by Mikayla Lane
And there was Lucretia, sitting on a short rolling stool in a corner of the room, her eyes flashing hatefully at Dare. Yeah, it was going to be a ton more fun with her in here; Dare thought nervously.
“Why isn’t the room ready for her like I told you?” Jose hissed angrily at Lucretia when he saw she’d not carried out any of his orders. He wasn’t comfortable with the looks she was giving Dare right now either. In fact, she’d been acting much more strangely than normal since Dare, and the Valendran arrived.
He knew all too well how evil the woman could be; he'd even fallen for her false claims against Morat’s brother before he realized his mistake. He would have to talk to the guards about ensuring that she was not left alone with Dare or the Valendran. He would not let the woman’s severe mental issues get in the way of his success.
“I forgot the list in the office and figured it was better to do nothing than to do something wrong.” Lucretia gritted her teeth while spitting out her lie, never taking her eyes from the whore who had been throwing herself at the poor Valendran since they’d been put upstairs.
The nasty bitch had even conned the poor alien into cuddling her while they laid in bed together. It should have been her! She was the only one here who was special in any way, who deserved to have the gorgeous hunk upstairs. Not this common piece of trash.
It was Jose’s harsh barking that brought her out of her mental ramblings. “Get the examination table prepared now! You can figure out how to do something that basic can you not?”
Jose was losing his patience with the woman much more quickly than he had expected when she had first applied for the job. Back then, he had been fooled by what he thought was her older woman, sweet charm. He had figured out too late that there was no charm in the woman, only hate and laziness. And a severe mental illness that she intentionally ignored, preferring to revel in her hate and delusions than to allow medications to help her. He figured she probably couldn’t deal with the horrible person she truly was and preferred to live in her own delusions.
He had even offered to get her the medications she needed, but she had angrily refused, saying she was brilliant, beautiful and perfect the way she was. He had yet to see anything resembling brilliance, and her ugliness came from the outside as much as the inside.
He should have known something was wrong when her ID had come back as fake, but considering what they were doing, he couldn’t afford to be picky about who he chose to assist him.
“Of course I can!” Lucretia bit out, storming around the room and grabbing a sheet and other items and throwing them on the examination table. Dare watched as a sheet slipped off the table and fell to the floor.
“Get out! Get out now! I’ll do it myself!” Far too angry and impatient to wait for her incompetence, Jose grabbed the items from her hands and pushed her towards the outer lab area.
“Go clean the house. You can do that without a list, can’t you?” Jose didn’t see the look of pure loathing that Lucretia gave him before storming out of the room, but Dare saw it.
How interesting… other than the fact that the two of them were below four-foot ten in height, the doctor and his assistant were completely opposite in every other way. She’d wondered how two different people like that could get along well enough to do something like this together. It had to take a certain kind of personality to do what they were going to do, to another human being.
Now she knew; they didn’t get along at all. In fact, it looked as if they could barely stand to be around each other. Dare filed that information away until she saw Balduen again. Maybe they could figure out a way to use the animosity between the two of them to help them plan their escape.
“I’ll leave the room while you change into the gown, ties in the front not the back. I need a full gynecological examination. Go ahead and climb up on the table when you’re done. You can cover up with the other sheet I left.” The doctor gestured to the folded gown on the now sheet covered examination table, that she noticed he had added stirrups to while she’d been looking around the room for potential weapons.
Her mind begged her body to go to the cabinets and look through the drawers, but instead she moved to the table as the doctor left the room. She could hear him rummaging through drawers as she slowly removed her clothes, folding each piece before setting them on the head of the bed.
She donned the gown as quickly as the drugs would allow her to move and climbed up on the table as instructed, pulling the sheet up around herself like a shield.
Scanning the room, she noticed that this one was thankfully camera-free. She noticed at least a dozen in the outer room though. The strange respect for her privacy was really puzzling. Even in the bathroom upstairs, the shower was a zone of privacy from the cameras that dotted the walls everywhere else in the place.
He was tapping now on something in the other room; like a keyboard, she thought nervously. She tried to meditate, to put her mind in another place and convince herself this was nothing more than another uncomfortable exam like the one’s Maggie gave her back at their compound.
But, there was no convincing herself of that when the doctor came back into the room with a huge tray full of instruments, needles and containers.
*****
Lucretia stormed her way down the path to the house, smacking angrily at the hacked limbs that scratched at her hips as she walked. How dare that man, speak to her like that! Especially in front of that whore!
She would make that bastard pay for treating her like she was less than her; she thought as she slammed the back door to the house behind her.
“Doctor got you riled again; I see.” Brak smirked knowingly from the kitchen table where he was leisurely splayed out in a chair, a laptop opened in front of him. Brak hated anything human and enjoyed watching them fight with each other. The doctor and his crazy assistant gave him hours of entertainment.
