by Anna Carven
That sounds bloody awful, pardon the pun. “That’s why you’re pumping me full of plasma-protein? To keep them fed?”
“Yes.”
“Why was I coughing up blood before?”
“Your plasma protein levels started to drop. The capillaries in the lungs are only one cell thick. Easiest point of escape.”
Oh, crap. “How dangerous is it?” My voice drops to a hoarse whisper. I can already guess the answer, but I need to hear it from the experts.
“It’s…” Joran’s gaze flicks towards Tarak. He watches my husband the way a pigeon might regard a cat. “Rapid disintegration of your blood vessels, even small ones, can be fatal.”
Tarak’s gone perfectly still, but he radiates dark energy. “That is not going to happen,” he growls.
“It sure as hell isn’t,” Mareth agrees. “Don’t worry, Sir. We’ll keep her plasma protein levels constant. That’ll keep the virus happy, and as long as she’s being monitored, the risk of hemorrhage will be minimal.”
“Please don’t let me out of here until you’ve fixed me, and it.” I shudder as I think of how close I was to Ami and Sera… and how close the scary vampire-virus-machines came to infecting them. I’ve only been away from my baby for a few hours, but I’m already pining for her. I miss her soft baby smell. I miss the feel of her silken moonlight hair under my fingertips and her mischievous, cute-as-hell smile.
But I can’t see her right now, and that kills me.
Oh, sweet Jupiter. The very thing that once saved my life is now trying to kill me. I have a monster inside of me—one that there’s no known cure for—and I’ve been quarantined. My dawning horror must be showing, because Tarak moves to my side and puts an arm around me. “We will fix this,” he reassures me. “I am not going anywhere until you are healed.”
I nod, words momentarily deserting me. Tarak squeezes my arm as I blink back tears.
If my blood protein levels drop, my lungs will explode. That’s fucking awful.
The General turns to the medics. “If I wanted to access the best possible care and treatment for my wife, where would I need to go?”
“You’d need a Class Three medical facility with advanced nano-diagnostic capabilities. The closest one is—”
“I know where the nearest Class Three facility is located,” Tarak growls. “I’m not talking about conventional treatment. You said that there is no cure for what she has.” His arm, which is around my shoulders, tightens. He’s as still as stone, and yet I can sense the barely restrained tension in him. “You medics are always secretly involved in things that blur the lines between reality and the realm of the Goddess. Did you forget that I was interned on Xar?” The savageness in his voice causes me to look up. There’s something a little bit… unhinged about the look in his eyes right now.
Unhinged is a word I never thought I’d associate with my husband, but then again, there’s a whole world of scary secrets locked up inside of him.
Joran dips his head in silent acknowledgment. Mareth momentarily averts his eyes.
“As I said, we were not a part of that,” Joran replies, his voice low and subdued. I get the sense he’s trying to tread carefully here. “As far as I know, there haven’t been any attempts to replicate Exogenesis. You would need to track down one of the original architects of the project.” The slender medic looks distinctly uncomfortable. “As you know, chief Surgeon Mirkel was in charge of that particular project.”
Mirkel? That name sounds familiar. I vaguely recall the arrogant medic and his creepiness. I remember his agonized screams as Tarak viciously punished him for touching me by breaking one of his hands.
“Hm.” A dissatisfied grunt escapes Tarak. “He disappeared with Daegan and the Ristval V.”
Mareth nods. “The Ristval V hasn’t been heard from since it left the Ninth Sector.” His amber eyes narrow and he briefly touches the side of his head. It’s as if he’s trying to rake his hand through his long hair. He looks a little bit stressed. I think he’s momentarily forgotten that his head is covered. “There is someone who might be able to help,” he says, but his tone is skeptical. “He’s an elusive bastard, though. It’s a long shot, but if anyone can track him down, it’s you, Sir.”
Mareth and Joran exchange an uneasy look.
“Name?” Tarak’s ears twitch.
