Sarazen's Hunt

by Isabel Wroth

  Alec flooded their bond with her gut wrenching fear moments before she slammed the mental door between them.

  “We can get one as soon as we get a solid number of how many were infected here. If anyone got off world with—”

  “Alec,” Clary interrupted gently, “we’ve already contacted Commander Dax, and they’re heading back to collect what we need.

  “Your time on Moika is over. I wouldn’t ask you, any of you, to go back there. We’ve got plenty of boys ready to go on a fishing trip. You’re needed where you are.”

  “Yes, she is,” Kalix agreed, feeling an equal mix of outrage and absolute astonishment toward his mate’s bravery.

  As terrified as she was, that she would offer to return to the world where she and her people had suffered and toiled for years...he was in absolute awe of her.

  Clearing his throat, Kalix turned his attention back to the viewscree.

  “My warriors have continued to question Reykar’s assistant medic, I haven’t collected their report yet, but when I do I will send it through.”

  “I will be waiting for it,” Tarek ordered with a sharp nod, the screen going blank with his dismissal.

  *****

  Kalix retracted his armor and sat on the end of their bed, watching his mate pace back and forth across the pelts of the two traitors who had tried to kill her. She was still keeping him out, withholding her feelings from him, the only thing he could feel via their bond was her presence.

  He called her name softly, holding his hand out to her when she shot him a quick, tumultuous look through her lashes.

  He thought she would refuse him, but a moment later she crossed the distance and climbed into his lap to wrap her arms around his shoulders, burying her lips against his throat as she held on for dear life.

  “Sage was right, this whole time, we had the cure right there... it was that stupid fucking fish.” The anger in her voice was weak, vibrating with deeper emotions.

  Kalix stared sightlessly at the wall, uncertain what he could do or say to soothe her.

  “Perhaps, my heart. But even if it is the cure, did you or any of the others have the means to create an antidote using the tools you had left?”

  “Don’t you dare try to help me out using logic.”

  A laugh burst out of him at her caustic tone, and despite the tears he could feel sliding down his neck, he knew now she would be alright. He need only be here and wait to provide her with whatever she asked of him.

  “Then how would you like me to help you?”

  “Just hold me,” she answered hoarsely.

  Kalix lay back and turned to curl around her, kneading his hand into her hair, rumbling for her softly while she trembled.

  “Always.”

  “I miss her. So much.” Alec’s voice cracked.

  Kalix closed his eyes, so honored they had finally come to this point in their mating that she would vocalize her hurts, her sorrows, and trust him to keep them safe.

  “I know. I know you do. Tell me about her.”

  “She had such a big heart. She always did the dumbest stuff to try and make me laugh. To distract me from how hard it was to go on every day, knowing I’d probably have to kill another one of our people.

  “I thought things would change after she claimed responsibility for Zee, you know? I thought she’d get serious about shit, but the two of them were every bit as goofy. Worse.”

  Alec laughed suddenly, going on to tell him about the time Meg had found a bush with long hair-like fronds.

  “She stuck it down the back of her trousers and pranced around camp, shaking her ass like she had a tail. Zee did it too. The two of them danced around for hours, and everywhere they went, people laughed.”

  Her amusement faded to a throaty murmur, sniffling softly. “I stayed away whenever Meg put on her little dances for the crew.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they always stopped laughing when they saw me. I don’t understand why they followed me here when they had a chance for a new life.”

  “A chance to be happy, you mean?” he ventured gently.

  “Yeah.” Alec threw her leg over his.

  He pushed up on his elbow to look down at her, melting inside when she didn’t try to hide her insecurities or her tears from him.

  “Do you know what I saw on the video upstairs?” Alec shook her head, a frown pulling between her brows. “You didn’t want to touch that fish any more than Meg did.

  “I watched you choke down the urge to vomit and learn how to dress your kill, so one day you would be able to provide for Meg, because you knew she was too squeamish to do it.

