by Cara Bristol
Two betas crouching at his feet, glanced at each other nervously.
“Begging your pardon, Commander,” one of the guards answered. “But we have discovered an imposter, a female pretending to be alpha.”
The betas gasped at the egregious violation of Protocol.
While the other alpha held her arms behind her, the guard spokesman sliced her uniform shirt from collar to hem with his dagger.
Qalin’s scrutiny crawled over her, and Anika’s skin tightened as if it could shrink away. Mere meters separated her from the Alpha, and, this close, he was monstrously ugly—almost as bad as a Veronian.
He narrowed his lopsided eyes into slits. “For what reason would a female perpetrate such a ruse? What is to be gained?” Then he sniffed. “This is not worth my time. Flog her. Dismissed!”
Anika sagged in relief. Flogging would be horrible, but she would survive, and at least her identity remained secret. Urazi was safe.
“Um…” The guard spokesman hesitated. “Permission to speak frankly, Commander?”
Annoyance creased the thick ridge of Qalin’s forehead. “What is it?”
“Uh, this female has been the traveling companion of…uh…alpha Perce.”
Qalin’s countenance mottled and darkened. “What are you implying?”
“I draw no conclusions, but seek to serve Alpha by withholding nothing.”
“How do you know she has traveled with Perce?”
“By report of the breeder Zala, who was among those he had seized,” the other guard spoke. “Zala knew this one as an alpha, then recognized her in the corridor and noted her femaleness.”
Qalin backhanded the beta to his right and broke his nose. “What are you waiting for?” he bellowed. “Summon Perce!”
Cupping a hand over his face, the bleeding beta sprinted from the room.
Qalin lumbered to his feet and ambled toward her. If the guards hadn’t been holding her, Anika’s knees would have buckled. The Alpha grabbed a handful of her hair in his thick hand and yanked her face close to his. “What are you called, breeder?”
“A-a-anjot.”
“That is a male appellation.” He released her hair, took a step back, and struck Anika across the face, snapping her head to the side and wrenching her neck. Pain fractured her cheek. Her legs caved, but the alpha holding her jerked her upright by her arms. “What is your name?” Qalin shouted.
She feared her cheekbone had been shattered, her arms were being twisted out of their sockets, and her head and mouth seemed to be clogged with fluff. Omra. Tara. The only breeder pseudonyms she could think of belonged females of personal acquaintance. She would not speak a friend’s name.
“Your name, breeder!” Qalin barked.
“Mir—” She broke off. She’d been about to say Miri, Dak’s female offspring. “Mir-Miritana.”
Qalin whipped around and speared the other beta with a rebuking gaze. “You. Get a genetic scanner.”
The beta bolted, rushing by Perce on his way in.
“How may I serve—” Perce skidded to a stop. He widened his eyes at the sight of Anika’s exposed breasts, before inching his gaze to his sire. He swallowed.
Qalin rounded on his son. “Who is this female in alpha uniform you have brought to my domicile?”
“He did not know!” Anika defended him. She could not imagine the horror of being related to Qalin, of living in such close proximity that every moment, every step brought one that much closer to death.
“Then he is a mental defective!” Qalin growled and punched her, driving spikes of agony into her head. She could not prevent a cry nor stop her eyes from watering. She blinked. The entire side of her face seemed to inflate and deflate. “You will not speak unless you are addressed.”
The second beta sprinted into the chamber. “Here is the genetic scanner.”
Qalin snatched it, stabbed at the screen, and then aimed the device at Anika. A beam of light flashed a quick a red bead between her breasts. Qalin stared at the device. The chance her genetics would not be revealed was impossible. When females arrived at Breeder Containment Facilities, their genetic blueprint and lineage were entered into the database.
This is the day my life shall end. She could not conceive of the torture Qalin would subject her to, only that it would be excruciating. The Alpha would relish her suffering.
