The Inquisitors (The Space Merchants Book 6)

by Wendie Nordgren

  “Permission for what?” Ross asked.

  “I want to know which one of my men scared Clark and his team.”

  They looked at me with varying degrees of wariness. Finally, Cedrenus spoke. “Whoever he is may not want to be found out.”

  I shrugged. “Can we do it or not?”

  “We’d have to tap into the security feed for their dorm.”

  I raised an eyebrow and waited. A few minutes later, we all went for a walk to the building containing their dorms. Binder was able to tap into a control panel that he gained access to from within a supply closet. We huddled together and watched the security footage at a blurring speed.

  “Stop,” Cedrenus said. “Turn it up.”

  A dark figure had dropped down into Clark’s dorm room from the ceiling. “Not a word,” the male ordered. Then, he viciously struck Clark across the face. “Do not draw attention, or you become a liability, as do you all.” The man looked around the room at the other boys. Then, he was gone.

  “I don’t know that man. That wasn’t Drex, Eli, Kaoti, or any of my Omnes Videntes.”

  “Shut up,” Cedrenus nervously ordered. They rushed to put everything back as it had been. We left quickly. With feigned playfulness, Cedrenus said, “We have the day off. Why don’t you take us swimming in that fancy pool of yours in the Palace?”

  Playing along, I said, “Fine, as long as you don’t mind me seeing you all naked.”

  Once we were in the transport, I realized they were all scared. Whoever that man had been, it was bad. Telepathically, I called out to Zared and shared everything with him. My team and I had smiles on our faces and were laughing as we entered the Palace. My guards were waiting.

  “Zared! Come swimming with us!” I gave him a big kiss.

  I showed my team where they could change, but I cheated and wore my black two-piece from Thalassa. Then, I smirked at them as I entered the pool. Izaac and Xavier had taken up guard positions at the doors and activated shielding so we wouldn’t be overheard.

  Zared asked, “Who is he?”

  Cedrenus said, “He’s Clark’s father, Inquisitor Flavian.”

  Zared asked, “Why does his father’s admonishment of him cause you concern?”

  “Flavian said, ‘Do not draw attention, or you become a liability, as do you all.’ Whatever Inquisitor Flavian is involved in is so dangerous that he would kill his own son and his team to keep it secret. He didn’t punish Clark for fighting Teagan. He punished him for drawing attention to House Flavian.”

  Zared smiled at him and empathically eased the fears of my team. “Thank you for your caution. All will be well. We will keep this information to ourselves. Agreed?”

  “Yes, sir,” they answered.

  My ladies entertained Cedrenus, Binder, and Ross until it was time for them to return to the Academy. However, I continued to worry about what we had learned long after they had gone. An angry barrage pulled me from my silent musings.

  “Chitter chitter clack chitter chirp.” I blinked down at Thunderdrop and saw images to accompany his angry tirade. In them, I was cringing in fear, but Thunderdrop jumped to my uniformed shoulder glaring at my enemies with venom dripping from his fangs.

  “You want to go with me to the Academy tomorrow to protect me? You don’t mind?”

  “Chirp chitter,” he said which was the equivalent of, “Yes, I’ll go with you. Of course, I don’t mind.”

  “Thank you, Thunderdrop. That makes me feel much better.”

  “Chirp,” he said. Then, he waited until I opened the door leading out to the porch. He went out and darted off to the gardens. Lately, Thunderdrop hadn’t been spending much time with either me or Sue, his pet octopus, and I started wondering what he was up to.

  Big strong arms surrounded me from behind. I breathed in Yukihyo’s scent and closed my eyes. He whispered, making me strain to hear him, “Are you ready for our overnight date?”

  “Oh, yes, and I have the next two days off.”

  Yukihyo’s lips came down to touch my neck, and I shivered, but something felt off. “While you were engaged with your visitors, I made arrangements with your barge captain and the children’s nurses. Go put on something you do not mind getting dirty.”

  “Do you want to come and help me?”

  “I’ll help you once we are onboard.”

  I smiled up at the pink and gold striations in his eyes and ran to my room to change out of my dress. Fear, rather than arousal, heated my blood.

  Into my thoughts, Walter asked, “What is it?”

