by Amon Bieste
Karo cupped her chin and kissed her hand. It was a tender goodbye that reflected the way we all felt. Jaru hugged her roughly, kissed her at her temple and then released her quickly. Even the admiral could see that he looked ready to shed tears over her leaving.
I walked her into the transport room and punched the coordinates into the computer. She stood at my side in silence until I faced her again. “Will you miss me, Ihjon?”
I nodded, wanting to drag her back to the bridge and set Ecker3 away from Earth when she used my name rather than my rank. “We all will.”
“Because you will have no woman to…”
I lifted my hand to her lips. “We will miss you, Corral.” I returned the intimate use of her name. “I will miss you. We have come to admire your strength, respect you as an admiral, and understand you as a human. But most of all, we all feel a connection to your spirit.” I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. Then I straightened. “It is time for you to go.” I waited until she stepped back onto the transporter and then pressed the engage button. Instantly, she was gone.
My throat closed. I felt suddenly empty without her presence as I returned to the brig. None of us muttered a word. Instead, we remained with our thoughts and went to our stations. However, I could feel the soft sadness that filled my Latharian brothers. I, too, wished in silence that she had not left us.
I felt confident that she would not become the counselor’s slave. He was too weak and she craved domination. But would she come back to us? Perhaps she could dismiss the last three days as something she had to do to become a counselor herself. She was strong. She could learn to live without fulfilling her desires if she chose to. Still, there was that other side to her personality, that drive to achieve everything she wanted that filled me with hope.
A voice on our transmitter broke the quiet, interrupting our thoughts, and giving us permission to proceed. I jerked the gauge from auto-hover and finally guided Ecker3 toward Earth.
Chapter Five
Sitting on the bunk closest to the door in the temporary resting unit, I stared with disappointment at the message disc that had been delivered earlier that day. We were granted leave to return to Latharia for six months. We could leave Earth the following day if we so chose.
Normally, I would have been grateful for receiving such a grant, but tonight I was filled with frustration and annoyance. Two months since we’d been given permission to land on Earth after the review and Corral had not even sent a message. She was not coming back as we all three had hoped. She’d made her choice and, though I still respected her, disappointment ached in my chest. I felt empty without her. I longed to feel her body, her cunt closing around me. I hungered for her energy and the gentle touch of her hand. And though it was she we’d trained during those few days, I was the one who had become enslaved.
“There will be celebration upon our arrival.” Karo attempted to lift the mood that had settled in our unit. “It shall be good to eat a Latharian meal again.” Jaru just grunted in agreement. I chose silence.
“Perhaps we were not forceful enough for her.” Karo spoke again after several minutes, deciding not to continue to keep silent what burdened our hearts.
“There was no need for force,” Jaru argued, then cursed loudly. “She cannot have decided to be a slave to the counselor! She is your slave, Captain.”
“She never spoke such a decision to me,” I murmured, dropping my gaze to the gray carpet of the unit. “She has made her choice and we shall respect her for it. She is,” I glanced up and forced a small smile as I repeated her own words, “an admiral.” Jaru chuckled, but it was filled with sadness.
“I have missed her,” Karo spoke softly.
“We all have,” Jaru corrected, then glanced at me. “Especially the captain.” I didn’t respond. It did not surprise me that they would know my feelings. Their connection to me was just as strong as my connection to them.
“I miss her response…she opened herself to us.” Karo’s voice was tormented.
“Her fire,” Jaru added after a moment of hesitation. “Her fight and fearlessness. She has the heart of a Latharian commander.”
Their words forked pain in my own chest. “We should sleep. We begin our long journey home tomorrow,” I suggested and watched the two offer no argument to my interruption, each retiring to their chosen bunks. I hit the button on the wall, plunging us into darkness and lay back on my bunk.