If her hands had been free to probe her face, she would expect to find her bones crushed. Her throbbing head wanted to wobble, collapse onto her chest, but she remained motionless, unwilling to give the Qalin the satisfaction knowing her pain or terror. She tasted blood—but it was Alpha blood. She was the offspring of a sire of an Alpha—a beneficent one, not a monster.
But it wasn’t Marlix who filled her final thoughts, but Urazi. His smiles. His rumbling voice. The way he had talked to her—and had listened to her replies. She recalled his body and the shudders of pleasure he had awakened within her. With regret, she remembered his recent disappointment and his anger. He’d predicted only one of them would survive—even if they were lucky enough to achieve their self-directed objective. Run, Urazi, Run. Do not attempt this fatal mission.
He would not heed her impassioned warning if he’d been able to hear it. He would fight to the death—his—in an attempt to crush Qalin.
Anika recognized the instant the results popped up on Qalin’s screen by the smile of malevolent triumph that slithered across his misshapen face. His nostrils flared. “Excellent. I have waited with great anticipation for this moment, and it is as sweet as I had imagined.”
“T-that is why I b-brought her, Alpha.” Color flooded Perce’s face.
Anika cringed. Had Perce forgotten how he’d knelt before his sire in the Chamber of Familiars and alleged her death?
Qalin’s smile vanished, and he pivoted. “You dare to lie to Alpha of Parseon?”
A wet stain darkened the front of Perce’s uniform pants.
Qalin’s lip curled with disgust. “Go to your chamber. I will deal with you in the morn.” He returned his attention to Anika. “As for you….” He tapped his chin with his forefinger.
The caricature of a smile returned broader than before. “Punishment is not enough to ensure loyalty. A good leader rewards those who have been faithful and true. The Veronians have served me well, and I have been remiss in demonstrating my appreciation.”
The Veronian’s oozing, caustic skin burned on contact. Surely even Qalin wouldn’t….
“Deliver her to the Veronians. Give her to Xoph, their leader. Tell him he may use her, and if she survives, he may share her with the others. ”
“No!” Anika wrenched her shoulders in a struggle to escape. But one alpha grabbed her ankles while the other pinned her arms, and, together, they carried her, bucking and shouting, out of Qalin’s chamber.
Perce’s horrified cry of “Sire, no!” was the last thing she heard before the heavy doors closed behind her.
* * * *
Anika fought like a feleen, howling, clawing, and thrashing. One of the guards produced a length of rope and bound her hands and feet, but she continued to writhe like a limbless centiworm in violent convulsions, and it took both of them to carry her down a maze of passageways. She knew the instant they’d reached the Veronian wing. She’d not seen that part of the abode, but a caustic sewage stench permeated the air, burning Anika’s nasal passages and causing her eyes to water.
“Monto,” one of the guards muttered. “The smell….”
“There is nothing worse than a Veronian in an enclosed space,” the other agreed. “Let us make haste to deliver the female and get out of here.”
Too soon they halted before an unassuming portal. One of the guards kicked the door several times with his boot.
“Enntaarr.” The garbled gravelly voice of a Veronian could be heard through the thin wood. Anika did not care a whit the accommodations for staff and guards were sparse and utilitarian with nary a telenium door handle in sight. Didn’t care the lack of stoutness to the w
alls and portals allowed sound to permeate.
Everyone would hear as she begged for death. She tried to kick and hit, but with limbs secured, all she could do was twist.
“Stop, please! Let me go!” she cried to deaf ears. Even if they’d had compassion for her plight, the guards would never risk their safety by releasing her. And, to them, females were expendable.
Was this how Zala had felt? The other female had asked for her freedom, and Anika had been in a far better position than these two guards to grant it. And she had refused. No, this is not the same at all. I was not condemning Zala to a torturous death.
Urazi! Urazi! In her mind, Anika screamed his name, but the sound that emerged was shrill gibberish.
“This one can screech,” one of the guards commented.
“Wouldn’t you?” the other asked drily and toed open the door.
A noxious, caustic odor rolled over them. The Veronian raised his slimy, scaly body off a stone block. Curiosity piqued in his bloodshot, weepy eyes. He took a breath from his inhaler and eyed Anika with hopeful sexual avarice.
