“Yes,” said Brianne, glancing at the supportive looks of Donar and Conran, grateful for everything they’d done for her, and seeing the subtle satisfaction in their eyes at having done it.
“This is against our better judgement,” Meline said, indicating herself and Voran, “but we move in the morning.”
“And I still think we have a very good idea of who it is we’ll be moving against,” said Donar ruefully.
“That’s true,” said Conran. “Our nest has had to do such damage control from what that side of the family has done. This will be more of the same.”
_______________
Conran and Donar arranged quarters for the Knights in the vastness of the mansion, and the night wore on. Nighttime was quiet at the Quist mansion regardless, but the silence that settled over the mansion now was a kind of profound disquiet. When the Knights retired, the brothers felt it. And so did Brianne.
In the small hours they found her sitting alone at the table in the breakfast room, a mug of Canopan cocoa in her hands, staring out at the stars.
Any other night, the Quist brothers would be naked at this hour—naked in bed, likely the two of them with someone of the opposite sex. This night, at this hour, they had intended to be naked in bed with Brianne. And they had intended to be doing to her, and having her do to them, all the things the three of them had done all last night and for a good part of the day; things that would have them all crying out for more, which the brothers would eagerly provide. Things tonight were obviously not going at all as planned.
They sat down with her, and Brianne anxiously asked, “Is anything going on? Is there anything new?”
“As a matter of fact, there is,” Conran answered. “The Knights have been trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of our cousins.”
Brianne blinked, straightening up in her seat. “And…?”
“They found Xhondor,” said Donar. “Or they found where he was last seen, recently.”
“Where?”
“He was spotted a couple of weeks ago on Moria Beta.”
Brianne looked off, concentrating. “Moria Beta. I know I’ve heard that name…”
“It’s a gaming and resort satellite,” said Conran. “Essentially a casino and bordello moon orbiting Moria Prime.”
Quietly startled, Brianne said, “He’s been off gambling?”
“All the way on the other side of the quadrant,” said Conran, nodding. “He was spotted gambling and drinking and surrounded by Artoulian courtesans.”
Brianne took that with a slack-jawed reaction. “Gambling, drinking, and…”
“…hiring his bedmates. Artoulians are known for plying that trade,” said Donar. “The females and the males.”
“That was the last time cousin Xhondor was spotted,” Conran added, “and frankly it doesn’t surprise me. “He was always like that, always loved the flashy things. Places, games, females. He’s been known to spend weeks at a time in places like Moria Beta. I told the Knights if that was the last place he was seen, he may not have anything to do with taking Damara. He may have just disappeared out there on his latest bender.”
Brianne sighed. Well, that was perhaps one possibility ruled out. “So, what about your other cousin?”
“He seems to have disappeared too,” Conran replied. “But not in the same way. He doesn’t have the same…habits…as his brother. No one has been able to find any trace of him anywhere. It seems he’s gone silent and invisible. His identity doesn’t turn up in any searches, including financial systems; he could be using nesting corporations or off-quadrant accounts. He’s not even turning up on sensor sweeps. He’s officially nowhere, so he could be anywhere. He could be on Lacerta right now, incognito.”
“And getting ready to hunt Damara,” said Brianne in a grim tone.
“If he’s here,” said Donar, “he’ll make his move in a few hours. And the Knights will be ready for him.”
Brianne took another tone, grimly resolved, a fire of determination behind her eyes. “And so will we.” She fixed that fiery look on the brothers. “We have to be.”
Donar reached across the table and took Brianne by one hand, Conran the other. “We have to be, and we will be,” Conran said.
“Yes, we will,” said Donar. “We know what this means to you. From being with you, from watching you and how much you love your work, and your life, and other life like Damara, we know how important this is to you. And…it’s become important to us. In the short time you’ve been here, after everything we’ve shared…you’ve become important to us.”
She watched Donar’s expression, the flashes and sparks in his eyes, as he held her hand and spoke to her. And she looked to his brother, who clasped her other hand, and saw the same light. It was the most reassuring thing she had felt since they left the city to speed back to the mansion. It touched her on a deeper level than she could remember anyone ever touching her.
“You,” said Conran. “You matter to us very much.”
Brianne almost wanted to cry, to release all the fear and dread and anxiety of this night as a stream of tears. To hear Conran and Donar express themselves this way to her now made her feel ready to burst. But she didn’t. She would save her tears for when she needed them—if she needed them. For now, all she wanted was the feeling of this moment, this warmth.
“You matter to me too,” Brianne said. “Everything you’ve done for me, everything you’ve made me feel—you both matter. I owe you so much.”
“Whatever you think you owe us,” Conran said, squeezing her hand, “you’ve paid us already. Many times over.”
“And you know how,” Donar added.