  Silently, I responded, “Someone is here in my wing trying to lure me away.”

  “Stay put.”

  “No, I have to get him away from my children. They’re asleep in the nursery. Where is Yukihyo?”

  “Lord Ponidi is at his factory.”

  “We’re going to my barge. Keep guards on my Momma and Papa.” I could sense Walter and Vawn preparing to track and defend me. The low roar of telepathic communication among my Omnes Videntes was white noise in my mind.

  “Captain Kaoti will be near as will we.”

  “Understood.”

  Yukihyo waited for me near the patio doors and grinned, putting a finger to his lips to keep me quiet. He had spoken to Pierce and Lorca, tricking them both with his disguise. Feigning excitement for our secret, spontaneous date, I ran to him. I pretended to burst with eagerness and joy as we ran across the back lawn to the lake where my white pleasure barge waited. However, my eagerness was to get the imposter away from my loved ones, especially my children. How did he get into my wing and past all of my guards to begin with? The barge started moving as soon as we were aboard. I didn’t see Kaoti, Walter, or Vawn.

  Stalling, I laughed and threw my arms around the imposter’s neck. I assumed he wore a strong neural blocker, because when I was near him, I couldn’t reach out to my Omnes Videntes. I’d need to put distance between us to do so. How many yards separated my bedroom from my sitting room? That was how much distance I would need. His lips took mine and tasted of some unfamiliar sweetness. I felt faint and swayed in his grip before shaking my head in an attempt to clear it. My vision had become fuzzy around the edges, and a mental lethargy made my thoughts and fears become wisps I couldn’t grasp.

  He walked me backward to my circular couch and pushed my black jogging pants down my legs before I could stop him. He tore the blasters from the holsters I had tried to hide and let them skid across the deck. He pulled the curtains closed, pushed me down to the couch, and buried his face between my legs. I grabbed at his hair, clawing at him.

  “Get off of me! Stop!”

  He continued his assault, lathing at my most sensitive place with his rasping tongue. He pushed a finger and then another into me, ignoring my screams. His lips hadn’t been the only part of himself that he had drugged. The imposter had laced his fingers with a powerful stimulant that overpowered my mind and body, forcing me to climax for him against my will. When I screamed at him again to stop in frustrated helplessness, he finally quit pushing into me with his fingers. He removed them and wiped his fingers on his shirt.

  “Now, I see why males would die for you.”

  I slapped his face as hard as I could.

  “Don’t be angry. You wanted it. Your body begged for my touch. You came for me.”

  “You tried to trick me and then drugged me, you piece of shit asshole!”

  “Yes, I did. You couldn’t tell me and your Laconian soul mate apart.”

  “Oh, but I did. I just wanted to get you away from my family and out here alone where my guards could kill you.”

  “That’s just the thing, Princess Probus. They won’t be coming. All it took was a misting of what you tasted from my lips to incapacitate Kaoti, Walter, Vawn, and several Imperial Guards. Chemical compounds are my specialty.” He grabbed my wrists and clicked metal restraints over them. “When we have more time and privacy, I’ll spend more time seeing to your needs. At the moment, we are on a tight schedule.” He tos
sed me my pants.

  I was going to find out who he was before I escaped so I’d know who to tell Kaoti to assassinate. I called out again to Zared and met a mental wall. I looked down at the restraints on my wrists. They were equipped with neural blockers, powerful ones. He moved the curtains aside, and I saw the reason my captain hadn’t come to my aid. The male steering my barge was unfamiliar to me, a stranger. The imposter sat beside me, and I struck. My knee bore down on his cock, and my hands went for his face. I managed to rip one of the white films from his eye before he hurled me down to the deck. His real eyes were brown.

  “You’re a Parvac.” I shoved the white film into my pocket.

  “You’re a feisty one. I might be angry if I weren’t thinking about how good you felt around my fingers, squeezing me with your hot, wet flesh.”

  I saw torn skin on his throat, but it was fake skin that our struggle had loosened. It hid a voice modulator. He bent and picked me up, putting me back on the couch. Once he thought that I was calm and subdued, I struck out again, this time going for his throat and knocking the modulator free.

