Venomous Heart

by Mary Auclair

  “I needed to talk to you.” She spoke quietly, without any defiance or challenge in her voice. “Please.”

  Arlen turned to her and there was no surprise in his expression. He nodded, then shot a glance at his Relany officer who quickly made his way out of the command center.

  Now that they were alone, Arlen’s face had lost its icy polish and he stared at her like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to strangle her or to kiss her. The intensity in his gaze awoke something inside her and a now-familiar tingling spread from her spine to that spot between her legs.

  All this just from him looking at me. There has to be something wrong with me.

  “You have to stay away from me.” Arlen spoke low, his voice husky as he bent almost imperceptibly toward her. “It’s not safe for you around me.”

  “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” Her heart surged at the idea that he had stayed away not because he was repulsed by her, but because he somehow thought she was in danger. “Is that what your brother was warning me about?”

  Arlen’s face twisted in displeasure at that, and he looked away from her. “Khal should mind his own business.” He shook his head. “What did my baby brother tell you, exactly?”

  “That you were going to go mad. That you and I had somehow been poisoned by some sort of Venom.”

  Arlen stared at her, his eyes trailing slowly over her face, down to her lips, and then lower. When he looked back up, there was a resolve in his eyes that bordered on hatred.

  Ava took a step back, more hurt than she could express. She could take hatred from all those people out there she cared about, but not him. She couldn’t take this from him.

  “The Venom won’t affect you when I’m gone.” Arlen straightened and looked back at the map. “In the meantime, all you have to do to stay safe is keep your distance.”

  She swallowed, pain shooting through her chest like he had stabbed her. In a way, his rejection hurt more than if he had hit her.

  “What about what I want?” Ava stepped closer and her hand went to Arlen’s arm. As her skin made contact with his, it was as if a current of erotic energy ran through her. She braced herself against the onslaught of feelings, but couldn’t prevent the longing from spreading in her body, all along her nerve endings. Her body was singing for him, for his touch. “What if I don’t want to stay away?”

  Arlen turned on her, his face savage and his eyes glittering. He grabbed her wrist in his fist and hovered just above her.

  “An Eok mates for life, Ava. That is the Venom my brother warned you about.” He spoke like each word hurt, like it burned his tongue and ripped through his organs. “Now tell me, is that what you want? Because if you get closer now, I won’t be able to resist, and then I’ll never let you go. You’ll be mine for the rest of your life.”

  Ava blinked, her mind blank as a raging inferno of arousal shot through her body. With him so close, she could barely think. Images of naked, hard flesh pounding into hers came to her mind, and wetness spread between her legs.

  Arlen’s nose twitched and his pupils dilated. He could smell her arousal, she knew. He came closer, his face hard and cruel as his words burrowed into her mind.

  “Now tell me, is that what you want? To belong to me?”

  The words shot through her like a slap. For just a few seconds, her mind was clear.

  “No.” She uttered the word and Arlen’s face twisted with pain. His pale eyes filled with darkness and his hard lips curved down. “I won’t belong to anyone.”

  “Then go, Ava. Go, and don’t come back looking for me, because Midnight God help me, I won’t be able to refrain from taking you as mine next time.”

  And she did. As soon as Arlen let go of her wrist, she turned around and ran, tears falling down her cheeks.

  9

  Ava

  Fury coursed through her veins as she stared at the piece of paper. A single line was scribbled in hasty, angular writing.

  Stay in your room. Don’t come out.

  That was all the note said. She knew who had written it even if it was the first time she’d ever laid eyes on the handwriting.

  Only Arlen could write like that; like he wanted to force the paper into submission as well.

  Ava pursed her lips and crumpled the paper in her fist so hard it hurt.

  I’ll show you just how much you can control me.

  It was a stupid, knee-jerk reaction, but she couldn’t help it. After the scene in the Command Center, she had kept out of Arlen’s way.

  And knowing why didn’t make things easier. Still, she wouldn’t belong to him the way he had warned her about. She had belonged to Knut all her life. She wouldn’t belong to anyone, ever again.