Had she tried, she could not have prevented the shriek of horror.
“Commander Qalin—” the guard began.
Anika’s howl drowned his words.
“Commander Qalin wishes—”
She screamed.
“Enough!” The guard cuffed Anika in the head. The blow barely registered through her terror. She continued to beg.
“Ay…khaannn…asssisst.” The Veronian shuffled to a cabinet and withdrew a cloth and offered it to the guard who had hit her. The guard hesitated, eying the Veronian’s gloved hands, but then accepted it and shoved it into Anika mouth.
She gagged. Within seconds, her mucous membranes began to burn. Though gloves had protected the cloth from the worst of his bodily emissions, fumes had tainted the cloth.
“As a token of Commander Qalin’s appreciation for your loyal service, he is presenting this female for your use,” the guard announced. “Do with her as you wish. Afterwards, you may give her to the Veronians serving under you.”
“Ppppleeease relay my thaannks to Alphaaa Qalin.”
Anika’s eyes bulged in terror as the Veronian’s penis thickened and lengthened. “Untie hhher.”
“She will not submit willingly,” the guard warned.
“We enjoy the baaattle the most,” Xoph replied.
They freed her feet first, but the one guard continued to hold her ankles together while the other released her wrists. “She’s all yours.” They dropped her on the chamber floor and exited.
Anika shot for the door, but the Veronian sprinted surprisingly fast and beat her to it, blocking her escape. Remain calm. Do not panic. Sobs squeezed her throat, as she tried to break through the fear and think clearly.
Rheumy orbs lit by lust feasted on her as Xoph inserted the inhaler into his facial slit. His exhalation fumes stung her already-watering eyes. If his respiration and body odor had that effect—what would his touch do?
Anika backed away, shaking her head. “Please…don’t do this. Please.”
“You belong to me.” His penis, horrifyingly erect, pulsed and oozed. “An offfering from Alphaaa Qalin. I would not insult him by refffusing his giffft.”
Xoph stripped off his gloves and tossed them toward the maw of a waste receptacle, then flattened his three-fingered hand against the genscan mounted on the wall. With a metallic click, a rod bolted the door. His quarters consisted of a single square room—no windows, one exit. No separate bathing chamber to which she might flee. Frantic scrutiny revealed the room devoid of anything that could be weaponized. Even the furniture was composed of immovable stone blocks.
Held on a chain round the creature’s thick, scaly neck, the inhaler swung as the Veronian lumbered toward her, his erection bobbing. She darted left, but his hand snaked out and caught her wrist. Agony seared her arm as her skin sizzled and melted under his touch. Anika screamed.
Acting on reflex honed by guerilla training, she twisted her wrist and broke his hold. She clutched her burned arm to her body, then yelped as the caustic gelatinous substance on her wrist burned her chest. Anika stumbled and tripped over the stone seat, her spine grazing the rock on the way down, her skin burning from brushing against exudations left by the Veronian’s body.
Anika landed on her injured arm, booted feet kicking air.
Boots.
Anika did a backwards roll onto her heels, and slipped her right hand into her boot. Grasping the knitting needle, she snapped it behind her forearm, and staggered to her feet.
Shuddering half-sobs erupted from her throat as she skirted around the stone block, hands at her sides, her right one holding the needle, the left dangling because she didn’t dare touch anything.
When she moved, Xoph moved.
He is toying with me. He relishes my terror. Fear transformed to hatred, rage. The slit the creature used as a combined mouth and nasal passage could not form a smile, but its rheumy eyes smirked. He knows I am trapped. He is waiting for me to tire.
Anika scooted behind a stone block table. The alien followed at an unhurried, confident pace. Across the expanse, they eyeballed each other. Anika panted through the excruciating pain. I am Parseon. Pain is of no consequence.
“You cannot escccapppe,” he said.
No, she could not escape when they remained at an impasse, and she couldn’t hold him off forever.
