The memory was a falsehood, distorted.
His body knotted in spasms as a bone-deep, numbing current of energy passed through his fibrous tissues.
Gritting his fangs, tendons popping and ligaments stretched tight, irritated, Venomous shook off the lingering malaise.
The effects of the immobiliser would continue to sap his strength for the rest of the rotation, but he would steadily regain his power, and his mind would clear.
A nanosec of separation from his Rä’Na was unacceptable, so not having her to hand was infuriating.
Why was I in stasis?
Unease overcame his composure as he thought of his frightened, little human.
Where is my defenceless life mate? Lumen needs me.
She cannot be without my protection.
Venomous knew he had felt her single heart beating before the darkness claimed him.
She was alive and needing him, he knew it.
Lumen had been sleeping because of....
Fiercely Comes the Night.
“If he has hurt her....”
Growling, Venomous eased across the nest, his limbs weighty.
He gained his feet then stormed from the comfortable quarters without looking back.
He glanced at the far wall to speed read the glyphs on the mounted plaque, gained his bearings then set off for the command deck.
His twin hearts beat too fast, pushing fiery anger through his veins and rousing primal instincts to prepare him for a confrontation with the a’Rä who’d dare meddle in his affairs.
Squaring his shoulders as he heard approaching footfalls, Venomous stiffened, and forced his emotions into a tight ball he hid behind a wall of superiority.
A hologram blinking a proximity warning flickered before him as the Trekker had already logged the change in hierarchy.
His stride faltered, brille fighting to unveil, so great was his shock.
He choked on fear, not for himself, no, never for himself, and felt no worry for the warriors aboard beyond a vague concern because death in battle was a risk a warrior acknowledged with an open heart.
The fear he felt was for her, for his Lumen.
Graphic, the hologram showed the shocking image of a Dei San battlecruiser dropping its stealth shield as it enclosed the Trekker within its pincers.
And so, edgy with panic because he was separated from the one who needed him most, Venomous was alerted to the raider spaceship the moment they launched a pulse blast.
The world shuddered.
He staggered, shoulder crashing into the wall beside the startled Rä’Vek travelling from the opposite direction.
The shrill grinding of tearing metal echoed down the corridor, and a tremor shook the Trekker.
Central lights died leaving nothing but the intermittent blink of the emergency strobe.
Backup generators trundled to life, pushing oxygen through the ventilation system, the artificial atmosphere maintained on its default setting until the ship’s mainframe rebooted after its forced dormancy.
Defensive capabilities were inactive, communications severed.
Offensive weaponry was good for nothing until the ship recovered.
“V-Venomous One?” Voice trembling, the Rä’Vek failed to hide his fear.
Dread thickened the air Venomous dragged into his lungs, yet his voice remained cool. “It is Dei San.”
“O-Orders, Warrior?”
“You are a Scholar?”
“Healer. I am He, Nāga Shadowed by the Bluest Moons. I was coming to check on you to ensure you were not experiencing complications from extended stasis in the immobiliser.”
“Nothing unexpected. Muscle spasms, memory loss.”
They snapped to attention as pounding, thumping sounds echoed down the corridor.
“My Rä’Na,” Nāga whispered. “She is alone.”
Venomous knew how the male felt. “Is your life mate a warrior?”
“No, Sweetly Cries the Beast is a scholar.” The male made a low, pained noise. “She came on this expedition because she did not want to be parted from me for so long. She is not a fighter. She is delicate.”
“We will find her. Remain at my side, and protect my back as I shall yours.” Venomous pushed away from the wall, gaze spearing into the dark abyss at the end of the passageway. “We must go for my Rä’Na as well. She is offworlder. Perhaps you have seen her?”
“I cared for her during your convalesce. She was doing better the last I saw. Fiercely Comes the Night was with your human this last span. He will not abandon her.”
“Fiercely is a great warrior, but his instincts will draw him to me. It is my duty to protect my Rä’Na. I must find her. She is not strong like Rä. The invaders will savage her.”
Dei San infiltrated unsuspecting vessels in great swarms, overcoming even the greatest warrior species with their sheer numbers, yet if the Rä greeted them in hand-to-hand combat they may be victorious in beating them back just long enough to deliver the females to safety.
The fight would be brutal, many would die, but the females would suffer unspeakable violations if they did not succeed in holding off the assault long enough to get them to the escape pods.
Venomous thought it was a kindness there were so few females on board then blanched at thoughts of how cruelly his mate would be used if found.
I have to find my Lumen, and get her to an escape pod.
They were programmed to fly to home world, or to the closest Alliance planet.
They were stocked with enough nutrient feed to support life for up to six galactic moontides.
Crouching, Venomous faced the healer without taking his eyes off the corridor.
The rancid stink of Dei San infested his nostrils.
“Where did you take my Rä’Na?” he asked.
“She is in a holding enclosure near the medical bays.”
Hissing, Venomous took off and Nāga followed as he headed towards the bowels of the ship.
Before long they came across a swarm of Dei San at an intersection.
Venomous’ acute senses were bombarded by stimuli.
Vibrations juddered through the soles of his boots into his tensed lower body.
