Sarazen's Betrayal : Sarazen Saga 1.2

by Isabel Wroth

  Take this morning for example.

  He had been waiting in that damn chair beside the bed again, watching her with an undeniably gentle expression. He looked like he had been awake all night staring at her. Cassie wondered how she had been able to sleep like that.

  She woke up if she heard footsteps outside in the corridor, rarely sleeping a solid night on her own. It pissed her off to remember the nights she had slept like a baby with Falken in the bed beside her. His big body curled around hers with his back to the door like even in sleep, he was promising to protect her. It pissed her off even more to know some part of her must have felt safe enough to sleep the night through because he had been there again.

  Cassie had pushed up out of the bed without acknowledging Falken’s presence, still mortified from having told him the majority of her sob story. She opted for a quick jump in the enzyme shower rather than leisurely take her time in the bath.

  When she stepped out, her most comfortable pair of loose pants and tunic were waiting for her, draped over the stand beside the stall. Falken’s answer when she asked him why he had laid the clothes out for her floated back from the interior of the suite.

  “We are going to see Ga’rae this morning.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes, my one.”

  Not sure why, Cassie pulled on the clothes and went to ask, but walked out to find Falken staring heavily down at the floor between his boots. When he heard her, he looked up and the clouds rolled away from his expression as he offered a tired smile.

  “Were you awake all night?” she almost kicked herself for asking, even suggesting she cared.

  Falken shrugged as though a sleepless night was of no consequence. “I had thoughts that needed attention.” He drew another breath to say something else, then hesitated, thinking better of it maybe.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I will explain when we get there.”

  There, turned out to be a small medical room, six floors down and deeper inside the fortress than Cassie had ever been.

  From the outside it looked like there were only six levels to the Asho’s fortress, and there was a noticeable change in the architecture the farther down they went into the previously unseen levels.

  The walls were not carved with meticulous detail, they were flat and gray, the floors scraped level but not polished, and there were lots of turns. If she wasn’t proficient at memorizing patterns and puzzles, Cassie admitted she would have gotten lost very easily. It was darker down here too, and as though he sensed her uneasiness with the closeness of the walls, Falken took her hand and squeezed gently.

  He turned left and suddenly they were in a long hallway with doors about every hundred feet or so. Her uneasiness increased when Falken pressed his hand to the bio-lock beside the fourth door down and despite the stone appearance of the door, it hissed open without a sound.

  If not for the hulking presence of Ga’rae, Cassie would have turned on her heel and run the other way, certain that Falken had brought her to some kind of torture room. Every piece of equipment surrounding the single table in the center looked sinister to the extreme. More so because the walls were a stark, unrelieved white, and there was a very obvious drain in the center of the floor.

  “What the hell is going on?” she forced out through lips that wanted to tremble with fear.

  Ga’rae offered her a smile that exuded gentleness. No doctor she had ever had had looked at her with such kindness in their expression, and it never ceased to throw her off guard to feel immediately relaxed when Ga’rae smiled that kind of smile.

  “You need not be afraid, Cassie.” Falken said from beside her, his palm warm on her waist.

  “Not at all. Falken has asked that I remove the markings on your belly, and unfortunately this is the only place within the citadel with the necessary equipment.”

  Remove the markings on her belly.

  Cassie’s shaking hands automatically lifted to press against the tattoos on her hips, looking up at Falken in shock. His jaw was clenched tight, his nostrils flared to catch every bit of scent she put off.

  His voice was so rough it sounded like he was grinding two stones together in his throat. “I cannot remove the memories of what those markings represent. I would not even if you asked it of me. You are who you are because of them, and I would not have you be any other way. But you do not need to be reminded of those memories every time you see the black lines etched into your flesh.”

  Cassie’s eyes immediately filled and a hard lump of emotion pushed up to choke her. She pressed her palms to her belly, remembering the day she had woken up after one of the harvesting procedures to find two black tattoos inked into her skin.

  She remembered her confusion, the anger that something else had been done to her body without her consent. She remembered asking her least favorite nurse what the stars were for, remembered the smirk on the woman’s face when she had explained. Remembered that nurse’s scream when Cassie had punched her in the face and broken her nose.

  Two of the male nurses had tackled Cassie, stabbing her in the butt with a prepared syringe, and the next time Cassie had woken up, she’d had a pair of small bandages taped to the center of the star tattoos. Beneath the bandages were two, red punctures dead center to prove that more of her eggs had been removed.

  “It is my wish they be obliterated, but if you want to keep them-” Falken stopped talking at the rough shake of her head, some of the tension pinched around his lips easing.

  Cassie had to clear her throat to speak. “W-what do I do?”

  Ga’rae patted the tabletop he stood behind with his smile having softened even further. “Climb up and lie back.”

  Like most of the medical tables on Saraz, this one was about a foot too high for her to climb on with ease, but Falken was right behind her to scoop her up and set her gently down on the padded surface.

  For that split second, she felt breathless for a completely different reason. He set her down and reached up to cup her neck, supporting her weight as though she were gravely injured and in need of assistance to lie back.