  “I saw Sage acknowledge that drive in you, your indomitable will to protect your sister. Sage left you in charge, because she knew you would fight to keep Meg safe.”

  Her lips trembled and more tears spilled down her cheeks. “But I didn’t protect her. I failed.”

  “No, Meg made a choice and put someone else’s life before her own. You didn’t fail. Each time you lose someone, you replay the hows and whys over and over in your mind.

  “You ask yourself what you could have done, why they didn’t obey your orders, why it was them and not you, but the answers don’t help you accept the loss, so you grow cold and hard so next time the loss doesn’t hurt as much.

  “So hard and strong you appear unbreakable to all others. So hard and strong, that even when the terrors of their darkest nightmares come back to life, your people look to you and ask, ‘what do you need us to do?’”

  “I didn’t feel strong. I still don’t,” she confessed in a whisper.

  He brushed her tears away and smiled at her gently. “I know. That’s why you have me. I can be strong enough for both of us. But you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  “I don’t?”

  Kalix shifted to get himself between his mate’s thighs, balancing his weight on his elbows.

  “I fought the Scylla today, and I say this to you as a warrior. I had my armor, superior weaponry, eight battle tested warriors at my side, and it was a struggle.

  “You had swords, knives, cubs, and nothing else. It’s a miracle you survived as long as you did. Yes, you suffered beyond measure, and every day was a fight for survival, but you didn’t quit. That’s why your people still follow you.

  “Even with mates of their own and knowledge that no matter what, their welfare is put before all others, you make them feel safe. They rely on you to lead the way, and it’s a burden, my One. A terrible burden.”

  “How did you do it, all this time and not go crazy?”

  Kalix hummed in amusement, bending to press a kiss to her temple, lingering there for a moment.

  “I had something to fight for. First it was the fight to prove my loyalty, then the fight to prove I belonged, then again to prove to Brennaugh his choice in promoting me to one of his personal guard was not in error. When he gave me command of his warship, I fought to maintain that esteem.

  “Then I did go a bit mad, trying to fight against my beast when he demanded we give that all up. Almost too late I realized the only person in the entire universe worth fighting for, was you. My wild, stubborn, fierce, beautiful mate. My One.”

  Alec turned her head, her face so close a sharp breath would have brought their lips together. She searched his face and sniffled away the last of her tears.

  “I love you, too.”

  Just like that, her sorrow turned to need. Their lips met and Kalix swallowed her moan with a purr of his own, curling his arms around her.

  Even though they could be called to action at a moment’s notice, it wasn’t a hurried rush. It wasn’t a fight. Their clothes were pushed aside in languid sweeps, his fingers kneaded and stroked, and her body undulated closer.

  He lifted her astride him, guiding her hips to cup the head of his shaft, pushing up slowly, groaning at the wicked heat of her.

  She whimpered his name, her mouth falling open, her hands pushing against his chest to seat him deep as s
he could take him.

  This was one of his favorite ways to mate, able to watch the beauty of her muscles working while she rode him, her soft moans and gasps boiling his blood.

  She rocked, a slow easy rhythm, tucking her hips forward, her body slurping at his hungrily, pulling him so deep it nearly hurt. She started to writhe as she came closer to her end, her thighs shaking, and he couldn’t lie still anymore.

  Bracing his knees Kalix drove up to meet her downward strokes, her sheath rippling around him like soft, fiery hot fists. He bucked into her harder, until her breasts were bouncing with every thrust, their cries of pleasure escalating.

  Her hair tickled his thighs as her head fell back in surrender, convulsing, crying out his name in a passionately ruined scream.

  She wilted down over him, panting while he lunged those last few desperate strokes, going blind with the rapture.

  As they lay tangled together in the quiet aftermath, he heard the rain begin to fall outside, sending a cool breeze through the room to soothe them.

  ~I will fight for you, my heart. Always.

