by Mary Auclair
Aliena looked at each one in turn. She knew Knut spoke the truth, she didn’t question it. It didn’t even surprise her. Knut was cunning, planning for every possible scenario even as he prospered and grew his empire. Of course he had an escape shuttle, of course he had a guard with the express, secret mission to save him and secure a high-priced specimen for the eventuality that he needed to escape Aveyn with nothing but the clothes on his back.
Still, being beaten like this made her want to punch something. Only she was the one to blame, the only one. She should have called for help, should have thought more clearly. She had been lured by her heart, by the desperate call in that child’s eyes.
Aliena opened her hand and the ionic gun fell to the ground. Without losing a second, Wyol, who had been silent since getting out of the cell, came forward and grabbed it. When he got back to his feet, there was a promise of death and suffering on his face.
“Now, come with us.” Wyol grabbed her arm, then twisted her around, lifting her wrist between her shoulder blades. “Can’t believe how stupid you can be.”
“I guess I can’t, either,” Aliena answered, looking directly at Sheegar. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”
Sheegar stared back at her for a long time, then turned to Knut. “Lead the way, Minister Knut. We do not have long.”
With one last superior smile for her, Knut turned and ran for the cover of the vegetation. At her back, Wyol pushed, then they ran to the unknown.
She lost track of time as she held her breath, putting one foot in front of the other while Wyol pushed at her back. Many times, she fell and he yanked her up, not caring about her screams of pain. Knut led the way, running surprisingly fast and steadily for a man who didn’t look like he did any physical exercise except lifting his hands to command other living beings.
The sun was beginning to go down when they finally stopped in front of a large cave opening.
Knut turned to Wyol and Sheegar, then looked at her. He smiled, wide and terrifying, the knowledge that he had won written over every inch of his face. Then he turned and walked inside.
Silently, the others followed. The cave was completely dark, and more than once, Aliena tripped over rocks and other debris. Wyol let her fall, then picked her up, screaming and kicking, her voice echoing off the stone walls, but with no hope of being heard.
It was clear they could all see perfectly in the darkness, an ability humans cruelly lacked.
Finally, a dim blue light contoured a rectangular device, and Aliena saw the outline of a huge round door next to a control box. Knut pushed his hand into the blue gel inside the box, immersing it completely.
A second later, the control panel beeped and the round door split open in the middle, then opened as what looked like ten inch thick metal panels slid silently into the mountain walls.
“So, this is your villain lair, is it?” Aliena tried to sound unimpressed, but it didn’t work. “Is this where you roast kittens and play with the severed limbs of your enemies?”
Knut’s brows lifted and his eyes gleamed with humor.
“What a delightful spirit.” He smacked his lips together like he was tasting something delicious. “So unique.”
Aliena didn’t answer, but Wyol’s chuckle told her everything she needed to know. There was only misery waiting behind that door—for her and for the doomed child she had tried to rescue.
“Bring her in.” As Knut turned his gaze to Wyol, his tone went from warm and amused to ice cold.
Without waiting for an answer, Knut walked inside. Aliena was pushed by Wyol into a vast room cut into the rock of the mountain. In the center was a state of the art long distance shuttle, its exterior shining under blast lighting.
Standing in front of the shuttle was the Ilarian guard, holding the little girl in front of him. The child cried silently, large, heavy tears falling down her soft cheeks. Aliena’s heart surged at the sight.
“The shuttle is ready for takeoff, Minister Knut.” The Ilarian guard spoke in his horrible, emotionless voice. “What do you want to do with the specimens?”
“Load them both up. And strap that one securely, she’s a tricky one.”
Knut didn’t even bother turning to Aliena. He went straight to a large rectangular safe, locked with yet another biological recognition device.
“No!” Aliena shouted, then fought against Wyol’s hold. She knew it was no good, that he was much stronger than she, but she didn’t care. If Knut managed to put her in that shuttle, she would never be found. And the consequence of that would fall on Kamal. She was his bloodmate. Being separated from her, he would not live long, even if he put everything he had into his search for her.