  “Will it hurt?” she asked, unable to keep herself from turning her face into the brush of Falken’s thumb across her cheek.

  Ga’rae moved up on her other side, one of their sinister looking pressure syringes in his big hand. “It would if I did not give you a tonic to block the pain.”

  Ga’rae urged her to turn her head farther away and pressed the cold metal of the syringe to her throat. She winced at the pinch, struggling for something to break the tension suddenly swirling around Falken.

  “You didn’t just give me more blood or something that’s going to make me mutate again, right?”

  Falken didn’t seem to find her comment funny, but Ga’rae chuckled slightly. “No. Can you feel this?”

  The medic took her hand and used his now clawed forefinger to poke her in the center of her palm. She saw the point press down into her skin and knew she should have felt the prick of that black tip, but she didn’t feel a thing.

  “No.”

  “Good. Falken, I’ll need to sterilize the area. Roll up her tunic.”

  She couldn’t feel it, but Falken brushed his palm down over the top of her head, arching his brow as though asking her permission to do what Ga’rae said. She nodded, or tried to. Though she wasn’t sure if she actually did nod, since she was unable to feel anything at all.

  It was so weird to be numb like this, yet have all her mental faculties online and clear as day. If she’d have been given anesthesia on the Aria, she’d have been completely unresponsive and unaware of what was happening until after it occured.

  She rolled her eyes down to watch Falken fold up the hem of her tunic to just above her navel and do another fold of the waistband of her pants, baring her belly to the room. She understood now why he had chosen this outfit and not another dress.

  Falken’s thoughtfulness was starting to chip away at the wall of ice she had put up between them, and C
assie couldn’t say she had the desire to stop it. She didn’t feel the warmth of his palm across her skin, but she saw the tenderness in his expression and the anger when he looked at her stars. She didn’t feel the coldness of the sterilizing mist either, or the swipe of the cloth Ga’rae used to remove it.

  “How does this work?” she asked, needing to focus on something other than the way Falken hovered over her protectively.

  Ga’rae reached for the arm of some piece of equipment and lowered the attached device closer to her body. “It is a low powered laser, the specific wavelength is used to remove or alter pigmentation in the skin. As this is not a marking you were born with, the process should be quick. No more than a rev.”

  Ga’rae nodded to Falken, announcing he was going to begin. Falken lay one hand between her breasts, the other smoothing again and again over her hair. It was really weird to know he was doing it, but not be able to feel the sensation at all.

  She heard the machine humming as it turned on, the room taking on a green hue as Ga’rae moved the laser back and forth over her belly in meticulous movement.

  “So, why do you have pigmentation removing equipment in a prison cell?” Falken’s lips twitched in reaction to her question, glancing up and across at Ga’rae briefly before answering.

  “What leads you to believe this is a prison cell?” Falken countered.

  Cassie shot him a flat look, or maybe she just looked at him. She couldn’t feel the muscles in her face to say for sure.

  “Mostly? The drain in the middle of the floor. Then there was that pair of warriors who resembled Goliath’s younger brothers we had to pass by on coming down here. The distinct dungeon-like feel to the maze of corridors. The fact you could eviscerate someone in this room and see every visible drop of blood and gore to later be washed down the aforementioned drain.”

  Falken hummed an amused sound and nodded, glancing around the room to look at the white walls. “This area of the citadel is indeed a holding area reserved for the most dangerous prisoners. As for this particular machine, can you think of no uses for it?”

  “Are you asking me that because you’re not supposed to tell me, and if I guess, you didn’t actually tell me and can say truthfully that I came to the conclusion on my own?”

  Ga’rae’s chuckle and Falken’s silence was answer enough. Cassie huffed and looked up at the ceiling to think about what an advanced race of aliens might use a pigmentation removal device for.

  It took her some time, but eventually Cassie turned her head to look up at Falken.

  “Well, logically, as it’s in a prison cell, I would venture to say it might be used to remove the tribal markings from a Sarazen as a way of punishment. Taking away his claim to a clan and making him an outcast or something.”

  Falken’s continued silence and the appreciation shining in his eyes was conformation she was on the right track.

  “And I suppose if you could erase the evidence of your clan origins, you might use a pigmentation removal device for some sort of…oh. OH! You…”

  If she had been able to move, Cassie might have sat upright with the shock and understanding that blasted through her. Her mind spun back to the moment they had approached the humongous warriors standing guard at the entrance to the dungeon.

  They hadn’t even twitched or stiffened in reaction to Falken’s approach. They hadn’t looked at him at all actually, just moved aside to allow Falken to swipe his wrist unit over the instrument panel beside the door.

  Her thoughts hovered above her like they were displayed on a holo-screen, moving left and right as she mentally switched things around. Put ideas here, and thoughts there, sorting through the things she knew for certain, adding to her suppositions until she was just staring in shock at her own conclusions.

  Falken was on a very short list of intelligence gathering personnel, but his rating did not in Cassie’s opinion, match his actual level of intelligence. He was at the bottom of the list, when the evidence she had gathered said he should have been at the very top.

