Venomous Heart

by Mary Auclair

  Already, the Ilarian guards had breached the defenses and were pouring into the building, running in tight formation, disciplined and fearless in the face of death.

  Corpses littered the ground as Ava followed Arlen’s long strides. Her mind was blank as she focused on not stumbling, barely holding her panic at bay. Then they were at the bottom of a long staircase leading up to the second story of the facility and Arlen turned to the other side.

  She resisted, grabbing his arm. “We can’t leave yet.” When Arlen frowned, then aimed at and shot another man behind her, Ava cried out, but she still resisted his pull. “There’s a boy here. He’s sick, he’ll die if we don’t bring him with us.”

  “We don’t have time to save one boy.” Arlen shook his head, his face unyielding. “There will be plenty of deaths before this day is over. One more does not matter.”

  Ava stared at him, her emotions filling the space between her ribs as the fighting got more intense. Ilarian guards against humans, who were losing the fight fast. Humans fell victim to the ionic detonations with blood-curdling screams as their bodies were shattered, their organs spilled. And always, the Ilarian guards kept coming, stepping over the lifeless bodies of their fallen comrades without a glance, their cold eyes fixed on the next target.

  Death surrounded them, its long arms reaching all the way to them like a sick caress. Ava shook the morbid fascination away. She wasn’t here to fight, she was here to heal, and heal she would.

  “No. It’s not true. One life always matters.” She swallowed the fear that threatened to choke her. “You can go, save the other Eoks and alert Prime Councilor Aav, but I’m getting Derek out of here.”

  Arlen growled in a sudden display of sheer violence and Ava let out a shriek. He leapt over her body, slashing with his talons before two Ilarian guards fell, blood spraying the walls and the ceiling as they writhed on the ground. When he turned back to her, his face was different, like violence was lighting something from within him. Something dark and evil, something that made her afraid.

  Something he was fighting with everything he had.

  “Let’s save that one life, then.” He rushed toward her, grabbing her again as they climbed the steps two by two until they ended up on the superior level of the building.

  There, the silence was heavy, full of the promise of death and pain as they made their way up the stairs. Ava followed Arlen’s steps in the dim light, trusting him on some deep, subconscious level. He finally stood before a closed door, then pushed it open.

  Moonlight shone on the frail body of the child lying in the narrow bed and he turned his head to see who was coming, wide eyes staring at them full of fear. He had woken up from the chemically induced sleep, but he was still weak. The nanites had done good work, but his breathing was still shallow and fast, and as Ava approached, she could feel the erratic, panicky speed of his heartbeat.

  “Can he walk?” Arlen’s voice was harsh, but there was no cruelty in it. When Ava shook her head, his already grim face took on a warning expression. “You will have to carry him. I need my hands free to fight our way out. We don’t have much time, the humans will be overwhelmed soon.”

  Silently, Ava nodded. The Exo-Heart was already weighing her down with its good twenty pounds, and she rummaged through the room to find something to put it in. Finally, she found a large bag, then shoved the glass jar inside, strapping it to her back. She rushed to Derek, lifting him in her arms, locking her hands under his backside. He was heavy—too heavy for her to carry for a long distance with the weight of the Exo-Heart already slowing her down—but she had no choice. She wasn’t leaving him behind, nor was she leaving the Exo-Heart. Derek stared, his small, round face full of fear.

  “Hold on to me,” she whispered in his ear as she cradled the small body in her arms. He was small for his age, but he still weighed around forty pounds. Ava adjusted her hold on him, her arms under his bottom as he wrapped his legs around her waist and held on to her neck in that instinctive hold of small children. “Everything will be all right.”

  As Ava whispered those words to him, a silhouette stepped into the light, pointing the gleaming metal of an ionic gun straight at her.

  “No, it won’t.” In the faint moonlight, Will Harl’s crooked teeth shone like a predator’s fangs. “No one is going to be all right.”

  Arlen

  Arlen stared at the human male, hatred twisting his insides. The barrel of his ionic gun was pointed steadily at Ava, but every other second the pale blue eyes shot to Arlen.

