by Bevan Greer
“I do so love a challenge.” Demise crooked a finger at Mikhel. “You will come with me instead. Fenturi for Fenturi. And you two—” he turned to Castor and Koneru “—will be entertained while we are gone.”
The situation grew worse. Five giant, manlike creatures—thirst demons, they’d learned yesterday—entered the room, armed with several wicked looking blades in their belts. They stood heads above the crew. Thick muscle laced their bodies, and black, scaly skin covered their torsos and limbs. Their faces looked human, almost. Except for the long, upper incisors draped over their lower lips, the forked tongues that snaked out as if testing the air, and the emptiness in their dead eyes.
Koneru and Castor stared at the things with grim resignation as the door clanged shut.
“Don’t say I never took you anywhere fun,” Castor joked. In poor taste, but at least the big man still had his sense of humor. Mikhel had lost his two days ago.
“Yeah, you’re a a real entertainer,” Koneru rumbled.
“By the blood. Let’s get on with this,” Mikhel hissed and attacked. He managed a few blows before the thirst demons decided to fight back. And they didn’t play fair. At all.
***
Naria stared nervously over her shoulder at her father. He nodded to her and motioned to the hidden chamber through which he’d be watching. She had to do this just right or her plan to escape Dark World would never work.
“Please give me the time and space to manipulate the offworlder,” she said with all courtesy to her father. One did not demand from Lord Demise. One asked and prayed he’d humor her.
“Fine. But I’d better see some progress. Soon.” He shooed her outside the chamber and she hurried away before he changed his mind.
Relieved, she nodded to the guards waiting for her in the hall. They advanced, seeming pleased.
The larger of the two took the first step and ripped her clothing, taking care to cause visible damage with his claws.
His friend added gouges and a few scratches to her flesh. The pain furthered her agenda, as did the blood. Not too much, but enough to show she had been involved in something unpleasant. Part one of her deception.
She couldn’t help an involuntary groan, and her wounds throbbed even worse when they smiled, feeding off her pain. Then they yanked open the wooden door to the rock-walled cell and threw her inside. They threw her a little too hard, for she struck her head on a rock bench when she fell and knew nothing more.
Sometime later, she became aware of a strong presence pulling her upright. Steady fingers ran gently over her scalp. When the hand touched the bump on her head, she winced and cried out, and the touch disappeared.
She reached to still her ringing head and blinked her eyes open. When her aching pain subsided into a dull throb, she glanced around, seeking some understanding of her present circumstances. She saw the cold, black rock against which she lay, as well as the light-haired prisoner looming over her with concern.
Her blond savior. She felt those odd tingles again as she studied him. Big and powerful. His energy felt tight, balled up yet fierce. And though he looked nothing like the people of Dark World, with his fair colored skin, white-gold hair and human features, she thought him the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Are you alright?” he asked in a deep voice, his tone soothing, his black eyes seething with emotion.
“I—I think so.” Naria winced as he eased her into a better sitting position next to him. Where he touched her, her body tingled, and she wondered at the strange sensation. “Where am I?”
“Dark World’s finest accommodations, apparently,” he said wryly as he studied her.
Naria stared back, completely enthralled. She’d never before encountered a male like him. Despite the low light in the cell, he seemed so bright to her eyes as to be almost glowing.
He had interesting features, strong but at the same time softened in concern, as if he genuinely cared about her welfare. And he had a very large, very male body that even now provided her with some heat to still the chills shaking her body.
Naria hated the cold in Dark World almost more than anything else about the planet.
“You’re cold.” His lips thinned in displeasure. He looked around, spied a blanket on the ground, and placed it around her shoulders.
Naria couldn’t remember the last time someone not her sister had done something nice for her. In Dark World, “nice” was a foreign concept.
“Who are you?” Her entire foundation shook at finding such a generous creature.
“Jace A’rel, captain of the SpaceStalker, at your service.” He made a low bow before her and grinned, startling her with the glow of pleasure on his face. “And you are?”