The smell of putrefied body odour flooded his nose working his gag reflex.
Heat battered his scales.
Dying screams and screeching roars reverberated against his sensitive eardrums.
The battle group trying to hold the pirates at bay were outnumbered, but fought bravely.
Scowling, Venomous’ claws sliced the throat of a Dei San that spun to leap at him with a piercing shriek.
Another used a three sided blade to gouge Nāga, who had yelled over the skirmish searching for his female, and drawn its attention.
Venomous grabbed the Dei San by its spiked tail then swung it into the wall, caving its head in.
Shaking out the tremor in his arm, flexing his rigid fingers, he went to ask the male what his Rä’Na, Sweetly Cries the Beast, looked like, but a familiar tantalizing fragrance and taste sent his senses reeling.
Head snapping around, Venomous’ tongue flickered and curled at the threshold of his lips.
He tasted blood, hot flesh, pungent musk and terror.
I know I scented her....
He took an unconscious step, breaking the neck of a lumbering Dei San as it charged him, gaze roaming the senseless carnage.
Over the stench of death, he smelt the crisp waterfalls of Rök.
Lumen.
Head swivelling, his wild gaze sought her out over the fracas to alight on a sight that made his gut churn.
Fiercely Comes the Night battled a monstrous Dei San with Lumen clinging perilously to his back.
Fury blasted through him.
Why has he brought her to the most dangerous place on the ship?
Venomous’ attention darted to the access strip blocked by the conflict, and he realised Fiercely had tried to deliver her to the escape pods, but ran into the core of the Dei San infiltra
tion.
Impatient to enclose his Lumen in his arms, and bear her to safety, Venomous signalled to Nāga to stay close.
The healer dragged himself up.
Blood marred his shoulder where a lesion gaped.
Breathing laboured, he swayed then righted himself, plastering a bleak look of determination across his blunted features.
Unlike the Healers, Scholars and Artisans, Rä Hunters and Warriors were protected by their anima.
The defence mechanism was an involuntary reaction to danger, otherwise, only visible when the Rä suffered intense emotion.
Only a mated Rä fighting in defence of their mate could summon the full force of the anima, and continuously shield their flesh.
As he strode into the battle, Venomous felt his anima flourish at the threat to his life mate.
Gold scales merged then hardened, creating armoured plates across his chest, back and thighs.
Keeled scutes on his forearms and calves jutted into bladed edges able to slice and maim when delivering a strike.
His brow ridge slanted down his nose to extend protection to his brille, giving him a fearsome glare.
A Dei San that jumped into his path tucked tail then staggered back as his attention snapped to it with a black promise of evisceration.
Venomous snarled, the glands bracketing his forked tongue swelling causing his fangs to drip, and his hiss to deepen into a menacing scratch.
Biting his prey would inject the vicious fluid into living tissue, destroying it as it filtered into the bloodstream to cause internal haemorrhaging.
The recipient spent the last moments of its life locked in a yawning rictus of gnawing, burning agony as its heart seized and its blood boiled.
Unlike the numbing, paralysing blend of the seeding toxin, and because of the fatal effects, envenomation by bite was used only in the direst of need.
Dying, crippled warriors grabbed hold of Dei San ankles, sinking their fangs deep into their tainted flesh.
As their brille dimmed from black to blind grey, they sought Grandfather’s embrace at peace, knowing their poisoned bite ensured the guild kin they left behind had one less enemy.
Venomous powered through the swarm, crushing those that dared obstruct his path.
He grew closer to his Rä’Na, her scent becoming stronger with each head he took, with each spine he snapped.
Bony skull thrown back in a screech, the Pirate Chief ploughed its behemothic mass through the gory fray to throw its immense weight behind a sideswiping lunge.
Venomous was forced to abandon his single-minded pursuit.
It felt as if the bonded molecules that were the sum of his existence shuddered upon impact.
Absorbing the force of the blow from a being three times his own heft, he grunted, using the creature’s own power to his advantage.
He twisted at his middle, gripped the Dei San’s rusted armour then went down, dragging the pirate with him.
Rolling onto his back, gathering speed as he went, he launched it across the intersection into the bulkhead.
Its ungainly hurtle took down three others.
Venomous ended the tumble squatted, the claws on his lower arms anchored to the floor for balance, hissing a threat as the Chief bounded onto its taloned feet then charged.
The Dei San fought with a savagery that taxed Venomous’ fighting abilities to the limit.
Its boulder like fists and spiked tail were unwieldy, but even a glancing blow from the heavy, over muscled appendages felt as if he’d had a near miss with a battering ram.
Lingering weakness from the immobiliser slowed his movements and made his counter attacks slipshod.
A swipe to its throat that should have landed true fell short because his shoulders were stiff, and a knee jab to the creature’s iron gut held but a fraction of his strength.
Out of the corner of his brille, he saw Fiercely hurl himself into the heat of battle.
Great Serpent, where is my Lumen!
Spasms bunched the muscles in his thighs and locked his back mid duck.
A blow to the side of the head knocked Venomous to his knees.
