it includes you.”

  Her temper flared even more and mixed with the constant fear and worry, the bone-crushing exhaustion of the last month. Everything became focused on Arlen and his steely control. She didn’t care if she was the stupidest woman in all of history for poking the bear. She wasn’t letting him win.

  Ava chuckled, raising her brows derisively, then crossed her arms over her chest. “You think you have authority over me?” She tilted her head and shook it. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”

  “You are relieved of your position as the medical doctor for Aveyn’s human population, effective immediately.” Arlen spoke in a controlled voice, but she saw the flicker in his eyes as she defied him. “I am confining you to the mansion until I can ensure your safety.”

  He was locking her up in that godforsaken place? Rage spilled through her veins, reawakening years of horror contained within those very same walls. She had already thrown caution to the wind, but now she wanted to poke the bear, wake up the beast, and make him feel every bit as miserable as she was.

  “You and what army?” Ava flipped her hair defiantly and pursed her lips, speaking deliberately low and slow. “‘Cause if you want to lock me up, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  She knew she shouldn’t mock him, shouldn’t provoke him, not after seeing first-hand what he was capable of, but she couldn’t control it. Being a doctor was what she was, it was everything she was. It was the only thing she was certain of, the only thing that made her more than a genetically engineered toy.

  And Arlen wanted to take that away from her? Well, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  The challenge was as clear as if she had shouted and Arlen was quick to respond. He scowled, his brows furrowing until they almost touched and his lips pursing in a savage hiss.