by Autumn Dawn
A knock sounded on the door. At the sound of their relieved greeting, Vana poked her head in. The shadows under her eyes attested to her own lack of sleep. “May I join you?”
“Please.” Roac hastily deserted his chair and offered it to his mother. “Have a seat. I’ll go find you refreshments. You look starved.” He nearly trampled her in his haste to be away.
Vana laughed as the door shut behind him with a muffled bang. “You’re getting to each other, aren’t you?”
“Only every other minute,” Dey said tiredly. She smiled at Vana and stretched out in the cot beside Keg. The only time she slept was when Vana relieved her in her vigil. Being a non-Beast, she didn’t hold the same views as Dagon and Roac concerning Keg’s coma; had Dey not given her word to wait for Armetris, Vana would likely have turned her head while Dey healed Keg.
“I’m lucky you’re a Symbiont,” Dey murmured sleepily, ready to drop off.
“Oh, I’m not,” Vana confidently.
Shocked, Dey bolted upright and stared. Had she been lulled into foolishness, believing that Vana was one of her own? She looked Symbiont, but who could tell?
Vana laughed at her expression. “Relax, child. I’m as human as you are. It’s just that I come from a different place than you imagine.” Since Dey was still frowning suspiciously at her, she added, “Dagon lured me, and others like me, from Earth. That’s another world. In fact, Dagon tells me that it’s the place where your people wandered from, a very long time ago.”
Earth? Dey had never heard of it or traveling to other worlds. Unsure what to believe, she said cautiously, “And how did they get to this…Earth?” She recalled Keg once hinting that the Beasts had been to the moon. Could they have taken their sky barges to other planets?
“They built a gate with their technology, one that opened onto my world. They tricked us into coming to a fake “academy”, then snatched as many of us as they could before the authorities caught on and they had to close the gate.” She grimaced. “Then they discovered that a deficiency was behind the inability to have girl children, learned that the fruit to cure it grew exclusively on the edge of the swamps, and failed to negotiate a treaty with the Symbionts to obtain the land peacefully. The rest you know.”
Did she? After three days of vigil, this information dump was draining. Keg had a mother. Her people had wandered into the Dark Lands from a place called Earth. Vana was from Earth.
Dey raised her hands to her temples and growled. “I swear you and Roac are doing this to me on purpose. No, don’t say another word. I have to get some sleep. Maybe after that we’ll talk.” Muttering over the craziness of Life-After-Keg, she lay down and fell instantly into REM.
The sound of Keg’s labored breaths jerked her awake. He was convulsing.
Swearing, she reached over grabbed his chest, trying to still him. She could hear Vana’s deep breathing in the background. The fatigue and stress of the last days had sent her into a deep sleep. Without her training in the swamps, Dey might not have woken, either.
Not bothering to call for a medic, for what could those butchers do for her man? Dey forced her symbiont to attach to Keg, sinking deep into his mind even as she fought her symbiont’s natural repugnance.
Nausea swamped her. She could sense Keg’s spirit leaving. He warned her without words to leave, that she would be hurt saving him.
Fighting his will, her symbiont’s will and the painful, queasy shudders as she worked to repair his fried synapses, she blasted him with pure emotion in that wordless place. Either he would work with her and come back, or she would go with him. There were no other choices. Death didn’t scare her. Life without him would be agony.
He stopped fighting her. The mush inside his head took shape, reformed into proper synapses and gray matter. Keg healed.
And she started to falter.
Roac strode into the room, bursting with hope. Armetris and his friends had arrived, and with him, Keg’s best hope for survival. He was going to get his brother back without sacrificing Dey to do it. She might be angry with him for a time, but once Keg was whole again she’d come around. After all, they’d both wanted the same thing.
“Hey, guess who I found… Sweet Father of Mercy. Dey!” His smile changed to a look of horror as he rushed to Dey’s side. He lifted her bloodless, green-tinged body, fearing he was too late. She was barely breathing and her symbiont hung off her in blackened, shriveled strings. He barely had time to note his brother sitting up in bed or his mother’s sleepy, startled gaze before Dey started to gasp.