  EIGHTEEN

  Kalix stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders in a show of unquestionable claim. The pair of test subjects they had rescued from Reykar’s lab, Zyre and Erufir, were seated across from her, looking at her in a way that put her on alert.

  Alec wasn’t uncomfortable as much as confused. Both of them seemed to be memorizing the features of her face, their attention so focused on her it bordered on inappropriate.

  Kalix certainly wasn’t amused, if the running litany of threats playing through her mind were any indication.

  “We have answered all the questions you posed to us, but we have more information we know will be of value to you.” Erufir spoke in a calm, measured voice.

  He was polite, but Alec still heard the mercenary intent.

  “Which you’re willing to share for a price,” she drawled, tapping her fingertips on the arm of her chair, on edge for reasons that had nothing to do with the two horned males.

  Reasons Alec couldn’t identify or say was because of the males across from her, yet her fur was still feeling like it was being rubbed the wrong way.

  Zyre arched his red tattooed brow sardonically. “After the treatment we received at the hands of one of your own, we feel a small bit of compensation is fair.”

  “It is,” Kalix agreed, gently squeezing her shoulders, “But I won’t authorize any compensation until I know what it is you want.”

  The two males shared a look. “We want a ship small enough for us to pilot ourselves, with armaments to protect us on our journey home to Vol Hol, and a promise of safe passage when we return.”

  Alec could feel Kalix shift his weight behind her, his frown of confusion audible.

  “You wish to return here, to S6?”

  Erufir gave a regal dip of his head. “Yes. Our mate wishes it.”

  “You left your mate back home?” Alec asked, sharing Kalix’s surprise and growing curiosity.

  “No,” Zyre clipped out tersely. “We also want six strands of your hair.”

  Alec’s brows shot up, “I beg your pardon?” Zyre repeated himself clearly. “Why my hair?” Both males remained mute across from her, their gazes unwavering. “Look, I’m not going to give—”

  “Asha, there has been an attack.” A’tarey’s voice came through loudly from Kalix’s wrist unit, and Alec forgot about the Vol Hollin males and their weird requests.

  “The Scylla?” Kalix demanded, at her side when she leapt up to head out.

  A’tarey’s voice was grave when he answered. “No. Eurn is dead. So are the two warriors standing guard outside his quarters and...”

  “And what?” Kalix barked.

  That sensation of wrongness grew, the beast inside Alec twitching as she prowled forward, crouching in readiness for whatever was coming.

  “One of the cubs has been mauled. The medics are treating him in the hall, but his prognosis is not good.”

  “Who!?”

  “Zhenya.”

  *****

  There was blood all over the white walls in the hallway, and at first all Alec could see was a huddle of bodies kneeling in a pool of more blood.

  Beyond the medics, behind a wall of armored warriors, a knot of the kids stood holding onto one another, peeking around their guard with pale, shaken faces.

  A’tarey tried to approach her and explain, but Alec walked right by him without saying a word, and dropped to her knees at Zhenya’s head.

  The breath sawed in and out of her lungs in huge gasps as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at.

  A cruel hand had raked claws from his left temple to the right side of his jaw, all the way down to the bone, right across his eyes. His face was nearly unrecognizable, little more than a red ruin.

  Savage screams boiled in her chest as she slid her trembling hands beneath his head, cradling him in her lap, afraid to touch him anywhere else.

  The flesh of his scrawny bicep hung on by the bandages wrapped hastily around it, the medics focusing on stopping the flow of blood coming from the fist-sized hole in his belly.

  “Get out of my way!” a woman shrieked, a medic flying back seconds later, tossed like a sack of meat by Loro.

  Alec bared her fangs and hissed, her muscles spasming as her beast began to fill her from the inside out, pressing at the prison of her flesh, ready to leap on this female who dared interrupt them.

  The black-haired Record’s Keeper slashed at her own arm with her claws, shouldering another medic aside to angle her bleeding wrist over the mortal wound in Zee’s belly.

  Every cell in Alec’s body froze.