Kicking up into the air as Wyol wrapped his arm around her waist, Aliena jerked her head, trying to bite into his flesh, but to no avail.
The child, seeing Aliena’s fear, tried to run, but she wasn’t fast enough. The Ilarian guard lifted her with a single arm and turned to the shuttle.
“This is not what was agreed.” Sheegar’s voice sliced through the air, its metallic edge more pronounced than ever before. “This was not the agreement.”
Wyol stopped and the Ilarian guard did the same. Knut turned to them, a gold box encrusted with jewels in his hands, no doubt filled with precious stones and metal, easily traded riches for his time in exile.
“I gave my word. The human hatchling must be freed.” Sheegar looked straight at Aliena. “The human female Aliena as well. She kept her end of the deal.”
Silence descended over the room, but it was short-lived.
“Shut up,” Wyol spat. “I’m not spending the rest of my life in the gutters. With the price of both of them, we’ll be able to retire, live our lives as rich as fucking Dukes.”
“And do you think he’s going to give you anything?” Aliena whispered close to Wyol’s face, turning her head sideways. “You can’t be as stupid as you look. He’s going to ditch you, toss you aside like the trash you are.”
In response, Wyol jerked her like a rag-doll. She gritted her teeth, but when the movement stopped, she saw she’d pushed the right button. Wyol now turned a suspicious frown to Knut.
“How much are you going to give me for this piece of fine ass?”
“Don’t you worry your small brain about that,” Knut answered, obviously irritated. “You’ll receive your payment when we’re safely outside of Aveyn. I’m sure the Wallowy civilization will offer us sanctuary, for the right price. They’re quite fond of the youngest specimens.”
The horror of what Knut was describing filled Aliena with a revulsion bordering on rage.
“You can’t let them do that.” She turned to Sheegar and saw a mirror of her own disgust in the male’s face. “She’s just a child. If they do this, it’s on your conscience. Let them keep me, but not her.”
Sheegar turned to Knut then, fast as an insect, pulled out his ionic gun.
“Let the hatchling and the female go.” Sheegar’s eyes were black cesspools, displaying a deadly anger as cold as the mountain.
“Please.” Knut lifted his lips in a disgusted pout. “Like I would ever associate with a Mantrilla.”
Knut looked sharply to his side, at the Ilarian guard. The sound of an ionic detonation bounced off the stone walls, painfully loud, mixing with the girl’s screams. Sheegar shrilled, his voice grating like tearing metal as his ribcage exploded, spattering the ground with his internal organs.
His body fell with a limp sound, face first. Aliena didn’t need to look to know he was dead before he even touched the ground.
“No more complications now.” Knut turned his cold eyes to Wyol. “We don’t have time for petty fights.”
Aliena reached up as Wyol’s arm crushed her throat and she was dragged backward, away from the shuttle.
“No way!” He jerked her around, putting Aliena’s body between himself and the guard. “I need insurance you’re not going to betray me, same as you turned your back on Sheegar.”
“Sheega
r chose his own fate,” Knut retorted hotly. “Now, I will give you ten seconds to reconsider, or my offer is officially withdrawn.”
Wyol opened his mouth to answer, but his words were lost in a blaze of fire and fury.
Chapter 25
The first body to fall was the Ilarian guard’s. The ionic detonation pulverized his head, brain matter spraying through the air like wet, organic rain. The child kept screaming, hiding her face in her hands, standing there, in the middle of danger.
Time seemed to slow down, highlighting each second with merciless accuracy.
Knut watched as the body of his last Ilarian guard fell to the ground with a limp sound. Then he turned, just in time to see Kamal rushing into the room, a war cry on his lips.
Aliena’s eyes latched on to the glory of him. His face was twisted in a feral grimace, his talons extended like scythes as he ran directly for her, his ionic gun in his grip, deadly and ready.
