She huffed out a breath. "The way this week is going it's probably slavers."
"Slavers would not have the technology to get this close without my ship sensing them," Farin said mildly enough. He still received a glare for his troubles.
"Arrogant ass," she muttered, he assumed it was meant to be under her breath, but he caught the words anyway. He almost smiled. He would have if they weren't suddenly facing an unknown enemy who was a danger to the woman before him.
"Make any enemies while you were entertaining the masses?"
"Just you," she answered as he followed her out the door of her room into the hall.
Farin caught a movement and growled, lunging for his female. He was able to jump in front of her and danger, but the stun that was meant for her connected. He hissed at the feel of the electric current running through his body, but he did not drop, keeping a cursing Ember protected. What he did not expect was a second beam to catch him on top of the first before he could get his basic shields up. He was cursing the same arrogance she had just accused him of as he fought against the blackness the stun caused.
He had not come fully shielded thinking he was collecting his mate, another reason he was also healing from a dozen shallow cuts. It was going to cost them both dearly if they were not very lucky.
The last thing he saw before even his Tellox constitution was brought low was the flash of lavender eyes and wild silver gilt hair moving wildly. His female’s transformation to full on predator. Seems he was not the only one holding back for their fight. Even as she held his eyes and snarled through a full set of fangs at their attackers, he dropped, roaring his rage into the swallowing blackness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ember recognized the smell first. She knew well that desperation and hopelessness had its own stench, and she had smelled it enough since she escaped the labs in other places to know that her nightmares did not have an exclusive claim to it, but added with the scent of chemicals and disinfectants and it could not be mistaken for anywhere else.
It was impossible, she knew it better than most having blown up the labs her own self, but when she finally pried her dry aching eyes open she found clear walls on three sides and a shimmer of blue forcefield separating her from the long hall between cells. She did not need to turn her head to see that there were beings in the cells surrounding her. She could hear their pain and fear without seeing it herself.
The clear walls gave not even the tiniest promise of privacy. So she let herself lie on the hard slab that functioned as her bed and let her body fight off the effects of the drug they had pumped her with to sedate her. It would not have been an ordinary stun, because they rarely worked on her, and the pounding in her head and limp lifelessness of her hair even as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest said more than anything how she had been affected.
She would be happy her hair was not giving away her emotional panic, if it did not feel like all her extra senses were also affected. She tried to move her arms and legs subtly, trying to gauge just how much worse it was.
She could move but she had the feeling she would not have her usual speed or dexterity until the muddled haze between her ears had worn off. The pounding, just seemed to be getting worse, until gradually she realized it was something besides the effects of the drugs causing it. Someone was pounding away at her shields. And not in a subtle or careful way either. That was new.
Had the white coats found a new way to torture?
She bit back what would have been a groan when the pounding became more insistent as time went on not less.
She could feel some of her senses returning slowly over the passing time, and her hair had already twitched and flicked a few times, giving a shivering wave before settling down again. But even as time passed and the drugs wore off no one entered the housing unit. Ember snorted at the name.
The housing unit had been the white coats name for where they kept the cages for their lab rats. Not to be mistaken for the "pit" where they kept the more exotic species for their punishments, or the labs where they did their more evasive experiments. Both places had been her home more than once in her night terrors, and while she hated the clear walls of her cell with the passion of two suns, even it was preferable to either of those choices.
The pit was a place of darkness and rock where no walls separated the unfortunate who were tossed in there. Or at least that was what had been in the labs where she was made. She was not looking forward to finding out what new surprises this place had in store for her. Her memories were bad enough. Most of their experiments and captives went into the pit and never came out having been eaten by the exotics, as they were called. She had been thrown down there one time, managed to survive a few hours by being small enough and fast enough to fit into places the larger beasts could not.
How old were you?
Ember hissed out an involuntary breath and searched her mind for the invader who had breached her mental defenses while she was distracted. She found him even as she recognized that voice, though it was the first time she had heard it inside her head. She almost pushed him back out anyway, but she needed answers and he might have them.
It was only as she relaxed at his identity that she realized the pain in her head was gone as was most of the haze deadening her senses. It was the first time someone other than Lyric or Charm had been in her head. Telepathy was lyric’s gift, not hers, and even with Lyric leading them through it the three of them had to work a lot harder than Farin seemed to for the connection.
Where are you and how are you in my head?
If you open your eyes and look you will see me in the cell across from yours.
Ember could not stop herself from cringing at the rage that frosted those words with ice. Farin the Dark was not a happy guest. But then she could hardly blame him. She was teetering between fury and fear herself. The fear just making the fury rage higher, even as she fought for her body to show nothing of her heightened emotions.
They monitor everything. Your heartbeat and even adrenaline spikes will be used against you here. Just because we cannot see them does not mean they are not watching listening and recording every response, voluntary or involuntary.