Naria had practiced the night prior. “I’m Naria. My passenger ship crashed here a few days ago on its way through the System.” She rubbed her eyes, aware she didn’t have to feign exhaustion. Excitement over what her part in the interrogation might mean had made it impossible to rest. “I haven’t seen anyone since.”
He studied her, and she felt a subtle touch on her mind. Strengthening her mental walls of resistance, she refused to let him broach her innermost thoughts. Her whole life had been spent protecting herself from the cruelties of her family and peers. This man would not find it so easy to read her.
“Hmm.” He continued to watch her while he sat next to her.
“What?”
“I’d wondered why they’d brought you to me. I’d thought you might be a new method of torture from Lord Demise,” he spat her father’s name. “But now I think you’re something altogether different.”
After a moment of silence, she prodded, “I don’t understand.” She gave him a gentle nudge with her mind and watched his eyes widen. Though her father had told her of Jace’s abilities, Naria hadn’t expected him to feel her gentle probe.
“Oh, I think you do understand,” he murmured. “It seems you and I have managed to keep our minds sealed from our tormenter.” He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.
Her lips curled in what she hoped passed for a smile, amazed it had been so easy to gain Jace’s trust. She hoped her father would allow her more time with his prisoner. With Jace—a strong name for a surprisingly intriguing man.
“Where do you come from?” she needed to know.
His expression darkened, and she regretted the impulse to ask. “We are not as alone as it would seem here,” he whispered, then in a louder voice, added, “I can tell you how I ended up on this miserable planet. I was trying to avoid getting blasted into space. Three Meklen warships were after us, and we outran them all. Unfortunately, that meant landing here.” He paused, then added, his dark eyes shining with mirth, “Apparently I’m not the easiest person to get along with.”
It took her aback to see one of her father’s prisoners with a sense of humor. “You seem very nice to me.” Naria was mesmerized by the golden-haired Offworlder. She’d never before felt such interest in a male. Thank the stars he didn’t know her true identity. She could only imagine his distaste to learn he shared a cell with one of Lord Demise’s offspring.
Keeping true to her story, Naria told him, “They had me in a dark room all day yesterday with only an odd spirit-like being for company.” Carinna would be pleased to be a part of her tale. “I still don’t understand how I got here though. One moment I was on a ship heading toward the Motherworlds and the next I’m waking up in this dark place.” She shuddered for extra effect, not entirely faking when he wrapped a muscular arm around her in comfort.
The urge to sit by his side and stare at him for an eternity hit her hard. Dear night, he is so pretty.
“I’m not sure what Lord Demise wants with you and me, but we prisoners need to stand together.” He gave her a gentle squeeze.
Naria felt a strange twinge in her heart, a racing need for something she could not understand.
They stared at each other, and she swore something more than a mere look passed between them.
&nbs
p; Then the door screeched open and her father joined them, ruining the moment. She sighed. Typical.
“What is this?” Her father frowned at the two of them sitting together. “Mrasha,” he bellowed, and one of the guards who’d thrown her in the cell appeared. Mrasha didn’t show it, but she sensed his anxiety, just as she felt her own heartbeat quicken. She knew her father’s tone of voice, and he wasn’t playacting his displeasure.
“Yes, Sire?” Mrasha asked warily.
“I specifically told you to move her to an empty cell. This doesn’t look empty to me, does it?” Without waiting for Mrasha to answer, Lord Demise thrust a hand through the thirst demon’s abdomen and wrenched out a fistful of innards.
“By the suns,” Jace swore and pulled her tight against him.
Mrasha curled up in ball on the floor. Ouch. That had to hurt.
“Next time, do as you’re told,” Lord Demise bit out, his voice icy. He flung his pulp-covered hand at Mrasha, who cringed, no doubt expecting to be covered in acidic blood. Once out of the body, thirst demon fluids and flesh turned toxic to all but the higher demonarchy. Yet nothing fell. Between one blink and the next, her father’s appeared clean.