Anika bolted from the dubious safety of the stone into the open. Come and get me, you Veronian sack of excrement. Xoph stepped toward her, but then halted to stick the inhaler into its slit. Anika flew at him and drove the pointed end of the knitting needle deep into his eye until it lodged into bone. He emitted a ferine howl as the orb exploded. Anika cried out in pain, too, when liquid ocular matter sprayed her face and chest, missing her eyes by a micron. When Xoph grabbed the knitting needle, she latched onto his inhaler and snapped it free of his neck. Corrosive fire lanced her palm, and she dropped the device. It rolled away.
Anika cradled the wrist of her burning hand in the other, immobilized by agony. Move. Move. Have to get —Anika and Xoph dove for the breathing device.
She stomped on the inhaler and ground it under her boot. Choleric gibberish spewed from the Veronian, and he lunged. She stumbled, but recovered her footing and ran behind the barricade of the stone table.
Fire consumed her splattered face, chest, hand and wrist, the secretions eating through to the bone. Her heart ricocheted in her chest, and her breathing labored, but her respiration was less tortured than that of the ghastly wheezing alien.
How long would he last without the filtered air? Could she dodge him until he died?
She expected him to charge at her again, but Xoph flew to the cabinets. Articles, some recognizable, others not, hit the floor as he ransacked the cupboards, all the while emitting a high-pitched jabber between gasps. His own language, she realized.
Another realization: he searched for an inhaler. Of course, he would have a spare!
Interspersed among the gibberish, she caught the words kill and female drakor. Murderous revenge had replaced lustful intentions. The ooze seeping from his pores appeared more copious, causing his body to glisten with slime. Clammy perspiration coated her own skin.
This isn’t working. He isn’t dying! Her lungs burned as if filled with hot smoke, and her swollen eyes stung. Plenty of detritus lay about to lob at him—but she couldn’t touch any of it. Handling her own knitting needle would burn her.
She set her jaw grimly. She would die, but the alien would not know the satisfaction of using her body. Not her live one, anyway. She flung darts of hatred at his slimy yellowish-gray back.
Yellowish? Anika squinted. Was his skin changing color? She’d seen Terrans turn kind of blue when they couldn’t breathe. She listened to his wheezing. Had the tenor changed, become more desperate? Please, oh please. Die, you sack of excrement!
“Thcych qppum bcyh!” His garbled voice rang out in the universal langu
age of triumph.
Xoph had found the spare inhaler.
Chapter Twenty
A repetitive, heavy thud sounded against the door, and Urazi dove to open it. Anika! Thank Protocol, thank Nature, thank whatever had brought her back. But, on the heels of intense relief, anger sparked anew. He’d given his regard to a female who could not be trusted.
After his temper had cooled following their argument, he’d sought her out, but discovered her chamber and her bathing facility vacant. He’d stalked back to his quarters, furious all over again. But worried. He almost hoped she had disobeyed because he could not bear to contemplate the alternative explanation.
Twice, he’d ventured out in search of her, investigating the places Perce had shown him that Anika might have seen on her stealth tour. Several times, he’d thought he’d heard her call his name, and he’d whipped around only to find a servant or guard eying him with suspicion. Each time he returned to his quarters empty-handed, but with a tighter knot in his stomach.
When he did lay hands on her, he would be very harsh. He would acquire a sudon—and use it daily. If that didn’t impart some sense into her stubborn head, at least maybe a healthy fear would convince her to submit to his authority.
He hated he might have to make her fear him. Why do you put me in this position, Anika?
Urazi flung open his door and did a double take.
Perce. His eyes were wild, and his chest heaved like he’d run a footrace.
Urazi fisted his hands with frustration and disappointment, but took a deep breath. He could not be rude to the alpha. Perce could be as contradictory as Protocol itself, but he was Qalin’s son, and his sympathies and loyalty would lie with his sire. Caution advised staying on the alpha’s good side. “Yes, Perce. What is—”
“Come! No time,” the alpha gasped.
“Go where?”