Who? the word was growled across her mind and it caused goosebumps to break out along her arms and the back of her neck. Not to mention how it affected other parts of her body. She gritted her teeth and tried to follow her own warnings and give them nothing while Farin went on unknowingly with that damn sexy dark voice of his across her senses. Who took us? Who is monitoring us, and why?
I'll tell you everything you want to know, but first you need to get yourself under control. You're causing a reaction in me that they can read, and we do not want them curious about it. Curious crazy whitecoats are bad. Bad bad bad.
His thoughtful silence made Ember think he had understood. His mind voice at least had lost the growl, and she could feel he was distracted. But when he spoke the cool timber of his thoughts did not help the situation when his words and the curiosity and satisfaction behind it was clear. I am affecting you how?
Ember gritted her teeth and stood suddenly to face the infuriating man in the cell across from her. He was standing already, watching her across the small divide between their cells. It was a bad move on her part. Very bad, because while she had been stripped of her weapons and wore only another shift, this one small, white, and again sleeveless, falling to just over her knees. He was wearing even less. They had both been sanitized, and either they had healed him, or he had done that himself, because all the bruises and cuts from their fight had faded away. And with the way he was dressed, she would have seen if there was anything to see.
Farin the Dark was stripped down to only a barely there swatch of white fabric that flapped over his front and backside with the side of his hips and thighs completely open to the air. She had thought the man was attractive in his chest bearing armor, but like this, all that muscled flesh and dangerous brutal beauty was on full display and there was n
ot a soft or light spot on the man. Every inch of hot skin over hard muscle was the same sun kissed dark gold. Only his dark hair, slash of brows and black bottomless eyes were not that supple sheen of gold. And every inch of that smooth skin and hard muscle called to be touched.
She clenched her fists and knew too late that looking at him had not helped her situation. If she did not know better she would swear the man had a natural lure of his own to rival her siren abilities. But on top of all the other weapons that he was born with that would have been serious overkill.
She had the uncomfortable feeling that it was just her alone who felt the draw. She decided as embarrassing as it was, and no matter how much it told the male before her, she would have to be brutally honest, or they would both pay the price. In a way that will suggest to the scientists that I am ready to be bred, and quickly.
Her grim words were nothing to the cold eyes she gave him. At least the thought of it had cooled down her body. Her hair had braided itself so tight to her head in reaction that it caused a new headache to start behind her eyes.
Farin observed all of this, his eyes going down her body, not with the heat she had felt before, but more a cold flash of ice, observing and if she was not mistaken marking all her reactions to memory. She did not need the feel of him in her mind to know that he was planning to get retribution for each negative reaction he caught. She could feel the cold vengeance brewing in his mind. It made her aware that they seemed to be forming a deeper connection with each touch of mind to mind.
To distract both of them from what her words had alluded to, she asked some of the questions that were brewing. How is it you are in my mind. I was not aware that Tellox had mind powers. I was under the impression that all your abilities were physical manifestations.
Most are, but for a few exceptions. A very few of us have extra abilities, and it seems from all reports as if a family connection, such as between siblings and between parent and child create a bond that allows mind to mind speak.
And of course between mates...
His tone did not change but when he added that last, there was a look in his eyes that hinted at more than a little satisfaction. He did not need to finish the thought for her to get what he was really implying.
And she was not about to feed his belief by explaining that it was the same with her people. But something else did occur to her with the thought. And that she would share with more than a little satisfaction in her own tone. My people know their mate by scent. If you were what you thought you were to me I would not have been able to leave you. I would have reacted to your pheromones the first time we met in the market. As nice as I find your scent, you gave off no pheromones that pushed me into a mating frenzy. The fact that you did not give out a scent means you are not my mate. And if you are not my fated mate, then I cannot be yours. She shook her head in sympathy as she looked around their shared prison. I'm afraid you stumbled into this mess for nothing.
Ember, he said quietly into her head, the soft feel of her name in that dark voice made her eyes shoot straight to his. Funny, he did not look disappointed. That same satisfaction was now coated with a touch of humor, at her expense if she was not mistaken. His next words told her exactly what amused him. Tellox do not react sexually until they have tasted the blood of a true mate. As of yet you have not tasted my pheromones, but I am happy you like my scent even without the bonding. I find yours equally pleasing.
Are you sure you don't have any siren in your DNA?
The question shot from her thoughts to him before she could sensor them. And she had to close her eyes and turn her back on the male when his own reaction to her question told her he knew exactly why she asked. The big scary bastard purred into her mind. And every damn nerve in her body flickered to life under the caress of it.
She was cursing long and loud in her thoughts without censure when she felt the air change and her whole body went cold again. She knew what that meant.
They are coming. Try not to react to anything they say or do. The more information they can glean from you the more they will use against you.