  Arlen didn’t even love her. This mating thing, the Venom—it was just some biological impulse pushing a male to take a female. She didn’t need him. He could keep his mouth, his hands and his entire hard, unyielding body to himself. She wasn’t going to cry because of him. Well, she wasn’t going to cry more than she already had. And she had… a lot.

  Enough was enough.

  She wasn’t hiding in Knut’s old mansion anymore. She had to look for the Exo-Heart, and there was no way for her to search while she hid in the mansion. The only place she could work without the risk of being discovered was in her office in the medical clinic. No one would come find her there.

  A nagging suspicion had been eating at her since the morning of her altercation with Arlen.

  Why had Knut built Facility Twenty-One so far from all others? Why would he spend all that money, and risk all those precious humans by housing them in such a remote location?

  There was only one reason she could think of.

  The Vault. The Vault had to be close by. That way, Knut could secretly monitor the activity around it and access it without raising suspicion.

  And now, Facility Twenty-One was unreachable. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she walked through the deserted hallways up to a side door mainly used by Knut’s servants, but now mostly ignored by everyone.

  Something was happening in the Southern Hemisphere. It could be more than a magnetic storm. This could be it. The Vault, and the Exo-Heart that could save Uril.

  And she had to know.

  Still, she had to brace herself against the door frame to gather her courage before pushing it open. The last time she’d stepped out, she’d almost lost her life. So had Uril. But that wasn’t about to happen. Uril was safe in the mansion, at least for now.

  Finally, she was outside. The sun blazed high and hot over the square and Ava shielded her eyes from its harsh light.

  “What in the world?”

  The people stood in the square. All of them.

  People were amassed together, standing in perfect lines, row after row, like children at school. Women and girls were on one side, and men and boys on the other. Even from a distance, Ava could tell some of the younger children were crying, and some of the women looked about to do the same.

  An Eok whose name she didn’t know stood in front of the people and by his side was Jonah, whose face was ashen. Fear was as heavy in the air as the unbearable heat.

  Ava moved toward the strange assembly. Eyes lifted to her in surprise, but no one moved in her direction. She saw Edmila in the second row of women, her eyes wide with shock as she locked gazes with Ava. The girl shook her head slowly from side to side in a silent warning. Ava stopped walking. A movement at the back, from inside the large residential building, caught her attention. Whimpers and shouts spread through the assembled humans, but none of them moved.

  Ava had the distinct impression that none of them dared move. They were petrified.

  “Midnight God!” A familiar voice reached her and Ava twisted sideways to see Arlen stalking toward her, his face a mask of pure fury. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay inside.”

  “And I’m supposed to obey your orders?” Ava began to argue, but she was silenced as Arlen grabbed her forearm and half dragged her back
toward the mansion. He pulled her along so fast, she tripped over her feet and fell, but Arlen’s grip didn’t loosen. If anything, it got tighter. “You’re hurting me!”

  A trill came from behind, a strange sound: dry and impossibly fast. The sound increased until it sounded like a multitude of claws clacking on stone.

  “Commander Arlen!” a voice called from behind them. A voice like nothing Ava had ever heard before, like metal grinding on metal, underscored by a series of clicking sounds that sounded both hollow and dry.

  Arlen stopped dead in his tracks at the shout, flinching visibly as he looked briefly down to the ground. The shadow of something too much like fear flitted across his eyes. At his reaction, Ava stopped struggling.

  “Whatever you do, don’t say a word.” There was urgency in Arlen’s voice, and more than a little apprehension. “Let me talk for you.”

  “I demanded to assess all human specimens on Aveyn.” Again, that metallic grind, those clicking sounds, but closer. “Yet you clearly wish to conceal this one.”

  Ava turned to follow Arlen’s movement and her heart stopped beating. A primal terror filled her bones as she watched a ten-foot tall monster walk toward her and Arlen, stalking on long, fine limbs of a green so deep it was almost blue. The creature had six limbs, four that she obviously used as arms, each topped with four fingers that curved into claws. Her body was as long as it was tall, made of three sections connected to each other by mobile exoskeletal armor. She had a triangular shaped face with two completely black eyes, reflecting the sunlight without any semblance of emotion as two mandibles opened and closed at her mouth. She looked like an insect, and Ava immediately understood why.