“Zharek al Sirian. He trained Mirkel, amongst others.”
“Ah. That makes sense.” Tarak’s voice is restrained, but his expression has turned dark. “He’s still alive, then? The last I heard, he was missing, presumed dead.” Tarak sounds completely unsurprised and a little… dismayed.
“I saw him alive before we left for Earth.” A strange look, almost like pity, crosses Joran’s face. “He was in a recovery unit in the Sava Prime medical facility. Apparently Sirian’s one of their frequent flyers. Tch. Waste of a brilliant mind, if you ask me. If you want to find him, try the Pleasure Sector first.”
Sirian. That’s Zyara’s surname. Perhaps this Zharek is some relation of hers?
I’m about to ask about that when a familiar pain rises in my chest and I’m coughing again. A terrible metallic taste fills my mouth. Blood.
Damn it, not this again. I was just starting to feel like a million bucks.
“Abbey!” Tarak rubs my back with his big hand. I hack and cough and splutter all over the place, and suddenly, I’m gasping for air.
Tarak turns to the medics. “Do something,” he snaps, his voice ringing with a strange mixture of authority and desperation.
Joran and Mareth are already moving, talking to each other in low, rapid-fire Kordolian. I catch only a few of their words; oxygen, serum, stabilizer. The rest is gibberish.
As I double over, racked with this god-awful coughing, Tarak springs into action, wrapping his arms around me. I collapse against him, and he effortlessly bundles me up and lifts me into the pod. The medics are fiddling with the machines and looking at data and manipulating controls. A canister of golden-yellow liquid is placed into the machine that pumps fluid through my veins. A clear mask supplying some sort of nebulized medicine is pressed against my face.
I’m surrounded by aliens and alien machines. The room is dark and claustrophobic, and the seamless black walls are closing in on me. The medicine being pushed into my lungs smells weird, like a mixture of cinnamon and burning plastic. I try to inhale it, but my breath is coming in short, shallow gasps.
It hurts. I can’t fucking breathe.
I’m going to die.
No you’re not, idiot! Trust the medics. They’re Tarak’s people.
But my chest is being squeezed tighter and tighter, and I can’t get the dark, frantic thoughts out of my head. I’m drowning. I’m suffocating.
I’m going to…
“Abbey.” Tarak’s voice drags me back into the light, burning away all traces of my despair. “Breathe. Slowly now, my love.”
He’s here with me. His hands are on my shoulders, anchoring me, making me feel invincible. I ignore the flurry of activity going on around me and focus on his eyes.
His glorious, unblinking, wine-dark eyes. They’re the same color as blood, and they’re full of quiet certainty.
Everything will be all right.
I will see Ami again. I will get to feel the warm sunshine on my face again. I will make heady, blissful love to my Tarak again.
He’s here with me. He isn’t going anywhere.
“Breathe…”
I close my eyes and do just that, and suddenly I’m not afraid anymore, because I have the biggest badass in the entire Universe watching over me like a dark, vengeful guardian angel.
The tightness in my chest disappears. The tension drains from my body. I raise my arm and gently touch Tarak’s cheek. His smooth skin is warm against my cold fingers. When I open my eyes and look at him again, there’s softness in his gaze. That look is reserved only for me, and it blows me away, each and every time. He offers it so freely, so unselfconsciously, even with his subordinates h
overing around.
It’s as if they don’t even exist.
“I… did this to you.” Anguish forms little cracks in his otherwise determined expression.
“Idiot,” I say affectionately, between coughs. “You’ve saved my life way too many times, and you’re the only one in the Universe who could have done that, so don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“I will find a way to fix this.”
“Oh, I know you will.” When my husband sets his mind to something, you don’t want to get in his way, and you definitely don’t want to make enemies of him.
He brushes my hair away from my forehead, surprising me with his tenderness. “Of course I will. There is no other alternative.”
