Taming Ryock

by Sara Page

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Ryock looks to me then back to the man. A crease appears between his brows and I wonder if he can understand him.

  “I’m Yarrel,” the guy says, his smile twisting into something more roguish. “Your sister Lexi sent me. I’m here to save you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ryock

  This humanoid looks a lot like my Izlah, but he smells different. From the ears and the eyes, I can tell he is not one of her kind, but he speaks her language.

  I gather from a few of the words they speak that he’s most likely here for her. I can feel the deep growl starting from my stomach, all the way up to my throat, as I stand in front of her.

  No one will take my mate from me.

  My female.

  I’ve killed twice to keep her safe, and I will kill this puny humanoid as well if he tries.

  “Ryock, no!” Izlah shouts as another tremor runs through the floors. This time though it sends the walls of our cage vibrating.

  Izlah speaks too fast now to the man-thing for me to follow. Her eyes are wide with surprise, but I see a small amount of distrust in them as well. Whatever he is saying back must be of use to her, but she still doesn’t have a translator implant and this humanoid is using her language. You have to intentionally will the translator to not work to do what he is doing. Whatever he’s saying, he’s trying to make sure it stays between the both of them.

  I don’t think I could possibly be more frustrated at this moment.

  Izlah grabs my hand suddenly as the walls and floor go through the worst quake so far. Every single one of the living things in the cells begins to yell. The research containment walls are vibrating heavily, all around us I can hear the pounding on the glass walls.

  Whatever the hell is happening outside of this cell block is big.

  My first instinct is to think that the Crima are under attack. But who in their right mind would attack the Crima? Who would risk something like that?

  Standing in front of us is the answer apparently. Motioning for Izlah to join him.

  Tightening my grip on her hand, I tug her back to my side.

  “Izlah…” I start to say before the humanoid cuts me off.

  His hand lifts with a blaster in it, pointing directly at my heart.

  “Let the girl go, big guy, and I won’t leave you here dead,” he says as his finger inches towards the trigger.

  “She’s mine,” I say as I push her to the side of me.

  It only makes sense that now I have finally found my mate others would try to keep us apart. The stars must truly want to test our bond to send so many in our path. A bug, a Gararl, and now this one.

  “Ryock!” Izlah shouts in anger at my side, and as stupid as it is, I take my eyes off the man to look at her.

  “Ryock, no.” She points her finger at the man. “Safe.”

  Shaking my head, I point at the blaster. “No.”

  Shaking her head, she pulls at my hand, her small fingers gripping mine as a small shock of soothing washes over me. It’s not enough though. For her, I will willingly die, but I will not allow her to slip into more trouble.

  She looks back to the man and starts talking again, pointing to me and then her ears. She must be talking about our problem.

  “She can’t understand Common Galactic, and she doesn’t have a translator,” I say as I point to the small little translator implanted behind my right ear.

  Lowering his blaster to my crotch, which I’m pretty sure isn’t an accident, he says “Yeah, she’s telling me that right now.”

  Shaking his head at her, he speaks again to her before looking at me. “Can’t be helped now.”

  A huge booming noise comes from clear across the cellblock we’ve been stuck in and a large cloud of dark smoke rises.

  The man shouts in human as he reaches out for Izlah.

  Pulling her to my side, I growl. He will not take her from me.

  Screaming in frustration, Izlah yanks on my hand, pulling me towards the open door. “Ryock, come!”

  Damn all the stars!

  “You heard the woman! Move!” he shouts as he dashes out into the corridor.

  Following his lead, I pull her along with me and feel a wave of heat roll over us. Whatever happened on the far wall must have caused some serious damage. Flames lick up it.

  Damn. This idiot, and whoever the hell is with him, attacked the Crima. Space pirates are a crazy lot, but to attack a Crima research ship is just plain stupid crazy.

  All around us, bugs are beginning to move through the cages, trying to get to the mass of explosions.