  “It’s clotting, get the regen-gel into a vein. Now!” Alec didn’t know the medic’s name, but he was pouring the pink fluid into the hole that was rapidly healing before her eyes.

  “Tilt your head.”

  Loro obeyed the medic, barely wincing when he jammed an injector into her neck, the empty capsule filling with more of her blood.

  Alec flinched hard when he turned right around and violently stabbed the syringe down on Zee’s chest, over his heart.

  In a blink the blood was gone and Zee jolted like he’d been hit by lightning, arching up with a pain filled howl no human throat should have been able to make.

  His ravaged face blurred as the tears came, her heart feeling like it had been pulverized in her chest as she waited for someone to say he was going to survive.

  Loro’s fist blocked her vision of Zee’s face for a moment, but she finally realized what was happening when Loro’s blood trickled into the gashes and they began to close.

  “He’s your mate,” she choked out, petting Zhenya’s hair back carefully so Loro’s blood could reach every jagged tear.

  Loro’s voice quavered with emotion, with rage and certainty. “He will be, when he’s grown.”

  Loro’s clan markings were so pale a white, as to almost be invisible. Or that’s what Alec had thought, until they began to darken as Loro’s skin turned ashen with her own blood loss.

  It made her dark hair seem blacker, her golden yellow eyes that much brighter. Eyes that pierced Alec as deeply as any blade and burned cold as ice.

  “Cry for him when he is healed. Embrace your beast the way we talked about. Let her free to find whoever did this and turn the ground red with their blood.”

  Alec’s beast purred a deep, eager sound. The coppery tang of blood saturating the air only bringing her that much closer to the surface.

  Alec didn’t want to leave Zee, but she couldn’t do anything to help him now except do what Loro said and find the person responsible for his pain.

  “Everyone is an enemy until proven otherwise. You stay with him. You don’t let him out of your sight.”

  It didn’t matter in that moment that he was only fourteen, Loro would die to protect her mate.

  “I will not,” The Keeper vowed, the rage mirrored in her gaze softening when Zhenya tried to say Alec’s nam
e.

  “Hey, hey kid,” Alec soothed, “I’m here. I’m right here.” He groaned in pain, whimpering softly as Loro’s healing blood no doubt began to sear through his nerve endings.

  “Give him something for the pain,” she ordered, another syringe flashing over his blood-soaked body.

  It worked fast, his limbs going lax, his breathing evened out. The words he was determined to say were clumsily forced from between his torn lips,

  “M’nive. Goddim.”

  Alec bent down, unable to help the smile that stretched across her face as she whispered in his ear.

  “You did good, little brother. I’ll find who did this and bring you their heart.”

  It was hard to tell with his face so cut up, but Alec thought he might have smiled. Loro looked at her in confusion, biting into her wrist again to carefully press to his mouth.

  “Swallow, cub. Don’t talk.”

  Alec carefully slipped out from under Zhenya, grateful to the medic who shoved the wad of his own tunic beneath his head.

  Kalix was right there to steady her when she pushed to her feet, her bones protesting their shape. The beast wanted free.

  ~Alec, you must not give in to bloodlust. He warned, trying to calm her with his own beast, but bloodlust wasn’t what Alec wanted.

  Bloodlust was a complete and total lack of control, and she wanted vengeance. Cold, hard, vengeance.

  Oh yes, she would bathe in the blood of the person who had dared lay a claw on Zhenya, but she had to find him first. He and all others involved. She didn’t have time to give into bloodlust.

  ~Alec? Breathe with me, my One. The information Zyre had was to give me the names of all the warriors who came and went from Reykar’s lab. They won’t escape us.

  ~I know.

  She closed her eyes and sank past their bond, shut out the sounds and smells around her, deep into her own mind to find her cat, waiting in the darkness.

  A monstrous creature with bright blue eyes and mottled white fur, prowling back and forth with angry growls rattling from between her bared teeth.