Lucretia was sicker and disturbed than the other humans he was normally forced to deal with. He could almost respect her ruthless nature. Instead, he was thinking of how he could use the crazy fool to get to Dare. He had a score to settle with that bitch, and he’d settle it whether Grai or anyone else liked it or not. This far out in the middle of nowhere, he could tell Grai anything and there would be no one left to say otherwise.
“He has no idea, who he’s messing with!” Lucretia didn’t even notice the spittle flying from her mouth as she screamed at Brak before storming into the cubby hole they called her office.
Turning on her computer, she smacked angrily at the keys, managing to pull up the cameras in the room upstairs and stared intently at the beautiful man stalking the room like a caged panther. She almost drooled at the way his muscles bunched and rolled as he took a break from his pacing and did push-ups and other exercises.
In the other room, Brak casually turned on the laptop in front of him and turned the cameras in the other room to watch the crazy woman. He couldn’t keep the grin off of his face as he watched her stroking her monitor with one hand and yanking hard on her short, dark hair with the other.
He watched her spy on the Valendran for a few more minutes before turning his attention to the cameras in the outer lab area, wishing Grai and the doctor had allowed cameras in the exam room area. He wanted to watch that bitch suffer and was frustrated that he couldn’t see or hear anything.
Flipping back to the crazy one still staring at the Valendran, he began to formulate a plan to help both of them get what they wanted. Well, he’ll get what he wanted anyway, he thought with a wicked grin.
*****
Balduen was so enraged and stressed he felt like he was crawling out of his own skin in disgust. Dare was gone. He didn’t know where she was, when she would be back, or even if she would be back.
He couldn’t allow himself to think about what they may be doing to her, or if she was in pain or hurting… he clenched his fists so hard he heard several knuckles pop from the pressure. By the One, he had to think of something!
He pretended
to stretch on the wall right next to the bricked window and slowly moved his hand to the corner. He pushed against the brick and mortar, looking for any give in the materials that would allow him to break them out.
There! In the upper right-hand corner, he felt a slight give in the brick and mortar that he knew had not been there the day before. He pressed again and hid his smile when not only did it move, dust from the mortar cracking, fell from the top of the window to the ledge below.
Turning his back to the window, he rested his butt casually against the ledge and shifted just enough to clean the dust off. He wasn’t taking any chances that someone would notice the dust and re-fortify the window.
Balduen stood and flexed his arms again, still startled by the growth in his muscles in just the few days they had been held. He’d never been this big before, or felt so strong and powerful. Even the T-shirts and pants, that had fit him fine the first day were now tight, and getting tighter every day.
Now if he could just keep this feeling of strength and power and fight the drugs, he could get them the hell out of here, he thought, clenching his fists again in frustration.
He moved to the door to stretch, testing the frame around the door handle, looking for any give and finding none. The door was definitely not going to be an option. At least right now, he thought, checking the time on the TV again to see how long Dare had been gone. It had seemed like forever to him, but only two hours had passed.
Trying to take his mind off of Dare, he wondered again about how the drugs were affecting his beast and his control over it. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that the drugs were the cause of the rise of his beast. He needed to figure out a way to allow it to be released, but control it. He’d never heard of such a thing happening before though, and he had no idea what could happen if he tried.
His mind began to run through all the symptoms he had felt from the drugs. He remembered the initial rush of it flooding his system, completely taking over his bodily control. At first, he only felt the shaking in his body; the sound of the beast’s voice flitting through his mind.
Each time the drugs wore off he felt stronger, his senses much more attuned than before. And each time they administered the drugs, he regained more control over his body. The problem was that it wasn’t him in control.
Somehow, while the man part of him was incapacitated, the beast part of him was beginning to thrive. He knew that the beast parasite was embedded in the brain and wondered if it resided in an area of the brain that the drugs weren’t made to affect. That had to be it, or something similar because it was the only thing that seemed to make any sense.
He needed a way to use that to get them out of here. But how? He ran through the highlights of his life in his head trying to remember any story, conversation, anything that he may have heard that he could use to help.
Wait! His head jerked up as he tried to catch the fleeting thought in his head before it disappeared. The Tezarian’s! Allies from another quadrant, the Tezarian’s had a parasitic beast genetically similar to their own. However, they were not only able to live in harmony with their beast; they could use the abilities without it taking over the host. Which seemed to be the case with the Valendran beasts.
Damn! He wished he’d paid a lot more attention when the Tezarian delegates last were on Valendra. Yeah, who could have thought that he would be trapped by the Relian leader’s son, an insane human doctor, pumped with drugs and with a possible mate who was being subjected to things he couldn’t think of without losing his sanity? If he’d had that foresight, he would have grilled the Tezarian’s on their entire history.
Feeling more useful now that he had a lead to follow, Balduen sat on the bed and leaned his back against the wall. Drawing his knees to his chest, he laid his arms across them, laying his head on his folded arms. His emotions had never been so out of control before, and he struggled to push them from the forefront of his mind.