“I would have been ‘paying’ the two you again tonight, if things had been different,” said Brianne, wishing it were so.
“We’ll get back to that,” said Conran. “Believe me, we will.”
“When this thing is finished, and we have Damara back,” Donar agreed, “you’re moving out of the guest quarters and into the master suite with us.”
“That bed will be ours, the three of us,” Conran said. “Your place is there.”
Conran leaned forward and kissed her, tenderly. When he parted the kiss, Donar did the same. Together, the brothers filled her with their strength, in lieu of what they wanted to give her—and fully intended to give her again soon.
“Even if we’re not going to do what we want to do,” said Donar, “we should at least get all the rest we can before dawn. We’ll be needing it.”
Brianne agreed, and let the brothers lead her from the breakfast room.
CHAPTER 15
Slowly, the beast from another planet stirred in the grass beneath the tree where her slumbering body had been laid.
Damara the cralowog arched her back, stretching her muscles, and dug her claws into the grassy turf beneath her. She brought up her bearish frame on all fours and lifted her head to snuffle at the air. For all the world, she seemed confused or perplexed, as she might well have been: for only hours ago during the night, she had been resting in a tree. Now it was morning, and perhaps she somehow remembered that strange creatures similar to the ones that she had been repeatedly encountering had come in the night and rudely, cruelly forced her down from her sleeping perch.
Damara had quickly learned that whenever these creatures appeared it always meant trouble, and that somehow all her strength, speed, and power was never enough to stop these creatures having their way. Whenever they appeared, it always meant she would experience some sudden shock, and then for some reason she would have to go to sleep; and when she awoke it was always in some unfamiliar place.
Now it was happening again. She wanted to run and hide. If she could hide, perhaps the creatures would not come. Perhaps they would not appear again; they would leave her alone and doing whatever it was that made her to sleep and she would no longer awake in strange places.
The tree lay at the edge of a forest. Good: a forest. Trees and bushes and brush; dim, cool, safe forest. Perhaps even with som
ething to eat. She headed for there, to be out of sight, in safety and peace.
She was no more than one bound in the direction of the thicket when it happened again. The streaks of light came, but this time with no creatures making them. They came right out of the air and hit the ground in front of her, making bursts of fiery light in her path. If these streaks of light touched her, Damara knew, it would shock her, hurt her, put her back to sleep. She did not want to sleep again and wake up again in some strange place.
The streaks kept coming, not hitting her, but hitting the ground and making the sparking bursts. Damara reared up on her hind legs and made a wailing, roaring sound of dismay and alarm and fear. She could not go in the direction from which the streaks were coming so strangely out of the air. She needed to run, find another place to hide.
With a speed and grace belying her bulk, the animal spun around and made tracks for the broad, wide meadow beyond the forest’s edge. She would be out in the open there, which her instincts told her was not good. Out in the open, she would be exposed to anything else that might be out there—including other strange two-legged creatures whose presence meant trouble. However, the air also told her that there was water near. Good: water. If she could find water before she found any more two-legged creatures, she could dive in, stay under the surface, and swim until she found a place to hide. Damara ran as fast as she could, seeking the water.
The place at the edge of the forest from which the shock bolts came was not really there. The real edge of the forest lay just beyond it; this place was an illusion, a combination hologram and diffuse force field shrewdly constructed to deceive sensors.
Behind it lay an encampment with a tent, water supply, sanitation unit, fire pit, a hover-jeep, seven androids standing at attention—and their master, brandishing a shock rifle and watching from behind his force field as his quarry sped off into the distance.
Kalum Quist, with his chiseled face, dark blond hair, and smoky eyes, smiled a cruel little smile at the sight of Damara the cralowog’s hind quarters receding away across the field. He had retracted his force field to just this area right before dawn, to let Damara awaken from her sedation outside of it.
Anything inside the force field was essentially invisible to sensor probes such as the Knights or the Corps might be making to find Kalum and his quarry. But now it was time for Damara to be out—and for Kalum to get out after her, to give her a head start into the wilderness, and then track her down, make his kill, and be off with her carcass before the armor-wearing dragons could interfere.
He knew his cousins would surely have called upon the authorities by now. The corner of his mouth twisted up at the thought of very possibly having to fend them off. He and his android crew might have a good bit of sport in store for them. Of course, battling the dragon lawkeepers would mean he would have to get off Lacerta and out of the Catalan system in a hurry, as they would be right on his trail.
Kalum did not care. He had a fast ship waiting for him in orbit, and he knew plenty of places in space to hide, from which he could conduct his business selling off the parts of his kill. Kalum had had his fill of righteous people: his family, the Knights and Corps of Lacerta, the Lacertan court system, all denying him a dragon’s right to hunt and bring down a beast.
