The frantic yell made Veral recoil, his vibrissae snapping up in a rattling menace. Bringing up his comm unit, he attempted to connect with Terri as he debated for the hundredth time suggesting that she get a small processing chip that would allow them to open a private channel.
Nothing.
Mouth tightening, he terminated the connection and turned to address his head guard.
“Larth? Locate Terri,” he snarled, before lifting his comm once more. “Dreth? Report immediately!”
“Scanning for her comm signature,” the male barked from his place beside the systems relay.
While they lacked basic security and much of the luxuries, there was enough of a technical relay to allow comm access. Even in the Galithilan, Argurma enjoyed the usefulness of their comm systems. It would be a matter of minutes before they would be able triangulate her position.
Tension radiated through him, something dark settling into his gut. That feeling tightened when Dreth entered the room alone, his vibrissae twitching in puzzlement.
“Veral?”
Growling, Veral stormed over to the male, grabbing a handful of his vibrissae as worry and bloodlust sang through his blood. He would kill the male if he had done anything to his mate.
“Where is my mate?” he snarled.
Dreth jerked in his grip, unmindful of the pull on his vibrissae, his eyes widening.
“Malraha volunteered to take the shift today. Terri mentioned wanting to spend time in the weaving room today,” Dreth said uneasily. “I was discussing with one of your far-kin their manner of taming and training dragnar to ride in the courtyard. I will attempt to connect with her.”
“Malraha?” Navesha spat as she whirled away. “We must find her. Malraha is the betrayer!”
“What?” Veral snarled, falling in behind her. “Larth, connect with me immediately on our private channel when you have the coordinates,” he ordered.
The male jerked his head in hasty agreement, eyes shifting as he peered into the digital world, going through codes to search for Terri.
Veral caught up with Navesha, and she darted a sidelong look his way.
“Are you certain?” he hissed.
She dropped her head in a nod, her expression grave as they sped through the corridors. Veral moved into the lead. Although Navesha’s worry spurred her forward, she did not know the layout of the compound. She gave over the lead graciously; her expression becoming increasingly worried as they turned down one hall and then another.
“I am certain of it,” she growled. “I spent days going over the security feed, trying to connect the attacks on Terri. I discovered nothing suspicious until I accidentally switched to the courtyard feed the night after Terri was attacked. Someone had tampered with the vids, but they were sloppy and did not alter it completely. I discovered this on closer inspection—something we did not notice before. I am transmitting to you on the common channel.”
Veral’s eyes widened as an image rose in his mind. It was blurry, as if catching movement, and undefined due the alteration to the vid. Fury rose swift and brutal within him as Malraha’s profile mocked him. It was followed by another cropped and magnified image of the female’s hands on Harahna’s bed. Nothing unusual about that except for the hathals slipping out from where she had them tucked in the flowing sleeves of her tunic. They were blurs connecting with the edges of the bed, but he had no doubt as to what he was looking at. He never would have caught the fleeting image. To have found that, Navesha would have had to have spent hours going over every millisecond of the security feed.
“She was setting me up,” Navesha grumbled. “Featha had me under surveillance when you left. She was suspected I was the traitor. Malraha had roused suspicion against me. She made certain the attention was called to my absences whenever I left the compound to meet Gargoluk. She made certain that I was with Terri when she was attacked. She even cast suspicion on my fondness for collecting and raising maripala, as far as your mate would be concerned, since she saw me pick up the egg capsules.”
“Maripala,” Gargoluk rasped at her side, a hint of amusement in his voice.
The female huffed in annoyance. “The winged insects are attractive, and I enjoy their colors. Do not veer off subject, anastha.” She shook her head grimly and continued. “With some digging into her records, I discovered that she had programming for robotic systems. That was the last clue required to link all the events to her. Every incident staged. Even then, it took some convincing for Featha to truly look at my data and believe me.”
“Why?” he growled, his voice thick with emotion.
Navesha glanced at him her expression sober.
She drew in a hard breath. “I had cause to hate you. Our mother allowed herself to be consumed by her grief after you were taken for processing, and I hated you all throughout my youth for that. Not even processing could wipe the memories away and give me the nothingness it gives others. And I hated you more for that. But when you arrived with your mate and I saw your love for her, it reminded me of our mother and father, and I could not wish harm on you. No matter how angry I was with you—unreasonably so, I know—I could not harm you or your mate. In my mind, you were their legacy, and you gave me hope for my own mating,” she muttered with a glance at her mate as they rounded another bend.
He shook his head in bewilderment. He had birth-kin? How had he never known? He understood how he would have forgotten; he would not have remembered her or anyone from before his processing, and afterward there had been only Anahal in his mother’s stead to care for him and his programing had accepted her lead. He rarely saw Featha then or during his training. In that first revolution, he had not even known that his mother was going through corrections until she was determined a failure and terminated. He had no memory of his mother or father. It reasoned that he had none of his sister, either.
“You are my sister…”
She shot him a cool glance.