  “Drop the gun,” Will Harl ordered Arlen, motioning toward Ava as he stared at Arlen. “Or the abomination gets it.”

  Ava opened her mouth to speak, but Arlen shot her a warning glance and she fell silent. He knew better than to try to reason with the likes of Will Harl. As Arlen put the ionic gun down, then got back to his feet, he studied the human male’s face.

  There was a sickness in him, gleaming in his blue eyes, contorting his features into a mask of pure, distilled hatred. There was no reaching him, no negotiating. That male wanted to hurt, wanted to kill.

  Arlen’s eyes went to Ava. She was just out of his reach, holding the child in her arms, utterly defenseless. Fear shone in her purple eyes, her pupils shrinking and dilating to the rhythm of her breathing. Her fear tore at his insides and he felt the rage blooming from deep within him. The same rage that had kept him alive on the Frontier, the same rage that he had embraced like a lover for longer than he could remember.

  Because Ava was everything. Everything his soul had starved for since that terrible summer when he’d fallen for Maral’s treachery and taken her as mate. He had been blinded by rage ever since he understood that he would never find happiness, that the love he had witnessed in his parents’ eyes would never light his own.

  Only after walking through a lifetime of darkness had he found a light to guide him back, to make him feel what he had long thought dead.

  And this human wanted to take it away from him. Wanted to destroy the very source of the only beauty he had ever found in the world.

  Arlen embraced the rage as it grew, allowing the bloodlust to flower like a maleficent blossom within his chest. Because there were times where violence was a virtue, and mercy a deadly weakness.

  Luckily for him, Arlen had none for the likes of Will Harl.

  His body tensed as Arlen glanced around the room, assessing the distance between himself and the human. He was just a tad out of reach, but not by much. Arlen inched closer, slowly, almost imperceptibly.

  “Don’t even think about it, alien scum.” The human spoke with bile in his voice. “I’ll shoot through both the abomination and the boy if I so much as see you move a muscle.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Ava flinch at the use of the word, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she slowly coaxed the small human from his death grip on her neck and put him down at her side. The little boy was weak, and he faltered, only saved from falling when Ava gripped his shoulder.

  “Please, let us go.” Ava pleaded. “Derek is one of you. He’s going to die if I don’t bring him back with me to the main compound.”

  “Like I care about that little turd.” Will Harl spat on the ground in Ava’s direction. “We’re done, all of us. So one more death is nothing to me. Knut tricked us, but I know how to get out of it. All I need is to get my hands on his favorite little abomination and I’m sure he will be grateful. Grateful enough to let me leave here with the fortune he promised Ben. Only I won’t waste it on all those fuckers. No, I’ll buy myself a nice ship, then I’ll grab a piece of ass and I’ll stay out there, among the stars, fucking and eating until I’m too old to get it up anymore.”

  Rage boiled inside Arlen, deep within him, coiling with the fabric of his very soul. It numbed his fear for Ava, numbed the horror of the bigger fight to mere remote facts in the back of his mind. The bloodlust, that state of mind that lurked in every Eok’s soul, barely contained by the veneer of civilization, rose up and up as
Will Harl kept talking, taunting Ava with everything he intended to do to her. All the humiliating, painful fantasies his sick mind could conjure up.

  Rage took a biting hold in Arlen’s soul. It wasn’t burning like most people thought it was. No, the rage that came with the bloodlust was as frigid as the heart of the one who fell under its control.

  Mercy and honor fell flat in Arlen’s mind. Only death and pain could cure him now.

  He became a predator in the night, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He stood silent and unmoving as the human took a step closer, his focus and hatred solely on Ava. Then, like he suddenly remembered the Eok’s presence, Will Harl moved his ionic gun from Ava and pointed it at Arlen.

  That was his mistake.

  If he had kept on threatening Ava, Arlen would have never risked it, but the human’s assumption that his own life held any value for Arlen led him to underestimate Arlen’s resolve to save his mate. No matter if he lost his own life in the process.

  Arlen leapt, his talons out and at the ready.