His emotions were obviously being affected by the rising of his beast, stronger and deeper than he’d ever felt before, he fought against the intensity that robbed him of his ability to think clearly. He breathed deeply for several minutes, chanting an ancient relaxing mantra Valendran children learn in their early years.
Calmer now, he began running through every conversation he had ever heard about the Tezarian’s. There had been a ceremony that he’d attended with Scaden, who was assigned temporary liaison to a Tezarian delegate. What was his name? Dread hawk! He’d said that they speak to their beast regularly, like a brother… a friend. That they accepted its strengths and weaknesses and offered their own, providing a balance to beast and man; keeping the benefits of both.
Did he need to talk to the beast? Try to offer a peace deal or something? There were far too many questions, and not enough answers, but he needed something… anything that would get them out of here before Dare was harmed, if she hadn’t been already.
With the continued drug use, it was only a matter of time before he snapped, and his beast was set free. If he could broker some kind of truce with it, before it happened, he might have a better chance of ensuring it was done to their advantage. It would do them no good to release the beast when they weren’t able or prepared to fight. Taking a deep breath, he pushed aside his doubts.
Beast? Can you hear me?
He felt like an idiot as he waited a few minutes to see if the beast would recognize that he had spoken to it. No response. Could it even hear his thoughts, he wondered?
“Beast? We are all really screwed here, and we could use your help. Can you even hear me?”
He waited several more minutes for a response before launching himself off the bed in frustration and pacing the room again. Still nothing.
“Dare won’t make it out of here if we don’t work together. You called her mate. If that’s true then, please help me save her. For both of us. Can you give me some kind of sign that you can even hear me? That you’re listening? That you can even understand me?”
His frustration grew as more minutes ticked by without some kind of sign that something other than himself could hear his own thoughts. He mentally kicked himself for even trying this. How stupid was it to think that they could communicate with one another? Other than the random voice in his head that he associated with his beast, he had no idea if it was even capable of actual conversation or independent thought.
Genetic similarities did not mean that their beast had the same abilities as the Tezarian parasites. It was still his only hope of trying to stop the beast from being unleashed while they were unprepared. Even if it couldn’t communicate, if he could just make it understand that it needed to hide its rise until they could unleash it when they needed to, he would be happy.
Sitting back down on the bed in the same fashion as before, he again chanted until calm. He cleared his mind until it was carefully blank, before projecting nothing but white in his mind.
When he was holding the image without effort, he began to visualize Dare, eventually playing with the images in his head to tell a picture story to the beast. A story of the situation they were in and their need for it to hide its strength… for now.
He wasn’t sure, how long he’d played with the images in his head trying to show their plight to the beast, to make it understand. He knew hours must have passed when he saw the darkening underneath the door. Standing to stretch his cramped muscles, he became instantly alert when he smelled Dare, right before the drugs flooded his system.
“Please, don’t let them notice you!” Balduen mentally begged his beast.
He was surprised when a slow, quiet growl rumbled through his chest before going silent.
Chapter Eight
Dare had never been happier to see someone in her whole life as she was when she saw Baldy standing beside the bed as she walked into the room. She’d been terrified that they would take him away or kill him while she was out of the room, and she was thrilled to see that he was still here and looked unharmed. Pissed off, but unharmed.
She immediately moved to stand next to him while the two Relian’s behind her came into the doorway. One heavily armed Relian stayed in the doorway watching them intently while the other placed the tray with their dinner on the bed, almost throwing the plates down in his hurry to get back out of the room.
Dare watched Baldy closely, hoping to see if he’d show even more progress in fighting the drug. After the day she had, she was really hoping that he would have some good news for them on their situation. She sighed, her hope deflating when she saw that other than the deep, dark-blue color of his eyes, he wasn’t even shaking. Not even a little bit.
As the Relian’s left the room, and the drug began to fade from her system, Dare lost her appetite. She just wanted to feel clean again and wanted a shower. A long, hot shower.
“Go ahead and eat, I’m not hungry. I’m going to get a shower.” She didn’t even look at him as she walked to the closet, grabbed clean clothes and went into the bathroom.
Balduen barely heard her words, his eyes silently tracking her as she went into the bathroom, and he heard the water turn on. He knew she was upset, but he couldn’t go to her, talk to her right now. He had made contact, and he was afraid that he would lose it when the drugs wore off, and he needed to learn what he could before they did.
He’d been stunned when he’d heard the voice in his head as Dare was coming up the stairs.
“I understand.”
Those two simple words had momentarily left him thoughtless before his hope soared. Scrambling to think, he said the only thing that came to mind.
“Is she really our mate?” Balduen mentally kicked himself for not asking something more constructive.
“Yes.”
He felt the growl in his mind when Dare, came in the door, thankful that the beast wasn’t revealing itself. Dare’s condition made him want to do more than growl.