I found Corral in my memory as I’d done nearly each night since she’d left us. She stood naked on the bridge of the Ecker3, bottom lip caught between her teeth. Her blue eyes were distant, then glittered to life with arousal and she tucked her hair behind her ear. My chest tightened and I rolled to my side.
I missed her gaze. I remembered the way she had spoken to me with it each time we mated. She’d shown me everything she was thinking and feeling without ever having said the words. Her disgust for Aves, her need for my approval, her desire for my touch. She’d hid nothing from me, allowing me to see her secrets. She done more than open herself to me, she’d enveloped me entirely.
Groaning, I forced my eyes to close and blocked out her image. I would rest now. Entertaining my misery only made it worse.
I’d barely fallen asleep when there was a soft thump, thump against the door of our unit. I sat up and punched the button again. Karo and Jaru also sat up, looking at one another as if afraid to hope that who we were sensing was indeed the admiral.
Again the soft knock sounded so I rose and walked to the door. As it opened, I stared at the cloaked figure, her familiar scent filling me. She took a step forward into the doorway, the hood of the cloak opening to the light that flooded from overhead and my throat closed.
Her face was discolored with old and new bruises, her bottom lip split open and her eyes blackened. She swayed slightly and I instantly reached out, scooped her up, and carried her inside. The door shut behind me. As it sounded against the walls of the small unit, I placed her on my bed and pushed the cloak away from her head and body. What I found pounded rage into my veins.
“Ganslought! What has happened to her?” Jaru’s voice lifted when he neared, bringing Karo rushing forward at his side. I had no words. My throat had closed and I was having a hard enough time dragging air into my lungs.
“Aves,” she whispered. “He would not let me come to you.” Her voice was weak and my hands shook as I quickly ripped her clothes from her body. As I suspected, the skin that had been covered by the uniform was also bruised. A few cuts marred her rib cage, though there seemed to be no broken bones. A thin rope burn reddened the delicate flesh of her neck.
“I told him I would not be his slave.” She was trying to explain why she had not come, but she needn’t. I could see from her injuries what had happened. “He had his guards waiting for me. He bound me and would not release me. He beat me.”
She looked at me as if she wanted me to understand. “I never submitted. I never gave him that power.” Her words touched me deep inside and I forced myself to incline my head, offering her the approval she sought.
“Ganslought!” Jaru moved to one side of the bed while Karo hurried to bring a medical kit. “How did you escape?”
Her gaze swept to Jaru, and her expression hardened slightly, as if it were natural for her to share his anger. “I am an admiral. I did not become so because I am weak. Eventually, he let his guard down. When he unfastened me to try to make me submit, I kicked him in the face.” She groaned in pain despite her efforts to remain strong against it. “Hard enough to slip from the building before he could call his guards. I had a cadet fly me here in her Porsche x869.”
“Good.” Jaru nodded with approval.
“Help me.” She reached for his thick arm. “I hurt. I must roll to the side. Please.” His frown deepened, and when he reached forward to help her roll to the side, I lost my composure and shouted. Her entire back was crisscrossed with sharp cuts. She’d not just been beaten; she’d been whipped.
I was up
on my feet instantly. Rage pounded within me at a dangerous speed. I could not control it. As I took a few steps backward, my skin suit paled and then disappeared. My muddy-colored scales extended to the point of pain.
Karo’s own suit looked thinned as he brought the medical kit from his casing and knelt next to the bed. Jaru’s jaw clenched, working angrily, while we watched Karo retrieve a tube of ointment in silence. Tenderly, he applied the cream to the pad of his fingers. He touched the whip marks with care, but still Corral’s body flinched and she cried out. My entire body shook with fury.
How dare someone do this to someone I’d trained. She didn’t deserve it. No one did. Humans were stupid creatures. They had no concept of how to go about getting what they wanted. They used violence and anger when the rest of the universe understood harmony and working together. But at that moment, I felt the fury of injustice and the primitive need for revenge.
Though the anger was evident on Jaru’s face, he kept his voice low and fought to keep his skin suit from thinning with his own fury. “Is there anything you need?”