It was all the warning she could give before the containment field at the end of the long hall opened and all around her the creatures in their own clear cells she was trying not to notice reacted. Some, like her, stood tall and looked to see what was coming. But most of the dozen or so beings in the surrounding cells shrunk away and attempted to make themselves as invisible as their prison walls.
She did not recognize the two males and one female who walked through the hall, data pad and stylus at hand to take down their observations or make notes. But then she would not have, after all she had killed every one that had experimented on her in the past.
She thought at the time she had killed them all. She would have to do better this time. She promised herself as quickly banked rage sparked at the sight of the three coming for her. All of them had the small stature and red coloring she recognized, and all three wore the white and silver coats of the scientist of her childhood nightmares.
In all her travels she had never met one of their kind outside of a lab. When they stopped at her cell, the two men looking at her, the female’s gaze of course had caught on the dark Tellox across from her and refused to move away. She could understand the woman’s dilemma, but that did not mean her teeth did not sharpen with the need to bite her when the female looked too long. She cursed long and hard in her mind again while she did her best to keep every reaction to herself. She did not need either the scientists, or Farin the Dark to see her mate-like reaction. The man would be insufferably smug, and the scientists... If they thought they had a Tellox and a Royal Siren as a breeding pair...That she could not even bare to contemplate.
Distraction, she needed it now.
"How many of your people are there in the galaxies, and why is it that I only seem to run into the psychotic soulless ones with god complexes?" Ember motioned to the three of them in their head to toe white and silver. "Do you have a home planet out there somewhere with normal beings, and children running around making messes that have nothing to do with tinkering with genetic experimentation on sentient beings?"
That finally drew the female’s eyes away from Farin and to Ember as all three of the scientists stilled and stiffened. They shared eye contact between them, and Ember knew the moment when they decided conversing with her would gain them some knowledge. Normally they would not have bothered holding a conversation with a lab rat. The tallest male, who was about Ember’s height of five feet nine spoke for them all.
"There are only a few Galais. Our home world was far from here and destroyed long ago. Only a small contingent of scientists survived the destruction and made it our mission to revive our species." The man raised his chin and looked down at her with pride and smug superiority. "You should be grateful for our 'god complex' as you call it. You would never have existed if not for our 'tinkering'." From the way he said the word with icy contempt it was clear he did not care for the term. He looked briefly at his data pad. "You bear the genetic marking of one of our creatures, but we were under the impression that all had been destroyed when the main lab was destroyed. How is it you survived?"
"That's easy," she said raising her own chin in defiance as she struggled to swallow her rage at his words, and her fear. She needed them to focus on her and not what or who else could have escaped their labs. If they started actively looking for more they might find Lyric and Charm and for some reason they did not know about them, despite them having been on the same ship. Ember would have felt it if they were close, or dead. "I left before I destroyed your lab...and everyone and everything in it. I also destroyed the tracking chip your people planted, so how did you find me at all?"
"We give rewards for sightings of rare predatory species in an effort to rebuild the program you claim to have destroyed. Imagine our surprise when the taking of a rare siren netted not only one of our most valuable experiments but a Tellox warrior as well." Since he seemed more excited by th
eir find then angry about the destruction of their lab she was not sure where to take the conversation from there. She had forgotten how cold these Galais, as they called themselves, were for anything but their experiments. Their lack of emotion and empathy was nearly as cold as the scientific curiosity that shined from their dead eyes. "It is almost worth the data we lost in the explosion."
Data, she realized, not people.
For a moment I was worried you were trying to antagonize them on purpose, but I see my worries were unfounded. Came the dark voice of Farin once again through her thoughts. Do they have any redeeming qualities?
Not that I have ever seen. She answered back with enough anger and disgust in her thoughts to tell its own story. But then I was a child through most of my time in their care, and as they just said, they created me. It's possible they would treat a natural born child with more...care. Ember shrugged in her thoughts and looked at the dead eyes of the three studying her with such cold attention. But I doubt it.
That will certainly make killing them all an easy decision.
Ember almost smiled at the cold brutal satisfaction laced in that easy sentence. It does, doesn't it?
But Ember knew better than most what the Galais were capable of. It would not be as easy as Farin seemed to think to get out of the labs a second time. After all the Galais had made it their mission to find and contain dangerous species. Somehow she did not think they would make the mistake of underestimating her or a Tellox Commander and make it easy for them.
The male who was clearly in charge turned to the slightly shorter male beside him. "We take no chances with these two until we have a better idea of what they are capable of. Put them both under, full scan and all data directly to my link." He eyed Farin and then turned those cold eyes back to Ember. "She is showing elevated pheromones and sexual reactions to the male. Once you have her preliminary scans wake her up and put her with other male subjects. I would like to see her reaction and that of other males to her lure. Put her with one of our lesser subjects, if she accepts a mating fine, if not we won't lose anything valuable."
Farin the Dark Page 5