Hot on his heels, Armetris entered the room. One look at Dey and he started swearing. Ripping the dead symbiont from her arms, he tossed the remains on the floor and took her from Roac’s arms. “See to your brother. I have to get her out to the bikes,” he snapped when Roac balked. “Stupid girl’s tried to kill herself.”
It took three different Great Symbionts to draw off the worst of the poison. Each enveloped her in turn and took a little, then moved away sluggishly, swirling with streaks of slime-green. When the worst had past, Armetris knelt at her side on grassy lawn before the hospital. Carefully, he tested her with his symbiont. “Wake up, brat. You know better than to try to heal an alien.”
She sat up, wincing as she rubbed the back of her head. “Husband, not alien.”
“You should have waited for me. You killed your symbiont.” He sat back on his heels and fingered his hematite earring, scowling.
“You’re turning into an old man, Armetris.” She froze his retort with her fingers on his lips. “Thank you for what you did.” The words were tight with emotion. She’d miscalculated. Keg would not have appreciated the gift of his life at the cost of hers.
Assured that she was in one piece, Dey shut out the grief over killing her symbiont with thoughts of Keg. “Take me back inside.”
He carried her, cutting off her weak muttering with a curt, “Shut up, brat.”
It was so like what he’d called her as a child that she suffered a sharp stab of homesickness. The material of his shirt against her face even smelled of home. The disorientation of it all made her dizzy. It had been a long time since she’d simply been “brat” to somebody.
Unwilling to face any more lectures, she closed her eyes and pretended to fall asleep, soon tumbling into a true, healing slumber.
“They’re still weak. Now is the perfect time.” Dybell faced the Symbiont woman, wanting to pace with frustration. Megin was his best chance for revenge, and she was wavering.
Keg should never have survived that rifle blast. If not for that Symbiont bitch, he wouldn’t have. She was the one he wanted to see pay; she was forever ruining his plans.
Dybell knew her name, but he never used it. Women were for using, not naming. Hadn’t his own mother taught him that? When she’d rejected him and his twelve brothers, wasting her life grieving the daughter she would never bear, he’d learned to despise her. What she had wasn’t good enough. Why would he bring more greedy women into the Beast nation? The Symbionts had an endless supply. Better to take from them, and then exterminate them. What did he care if his nation repopulated? He didn’t want daughters, anyway, or sons for that matter.
After he’d risen in the ranks, he’d carefully sought out men who felt the same and wallowed in the pleasures of slaughter and rape. Even his superiors hadn’t a clue what he was doing, for who was alive to seek vengeance? That is, until the bitch had discovered him.
And that wench had the audacity to hunt him. All but two of his men had died, stalked like helpless prey in the dark of night. If only to himself, he’d admit that he’d felt fear.
For that she would pay.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
Rage flared, and he almost backhanded her. “You don’t have a choice.” He gave her a small weapon and showed her the trigger. “Keep this in your pocket and kill them the moment you have the chance. Fail me and I’ll eviscerate you.”
Dey rolled over on the bed and looked at Keg. Their be
droom was the same, but she feared that everything had changed.
He was awake. For a long moment he said nothing, merely looked at her. Finally, he sighed. “I won’t say it. I know Armetris has already seared a strip off your hide.”
She looked down.
“Dey?” He nudged her chin up with a gentle hand. “Thank you. I love you.”
The lingering fear sifted out of her. Her man was back, and they were all right. She kissed him softly, still a little weak. “I couldn’t not do it. I need you.” The words were simple, but the emotion behind them was not. She did need him.
Wiggling his brows, he gave her a tired, roguish grin. “You know what I want to do now?”
She grinned faintly back and snuggled closer. “The same thing I want to do.”
In moments, they were fast asleep.
Breakfast the next morning was an adventure. Armetris and Dagon shared a mutual respect, but there was barbed bantering between Armetris and Roac. Whatever the history between them, it was clear theirs was a barely contained rivalry.
“Your symbiont cycles might be fast, but they have nothing on the new hover-sleds,” Roac said with a challenging smile as he passed the hot-spiced juice.