It was wrong. They were only betraying themselves as the occupants of the top of the food chain. A dragon was meant to hunt, whether with wing and claw and fang, or this way. Kalum was only being true to nature; it was they who were wrong. His father had taught him and his brother that.
His father, who was now dying in disgrace. Damn them all for reducing Kalum’s father to such a state. Perhaps they had not given him the disease, but they were damned well responsible for the way he was forced to face it. Before he began his hunt, he’d gone to see Xorian one last time, to say goodbye. Xorian had understood. He had even told Kalum that he wished he could join him on this last, glorious hunt. Father and son had embraced, knowing there would never be another embrace or another touch.
But Xorian had told Kalum that he was proud of him, as only a father could be. “You’re a true dragon,” Xorian had said. “They can take away our share of the fortune and our standing in the world and the community. They can stop respecting us. But they can never make us less than the dragons we are. Remember that, son. When all is said and done, we are dragons.”
“This one is for you, Father,” Kalum said, softly and solemnly. Then, to his androids: “Unit 1, stay here and mind the encampment. Units 2 through 7, move out with jet packs and weapon packs. Be prepared for Knights or Corps as programmed. I’ll take the jeep. Let’s go.”
_______________
The hovercar of Dame Meline and Sir Voran, accompanied by another hover van of the Knighthood, moved out over the Corvulth Glade.
Aboard the car, Voran took the controls while Meline conferred with Brianne, Donar, and Conran. Drs. Hawkes and Kimura were aboard the larger van with a group of other Knights.
Brianne intently examined what she had brought with her from the Quist estate: a small, sleek and slender, lightweight rifle that had served her well on so many expeditions on so many planets. It had never been more important than it was now, with so much more at stake than on any other expedition she had ever undertaken.
“This is the same cyber-tranquilizer that I used to capture Damara on Torado IV,” Brianne said. “I expected that to be the last time she’d have to be shot at for a long time.” She looked up grimly at Meline. “And look where it’s gotten her. Shot at again to take her away from where she was safe. And soon they’ll be shooting at her again—this time to kill.”
“We’re not going to let that happen,” Meline promised.
“No, we are absolutely not,” Conran confirmed.
“The more I think about this, the more I’m sure it’s our cousin at the back of it,” Donar frowned. “Everything leads to him and he’s going to have everything to answer for, damn his burned heart.”
“If it’s really him, he’ll answer for it, all right,” said Meline. “He’s used to getting his quarry? Well, so are the Knights.”
“I’m as much of a hunter as he is,” said Brianne. “A hunter in my own way. I’ve tracked animals, stalked them, shot them…”
“Not to kill,” said Donar pointedly. “You’re not a killer. You’ve only brought them down to study them, tag them, move them out of places where there was stress on the environment to places where they’d do better. You’re nothing like our cousin.”
“But I use the same skills, don’t I? The same skills, the same methods…” She looked from one twin to the other, seeing no reproach on their handsome faces. “But you’re right. Not to kill. Just to learn and protect. To save their lives, not take them.”
“You remember that,” said Conran. “You’re nothing like Kalum. Animals aren’t trophies to you. And you don’t think nature is yours to do with whatever you see fit. That’s the difference between you and him.”
“When we get out into the field,” Meline reminded them, “don’t forget the transmission code I gave you in case we get separated somehow. Use it to keep in contact, or if you need it for any other reason.”
“We won’t forget,” said Conran.
“And remember,” Meline added to the twins, “you two have no wildlife field experience like Dr. Heatherton and her assistants. You’re to follow her lead and stay behind her and us Knights. I shouldn’t have brought you along at all, but…”
“We know,” Conran said. The subject of their using their family’s name and status to make themselves a part of the Knightly mission was an invisible serpent aboard the car, its presence known but not spoken. The name Quist carried the highest privilege on Lacerta, and in many quarters was accorded good will. But Conran and Donar wanted no resentment between their nest and the Knights. In the final measure they were both important, and in the end the brothers wanted to keep the good will of the Spires. They would prevail on the authority of the Knights only as much as it
was absolutely necessary—to help Brianne.
Satisfied that her weapon was in good working order, Brianne slipped it into its holster that was a part of her hunting trousers. She looked at the brothers watching her, saying with her expression that she was happy to have them along. More and more, Brianne did not care for the idea of doing anything without them.
She could sense that they felt the same about her. Once they made it through their present crisis, Brianne could see a long and pleasing—very pleasing—partnership between herself and them; a partnership in more than just her work alone. Before this whole madness started, she had been enjoying an evening with them, an evening that would have ended—and in a way, truly begun—with the three of them back in bed.
Despite the threat to Damara, there was a part of Brianne that wanted nothing more than to be in bed with Donar and Conran again. Their situation, and their being in it with her, pointed up to her how much she truly wanted them.
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