  Will turned to him, his mouth lifting in a giddy, almost joyful grin as he pressed the detonator. The ionic gun fired as Arlen twisted in midair. Pain shot through his side, blazing hot and white. Arlen dismissed it. The bloodlust rendered all pain irrelevant, nothing but a mere fact in the myriad of information his brain was able to process at speed.

  He landed just in front of Will Harl, then slashed.

  The human stood still, blinking, as he looked down to where his arm used to be. The ionic gun dropped to the floor along with his hand and half his limb with a sick, wet sound.

  “You cut my hand! You cut my fucking hand!”

  “I told you I would kill you if you ever threatened Ava again.”

  Arlen felt the smile spread across his lips as he slashed wildly across the human male’s chest. Three-inch deep cuts ran from his collarbone to his navel, opening to wide wounds as his guts spilled out to the floor in a waterfall of gore. Will Harl screamed mindlessly as he lost his balance, falling into the remnants of his ruined body.

  His screams faded to a whimper, then stopped altogether.

  He was dead.

  “Arlen?” Ava spoke, her voice full of fear. Fear of him.

  He stood with his back to her, fully aware of what he looked like. He looked like the monster he felt inside; like death itself.

  “Look at me.” Ava’s voice was closer, much closer. A tiny hand closed on the blood-stained skin of his arm, and he allowed her to turn him around.

  Arlen closed his eyes. He couldn’t see the horror in her eyes. Couldn’t see the disgust and rejection on her face.

  “Arlen, please.” She cupped his cheek, and Arlen opened his eyes.

  Her striking purple eyes were set squarely on him, and she stood close enough that he could feel the heat from her body. She lifted herself onto the tips of her toes, then planted a simple kiss on his lips.

  The contact sent a rush through his body. The ice melted inside him, wiping the rage clean.

  “Are you not scared of me?” The question sent flashes of pain all the way to his chest. “Do you not see that I am a monster?”

  “You saved us.” Her voice was steady and confident. “The only monster was him.”

  Then Arlen breathed deeply and the pain in his side blossomed into a searing inferno.

  “Arlen!” Her voice rose, full of alarm. “You’ve been shot!”

  Arlen steadied himself as he pressed hard against his side. He glanced down to see a gush of blood spilling between his fingers. He clenched his jaw at the realization that the wound inflicted while he’d been prey to the bloodlust was fatal.

  He didn’t have long if he wanted to save Ava.

  “I’ll be fine.” When she stared at him with terror, he grabbed her shoulder roughly. “We need to get to the others, then we need to get out of here. We’ve lost too much time already. If the Ilarian guards take the facility while we’re still here, we won’t be able to escape.”

  Ava swallowed, then picked up the child again. Arlen grabbed the two ionic guns, then handed one to her.

  “If I fall, you have to keep going.” He locked gazes with her and saw her eyes fill with tears. “Promise me, Ava. If I fall, you will save yourself.”

  “I will never leave you behind.” Her voice was full of fear, but she held his gaze with a steady look. “So, if you want to save me, you’d better make sure your blue butt is in that transport, because I’m not carrying you.”

  Arlen shook his head. She was so fierce, so strong, he just knew she meant it. She would not leave him behind.

  That meant he had to pull through.

  “Like I said: you’re physically incapable of following orders.”

  He planted a kiss on her lips, then turned around and walked out of the room and into a blazing inferno.

  22

  Ava

  Arlen had fallen silent a while back. Ava knew what that meant and it filled her with dread. His wound covered his entire side, eating away at his liver, his stomach while blood flowed freely between his stiff fingers. The extreme electric current in the ionic detonation didn’t cauterize the wound—it was designed that way. It tore apart tissue and bone, leaving the flesh gaping and oozing blood. It was deadly by design, and even with Arlen’s superior strength, she knew he wasn’t going to hold on for long.

  It was a miracle he’d been able to walk this far.

  But as he hunched over, and the hand holding the ionic gun hung heavily at his side, she knew he had gone for as long as he could. And if he fell, he wouldn’t get back up.