  “I had a few charges set off on that side as a diversion, but I doubt it’s going to last much longer. We need to get out of here,” he says as he blasts a hole through a guard that has come rushing down the glass corridor.

  Suddenly I hear the chittering of the bugs coming from behind us and Izlah screams as a loud zapping sound comes out of nowhere. Turning to the side, I push a dazed Izlah over to the man.

  Two bugs got behind us from somewhere. They’re waving shock wands at me like they have the destiny in them to stop us.

  It’s been too long since I’ve been allowed to fight something. The death of the Gararl only filled a small portion of the hunger that has been building inside of me since Izlah came into my life.

  Grabbing the shock wand of the leader as the two swing at me, I yank him forward. The electric pulse thrums through my skin, into my veins.

  He was stupid enough to think a small stun charge would stop me.

  Yanking him further in, I watch his big ugly bug eyes close and his mouth open in a scream. I grab his neck in my hand, giving it a hard squeeze. I feel things break inside it.

  Dropping the one bug, I grin at the frozen guard who just watched the whole scene. I’m pretty sure that was not how he pictured things panning out.

  Grinning as the bug turns around and begins to run off in terror, I flip the shock wand of the dead bug around and whip it towards the fleeing bug. The wand impales him from behind, and he flies forward, slamming into a wall.

  “Well done, but we need to move,” the man trying to take my female says from behind.

  Lifting my head up in exhilaration, I roar a challenge to all.

  Slowly, I let my blood fall back down to a simmer and look back at him. “Lead on.”

  Taking ahold of Izlah, I pull her over to me.

  Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, I ask, “Izlah, good?”

  Nodding her head, she says, “Yes. Hurts.”

  Scooping her into my arms, I pull her close to my chest. “Izlah safe now.”

  With that we’re on the move again, though I’m much more careful, watching for what’s coming from behind us.

  “What’s the story with you two?” the man asks as he gets us past the glass cells and to the outer wall.

  “They tried to mate her with a Gararl, I stopped it.”

  “Gararl mating experiments, still? That’s disgusting. I suppose it’s good you stopped it. Her sister would be very mad if I hadn’t gotten here in time.”

  Nodding my head, we step through a door.

  Dead bodies cover the floor. Scorch marks paint the walls. It’s clear there was a small skirmish. The dead bodies appear to be a mix of bugs and other races. The other races all have clothing and weapons, which means they weren’t part of the research vessel. Nothing on this ship gets clothing and weapons except for the bugs.

  Pointing to the dead, I ask, “Your people?”

  “Of a sort,” he says as he stops at a corner.

  Peeking around it first, he then steps out and keeps going. “What’s your name, big guy?”

  “Ryock, you?”

  “Yarrel.”

  Izlah begins to shift and move in my arms as she comes out from the stun she got from shock wand.

  “Hold up,” I say as I look down into her face.

  Licking her cheek to reassure her, I slowly set her on her feet.

>   Pushing my face away, she shakes her head. “No lick.”

  I have no clue what it is she has against me comforting her sometimes, but I nod my head. I will groom her later, in private.

  Pointing to my eyes, I then point to behind us and the sides. “Watch. Be safe.”

  Nodding her head at me, she speaks to Yarrel again and we move off.

  It’s a slow trek as we make our way through the insides of the research vessel. Like the bugs who live underground on my homeworld, the Crima’s ships have paths everywhere. Thankfully, Yarrel seems to know the way.

  He takes turns and goes through doors without second-guessing.

  “How close to your ship?” I ask as we have been walking for a solid ten minutes.

  “Not far, but I’ve been trying to take the wide route back. It seems the bugs are putting up a bit of a fight,” he says as he taps his ear. There’s a small glowing bud in it, and I realize he must be linked up with his ‘of a sort’ friends.

  Coming up to another corner that looks like all the others, I almost run into him as he stops suddenly after peeking around it.

  “Damn,” he mutters quietly.

  Leaning my head to the side, I look around it as well. “Damn.”