“Food.” Corral spoke in a weak voice through clenched teeth as Karo continued to spread the ointment over her back. “I’ve not eaten for two days. When I kicked him, it was the last bit of strength I had.” That was it. I’d heard enough.
“Stay with her.” I spoke in my native tongue. “Feed her and tend her wounds.”
“I will go with you.” Jaru stepped forward.
“No. Stay with her.” I turned and stalked to the door. When it slid open, I leapt into the night on all fours. I moved with Latharian speed, covering several miles in just minutes. My muscles burned and pain seared through me as my structure shifted.
Latharians rarely transform to full beasts. Normally we walk upright as humans do. It is only when in situations like hand-to-hand combat, when adrenaline and bloodthirst pump in our veins that we are commonly seen on all fours. But I had that bloodthirst in my body now as I raced toward the counsel headquarters.
It only took me an hour and a half to cross the landscape. I barely noticed the change of the terrain or climate. I did remember that it had rained on me midway. But as I stood outside the counsel building, glaring up at the tall windows, the heat in my body had nothing to do with the warm night air.
I stalked inside, ignoring the guard that called for me to identify myself. He’d not moved until I reached the staircase, shocked by my appearance. By the time he did raise his voice, I was taking the stairs several at a time.
Reaching the fourth floor, I bounded into the apartment without waiting to be announced. Counselor Aves was sitting at his desk. As I halted on the other side of the metal desk, my chest pumping with the breath that labored there, his eyes widened with horror.
“You whipped her.” My voice was barely more than a growl. It shook with the same rhythm of my anger.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” He punched at a security button, but I stalked forward and around the desk.
“You whipped her,” I repeated.
I saw the realization of my identity clear his eyes.
“She was disobedient. You said she would be a slave and would do anything I asked.”
“I did not.” I reached for the front of his clothes, curled my fingers into the thin material and hauled him to his feet with little effort. “A man does not ask his slave to do as he wishes. And a slave chooses her master. And a master treats his slave like she has worth to him. He does not whip her.” With every word, the fire in me grew hotter. I remembered the crosses on her back, marring her perfect skin.
Behind me, the security team rushed inside. Instantly, their weapons were aimed at me. I didn’t care. I was too angry to care. “Tell them to leave or I will go public with what you have done.” His wrinkled face twisted with terror. I did not release his collar.
“Release the counselor,” one of the guards called.
“Send them away or I swear I will kill you before their bullets can find my body.” That threat apparently had more impact, for his gaze darted over my shoulder to the men behind me.
“No, no…my mistake. All is well here,” Aves shouted at them.
“Counselor—”
“Go! All is well!” he screamed, and they reluctantly backed away. I did not hear them leave, however, choosing to wait outside the door for command. I released his clothes and moved my hand to his throat, pushing him to the floor so I was straddling his round body.
“She is nothing to you,” he croaked past my fingers.
His words forked new anger into my chest. She was everything to me. I realized that now. I squeezed until he could not make a sound. “You are an ignorant insult to your species. No one would miss you. No one would mourn your death.” I shifted my weight to one foot and placed the other on his fingers, pinning them to the cold floor beneath him. Then I pressed, reveling in the three consecutive pops. He tried to scream, but I held him so that it only sounded like a loud grunt, nothing that the guards outside could detect.
He tried to kick up at me, but Latharians have a tougher exterior, especially in combative form. His attempts were in vain. I heard another pop from the middle of his hand.
His face was red now and he was struggling to breathe past my grip on his throat. Another pop. I applied more pressure and his wrist snapped beneath the pressure. Another grunt of pain.
“You will never touch her again,” I hissed down at him. “Do you understand?” I brought a hand down to his face, the talon that extended from the tip of my finger, pressing into his fleshy cheek.