As I look up at him, I see a hint of madness in his crimson eyes. It’s hidden behind steely resolve, but it’s there all the same. It’s totally heartwarming and at the same time, utterly terrifying. It’s the feeling that his tightly controlled Universe could shatter into a thousand pieces at any given moment, and if that happens, everything that he’s worked so hard for, everything that he’s fought so hard to change will be lost.
He probably doesn’t even realize it’s there, and no-one else would be able to tell, not in a million years, but I know my mate, and I know what his weaknesses are.
Namely, Ami and I.
That’s all.
The thought that his actions must have caused me to become sick will be eating him up inside. He’s the sort of person who tries to take responsibility for everything. That’s just how he is.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the weird smelling nebulized substance that seems to have momentarily stopped me from coughing up blood. At the same time, I return his love-and-impending-doom look with one of my own, reminding him of something fundamentally important.
I trust you.
That’s all he needs to know right now.
Little by little, the madness dies away, like a fading ember. Thank Jupiter for that. There’s too much riding on Tarak’s shoulders for him to fall into the clutches of that particularly Kordolian brand of insanity, which has been responsible for so much suffering throughout the Universe.
Although he’s the most loving, tender husband a girl could hope for, he’s still Kordolian to the core. That means there’s a certain viciousness inside him that will never go away.
“A kuriak eventually returns to the hive,” he says softly as he runs his big fingers through my hair.
“What?” My raspy voice thrusts the question into silence. The nebulizer-thing has stopped, and Mareth and Joran have discreetly faded into the background, having apparently stabilized me.
As quickly as they came on, my symptoms have disappeared.
“Old Kythian saying.”
“What does it mean?”
“A kuriak is an ice-dwelling creature that you Humans would liken to an insect. It emerges into the world through a bizarre process that involves tearing its limbs and wings from its body and re-growing them. After it harvests enough blood to feed its offspring, it returns to the hive, mates, and enters hibernation. When it gives birth, it dies and becomes food for its young.”
“Oh. That’s awful.” My eyes narrow. What a horrible, horrible process. Only a Kordolian could turn such an event into a rather poetic sounding saying. “How does that have anything to do with all of this?”
“The Human equivalent of that saying would be to ‘come full circle’. I am not referring to you, but to me. Since you dislike it when I am cryptic, I will explain clearly. The black nanites inside me are the product of terrible, unnatural experiments. Those on Kythia who do not understand us call us abominations. They hate and fear us for our strength, because they know of nothing that can kill us. Now, it seems that the only way to cure you is to create the very thing that has the power to destroy the machines inside me.”
“The antivirus?” I shake my head slowly, my mouth forming a silent ‘O’ as understanding dawns on me. The thing he’s talking about is what we Earth people would refer to as his kryptonite.
“Yes.”
“But—”
“I will gladly have this substance made,” he says fiercely. “If it means that you survive, then so be it.”
“Tarak…” For once, I’m speechless. The idea of a substance that could make him lose his fearsome invulnerability and strength shakes me to the core. Our enemies aren’t the standard, run-of-the-mill variety. We need invincible super-soldiers on our side. I take a deep, shuddering breath as I grapple with the implications. “Be careful.”
“Always. I would not be so reckless as to allow such a thing to fall into enemy hands.” He plants a soft kiss on my forehead. “But first, we have to find the one who holds the keys to this mess, if he is still alive. He is elusive, yes, but do not worry. I know him well, and I will find him. Now that his House has fallen, it will be much harder for him to shirk his responsibilities.” A note of irony enters his voice. “But do not worry about any of that, my amina. Focus on staying alive for your daughter, and for me.”
Tarak’s words fill me with steely resolve. Now I understand how the Big Bad inspires confidence in his troops, and why they will fight to the death for him. His brand of loyalty is absolute. It’s a no-holds-barred, fight-to-the-death, take-no-prisoners kind of loyalty.
Once you have him on your side, nothing else matters.
Not even the specter of death.
