by Renee Rose
~.~
Lamira watched Zander pace the length of the Great Hall, his muscular shoulders tensed into hard knots. The rest of the gathering had exited, leaving them alone in the lavish hall. Her plants grew in pots all around the room—banana plants, tomatoes, peppers, fig trees. So many incredible rare varieties of Earth-based food-bearing plants grown from heirloom seeds. She would plant these on Zandia, when they recovered the planet.
Zander stopped and scrubbed a hand across his jaw. She knew his affection for her was clashing with his singular purpose in life—to take back Zandia. Giving up six airships to a probable death mission would not only hurt his chances, but if his involvement was linked to it, it would endanger his position as a recognized ambassador and his chances of mounting an army against the Finn—the species who had taken over Zandia when he was a boy.
“Lamira, you know I want to help…” he began.
She stiffened, sensing the but that was sure to follow.
He stopped speaking, regret washing over his face, probably at her expression. He had not always been so in tune with her emotions. When he’d first purchased her for breeding, his inability to decipher her human complexities had angered him and resulted in many misunderstandings. But he was learning. He blew out his breath.
“Tell me, have you foreseen this? Any of it?”
She sucked on her lower lip, debating what to say. She had once hidden her claircognizance from him, but now believed she was destined to use it to aid in his purpose—regaining Zandia.
She, too, saw danger, even death facing the warrior Rok and his mission. But if he had Zander’s full crew as part of the mission...well, she didn’t see the outcome, but the energy felt enormous. Powerful. As if great things might happen.
But it would be hard enough to convince Zander to give Rok six ships. For him to throw in his own life, and the lives of his best warriors as well, would be an impossibility. Especially when this was not his battle.
She dropped a hand to her abdomen, sensing their baby’s peaceful energy. Could she gamble that little life in order to save her sister’s?
The baby seemed to agree.
“Rok will be successful,” she said. It was not a lie. A misdirection, perhaps, but not a lie. He would be successful if everything fell into place. But in order for that to happen, she would have to force Zander into action.
7
Rok slipped into the pilot’s seat of Zander’s gleaming state-of-the art battleship, and his cock nearly grew hard at the power he felt.
How he had convinced Zander to let them take the craft, he still wasn’t sure. He had a feeling the prince’s little human mate had a lot to do with it. After his luxurious crystal light bath, and Mierna’s disastrous one—she had asked to try it out and had become violently ill, throwing up for the rest of the planet rotation—Zander had informed them that Daneth’s request had been denied and he would grant them four ships. Rok had argued again for six, but Zander held firm. Clearly, he thought they wouldn’t return.
Veck him.
Rok had a date with his vecking destiny, and her name was Lily. He fired up the engine, closing his eyes to savor the ferocious purr. He flicked all the switches on, adjusted the controls, and eased out of Zander’s hanger. Touching the control on his collar, he established communications with Gaurdo, Depri, and Mierna, his other pilots. Janu and Jaso had split to ride with Depri and Gaurdo, respectively.
He eased out into the dense traffic surrounding the capitol, keeping it slow so his friends could follow. Gradually, they fought their way up, into clearer air space, and eventually, he punched the speed and they exited the planet’s atmosphere in the direction of the death pod. He’d started to switch over to autopilot when a beep sounded over the ship’s controls.
“Rok, this is Zander.” The prince’s clipped tones came through.
He rolled his eyes, wondering what warning the prince had for him. “Yes, my lord?”
Silence ensued then Zander snapped, “Where is my vecking mate?”
A door swishing open behind him made him groan. Vecking stars, did stowing away run in the family?
He leaned forward. “I vecking swear I didn’t know she was on the ship. I did not take your mate.”
“Confirm, now. You do or do not have my mate on board that ship?” The panic he heard in the prince’s voice made him wince.
“I do have her,” he groaned. “But I didn’t invite her.”
“What about her mother.”
He hadn’t made eye contact with Lamira yet, but he did now, brows raised. The pretty human stood framed in the doorway, her mother behind her.
“Yes, her, too.”
“Turn the ship around and return, immediately.”
He ground his teeth. Zander might be able to disable the ship from afar. He also was likely to kill him for kidnapping his mate. And Lily’s life was hanging on the line.
“Negative, my lord. My mission is still intact. I will return after I have reunited your mate with her sister.”
Zander’s curses and the sound of something smashing came across the speakers. “You vecking get back here now or I will cut your vecking cock off and shove it down your throat. My mate is with child, do you understand me?”
Veeeeck.
He started flipping controls to cut off the prince, but the male’s curses and threats still came through. Finally, he found the right switch, and the board went silent.
He slumped back in his seat, ignoring his uninvited guests.
“He will follow. Give him time to catch up. You’ll need all the ships you can get to attack the death pod.”
Shock shot up his expression, raising his brows right to horn level. “You planned this? To get him involved?”
She slid into the seat beside him, her palms pressed over her abdomen protectively. “It was the only way.”
“What are you?”
Leora drifted in and settled into the seat behind them.
“I have gifts similar to those of a Venusian. The Zandian crystals enhanced them, which may be why Mierna grew sick from them.”