  “Hush now, don’t look.” Ava put her hand over Derek’s eyes as they turned a corner. They had left the thick of the fight behind a while back, but danger continued to encroach steadily. Two more bodies lay just ahead of them—one Ilarian and one human, their eyes staring at the stone ceiling without seeing, their chests torn open by the impact of ionic detonation. Blood covered the floor, slippery and shiny.

  Then Ava stopped.

  Her eyes locked onto the human man’s face. His full beard was soaked with blood and his formerly piercing blue eyes unseeing. It was Ben.

  “Shit.” Ava shook her head, then carefully hid Derek’s face in the crook of her neck as she stepped over the corpse. She didn’t want him to see his father like that, for this to be the last image he had of him. “Almost there. Stay strong, okay?”

  Derek nodded against her shoulder, his little arms locked around her neck.

  Then they finally stepped into the garage where the other Eoks were locked up. Four pairs of blue eyes settled on them, incredulous expressions on their faces.

  Expressions which soon morphed into fierce triumph.

  “Commander!” a strong male voice called, and Arlen walked quickly to the back of the room. “How did you find us?”

  “No time to explain.” Arlen fidgeted with his free hand, finding the magnetic key in his pocket and handing it over to the imprisoned Eoks. “Get out, get a transport ready. We don’t have long.”

  “You need medical attention, Commander Arlen.” The Eok spoke with alarm, all elation gone from his tone as he studied Arlen.

  “A regiment of Ilarian guards are attacking the rebel facility.” At the slight lowering of the young Eok’s shoulders, Arlen reached out and touched his arm. “If we can get on one of these transports and out of here, they won’t chase us. What they want is right here.”

  He pointed to the black cylinder in one corner of the room. The negative particle bomb.

  “Yes, Commander Arlen.” The Eoks let themselves out of the cells and stood there, looking uncertain. One of them stared openly at Ava and Derek.

  “The youngling is sick, he needs immediate care at the main compound.” Arlen lifted his chin to the Eok who was staring at Ava. “And the female is my bloodmate, Ava.”

  The Eok’s eyes widened in shock, but he inclined his head deferentially in her direction. It always unsettled her, the way the Eoks deferred to her when th
ey knew she was mate—no, bloodmate—to Arlen. Like his aura of glory somehow extended all the way to her. Or maybe it was only that they were linked to each other in a way humans were not. She had no idea.

  Another Eok advanced toward her and extended his arms to her. She gratefully handed over Derek, who had passed out from the raging infection in his lungs. The child was limp in the large Eok’s arms and Ava bent to examine him. As she pressed the interior of her wrist to his forehead, she cursed under her breath.

  “His fever came back. He needs another treatment in the next three hours, or he’s going to lose all the progress he made on the last treatment.”

  “Nothing we can do for him now.” Arlen spoke behind her as the Eok took Derek to the transport vehicle and secured him to the floor. “We need to figure out how to send a message to Prime Councilor Aav before we go.”

  Ava nodded, then turned to join Derek in the transport. The Eoks didn’t need her help in transmitting a message to the main compound. As she climbed to Derek’s side, shouts erupted within the small confines of the garage.

  Alarm roared through Ava’s mind as she turned around, shielding Derek’s body with her own.

  An ionic blast hit the wall just above the cell, sending a rain of pulverized rock into the air. The Eoks responded by roaring, their long, scary talons shooting out, but there were only two ionic guns between them. More ionic blasts shot through the door, and Ava found herself staring as Arlen and the other Eoks pulled back to face the menace that entered the room.

  A dozen Ilarian guards, their uniforms stained with dust, smoke and blood, stormed inside, spreading in a half circle formation. Then a dozen more… and another dozen, until there were more Ilarian guards than the room should be able to contain. They moved with a slow purpose, aiming their weapons straight at the Eoks.

  Arlen snarled, the sound a terrible ripple within the confines of the garage, but it was futile. Four unarmed Eoks against three dozen Ilarian guards with ionic guns wasn’t nearly a fair fight. They were so outnumbered, there was not even the shadow of a chance that they could fight their way out.