  He was the right hand of the new Asho and had been second to the commander of the Sarazen armada. The duties he would have had, aside from taking over when Tarek was otherwise indisposed, was to provide Tarek with data and information vital to the day to day movements of the people or the armada itself.

  There was a portion of Falken’s file she hadn’t been able to peek inside, because the only person who had the necessary clearance to view it, was Tarek himself. No one else.

  The next logical question would be, how, if Falken was on board the same ship as the armada commander, did he provide said commander with that vital information to dictate the movements of the Sarazen fighting force beyond the usual territory protection?

  He had to have help.

  Warriors to act as agents unseen and undetected among their peers or perhaps among other races of beings altogether. It made perfect sense now that she thought about it.

  Every monarchy had spies and agents to gather intelligence to bring back to a specific person, entrusted to compile that intelligence into data to assist in the protection of their government or hierarchic system.

  Humans had entire agencies devoted to spying and gathering information to protect their sovereign states or countries. Cassie had assumed there were spies for the enemy in place, so why had she been so stupid as to not consider there were spies working for Tarek? Well, not Tarek.

  That’s not how it usually worked, there was always a go-between to protect the sovereign or leader of a governmental system.

  How had she not thought of that before?

  “I can almost hear the sub-light whine of her thoughts as they fly through her head,” Ga’rae chuckled.

  Cassie blinked to banish her mental image of her thoughts of recrimination and stupidity, and looked up at Falken. “Do you remove the clan markings altogether, or alter the shape and color of them?”

  “It depends on the assignments.” Falken answered, confirming without confirming he was that go-between.

  “How many?”

  He shrugged casually. “Less than twenty.”

  “I am such an idiot,” she muttered to herself, “How did I not see that before?”

  Falken grinned at her almost mischievously. “You were not supposed to, my one.”

  The fact that Cassie hadn’t only told her Falken was infinitely more gifted than she had thought. Though, being almost fifteen hundred years old gave a guy a lot of time to gather some experience.

  “I get it now. Why you were so pissed when I brought all my data to Tarek that first time.” He had a whole host of spies to draw information from, and she’d done all her work right under his nose and he hadn’t even noticed that she had been using his codes to gather her information.

  Being at the hub of a network of intelligence gathering spies, she could imagine that had been a veritable kick in the balls to have his own mate go digging around in his network and threaten all those spies with her lack of knowledge for what she was doing.

  “Your data has been vital, Cassie. A discussion for later, mm?”

  She nodded and lay quietly for the rest of the procedure, looking at Falken in a new light and adding this information to her previous assumptions about him.

  By the time Ga’rae stood up to turn off his machine, she was wondering if she hadn’t made some serious errors in judging Falken and his behavior towards her.

  “You may feel some mild discomfort for a few revs. Skin sensitivity or a slight stinging sensation. If it gets to be too much, rub this over the area.” Ga’rae showed her the tube of pink gel before handing it to Falken.

  She was given another injection, and like a switch being flipped from Off to On, Cassie could suddenly feel the heat of Falken’s palm where it rested between her breasts and the combing of his fingers through her hair. She half expected to feel dizzy when she pushed up to her elbows, but the only thing she felt was a very mild heat on her belly.

  She stared at the pristine skin
, not even a scar or a shadow left behind to ever prove the tattoos the eugenics officers had used to target her ovaries had ever been there. The dizziness came, but not because of the medication.

  It was more like an emotional tsunami that had surged up and completely wiped away the ugliness and resentment she had felt each time she looked at those tattoos. Wiped away years of anger and pain she had shoved to the back of her mind. She felt about a thousand pounds lighter and didn’t know how to function without all that heaviness dragging her down.

  “Cassie?” She blinked at Falken’s soft murmur and looked up from having touched her fingertips to the blank spot on her left side.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you alright?” His golden eyes searched across her face, for what, she didn’t know.

  “Um. Yeah. I think so.”

  “May I carry you back to our quarters?”

  His question had her blinking at him a few times as her brain attempted to kick back over. “That’s a long way.”

  Amusement made his eyes shine and spark as he slipped his arms under her and lifted her up effortlessly. “I vow, I will not drop you.” To Ga’rae, Falken inclined his head with a measure of gravity. “You have my thanks for this.”

  Cassie added her own thank you, and Ga’rae inclined his head with only the slightest pinkening of his ears.

  *****

  True to his word, Falken didn’t drop her. He didn’t falter or seem to show the slightest bit of exertion with her weight in his arms, even as he climbed the six flights of stairs. He didn’t say anything at all when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let her cheek rest against his throat, but she could smell the relief as it wafted from his skin.

  She even closed her eyes to better draw in his scent, filtering through the notes that indicated his emotions until she got to his base, unique smell. Glad they didn’t have a mental connection to betray her thoughts, Cassie admitted the smell of him filling her nose, the heat of him warming her and the security of his arms around her were all that kept her from breaking down into tears.