“Do not get emotional over it, Veral. We have no bonds between us. We share blood from our mother and father. I give you my loyalty and assistance because of it. It is nothing more. That I retained memories of it after my processing is unpleasant enough. I have no interest in dwelling on it further.”
He inclined his head, respecting her position. It was her choice.
“As you wish. And Malraha?”
His cousin snorted at that, her vibrissae coiling tightly and snapping with agitation.
“I asked Featha that. Although in her mind I am the angry sister who might kill your mate in cold blood, she had fostered another female under her wing far deadlier in her anger. Malraha is the daughter of a male our mother had a mating agreement with. He took another mate after she joined with our father, but he bred his hate into his daughter. He reported your mother’s plans to hide you, and when her grief became great, he reported her, too, in an attempt to ruin our house, and he murdered our father when his grief at his mate’s death made him vulnerable.”
She trembled with repressed fury.
“Featha killed him. She admitted this to me and acknowledged that she had hoped to reverse the damage her father did on the female to give her a better life. She did not realize that she had set a predator among us. We agreed that the only logical conclusion was that Malraha was replaying that same strategy against you. We tried to comm you multiple times until we decided that I would leave with Anahal as my escort.”
Veral’s brow rose. “She knew?”
Navesha chuffed drily.
“Featha knows most things that go on around the compound. She may have been blind in this one matter, but she is resourceful. She is the one who introduced Anahal to Mahame.”
Veral grunted, slowing as he shot around a corner. It was only by correcting his trajectory that he was barely able to avoid colliding with the female standing in the corridor, clutching her offspring. He staggered to a halt, head whipping to her, and was relieved to find that she was fine other than a slight tremor among her vibrissae. He gripped her forearm to stead
y her, and she sent a grateful look in his direction.
“Veral!” she breathed in relief. “My apologies, I am looking for Terri. She was supposed to meet me at the lower pools, but she never appeared. I know that Malraha said she had the layout, but I am worried that…”
Her voice was drowned out by the connection coming to life in his head.
“Veral, I have her coordinates. Sending them to you now. She is below the habitation zone heading toward the lower cooling pools. I do not think that Malraha is taking her there to swim,” the male growled.
His hand tightened on Dari’s arm before releasing her.
“Navesha, I have the coordinates of Terri nearing the cooling pools. We must hurry.”
“The cooling pools!” Dari hissed. “No, come this way. I know another way there that I discovered as a juvenile. It is rough, but it will get us there quicker than using the main halls. This way!”
The female shot off to the left, ducking through a narrow hall.
Veral did not have time to question it. He changed course to follow the female. Anything that would get him to his anastha before Malraha carried out whatever plans she had for his mate.
Dari led him through the narrow halls, cutting into an even smaller gap. It was tight, barely leaving room for his shoulder spines to pass as he raced after the limber female, moving swiftly despite her offspring tied tightly to her by a sling crossing her torso. At the very end, the crevice narrowed and he was forced to turn sideways to push through until at last he stepped out into the deep shadows of a cavernous room.
Malraha stood there in the artificial lighting set up around the room, arm upraised as she held Terri by throat, her voice taunting.
“I sent all my data and captured vids to the council. They know you are here, and they have evidence of the house’s treason against them. I will be spared as a loyal Argurma, but they will destroy this house. But for your daughter, I think I have a different plan now. I will show her the ‘mercy’ that was shown me.”
Fury roared through Veral as the female took his offspring and set her with the dorashnal before dragging Terri into the water. He was already up and moving, nearly blinded by his rage as Malraha drove his mate’s body into the water and held her down. Her eyes flicked up at him in surprise, and just when it appeared that the bubbles ceased, she dragged his mate back up from the water, holding her choking, gasping body in front of her like a shield, her blaster held against his mate’s head.
Everything within him stilled as he drew to a stop, tracking every move that Malraha made as she held his precious female in her grasp. The only sounds he was truly aware of was Terri’s weak, watery gasps for life and the soft hum of the fans that circulated the cool air coming off the pool.
“Drop your weapons, Veral,” she hissed.
He stilled only minutely, aware that she had not addressed anyone else. He did not look around, but his vibrissae vibrated as they moved around him. There was no one near him except the deranged female holding his mate hostage. The others were still hidden by the absolute darkness around the crevice, camouflaged behind a group jagged rocks that filled that part of the cavern.
“Release my mate,” he growled.
The female smirked, her vibrissae coiling about her slowly with their faint vibrations.
“I do not think so. You are not giving orders anymore,” she growled as she lowered her blaster away from his mate’s head. “This is my vengeance. Do I kill you first and enjoy the cries of your mate grieving for you, or allow you to watch her die?”
Extending her arm, she leveled her weapon at him thoughtfully, her face a mask of cold calculation. All that mattered to her was making them suffer—and so she toyed with them.
Veral gritted his teeth. If the gods he questioned were willing, he would die first to give Navesha the opportunity to save his mate.
A shot rang out from a plasma rifle, the beam neatly slicing Malraha’s hand off. A shriek of pain left her as her weapon splashed into the thigh-deep water around her legs. She stumbled as another burst, this one from an Argurma assault blaster, slammed into her shoulder. Veral grinned as he strode forward, ignoring the whistling shots that came from Navesha and Gargoluk as they emerged into the clearing, taking shots to hurt and weaken.