  “Talk to me, big boy. Tell me again how much you want me.” I crushed the device under my foot and kicked it before he could grab it. It hit the shielding they had erected around my barge before it could go overboard.

  The barge began to slow, and I recalled how Drex had almost taken me in the same way. When we were near the bank of the river, the shielding dropped, and I was hauled from the barge and over to a couple of rollers that had been hidden under more shielding. The imposter tied up my hair and shoved a helmet over my head. Like the restraints, it was equipped with neural blockers. The bastard picked me up to put me on the roller, but did it carefully so I wouldn’t be able to kick him. He mounted the roller in front of me and drove through the forest’s undergrowth at a reckless speed. The other male was behind us.

  “Where are you taking me?” I yelled.

  He ignored me, refusing to speak. Seeing an opening in the landscape with fewer boulders and trees to hit, I pushed down with my left foot and propelled myself from the roller and into the woods. The jolt of impact with the hard ground knocked the air out of me as I tumbled against hard snapping branches and rocks. I rolled and rolled hitting everything that was hard or sharp in the forest until a tree trunk was kind enough to slam into my back and stop my dizzying journey. My body was on fire with pain. The forest had become unnaturally quiet. I pulled in a few ragged breaths and got to my knees. The quiet meant that the rollers had stopped, and the males would be coming for me.

  As quietly as possible, I got to my feet and began a random path through the forest trying to be as quiet as my husbands were when they hunted. I heard a whoosh of sound moments before something dropped down in front of me. Forcing myself not to scream in fear, I stared at Farowyn.

  In a panicky whisper, I said, “Two men are trying to abduct me. One of them looks like Yukihyo, but it isn’t him.”

  Without a word, Farowyn slipped my bound hands over his head and used his claws to take us high up into a tree. I saw through the visor of my helmet one of Farowyn’s men in a tree across from us.

  “She was right here a second ago.”

  “Well, where is she now?”

  “I’m not getting a reading, but several craft are heading this way. If we deviate, we will be discovered.”

  “Go,” the one disguised as Yukihyo ordered.

  Farowyn gave a slight nod of his head. The leaves in the trees gave an almost imperceptible movement. After a few minutes spent in stillness and silence, Farowyn began running and leaping from branch to branch with me in his arms. Sometime later, he encouraged me to hold my legs around his waist. Then, he jumped high, spread his arms, and glided with me across the wide lake and all of the way to the Palace grounds on the other side where groups of soldiers actively patrolled. Several of them ran in our direction. Farowyn lifted my arms from around his neck and removed the helmet from my head. I pressed my face to his chest and cried.

  “Teagan!” Momma yelled. She ran to us from across the lawn. “Take her to the infirmary!”

  Obeying her, Farowyn picked me up and quickly carried me inside. Momma stayed in step beside us.

  “Where is Zared?” I asked.

  “They all went looking for you, my sweet. We couldn’t sense you. I still can’t even though I am touching you.”

  “It’s because of these.” I lifted my hands.

  Farowyn put me down where Dr. Fotri indicated. My right side was on fire, and I could feel every breath I took. “He disguised himself to look like Yukihyo. He was in my wing. He was near my babies. How did that happen?”

  “Get these restraints off of her,” Momma ordered.

  One of her Imperial Guards, Captain Aegisthus, Kaoti’s uncle came forward. He worked for a few minutes before freeing my hands. Gratefully, I rubbed at my wrists that were dirty and bruising.

  Momma said, “Leave us. Guard the door.”

  Dr. Fotri took the eye film from me.

  “Teagan, something else happened worse than the obvious. I can feel it from you now that those dreadful restraints are gone. What is it?” Momma demanded.

  I shook my head at her. I was too embarrassed to tell her. I wanted to forget all that had transpired. “I want them found and questioned. That is all.”

  “Teagan, I won’t let this go. I’m your mother, and Ryan is family. You will tell me everything.” Her tone was insistent.

  My face began to burn with shame. I wasn’t a virgin. I had plenty of experience with my husbands. Why had my encounter with the imposter left me feeling as I did? He hadn’t raped me, but I still felt dirty.

  “Teagan.”