Chapter Ten
Tarak
A small entourage surrounds me as I stride down the narrow corridor. Torin is on my left, and Xalikian walks on my right. Behind us, Shipmaster Ageron and his attendant hurry to keep pace. “General Tarak, I need your approval for the next stores order. Our supply lines are—”
I stop, turn, and hold up a hand. “Ageron,” I say, trying not to let my impatience show, “ever since you’ve been the Shipmaster here, your stores orders have been perfect. Your attention to detail is second-to-none. You even find discrepancies in the machine-generated orders, and believe me, I know, because I have reviewed and approved each and every one of your requisition reports.”
Ageron’s eyes widen in surprise. “Just doing my job, Sir.”
“Yes. That is why I’m approving your stores order right now. Do what you like. Just make sure you consult with the Human women regarding any specific requests before you contact Mishca. Sometimes they ask for strange things, but that pirate can obtain anything if he puts his mind to it.” I pause, remembering Abbey’s unique cravings. “And tell Mishca I require a crate of this Human chocolate, of the dark variety, and coffee. Plenty of coffee.” I have developed a taste for the bitter Human beverage. “That is all.” I make a gesture of dismissal, and Ageron and his assistant bow and disappear.
I don’t have time for mundane matters right now. Silence is a well-oiled machine, and the ship can run itself without me. The crew I have selected for this mission are old hands; they have all been screened, vetted, and hand-picked by me and only me. They can all be trusted. With my wife, daughter, and the mates of my men onboard, I am taking no chances.
I turn and continue on my path, heading towards the residential quarters. I feel as if I am wading through thick mud. My headache has turned into a dull but tolerable throbbing, and with every step I take, I am thinking of my mate and her seemingly insurmountable predicament. I should be by her side right now, but I must attend to my daughter.
In truth, I have missed Ami, also known as: the naughty one, Little Monster, and the brilliance in my heart. It upsets me that she can’t be with her mother right now. I hate the fact that Abbey is stuck in confinement. It fucking infuriates me that I can’t do anything about it. In this matter I am powerless, and I cannot stand it.
If I had a choice, I would not leave her pod until she was cured, but the Universe has other plans.
“You can’t suddenly drop everything just because I’m stuck with this irritating little cough.” That’s what my mate told me when she was trying to persuade me to step outside the isolati
on chamber for just a few sivs. “You have responsibilities outside of me, don’t you, General? It’s not as if I’m suddenly made of glass. I’ll live.”
Thank you for reminding me, my dearest mate. Luckily, I can leave her isolation chamber without consequence. I am immune to the infectious potential of the kriovirus because its modified form is inside me. Endless genetic manipulation has forced my body to accept the nanites. Although Abbey’s situation is gnawing at the back of my mind and squeezing my heart, I try to ignore these feelings and concentrate on the matters at hand.
I turn to the former prince of the Kordolian Empire. “How is the new constitution progressing?”
Xalikian inclines his head, a wry smile crossing his lips. “It’s… enlightening at the very least. I’ve read enough texts on the subject. I’ve studied the histories of countless civilizations and delved into the theory and theology and sociology of hundreds of cultures. I’ve watched the Humans play at their flawed little version of people power, which is still a much better system than what we had. I’ve consulted with tribal leaders and priests and learned men. Still, nothing prepares you for the actual work of writing a society’s rules from the ground up. Our first constitution isn’t going to be perfect, and it’s going to have to be modified over time, but it’ll be a start.”
“Yes,” I agree. There’s a reason I left the business of developing a new Kythian constitution to Xalikian and the panel of scholars, academics, and cultural leaders we have dragged from the rubble of the destroyed empire. The prince is completely uninterested in assuming power.
Better that someone like him takes on such a responsibility. If I were in charge of such a process, I would write in too many safeguards. I would want to retain absolute power.
Abbey would mightily disapprove.
“Just make sure all that all non-Kordolians leave Kythia.” I want the other races to understand that from this point onwards, they are free from slavery. I do not want the broken empire to become a breeding ground for resentment and exploitation.