Fighting through his knotting muscles and blurred vision, he knelt ready to surge onto his feet, but an onslaught of hammering fists to his head and chest kept him stooped long enough for a shock collar to be clamped around his neck from behind.
Voltage ripped down his spine and exploded in his brain.
He crashed to the ground, the nerve clusters in his body on fire.
Wracked with unbearable pain, he convulsed, head bashing against the floor, lips peeled back in a fang-baring grimace.
The last thing Venomous heard before oblivion was the Dei San screeching their victory.
***
Darkness fell away, and Venomous stood on a bank of green, powdery sand.
The red sun of Rök warmed his scales, and the air was laden with the scent of cold waterfalls and fresh cut mentha.
Lumen walked past him, her gossamer softsuit shimmering in the light, billowing on a gust of spicy wind.
She smiled over her shoulder.
“This way,” she whispered and took off at a run.
He chased after her, not understanding how or when his life mate developed the speed and agility of a razorbeast as she glided over the shifting dunes.
Laughing, not a pace away, he reached out to grab her for a kiss when she was jerked into the air by an invisible force, and catapulted into a vast, starry sky, screaming for him as she disappeared into the inky nothingness.
Head snapping back, he searched for her, pulse racing as he was unable to follow. “No, no, no.”
“Venom!”
He spun and there she was, held aloft by the throat, small legs kicking at the air as she struggled to breathe.
Snout parted in a sick grin, the Dei San Pirate Chief screeched as it broke her neck then tossed her lifeless body to the ground to mount her like the soulless animal it was.
“No.” He rushed toward her, but another scream from behind had him spinning once more.
There she was again, battered, bloody, on hands and knees scrambling across the sand as Sorkbhal stalked her.
The L’Odo stomped on her back, snapping it as she extended an arm, fingers reaching for him, eyes begging him to save her.
Roaring a challenge, the L’Odo ripped her head from her shoulders.
Fearing he had gone mad, Venomous fell to his knees then screamed and screamed until a flash of light blinded him and he smelt blood.
***
Hearts thundering, Venomous snapped into consciousness in a heaving, thrashing mass of limbs.
Moaning stopped him cold.
Tensing, unsure why he lay prone, arms pulled to the middle and small of his back, his head twisted to the side, he tried to shift then realised he was in irons
The indicator light on his chest blinked yellow; active.
Indestructible restraints bound his ankles, throat and hands, the links so tight he could barely move.
Using his shoulder, he pushed onto his spread knees then groggily looked about.
He recognised the red haze denoting the enclosure he woke within secured prisoners.
His brille roamed the environs in his line of sight as his tongue flickered to absorb what his eyes could not see, nor his tactile sense feel.
Eighteen beaten Rä warriors surrounded him, including Fiercely and Nāga.
Eighteen had survived from two hundred; fifty warriors from each province was the normal number assigned to offworld trade.
There had not been a massacre of that magnitude in aeons.
And his Lumen was not within sight.
With a sense of growing trepidation, he inhaled, but could not smell her cool scent.
He focused, but did not hear her soft voice, or the gentle rush of her breath.
Dread washed over him as he remembered his horrendous dream.
It was not real, she could not be dead.
His stomach roiled
as he struggled with painful reality, the likelihood Lumen perished during the raid that had stolen the lives of so many.
His chest felt like a block of stone.
A river of icy pain spread through his extremities.
Bile scalded the back of his throat.
Distraught, Venomous held his breath until his brille ceased threatening to unveil, and dug deep for the strength to endure.
Allowing himself to fall apart was not acceptable.
His responsibilities to his mate did not end with imprisonment, or his loss of her.
He resolved to see the Rä through this.
They were his people and deserved him at his best.
All had kindred awaiting their return, and they deserved a chance to get home.
And he was owed retribution for his fallen Rä’Na, his beautiful Lumen of the Stars.
Zython, hear me, I vow I will not stop until each and every misbegotten Dei San spawned into existence lies broken at my feet.
I ask for strength, I ask for vengeance.
Grandfather, I beg you shield my mate until I join her at your side.
Settling into a cold, steely kind of focus, Venomous shifted to face He, Nāga Shadowed by the Bluest Moons.
As a mated male, the Rä’Vek was restrained as tightly as he, though it seemed a precaution done in vain.
He sat slouched, expression empty, brille vacant.
“Healer.”
No verbal response, just a blank stare that cut through him to sights unknown.
“Nāga,” he called and repeated the male’s name in a steady, commanding voice until he shuddered.
“Venomous One.” He cleared his throat yet his voice remained a dry rasp. “You have awoken.”
Venomous studied the smears of blood covering the warrior, most of the gore holding the vile stink of Dei San, but not all.
The Rä’Vek had been courageous to face such impossible odds.
What wouldn’t a male do to keep his female from harm?
“You fought bravely,” he commended.
“Not well enough. Sweetly Cries the Beast.” His voice broke. “My Rä’Na did not survive.”
Sensing that was not the whole of it, he was almost afraid to ask. “How do you know this?”
“I saw her body. Her brille was grey and they were ... they were on top of....” He shuddered then looked away.
Venomous: (Alien Warrior Book 1) Page 21