  Giving up, I told her and Dr. Ryan Fotri, my first cousin once removed, everything. I couldn’t read my Parvac cousin, but Momma seemed imbued with an anger to rival anything I had ever sensed from Papa, Yukihyo, or anyone. I was forced to submit to an entirely too thorough examination where Dr. Fotri collected samples from me before I was allowed to scrub myself practically raw in a hot shower in the infirmary. The soap stung all of my cuts and scrapes, but I didn’t care. I felt dirty. Eventually, Momma coaxed me out of the shower and into clean undies and a camisole, so Dr. Fotri could tend the injuries I had gotten when I had jumped from the roller.

  “Where is Kaoti?” I asked.

  “Just outside. I’ll get him,” Momma said quietly.

  Moments later, Kaoti entered and stood at parade rest a few feet away.

  I asked, “Do you know who he is?”

  Kaoti nodded. “Inquisitor Flavian.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Dr. Fotri said, “I tested genetic samples from both your royal person and the eye film. There is no doubt as to his identity.”

  “Kaoti, I want you to either arrest him or kill him, whichever you prefer.”

  “Nothing would have pleased me more.”

  “What?” I asked, completely confused by his answer.

  “Farowyn’s men delivered them a few minutes ago along with their contact. The Omnes Videntes now interrogate Flavian, Maxim, and a merchant named Lewis Soval.”

  Kaoti’s words took me a few moments to process. Farowyn’s men captured two Inquisitors, alive?

  “I told him to stop, Kaoti. He wouldn’t stop.”

  Momma put her arms around me and held me. Through our bond, I felt anguish from Yukihyo. He had learned what had happened and paced outside in the hall. He worried seeing his face would hurt me more. “Yukihyo,” I cried out.

  Kaoti turned on his heel and returned with Yukihyo. I had a hard, snotty cry on him until I had gotten it mostly out of my system. “He tried to trick me. Aside from looking like you, he knew about our plan to go on a camping trip on the lake… the date we made on Thalassa before we went into the mineral caves.”

  Yukihyo said, “How would he have known about that?”

  It seemed like Yukihyo was asking Zared the question rather than me. I heard a loud grumbling sound. Kaoti’
s hands went to his weapons. Orders were being shouted in the halls.

  “Defensive shielding up,” a guard reported to Kaoti.

  “Where are my babies?” I cried.

  Kaoti spoke into an earpiece. A few minutes later, Pierce, Lorca, and Terre entered with the children.

  “Oh, Mommy got boo boos?” Neema asked. I nodded. “Here.” She handed me her doll.

  Soon, Fitz entered the infirmary. He was furious but trying to hide it behind his politician’s expression. His hair was wet as though he had just showered and changed. I heard Momma asking what had happened. Then, Phillip strode in looking angrier than I had ever seen him. He took something from a drawer, smiled as he walked to me, smoothed my hair from my forehead, and then got me with an injector.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “You’ve been through enough today. Take a nap.”

  I caught a glimpse of Nico and Drex before Fitz hid them from sight. They looked like wrathful deities, intent on retribution. Splatters of blood were in an angled line across Nico’s face, but it wasn’t his. My heart thudded in my ears as the sedative Phillip had given me sent me into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  I woke before sunrise, and an achy soreness reminded me what had happened. I burrowed my face into Yukihyo, trying to hide from the memory. A warm body curled against my back, and a large hand covered my hip. It was Fitz.

  “They escaped. Didn’t they?” I could taste the saltiness of Yukihyo’s skin as I mumbled against him. Sheets and blankets moved slightly with Fitz as he turned.

  Yukihyo said, “Nico, Drex, Eli, and many others hunt them.” Neither he nor Fitz would say anything more. When my husbands got up to assist in the search, I remained in bed.

  Later, I refused to leave my wing, but Momma kept me company. We were curled up together alone in my bed when I asked her, “What happened?”

  “Farowyn ordered his men to follow your attackers and take them into custody. Then, he brought you home. Ryan treated you and verified the identity of the male who violated you through genetic samples and the residual genetic material on the eye film he used. Farowyn’s men apprehended three males who were placed in confinement a few miles from here. They were questioned. A few of your husbands claimed their right to exact vengeance, but their punishments were interrupted by an explosion at the facility.”