An illusion then. And an artful one.
Mrasha stood slowly, cradling his belly. The pain must have been true.
A glance at Jace showed him studying her father with an intensity she could all but feel.
Lord Demise motioned to Naria. “Come. You are not meant to be here.”
Jace stood and planted himself between Naria and her father. As much as Naria loved the unfamiliar feeling of being protected, she didn’t want her father hurting this brave man.
“Leave her be.” Jace growled.
Naria watched in shock as her father and Jace engaged in an intense mind duel that neither seemed capable of ending. Incredibly, a man—an Offworlder—matched her father mindstroke for mindstroke. The power growing in the room swelled and vibrated the rock in the floors, in the walls.
“Enough.” Her father waved his hand, and Jace flew backward, hitting the stone wall behind him with enough force to knock him unconscious.
Lord Demise then called forth several minions. They poured into the cell and hauled Jace up against the wall, seating him on the cold stoop and manacling his hands above his head in chains mounted to the wall.
No longer playing a part, Naria quietly asked her father to stop. His answer was to drag her by the hand from the room and down the hall until they came to an empty cell. He enclosed them inside.
“Different technique, I’ll grant you that.” He let her go and tapped his chin, then paced the length of the room. “But you had a positive affect on our prisoner all the same. Well done, girl.” He patted her on the shoulder, as close to a hug as Lord Demise could manage. “I am sorry about the knock to the head.” Her father disliked physical violence dealt to his children unless he was the one to bestow it. “Mrasha won’t do it again.”
“How did Jace stand up to you?” Excitement bubbled in her veins. She could feel it—Jace had the power to get her off the planet. Now if she could only keep him alive long enough to do so. When her father’s gaze narrowed, she shoved her enthusiasm behind a mental wall of simple curiosity.
“I don’t know.” Lord Demise looked thoughtful. “It was the oddest thing. I couldn’t reach his mind behind his mental defenses. Not mentally. Only physical interruption disabled him. I’ve never had another with that capability aside from…” He paused and glanced at her.
“Father?”
“It’s not relevant.” He shrugged. “I don’t understand how you succeeded where I didn’t.” He looked puzzled. “But you’ve done well. The male responded favorably. Now go see how your sisters are faring.” He shooed her out the door and moved away from her toward a group of thirst demons looking extremely agitated.
Still not thinking clearly after her encounter with the blond prisoner, she did as her father bid and joined Rala and Depar at the window overlooking Bayna, her other half-sister, ravishing one of the new prisoners.
According to Rala, Bayna had been working the prisoner for some time, thrilled with his sexual stamina. The male was a Fenturi from the planet Fenby and had the power to pleasure many women for a long time. Or so Depar had added with unconcealed glee.
Naria watched in disgust as the Fenturi moaned and tried to free himself, without success, from her sister’s floating form while Bayna consumed his energy through his sexual arousal. While the male remained ready to procreate, Bayna absorbed the residual energy he emanated. Touching him to skin to skin intensified his reactions, but while she did occasionally grope him, it was only to feed, not partake in sexual favors.
Fascinated despite not wanting to be, Naria took note of the Fenturi’s much paler skin. Most demons were ink black with shades of color darting like veins along their skin. The prisoners were more like her, a light shade of tan or brown. Though even she was lighter than Jace and this Fenturi.
SHe should look away, really she should. But the prisoner’s male equipment seemed disproportionately large for his size. He had nearly the same masculine dimensions as the demons her sisters bedded. For some odd reason, her thoughts immediately went to Jace and how he might look without his clothes.
“No. No more,” the pitiable prisoner moaned.
Bayna continued to vacillate between an ethereal and physical form while she licked and bit at his flesh, combining pleasure with pain as the poor man eagerly sought release.
Not wanting to witness such depravity any longer, Naria turned from the window, more than ready to leave.
“What’s the matter, sister?” Rala sneered, her face flushed from arousal as she continued to watch Bayna and the Fenturi male. “Is this too much for you? If you weren’t such an utter waste you would already have felt the pleasure of a male between your soft thighs.”