Armetris answered with an aloof smile. “Speed was never what beat you in the swamps. Only a living thing such as the symbiont can know how to move away from a tree before it thinks about it. Its special senses are something you can never mimic.”
Dey tuned out Roac’s retort as she leaned over and whispered in Keg’s ear, “I don’t know what Luna ever saw in him. The man is far too cocksure; he’d make her crazy.”
Keg grinned back. “She agrees. She’s much happier with her Beast.”
Thoughtfully, Dey chewed her smoked swamp slug, a gift from Armetris. “I suppose I should see her.”
Razzi, who was seated to Dey’s right, said casually, “She comes every year to visit her family. It’s fun to watch Jackson dote on her daughters while ignoring her husband.” He crunched a battered vegetable slice, talking around it. “Drostra’s very patient about it.”
Smiling at the image of Jackson and a Beast brother-in-law, Dey said, “How many daughters does she have?” Listening quietly as Razzi filled in the blanks, she wondered how motherhood had affected her old friend.
She’d forgiven Luna for her deception long ago. After all, the council probably wouldn’t have punished Dey if they hadn’t known about her past crimes.
Going back to the Symbiont village wasn’t big on her to-do list, but she didn’t fear it. Maybe she wouldn’t want to live there again, but Armetris and Razzi had reminded her of the good memories there. A visit wouldn’t kill her, if Keg wanted to go.
A question in her eyes, she turned to Keg.
He smiled at her. “We can go if you like.”
“I wouldn’t want to live there.”
“Good. My family would miss us.” He kissed her hand and picked up the flower beside Dey’s plate, tucking it in her hair. “Gem hasn’t missed a day. They’ll be picking out a jewel bird soon now.” He nibbled on her lips.
Across the table, Roac rolled his eyes. “All right, you two.”
Smugly, Keg informed him, “If you’d get busy and find your own woman…”
A servant entered. “Excuse me, Kegtaar-Ra. There is a woman here to see you. She calls herself Megin.”
Vana and Dagon radiated sudden tension. All conversation at the table stopped.
Dey stiffened, and Keg looked at her curiously.
“Send her away,” she said harshly.
Keg rose. “I will see her.” He placed a hand on Dey’s head. “It will be fine, love.”
Keenly missing the feel of her symbiont and chief weapon, Dey rubbed her arms and followed him. Whatever was to come, she wanted to be there.
Megin’s face showed no warmth as they joined her in the family room. Her eyes flicked over Keg and returned just as empty. She held out a small weapon. “Here. Dybell wanted me to kill you with this.”
Frowning, Keg took it. He slowly turned it over in his hand. “Why did you give me this?”
Hauteur befitting a queen contorted her face. “I don’t kill my beget, no matter how it came about. You might be impure, but you probably have some of my honor mixed in that demon blood. I gave you your life; give my children and me our freedom. I’ll bear no more live seed to a Beast keeper.”
Silence gripped the room. If she’d expected to see a wounded child in Keg’s eyes, Megin was disappointed. Only the calm face of the leader Kegtaar-Ra looked back.
“It will be arranged. Go to your children.” He called for a servant and gave him instructions.
Megin left without another word.
Noticing Dey’s distress, Keg put an arm around her. “Why are you upset?”
“Keg, don’t you know who she…” Dey couldn’t finish. The knowledge was agony for her.
He lifted her chin and gently stroked her lips with his thumb. “I have a mother: Vana. I have a father: Dagon. And now, I have you. I am content.”
“But…”
He kissed her. “Life is good, love. Don’t bring pain into it.” And with those simple words, the matter was done.
CHAPTER 10
Gem begged them to go to the park the next morning. She wanted to find the perfect flower, and her mother’s garden just wasn’t promising that day.
Not even bothering to disguise their self-appointed roles as bodyguards, Armetris and Roac tagged along. Razzi might have followed, but he got sidetracked with an errand.