  This nightmarish creature was a Mantrilla female, the largest of all the sentient species in the Ring—and by far the deadliest. Its strength rivaled even that of an Eok, but its mind was infinitely more dangerous. They felt no mercy in their relentless struggle for power, their matriarchal society based on a single pure belief: that strength surpassed any virtue. That strength was the only virtue.

  The Mantrilla moved with fluid motions, winding a gracious path between the rows of terrified humans as more of the creatures—albeit smaller and less frightening—emerged from the building.

  Male Mantrillas. Bred as soldiers and breeders, utterly loyal to the matriarchs.

  Arlen’s face shed all apprehension and his back straightened. When he finally turned to face the Mantrilla, he was the Commander, no trace of emotion or weakness visible on any of his features.

  How Ava envied him. She knew she wore her terror on her face, in every rigid inch of her petrified body.

  “Prime Councilor Aav.”

  Prime Councilor Aav? What does she want with us?

  The Mantrilla eyed him carefully as she walked straight up to Arlen, her attention on him without deviating. Arlen didn’t move, didn’t show any fear in the face of the monstrous creature even as Ava battled her impulse to run away screaming.

  This is all sorts of wrong. Prime Councilor Aav shouldn’t be here. She never leaves her seat in the Ring’s headquarters.

  Prime Councilor Aav stopped just in front of Ava and Arlen, her green body shimmering in the sunlight, devoid of any clothing. Up close, Ava could see that her skin was in fact a kind of armor made of countless scales of chitin, as brilliant as it was strong. It would take a direct hit with an ionic detonation to pierce that armor.

  “Why are you defying my orders?”

  The Mantrilla’s long face showed no emotion as she spoke, her mandibles clicking with every word over the metallic sound of her voice—or rather, the metallic sound the translator synthesized as a language. Ava could never understand the real thing. The real thing was a series of metal grinding and clicking sounds. The sounds of a mindless predator.

  “Doctor Ava was simply seeing to a sick patient.” Arlen spoke calmly, nothing in his expression betraying his lie. “She is returning to the medical clinic right away.”

  Her mandibles clicked with annoyance as Prime Councilor Aav came to stand just in front of them. Her sheer size and strength instilled a mindless kind of terror within Ava and if it hadn’t been for Arlen’s firm grip, she knew she would have run for cover like a scared rabbit.

  And something told Ava that that would be exactly the wrong move.

  “Put this specimen with the others.” Prime Councilor Aav didn’t even glance at Ava as she turned around to walk back toward the group of humans who still eyed her with terror. “She can see to the sick once I’m done with my inventory.”

  Arlen’s mouth curved down and his pale blue eyes took on a darker shade, but he made no objection.

  “Do as she says,” Arlen whispered low as he urged Ava on. “Don’t make her notice you.”

  Followed by Arlen, Ava walked toward the group of women, her gaze down and her hair falling on either side of her face, hiding her pointed ears. Her heart hammered hard in her chest, painfully so.

  Then she locked gazes with Christie. The young woman was pale, paler than she ever ought to be as she clutched her infant daughter against her chest. Christie’s mouth lifted in a weak smile as Ava approached but suddenly the girl faltered, her entire body moving back and forth like a weed in a strong breeze.

  Only she was no weed, and the baby she carried was at great risk of falling.

  Ava ran, rushing forward even as Arlen shouted her name. She reached Christie just in time. Her arms closed around the girl’s waist and she clutched the infant between them. The baby cried, unimpressed at being squeezed this way, but she was safe. Ava quickly retrieved the infant and handed her to the person at her side—a big blue giant who stared in shock as the tiny infant cried with outrage in his arms.

  But Ava had no time to waste on Arlen’s sensitivity to being in charge of a bawling baby.