“It probably sent her into a detox,” he muttered. “You do realize Zander is going to kill me now?”
“He won’t kill you. Zandians are on the brink of extinction—all Zandian lives are important to him.”
He didn’t want to ask the next question, but curiosity got the better of him. “So what does he do with criminals?”
“He has a dungeon in the pod. He keeps them there.” She spoke lightly, as if his fate to spend the rest of his life in a pod dungeon wasn’t worrisome.
He touched the communications device at his collar. Zander probably had access to this frequency, but he didn’t mind. “We’re going to modify speed until the prince and his fleet join us.”
“Copy that,” they each replied.
He flipped the switch joining him to Zander’s communications back on. “Waiting for your arrival, my lord. Do you need our coordinates?”
“I don’t need your vecking coordinates,” Zander growled over the lines. It sounded as if his teeth were clenched. “Estimated arrival, 1600.”
“Copy that.”
~.~
Singing.
The entire death pod was filled with singing. Beautiful, mournful songs.
The guards had attempted to stop it at first, shocking the woman in Lily’s cell who began it, but once others picked up where she left off, their leader had shrugged and said, “There’s no harm in it. Let them sing. It’s better than wailing.”
Now, voices joined together in song after song. They came in different languages, repeated until everyone learned the words. Chants, songs, spirituals. Suppressed religious songs. She’d never heard any of them before, but the effect on her was enormous. The voices carried her away. Not in the absent-from-body way she’d refined, but in a sort of euphoria. Joy. Solidarity. Communion. Peace.
Rok would come for her. She knew it in her bones. Just like she’d always known her life had mo
re meaning than being a colorless sex slave. He was her after. The life she hadn’t yet begun. The promised land she’d described to the sweet child now sleeping in her lap.
Rok would come, and they all would be free.
~.~
Their ten cloaked battleships surrounded the death pod. Rok sent out a communications jammer to interrupt any signals they might be sending or receiving. He didn’t need them calling for help or identifying the battleships.
“Fire without incurring damage. We don’t want to cause any explosions or even disable the ship, only to force it out of territory,” Rok barked over the communications. “On my count, one...two...three, and fire.”
Laser fire blasted, and the huge death pod rocked. It lacked the ability to fly quickly or nimbly, so it simply made a slow bank to the left.
Good. Exactly the direction they wanted it to turn.
“Keep the pressure on the right. Keep it turning!”
Beside him, Lamira was strapped in, hands gripping the control panel. She’d gone pale. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Vecking excrement—do it that way.” He pointed to her other side.
Leora rubbed her back and offered a container of fluid.
“Now, stay right on it! Oh veck.”
Smoke issued from one of the pod’s turning vents and it wobbled and spun in a circle.
“Push it back. Push it back toward the land mass.” He prayed the pilot of the death pod was good enough to get control of the thing and land safely.
But the giant death pod began to plunge, spinning out of control through the atmosphere of the land mass below.
“Send out magnerays to stabilize it!” He sent his battleship into a dive after the pod.
Veck, he had no idea if their ships had enough power to stabilize the thing, even with them all working simultaneously.
He aimed and shot the magneray, which struck the pod and interrupted the spinning. It still wobbled horribly, but— There. Depri’s magneray caught the pod from the opposite side, providing more stability. One by one, the other battleships sent out magnerays that attached until, together, they held the pod stable and aloft.
“Lower her slowly,” he barked, easing his own craft toward land.
The ships worked together, bringing the pod down by degrees, tipping and tilting it as they went. Sweat dripped down Rok’s brow. It took every bit of his concentration to maintain contact with the pod and keep the thing from crashing to the land mass below.
“That’s it...keep going. Easy now... Whoa!” The far side of the pod dropped when three ships lost contact with it, but Prince Zander swooped down below and sent a beam upward to catch them and steady the fall. “Good work, my lord.”
They continued to descend, meter by meter. An alarm went off, warning his engine was too hot from the exertion of the magneray. “Almost there,” he muttered, trying to turn the vecking sound off.
“Move out of the way, Your Highness, or you’ll be crushed,” he barked as they got close to the ground. He shifted his ship around to another side to help stabilize the side Zander would drop. “On three. One...two...three!”
Zander moved out, and the pod dipped sharply. The alarm screeched, lights flashed, but they got the thing to the ground. Smoke issued from every side of it.
He brought his ship to land beside it.
“Outside atmosphere is unsafe for breathing,” spoke a robotic female voice of his ship. He wasn’t surprised, otherwise the land mass would be inhabited, but it made things difficult, especially with the smoke issuing from the death pod. The passengers would need fresh air to breathe, and soon.
“My crew—board with arms drawn. Prepare to fight. Depri, destroy all tracking devices on the pod.”
Zander issued a similar order to his men.
He unbuckled his harness and pressed ray guns into each of the women’s hands. “You two stay here. Do not open the door for anyone but myself or Zander. Understand?”
Lamira nodded, but he wasn’t sure he trusted her. “I mean it. If anything happens to you, it’s on my head.”