“Aliena!” Kamal shouted, locking his pale, war-drunk eyes on her.
Wyol’s pressure on her throat increased and soon, she couldn’t breathe.
“Stay where you are!” Wyol shouted, then moved back, further away from Kamal, and further from the shuttle. “Or your bloodmate is history.”
Kamal stopped, standing still, holding his arms away from his body, his chest heaving deep and fast. His face was set in terrible lines, his eyes glittering and missing nothing.
“Let her go.” Kamal growled low in his throat. “Let her go, and I might just let you live.”
Aliena’s vision blurred, darkening at the edges as oxygen deprivation pushed her toward unconsciousness. As Kamal focused all his attention on her, she noticed the slim form of Minister Knut crouching to the ground.
Where is the girl? She tried to look, but the encroaching darkness prevented her from finding the child.
But then Wyol readjusted his hold on her, and all she could do was gulp air in fast, greedy lungfuls. Fingers closed around her nape, twisting her head painfully to the side.
“Take one step, and I snap her neck.” Wyol punctuated his words by pushing on her neck until she cried out. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“And then what?” Aliena said, even as white flashes of pain threatened to fill her mind with terror. “Where are you going to go?”
“Shut up!” Wyol yelled in her ear, but his voice had that desperate edge of one who knew he had very little chance of living to see the next sunrise.
She knew she had to act fast, had to find a way to distract Wyol enough to give Kamal the opportunity to strike.
“Look at Knut, he’s going to go away with the girl and leave you behind to die.”
Wyol moved his head to see Knut moving, fast and furtive as a shadow, slipping inside the door to the shuttle, stepping over the body and brain matter of the Ilarian guard.
“No!”
Wyol let go of her neck, moving slightly toward the shuttle. Aliena reacted with pure instinct. She brought her elbow up into his stomach as hard and as fast as she could. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, but it was enough to make him lose his grip on her neck.
She didn’t hesitate. Aliena dropped to the ground as Wyol looked back at her, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a comical O. He realized his mistake, but it was too late.
Kamal jumped, his talons at the ready, his fangs out, feral and untamed, a beast of prey lashing out.
As she dropped to the ground, she twisted in time to see Kamal’s talons embedded in Wyol’s scrawny chest. Wyol looked down at Kamal’s hand, wrist deep inside his body. The Avonie male looked up at Kamal, incomprehension in his eyes, then Kamal jerked his hand out, holding a beating heart between his talons.
Wyol looked down at the heart, then understanding dawned on his features. His knees gave way and he fell to the ground, his life gone.
“Aliena.” Kamal dropped the steaming organ and then his arms were around her, enveloping her in warmth and safety, in a love that could not be explained and never understood, but that was more powerful than the rules of the universe.
Aliena collapsed in Kamal’s embrace, in the strength of him.
Then the sound of an engine pulled her away from the cocoon of protection. She pushed Kamal’s arms, Kamal’s chest away from her and turned to see Knut’s shuttle hovering above the ground.
“No, he can’t escape.” Aliena tried to shove Kamal aside and run to the shuttle, but his hold on her was too strong. “You have to stop him.”
“It’s okay, Little Bird.” Kamal put a reassuring hand around her waist, trying to pull her close. “He can leave, it doesn’t matter. He won’t escape Prime Councilor Aav when she sees everything he did. He’s a dead male.”
No.
Her mind spiraled out of control as the shuttle lifted into the air, then a trap door split the mountain open, the sunlight pouring in like a flood. In a few seconds, Knut was gone.
No, no, no, nononononono! Aliena pushed Kamal away, then staggered in the death-filled room, looking around wildly. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand.
“Where are you?” she cried out, looking around as tears poured down her cheeks. “Where are you?”
Aliena sobbed uncontrollably, her knees finally giving way. Kamal rushed to her side, and when he gripped her chin in his blood-stained hand, turning it to him, his face was etched with confusion and worry.