  “Christie, talk to me.” Ava clasped her fingers around the woman’s throat, feeling for a pulse and finding it fast and erratic. “This weather is too hot for her. She needs to be brought inside immediately,” she added, helping Christie to the ground.

  Arlen looked down at Ava, still cradling the bawling baby girl in his hands. He looked so lost, she would have found it funny if not for the monstrous creature standing just behind him, looking down at the distressed human with black eyes devoid of feeling.

  “That specimen is weak. It is better that she and her offspring do not survive if the species is to remain strong.”

  The statement was made in an emotionless voice that grated on Ava like teeth on her bones.

  “How dare you?” Ava turned on the Mantrilla, forgetting everything that wasn’t Christie and her baby. “She just gave birth! She needs care, not a death sentence.”

  Prime Councilor Aav’s mandibles clicked in a fast, furious rhythm, conveying an anger that those two black eyes couldn’t. Instant terror mixed with Ava’s outrage, but she didn’t back down.

  “Humans need care after giving birth to a child. It is the same for every woman.”

  “Then it is no wonder your species needs the help of others to survive.” There was disgust in Prime Councilor Aav’s voice, and it stirred Ava’s anger even more.

  “Our species survived by caring for mothers after they gave birth. This one was doing great until you forced her outside into this heat with the newborn. This is not Christie being weak, this is you endangering her and the baby.”

  She ignored Arlen’s shouting as she defied the Mantrilla, cradling Christie’s head in her lap. Mandibles clicked as Ava fought her instinct to cry and beg for mercy. Mercy was gone, and begging would only get her killed.

  Black eyes set on her with an uncanny intelligence, and a long-clawed finger extended toward her. With fear crystallizing her frozen veins, Ava stood still as a claw brushed her long hair away from her ear, then withdrew.

  A trill of mandibles clicking in fast succession came, echoed behind them by the male soldiers.

  “You are not human. You are a hybrid.”

  The words were spoken like
a death knell and Ava felt more than she saw Arlen by her side. From the corner of her eye, she saw him hand the newborn to a woman standing close by. Arlen’s face had gone from expressionless to feral, and she could see his heavy musculature rippling with anticipation.

  He wasn’t going to let Prime Councilor Aav take her. Tearing her eyes away from the Mantrilla, Ava looked at him, the Eok who had kissed her, who had saved her. He was going to die for defying Prime Councilor Aav. And it would be such a waste.

  He knew. This is why he told me to stay inside.

  Nothing could save her now. She wasn’t going to drag down Arlen with her.

  “Yes, I am.” Ava nodded, her voice strangely calm even as she admitted her own death sentence. “I am a human-Avonie hybrid.”

  Prime Councilor Aav inched closer, her mandibles clicking in a frenzied, excited rhythm. She stared at Ava with an open, ravenous curiosity that made Ava’s blood curdle in her veins, her brain stop working.

  Because she knew what that meant. It meant she wasn’t going to be protected by human status. She wasn’t going to be protected at all.

  She had just become a science experiment again.

  Arlen

  What have you done?

  Fear raged like molten lava inside his body, igniting his instincts, but Arlen fought the small voices in the back of his head that pushed him to fight the Mantrilla, slash away at the vulnerable spots in her chitin armor. Her cold, black eyes, that junction beneath her abdomen, all those places where he knew she was vulnerable to a surprise attack.

  But he didn’t move.

  Arlen willed his talons to stay inside his fingers, his war-cry to stay inside his chest. Prime Councilor Aav was a formidable adversary despite her years of soft work in the Ring. A Mantrilla as old as she always was the most vicious, the one who knew how or where to strike where it hurt the most.

  “Ava is protected under Eok law.” The writhing inside his veins amplified as Prime Councilor straightened, looking at him head on, her stance over Ava like a claim. Mating Venom rushed Arlen’s mouth, luring him into the frenzied bloodlust of his kind, but he knew he had to resist. Attacking the Prime Councilor out in the open would only lead to a civil war; a civil war with a trillion casualties sprinkled across the innumerable worlds of the Ring.