“Hinaxi!” Navesha snarled as she took one shot after another. “Enjoy your pain!”
Approaching the injured Argurma who still, despite her injured state, held Terri tightly in her grasp, Veral was surprised when a growl of a dorashnal took him by surprise. He had forgotten the beast!
He turned as the small female rushed him, her vibrissae fanned out erratically in desperation. A lower snarl responded, making the female draw to an uneasy stop despite Malraha’s screamed commands seconds before Krono careened out of the shadows and collided with her. His mouth closing around her neck, he ignored the stinging slaps of her vibrissae as he dragged her down to the ground viciously. Drawing one leg over her back, he pressed her firmly down beneath him, muscles straining with tension as he awaited command.
Veral gave Malraha a chilling smile, his lips pulling back fully from his teeth, his mandibles spread wide. There was nothing left to save her.
Her body jerked as another blast hit it, this one taking off a chunk of her vibrissae. Blood streaked down her face from the side that had lost part of her cheek bone and her ear. She was a quivering, bloody mess as she glared defiantly at him, her claws tight around Terri’s throat.
“I will still win,” she snarled through blood bubbling from her lips.
“No. You will die,” Veral growled as he removed a blade from his side and struck deep into her gut.
Malraha gasped in pain but only for a second. Terri’s tendrils ripped through whatever had confined them and drove up, forming a long spike as they punctured the Argurma’s jaw. The female’s head snapped back, a rattling sound escaping her.
“When you want to kill someone, bitch, kill them. Don’t talk at them about it,” Terri sneered.
Never had he loved his female more.
Jerking her arm down, she released her symbiont from the female’s body at the same moment that Veral released his blade and they watched the body drop into the water at their feet. His arms immediately snapped around his mate as she sagged against him.
“Harahna?” she called out as she struggled to escape his embrace.
He did not let her go but turned to where their daughter was left to see the large Farhal scroop her up off the ground. He crooned to her, bouncing her gently in his scarred arms as Navesha leaned in close, holstering her weapon with a look of profound relief on her face. Glancing up, the male nodded his head solemnly.
“She is unharmed,” he assured them.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Terri gasped as she crumpled back against him. A shiver stole over her, but she forced herself to stand up straight with his help as she glared down at the submerged body.
“Veral, my love,” she said icily. “You know those grisly trophies you always love to gift me?”
“Yes, anastha?” he purred.
“I think I want it this time.” She turned and brushed her lips just over his mandibles joint making his cheek twitch. “Make it beautiful for me to have a place of honor among our little collection. I want to be able to spit on her every time I get the urge.”
Veral chuffed, a thrill of pleasure running through him. He would show his mate his adoration by providing her the finest skull once the small colony of vansik that he kept encased in the engine room finished with their job. The little insects enjoyed dining on flesh just as much as his mate enjoyed their taste.
“For you, anastha,” he purred as he reached down with one arm, his other clasping Terri tightly to him, and grabbed ahold of the remaining vibrissae on the female’s head.
With a savage yank, the already partially severed head snapped away from her spine and came free in his hand as he straightened.
“It’s not over yet,” Terri cautioned, her warm brown eyes meeting his.
“Not yet,” he agreed. “But soon.”
33
Terri huddled close to her mate, enjoying the feel of his arms around her as he held her, like he would never let her go. They stood together in the comm station of the compound facing the image of Featha, who stared back at them solemnly.
“Are you certain?” she asked.
“Affirmative,” Veral sighed. “She tapped into our transmitters here under layers of system code to get the message out to the council. Once we were aware of what she had done, it took us little time to locate the message and verify its content. They will be arriving at the Monushava compound soon.”
“I see. Never have I been so painfully mistaken about a female of our line… except maybe once,” she added, regret crossing her face as she looked at Navesha, who refused to meet her foster mother’s eyes. “It seems we have no choice now,” she said, her spine straightening as her vibrissae puffed out regally.
“We do not,” Veral agreed. “The Monushava compound and the household of the eastern border must be evacuated. Hitani has already left to alert her people. Featha, please send out on the Monushava channel that this is code evac 7892. It is a mandatory evacuation. Remain at your own peril.”
Featha inclined her head, her eyes closing as she sent out the message on the access channels from the compound. When she opened her eyes again, she stared back at them sadly, her eyes turning to Dreth.
“I will not ask you to come with me, but should you choose to find me, I will be in the Iliari system. Remember we visited a planet there when you were small. I think that will be an appropriate place for me to return to. Your father is en route from his trading venture to collect me within the next five minutes and is in agreement. I hope to see you there someday.”
“One day,” Dreth agreed.
A sigh escaped her as she looked back to Veral.
“You are ready, then?”
“The Wanderer is making her descent. We will be departing immediately with our mother-kin.”
She inclined her head, her eyes meeting Terri’s.
The Sands of Argurumal (Argurma Salvager Book 3) Page 25