  Izlah, having the same idea, looks out and says, “Fuck.”

  “Why does she keep talking about fornication when there is trouble?” I ask Yarrel quietly as we all lean back around the corner.

  “It’s a way humans express themselves. It doesn’t always mean something sexual. The word has many meanings. In fact, it’s one of my very favorite words for the sheer amount of different ways there are to use it.”

  Shaking my head, I try to think for a moment. Around that corner we have the backs of about twelve bug guards. Each are shooting blasters or waving shock wands as they ward off the entrance from more fighters. The fighters seem to be coming from the hangar bay that holds what I assume is Yarrel’s ship.

  It’s not bad odds, actually.

  “Can we not simply rush them from behind while your friends shoot at them from the front?”

  “Well, we could have asked them to do that before we lost so many… Right now, they’re pretty pissed off. This should have been a quick in and out. I don’t think anyone, including myself, was expecting this kind of opposition.”

  Izlah starts talking to Yarrel as well, and I’m guessing she has the same questions that I do.

  Lifting my hand up, I give them both a hold on sign as I move back down the way we came. There was a doorway to a locker room of sorts not far back.

  Entering the room, I take in all the metal tables available and the cabinets on the walls. Taking a cabinet down will be too loud and far too boxy, but a tabletop would work perfect.

  Grabbing the closest table by the top and a leg, I push with a good amount of heft and snap the leg in half. It leaves me with just enough length to hold the leg by while I use the tabletop as an overly large shield.

  Exiting the locker room, I meet Izlah who stares at me strangely until I give her a grin. “Izlah come.”

  Meeting Yarrel back at the wall, I say, “I’ll go say hello. You take what shots you can.”

  Right before I walk around the corner, I lean over and kiss Izlah softly on the lips before butting my head against hers. “Be good.”

  Turning away, I let the blood boil in my veins. The endorphins spike through my heart and out into my nervous system. By the time I make it around the corner, I have a red tinge around my vision. My mouth begins to fill with excess saliva.

  Skin crawling with anticipation, I start to trot then burst into a full run.

  Five feet away from the bugs, I let out a monstrous roar as I bring my shield up to stave off the blaster bolts. I doubt it will be able to stop all of them, but it should be enough.

  With just my eyes peeking over the top of my shield, I steer myself directly into a terrified bug just as it turns to see what the commotion is. Slamming myself into the bug, I feel his body break itself on my shield before it goes flying into two other bugs, knocking them down. They fall in a tangle of limbs and shock wands.

  The rest of the bugs turn to me now to face their newest foe.

  Slamming my fist into one of their heads, I grab an antenna and pull my fist back, ripping it off. Dipping down to pick up a shock wand, I wield it as club. I set it to its highest setting and begin to swing and stab at anything that resembles a body.

  My improvised shield is slowly whittled away by blaster bolts, and when I can no longer use it as anything other than a projectile, I throw it hard enough to decapitate one of the bastard Crima bugs.

  A bug on my left goes down with a chest kick while another gets the shock wand to its long reedy throat. Still too many are standing between me and the hangar as I pant with battle-lust.

  Closing my eyes for the briefest of moments, I offer a small prayer to the stars.

  Opening them back up, I see the bugs are coming to their senses. Good, let them be ready for battle.

  I am.

  Charging to one bug, I launch a punch at its head as he shoots a thigh grazing shot from his blaster at my leg.

  No pain, though. Only more rage fills me.

  Only rare, ‘gifted’ males can enter the battle rage. I was a loss to the family when I turned my back on them. It destroyed me when I became an outcast, a heretic. But now I see it was for a purpose—it was to live this moment in all its beauty.

  And what beauty it is to behold this dance of dead and yet-to-be dead.

  Duck, swirl, punch, kick.

  Bite a neck here, thrust my hands into an eye there. Each movement, a force of violence.

  Each time I see a foe or take a wound, my voice echoes back to me from the walls as I roar in defiance. Defiance of the bugs. Defiance of my life until I met my one. Defiance of those who only knew one way to live.