“She’s gone. He took her. That monster took her.”
“Who? Who are you talking about?”
She tried to answer but the grief, the horror of what would happen to the child was too great. She began to sob uncontrollably, her eyes fixed on the blinding light pouring from the open mountaintop, her mind a tornado of horrifying images of the gray-eyed girl, her innocent face twisted with fear.
Kamal’s voice reached her ears, but it was so far away, meant so little compared to those large, tear-filled eyes.
“I failed her.” The words came out, distorted and choked with tears. “Now she’s lost.”
Kamal turned her around, cruel fingers digging into her flesh. He shook her, hard.
“Who?” His voice was harsh, loud. It forced some sense into her.
“The girl. They took a girl, she’s four, maybe five years old. He’s going to sell her.”
Before she could lose herself again in the deep well of her anguish, shouts and footsteps reached her ears, her brain. She turned inside Kamal’s embrace to see the young man she had imprisoned earlier staring at her with wrath in his eyes.
“That’s her!” He pointed to her as more people poured into the room. “She’s the one who freed Knut.”
Anger traveled through the group of men, and hard stares came her way. Written on each of their faces was the word he’d used for her. Traitor.
But she didn’t care. All she had done was for that beautiful child, and now, she was lost.
As the men came closer, their hostility escalated. Anger gave way to insults, then threats.
Kamal released her shoulders, standing up between her and the wall of men. The talons grew from his fingers, aggression rippled down his limbs.
Violence and bloodshed were about to erupt.
No, enough of that.
Enough blood, enough innocence had been spilled like spoiled milk. She couldn’t endure more.
“There was a girl!” Aliena screamed over the rumble of male voices. They all turned to her, surprised, shocked. “They took her. He took her, and now we’ll never get her back.”
“It doesn’t matter!” the same young man she had locked up shouted at her, breaking the silence. “Knut had to pay. He had to pay for what he did to my family.”
Aliena locked eyes with him. There was such a depth of pain, of anger, of rage-filled defenselessness in him, she couldn’t blame him for what he wanted to do to punish her.
“She was just a girl. She didn’t deserve to be sacrificed for your revenge.”
“How is that helping her now?”
Aliena fell silent. Kamal was still on hi
gh alert, facing the crowd, his talons at the ready. “Stay back, all of you.” He turned his head as he spoke, facing as many of the men as he could. “I won’t repeat it.”
The men faced him, tension rising, hatred bubbling under the surface, ready to break free and unleash its plague on the world.
“I’m here.”
The tiny voice rose out of the silence, reaching every ear. The young man stepped forward, breaking free of the group.
Kamal growled, the threat clear, his intentions deadly, intent on protecting his bloodmate at all costs. But Aliena stopped him. She put a hand on his arm and Kamal twisted his head sideways, clearly unsure why she was preventing him from protecting her from a vengeful mob.
Aliena turned to the far side of the room, where a series of containers was stacked, to see a small form, almost swallowed by shadows.
“I’m okay.” The child stepped forward until she was almost level with Aliena. “I’m sorry I hid, but I was so scared.”
Aliena fell to her knees and the little girl ran to her, then wrapped her arms around her. Aliena returned the hug, holding the child close to her heart.
“You’re okay,” Aliena said into the child’s silky black hair.
Silence overcame the room as Aliena hugged the child close to her heart. She could feel their gazes on her, could feel the emotions flowing through her, over her.
“Nita?”
Aliena turned to see the same young man step forward, ignoring the towering threat posed by Kamal. He almost staggered to them, his face slack, his eyes wide.
“Jonah?”
The girl pulled out from Aliena’s embrace and ran to the young man, jumping into his arms. Everyone watched as the young man sobbed like a child, holding the little girl tightly. It seemed like hours passed before Jonah put Nita down and turned to Aliena.
“They told me my sister was dead.” Jonah looked down at Nita, then ran a hand through her hair. “My mother grieved for her for months.”