She rested her hand on her belly. “Nothing will happen to me.”
With a curse, he fastened a helmet with controlled air delivery over his head, left the ship, and sealed the door, sprinting to the entrance of the death pod, which Depri already had burned halfway open with a laser ray.
~.~
The moment the death pod had been impacted, she’d known Rok had come for her. Now that they’d landed, smoke filled the corridors in thick plumes, making it impossible to see even a hand in front of her face.
She scooped Carmeela into her arms and cradled her against her hip, holding her tight, as if that might somehow protect her from suffocation. Far away, she heard the muffled sound of Rok shouting her name.
“Rok!” she screamed but choked on smoke, coughing and wheezing. “Rok...Rok! I’m here!”
“Rok!” one of the males in her cell shouted.
“Rok!” Another one cried. Someone thumped the heel of his shoe against the wall repetitively.. “Rok! Rok! Rok!” More voices joined, creating a chant of his name.
Tears moistened her eyes. They were doing this for her. Well, her rescue might free all of them, but they were working together. It never happened. Ocretions kept lower caste beings from organizing, developing relationships. They forced separation, but, in this moment, they all cried out as one. “Rok! Rok! Rok!”
A door burst open at the end of the corridor. Every cell door slid open.
“Lily!” Rok’s deep voice rang with urgency.
Hands jostled her and Carmeela forward, thrusting her in the direction of Rok. “She’s here!” someone yelled. “Right here.”
Through the black haze, Rok’s hulking figure appeared. His face set with ferocious intent, he appeared like a demon. No, like a god.
“Rok!” she shrieked and threw herself at him, Carmeela still in her arms.
Momentary surprise registered on his face at the sight of the child, but he promptly wrapped them both up in an embrace, his arms like steel bands around her, lifting them off the ground and swiftly carrying her back out the door.
“You came for me.”
“Of course I came for you,” he said gruffly. “You belong to me.”
The sensation those words produced was all warmth. It wasn’t the twisted knife in the chest that came with being considered an object for trade and use, but the soaring joy of belonging. What she’d longed for from the moment she met Rok—to be a part of his circle, his crew, his life. Being owned by Rok carried an entirely different meaning than slavery to her, and she knew it did to him, too.
“Every being follow me. Remain calm and orderly. Help those who are having difficulty,” Rok’s loud voice echoed off the corridor walls as he swept forward. They entered a large antechamber with less smoke.
“Every being get down on the floor, where the air is most clear,” Rok ordered. He immediately unclipped his helmet and reached to put it on her, but she deflected it and put it over Carmeela’s little head instead.
“We have to find her mother,” she said urgently.
Two males of the same species as Rok strode in, swords in their hands, appearing as fierce and deadly as Rok.
She gaped.
The younger one gave her an assessing sweep. “You have found Lily.”
She started at his use of her name. Was this Rok’s brother? No, he’d been orphaned and taken in by Janu and Jaso. Who, then were these males?
“Where is my mate?” the handsome Zandian demanded.
“On my ship. Is the pod secure?”
Lily blinked, utterly confused.
“Yes,” the older Zandian answered.
“Let’s go together, then.” Rok hooked an arm around her waist just as Carmeela’s mother screamed her name from across the room.
Lily started toward her, and Rok instantly followed, providing protection as she moved through the crowded chamber.
“Carmeela!” the
mother screamed again.
“It’s all right,” Lily shouted. “She’s safe.”
Rok shouldered through the crowd, delivering them to the weeping mother.
“Oh thank you, thank the stars.” The mother claimed her little girl, hugging her tightly against her chest.
Before she could answer, Rok tugged her back through the crowd, his broad shoulders and extra height making it easy for him to cut through. In this setting, it hit her full force what a magnificent specimen of male warrior he was—solid muscle, radiating strength and confident capability.
He’d come for her. She hadn’t been wrong about his feelings for her. Something beautiful took flight in her chest, and the tears burning her eyes weren’t only from the smoke.
The other two Zandian warriors waited near the door, and Rok steered her in their direction. “Come on, beautiful. There’s several beings you will want to meet.”
~.~
Rok’s hand trembled on the hilt of his sword. The death pod had been packed with beings—perhaps six hundred in all, with the cells set up as waste receptacles—designed to open at the floor to dump all the prisoners into outer space. No wonder they’d flown to the outer region of the galaxy. Stars, if he’d been even a minute late, he would have lost Lily forever.
My Lily.
Lily had not been a helpless victim; she’d led the group. Somehow she’d won the support of everyone in her cell, and taken on the welfare of a small child. By the one true Zandian star, he loved this female.
He kept her close as they traversed the corridors, which were gradually clearing of smoke as the pod’s oxygen systems circulated and cleaned the air. He grabbed a couple helmets from dead guards and put one over Lily’s head and one on his own to protect them on the short trip to the battleship. Zander followed close, asking Seke to stay behind to keep the peace, if necessary.
His heart thudded in his chest as they traversed the rocky terrain. Guilt over keeping Lamira and Leora’s existence from Lily twisted like a knot in his solar plexus.