  My fists are my greatest weapon. Each a steel wall of destruction as I hit solid bodies, sending them away from me at bone-crushing speeds.

  Somewhere in my blood-lust, I hear shouting.

  Shouting from a familiar voice. “Ryock, stop!”

  It’s chanted over and over at me as I slam my fists into a crumpled body on the floor. Chanted enough that as it slows down, so do my hands.

  Spiting a large mass of blood and saliva from my mouth at the mushed corpse, I look up to see Izlah staring at me with wide, terrified eyes.

  “Ryock stop now,” I mumble as I get to my feet.

  My arms tremble with the amount of rage I spent. I haven’t used them to such a devastating effect in a very long time.

  Looking around me, I see the bodies of bugs everywhere. There are even more than I believe I originally counted.

  That includes a couple that have been ripped in half.

  Tasting the ichor in my mouth and looking down at my hands, I see they are bruised and the knuckles are slowly healing from being busted open.

  Izlah snaps out of her fear and she rushes to my side.

  My body is shaking so mightily from the sudden loss of adrenaline that I stumble over to a wall to lean against it.

  “Ryock hurt!” she shouts as she puts her hands on my stomach. A blaster bolt has put a small hole through my side.

  Shaking my head, I say, “Ryock good.”

  Pointing to my knuckles on one hand, her eyes widen again as she watches the skin slowly closing over the exposed under layers.

  “Ryock, good,” I repeat as I bump my head against hers.

  Looking to Yarrel, I ask, “Are we clear to go?”

  Staring at me like I’m some sort of oddity, he slowly nods his head. “Yes, I do believe we are.”

  Turning towards the hangar, I wrap an arm around Izlah and pull her tight into my side. The other hand braces up against the wall and I push off.

  “Let’s go, please. I will need a place to clean and heal.”

  Jogging towards the ship, we watch as men and women pop up from behind crates. They turn their backs to us and rush towards th
e now opened cargo hatch.

  “We need to get Izlah a translator,” I say to Yarrel as I follow behind them, walking up the ramp into the ship. Her swaying delicious ass also reminds me, “And clothes. My mate most likely wants clothes.

  Nodding his head, Yarrel speaks first to Izlah before he tells me, “Welcome to my ship, we call it the Witches Tit.”

  Chapter Ten

  Isla

  “Come on,” Yarrel says with some urgency as he slaps a button on the gray wall beside us.

  The ramp we just walked up begins to retract and the hydraulics of the door hiss as it begins to lower down.

  I cast one last look back at all the carnage we left behind us. It looks like a bomb went off in the cargo area. There’s bug blood, limbs, and heads everywhere.

  Ryock did that… well, most of that, and I don’t know how I feel about it.

  “Izlah,” Ryock rumbles, pulling my attention back to him.

  He grips my arm and tugs, dragging me away from the door. We’re forced into a slow jog as we try to keep up with Yarrel as he races down the main hall of the ship.

  All around us, men and women scramble about, going about various tasks as if their very lives depend upon it.

  I nearly crash into a couple of people as the hall becomes narrower and narrower. There’s just not enough room to have a dozen people rushing about in different directions.

  Yarrel leads us deeper into the ship, around a curve, and then stops in front of a door. He slaps his hand on the little pad beside the door and the door slides open.

  “Here,” he says, motioning for me to enter ahead of him.

  Not thinking twice about it, I walk through the door with Ryock a step behind me.

  “I’ll be back when we’re in the clear…” Yarrel says and the door slides shut.

  What the hell does that mean?

  I shoot Ryock a worried look and walk up to the door, placing my hand on the little pad beside it.

  The light on the pad blinks red.

  “Shit. He locked us in.”

  Ryock makes a sound in his throat before he hobbles over to the bed. The room is small and cramped, smaller than the glass cage we were trapped in. The bed takes up most of the room, pushed up against the back wall with about a foot and half space left on the floor to move around it.