“You were never this protective of a babysitter when I was a kid,” Dey grumbled good-naturedly. The day was fair and the park popular, and she was privately glad for his presence. Even the short walk to the park made her long for a bench. It would be a long time before she was fully recovered. Keg might be doing better than she was, but she noticed he wasn’t moving too fast, either.
Beside her, Armetris grinned and flicked her ear. “You’re still a kid, kid. And for the record, I kept a closer eye on you than you thought. I just didn’t want to look like it.”
She snorted and sank gracefully onto a bench, sighing with contentment as Keg joined her, resting his arm behind her back. The sun was warm. Life was good. “You were a horrible caretaker, then. We followed you into too much trouble.”
He scanned the area, looking lethal in his snakeskin jacket and dark glasses. The light glittered off the silver and sapphire scales like primitive armor as he glanced down at her. “We tried to throw you back, as you’ll recall. I don’t remember inviting you on our hunts and fishing trips.”
Grimacing, she pulled out her own shades and donned them. “Luna had to be where you were.”
“And you had to watch Luna.” He gave her a small smile. Nothing more needed to be said; their history was a comfortable memory on a pleasant day.
Lazy with sunshine, Dey turned her head and frowned in Gem’s direction. The child had tramped a good distance away while they bantered and was now sniffing a perfect bloom critically, her hands behind her back.
“Gem,” Dey started to call, then sat up with a rush of fury.
Dybell had leapt from behind the tree and grabbed Gem.
“Don’t move,” he warned, twisting the girl’s hair in his hand and holding a gun to her head.
Armetris, Roac and Keg had their guns all trained on Dybell. “Let her go or die, snake,” Roac snarled.
Dey remained silent. Dybell wouldn’t have bothered with this high drama scene unless he wanted a reaction. The men were giving him one. She wasn’t going to.
Sure enough, Dybell sneered at Dey, “What’s the matter, bitch? Too scared to plead for the little one’s life?”
Deliberately, Dey folded her chilled hands over her stomach and yawned; obnoxiously wide and rudely long.
Whipped into frenzy, Dybell shook Gem. “I’ll kill her! Then I’ll come for you.”
Dey blinked at him slowly, as if studying a moron. “You’ll try.”
“Stop i
t, Dey!” Keg grated in her ear. “You’ll kill her.”
Dybell shoved the gun against Gem’s head, making her scream. Tears ran down her face as she cried out for mercy. “Beg for her life, bitch,” he snarled.
Coolly, Dey crossed her ankle over her knee, resting her arm on the back of the bench, ignoring her thundering heart. Gem’s life was no longer in her hands, and she refused to play Dybell’s game. Wasn’t that how all the sorry heroines ended? Pleading for the monster to go away, groveling to save the life of a loved one, only to be scorned? Dybell had made a mistake. Dey never begged. “That’s what you like, for women to beg. That’s why you fear me. I don’t beg: I kill.”
Her tactic worked. Lost to fury, Dybell aimed for Dey…and jerked violently as three shots scored his body. Still clutched in Dybell’s grip, Gem went down with him.
Stiff with reaction, Dey clutched the bench and let out a slow, shaky breath. Why did Dybell’s type always have to make a scene? He had to know he wouldn’t escape. Either that or he was mad. Idiot.
Keg and Roac ran to Gem. She clung to them, sobbing but alive.
A lethal shadow, Armetris remained at Dey’s side. Sunlight glinted off his dark glasses as he looked at her. There was a long, considering silence. “I was wrong, Dey. You’re no longer a kid.”
Dybell’s friends were picked up soon after that. Tried before a jury of their peers, they were executed the next day.
While Dey wasn’t sorry, she was unsettled. Too much remained on her mind.
Keg found her the day after the execution, aimlessly filtering water from one of his mother’s garden fountains through her fingers. He joined her on the stone rim, ignoring the soaring bird caught in stone as it gushed water into the shallow pool. “What’s wrong?”
Sunlight caught on the droplets as she flung them from her fingers. “Your mother said some interesting things about her origins, and mine. That of my people, that is.”
“And…?” He’d learned to watch her warily when she got like this. Anything could be on her mind.