Naria, used to such crude talk, stared at her half-sister in disdain. Her silence angered Rala and Depar into more taunts and swearing that would have done their evil mother proud.
Leaving the room and the awful sounds of sexual suffering behind her, Naria worried for more than the Fenturi’s safety. Would Jace escape Dark World without all of his crew? She didn’t believe the Fenturi would survive another passing with Bayla. But if Jace wouldn’t leave a man behind, what then? Could she try to help save them?
Lord Demise wanted information, to test the prisoners’ resistance using new experimental techniques. Bayna wanted to feed her hungers. If Rala and Depar joined her, the Fenturi male would die a quick though agonizing death.
Naria bit her lower lip in indecision and ducked into the shadows. Since the guards had yet to spy her, she shimmered into a Wraith, cloaking herself, and floated down the corridor to the cell housing Jace’s other crewmates.
She looked in and found a large gray-skinned man bleeding while bent over another male on the ground. Even sprawled on his back, the other male looked huge, much larger than her, at least. His skin had taken on a color that clearly showed he approached death. This one had hair on his face, framing his mouth. How odd and alien. How fascinating.
“Castor, wake up dammit,” the gray man ordered. He felt Castor’s chest, and Naria blinked seeing six fingers.
As if he’d sensed Naria’s invisible presence, the gray man turned to look behind him. His eyes were completely white, his body hairless and covered in hardened flesh.As she put the details together, she had a hard time not squealing with excitement.
The gray man had to be Rovi. So far, she’d seen whatever Jace was, a Fenturi, and now a Rovi—Motherworld beings. She’d studied such creatures living in the System in her textbooks while on the Fer moon, but seeing real Offworlders caused her brain to whirl with possibilities.
Though her father often dealt with Offworld prisoners on the Lysst moon, Naria had never seen or interacted with any of them before today.
She studied the Rovi and Castor, wondering from where Castor hailed. He possessed dark hair both on his hea
d and face, a large frame and apparent muscles now slack as he recuperated from demonic torture.
She couldn’t place his home of origin, much like she had failed identifying Jace. Some System planets possessed races with clear characteristics. The Fenturi, for one, were all golden, tall and solidly built, with glowing skin and bright blue or purplish-blue eyes. Despite Bayna’s crude torture, the Fenturi’s strength had shown through.
She stared at the Rovi. Had the close proximity of planet Rovi to the System Sun hardened his alien skin and bleached his eyes of any color?
He turned back to his friend, again trying to shake him into wakefulness, and Naria pulled her mind from academic interests. There would be time enough to study the Rovi firsthand…if she could get Jace to help her escape the planet. Only a being with a strong mind would be able to overcome the obstacles prevalent on Lysst. Namely, her father.
“Koneru?” Castor asked, his voice garbled. He blinked slowly, and Naria watched as his eyes widened to stare past his friend. “Who’s she?” he slurred.
The Rovi quickly turned, and she instinctively backed away from his threatening stance. Castor lay on the brink of consciousness, explaining his ability to see her in spirit form.
Her mind buzzed with fatigue, since the Wraith shape drained her energies, so she decided to leave the prisoners and return to her studying. It would do her no good if her father learned she’d been visiting, especially when strict orders had been given to leave them alone.
She floated back through the dark, damp hall toward the Light Cell. Once there she regained her mortal form and tried to draw what strength she could from the bright rays in the room.
The light seemed to burn demon and devel alike, though Naria had never felt more than a comforting warmth basking in the glow. Carinna too suffered no ill effects, though she preferred the darkness if given a choice.
Naria cautiously peeked around the door of the cell and, seeing no one about, entered the darkness of the prison corridors. She couldn’t help dwelling on the prisoners, and in particular, Jace. Would he leave without his men? She didn’t know enough about him to know the answer to that. As she walked, she reviewed what she knew, and something tickled at the back of her mind.