He gurgled something and I squeezed his neck tighter. Slowly the red seeped from his complexion. His chest pumped, trying to drag air into it. I could smell his fear. It filled me and I fought desperately against the urge to snap his neck. Instead, I let my nail break the skin of his face, drawing a long dark red line from the top of his cheekbone to the weak structure of his jaw. The coppery scent of his blood filled my nose and my mouth watered for his death.
When his eyes started to roll back from lack of oxygen, I released him. “Do you understand?” He groaned and rolled over to cradle his mangled hand. I backed away from him. I did not trust myself not to kill him. After fighting with myself, I turned and left, pushing past the guards that still waited outside. They rushed in behind me, but by the time they shouted, I was already exiting the building.
* * * * *
I opened the door of the resting unit to find Corral sleeping on my bunk. Karo remained at her side, pressing a cool cloth to her bruises, while Jaru ceased his pacing in front of the door.
“Is he dead?”
“He lives to face the consequences of his actions.” I stepped inside, keeping my voice quiet so I did not wake her. “But I wanted to kill him. I expect he shall send his guards after me.” Jaru growled in anticipation. I had not allowed him to come with me. I’d reacted selfishly. He and Karo deserved their revenge and his blood still pumped with his own fury.
I moved to Corral’s side. “How is she?”
“She will live,” Karo answered, reaching up to stroke back her blonde hair tenderly. I lowered to the bunk beside her, staring down at her delicate and discolored features. She’d come back to us—at a dangerous cost.
Careful not to wake her, I leaned down and placed my lips above her ear. “This will never happen to you again.” I tilted my head and breathed in the energy of her slumber. Possessiveness flooded my chest. When she’d not returned, I should have sought her out. It was not our order, but I should have known she would have at least sent us a message that she would or would not return with us. I wouldn’t let this happen to her again—ever.
Moments later, the sound of footsteps outside the unit found us. Aves’ guards had arrived. “They will not take her,” I commanded and Karo stood with a nod. Fierce emotion glowed in both of their eyes. We were her protectors tonight. We were her guards.
I headed for the door and allowed it to slide open before the guards reached the unit. The three
of us stepped into the night and waited. Our senses were acute, listening to the approaching men. We readied ourselves, anticipating the fight.
The guards appeared out of the darkness, to find all three of us transformed. I counted twelve. They paused only for a moment before the one that led them stepped forward. “We are instructed to place you under arrest and to return Admiral Melhen to the counselor. Your orders are to come with me.”
“And I refuse those orders,” I growled. “If you want her, you’ll have to take her.”
“So be it.” He stepped forward and I mirrored the movement. He raised his weapon, set it to minimum level, and aimed it at me. Before he could pull the trigger, I leapt forward, one hand grasping the arm that held the weapon, the other wrapping around his throat. I lifted him and brought his face to mine.
“There need not be bloodshed today, human,” I hissed. I loosened my hold on his throat, lowered him back to the ground, allowing him to speak. Rather than retreat, he gave the command to take us. Instantly, I snapped his neck. This was not like before. It was not a personal revenge. We were protecting Corral. We would take no time to enjoy their deaths.
The guards lifted their weapons and began firing, but we are Latharian. Our speed allows us to move quickly enough to avoid injury to our more vulnerable areas and those strikes that did hit us bounced off our hard exteriors.
We worked through the men within minutes until only three remained. They stared at us with horror. This was why the treaty between Latharia and Earth existed. We were protection against stronger forces, while they provided us with the natural resources that our planet did not produce.
“Do not.” I offered them a chance to retreat. “Your weapons are primitive against our exteriors and we are superior in combat. If you return to Aves now, you will be spared the fate of your comrades.”
I thought they would ignore my words and waited, readying to dispose of the last of them. But finally, they began to back away, apparently intelligent enough to realize that I spoke the truth of the situation to them. Without any kind of exchange, the three of us lifted those that we had killed and laid them at the side of the entrance to the unit. There was no reason to dispose of their bodies. No reason to flee.