by Regine Abel
I inhaled his fresh, masculine scent. Lhor was perfect, like his body was made to wrap around me. He wasn’t as tall or as broad as Khel, but he too was all muscles. Mine.
Lhor released me and gently unwrapped my arms. “He’ll forgive you. Khel will always forgive you. In fact, he probably already has. As far as he’s concerned, you all but walk on water,” he said. He paused and gave me an odd look before raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “Do you?”
“Of course not, silly!” I said, giving him a playful punch.
He smirked – that Lhor smirk that made my heart beat faster and my girly bits perk up in interest. A blinding flash from one of the monitors grabbed our attention. Yhan had blown up the first missile. I checked the clock. Fourteen minutes – my vision had seen fourteen minutes into the future. I frantically scanned the monitors.
“I don’t see Khel,” I said again, wringing my hands.
“He’s probably gone to Credhan’s Clearing to intercept the mobile missile launchers, like your vision said he would,” Lhor said, trying to reassure me.
I closed my eyes and tried to lock onto Khel, calling forth a vision.
Khel ran through the woods, his steps eerily silent. Ghan finished hiding his hover-bike next to Khel’s and chased after him. They moved at an unnatural speed, their eyes fixed on their unsuspecting quarry ahead. After the infrared scan confirmed that there were four hostiles, Khel signaled for Ghan to go left while he went right. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and approached the mobile missile launcher. He surveyed the positions of the two males he would take down. Without slowing, he exploded out of the forest in a giant leap.
The male, one of three Xelixians, had barely begun to turn his head before Khel chopped it off in one clean swoop. His Terran comrade, who operated the missile launcher on the opposite side of the vehicle, heard the body thump. He called out the dead male’s name, walking around to investigate. Swift as a snake, Khel punched him in the throat as he turned the corner, choking him. While the Terran struggled to recover his breath, Khel viciously jabbed him in the gut, doubling him over. Instead of finishing him off, Khel grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back up, exposing his throat. In one fluid movement, he stabbed his fangs into the Terran’s jugular. A second later, the Terran’s eyes rolled in his head and white foam bubbled at the corner of his mouth. Khel dropped him without another glance, leaving him to spasm on the ground. He moved toward Ghan.
The second Xelixian guard sprawled behind Ghan, the odd angle of his neck speaking volumes. The third Xelixian, who operated the second missile launcher, pleaded for his life. Ghan cast a questioning glance toward Khel who blinked his assent. With a lightning swing, Ghan all but split the guard in two with a single cut. The guard watched his innards spill to the ground with a stunned expression before falling to his knees, then on his face.
“Disable one of the launchers and bring back the other one to the compound with the Terran. I’m going after the third,” Khel said, running back toward his hover-bike without waiting for Ghan’s response.
“Amalia?” Lhor called out, his voice strained.
I blinked out of the vision. “I’m here. He’s fine.” I leaned against the table, feeling slightly disoriented.
“Who’s fine? Khel?” Lhor frowned in confusion. “Were you having a vision?”
“Yes. I checked on him to make sure he would be fine. In the next few minutes he and Ghan will take out the two missile launchers in the clearing, then Khel will go after the third one.”
“You checked on him? As in, you can deliberately look into a specific person’s future whenever you want?” Lhor asked, his voice laced with awe.
“Yes, but it’s only the next five to twenty minutes of that person’s life.”
Lhor rubbed the back of his head, thinking. “Are you able to see Gruuk’s future then? Or your great mother’s?”
“No,” I said with a small voice, slumping my shoulders. “There are limits. I need to be within a certain range of them. The better I know a person, the greater the distance. But Gruuk and Nana are off planet, much too far for me to reach.”
Lhor pursed his lips in disappointment. “That’s unfortunate. It would have made it easier to pin him down.”
“I know, I try to reach for them all the time in case he comes back. But sometimes, I get impromptu visions. Those just come to me unbidden, like tonight.”
We turned back to the monitors and watched the warriors fend off the attack until things eventually quieted down.
CHAPTER 19
Khel
I couldn’t decide which of all the fucked-up things that had happened tonight pissed me off the most. First, finding out my mate hid secrets after giving me the mother of all guilt trips for keeping secrets from her. Actually, it didn’t piss me off, it hurt. Tonight, I thought we had a breakthrough, that we were on the way to becoming true mates on a spiritual level. I was a fool to hope for a deeper bond so soon. Fuck, it hurt…
The first thing that pissed me off, then, was that they’d dared attack me in my own fucking house—threatening my mate, my family, and my staff. Second, it was my mate who had saved us... again. First the sabotaged shuttle, now this… As much as her secret hurt, without her vision, I doubt we’d have won this fight. At least, not without significant casualties. The head start and specific intel she provided overwhelmingly tipped the balance in our favor. Since she’d come to us, I’d been preaching how it was my duty to protect her, that she didn’t need to fight. Yet, without her, we would’ve been screwed. Once again, I’d failed her.
Third, what in the Goddess’ name was a Terran doing helping Xelixians in an attack against their general? This could start a war with Terra and the Terran colonies. Fourth, who the fuck funded the type of military grade equipment they’d used? How did they manage to get their hands on it with no one noticing? Fifth, that third missile launcher… My warriors reached it before me and dispatched the Xelixian male guarding it. His companion who operated it managed to escape. According to my warriors, he was Guldan. I would bet my left nut it was Kuuruk Terk, the assassin. This was bigger than one greedy fuck trying to get my lands.
I returned to the compound to find Ghan had everything under control. The staff, released from the bunker, returned to their respective quarters. The first missile launcher was secured in the compound’s garage for thorough inspection. The Terran was recovering from my venom in the holding cell. The other two missile launchers were being hauled back to the compound. Ghan set up additional patrols to secure the perimeter and satellite surveillance to prevent another similar attack from occurring. We had suffered no casualties, or injuries for that matter, thank the Goddess… Or should I say, thank Amalia?
My heart ached thinking of my mate as I climbed the stairs to our room. I found her cross-legged on the bed, wearing a sheer nightgown with her dark hair cascading around her. She looked at me with such guilt and sadness that whatever I felt melted away, replaced by an overwhelming urge to protect. I couldn’t bear anything making her this sad, not even myself.
I’m such a sucker…
“I’m sorry, Khel.” She stood by the bed, twisting a strand of hair while looking at me piteously.
I walked up to her, staring quietly for a moment. “I know.” I pulled her into a tight hug and she clasped her hands around my back. She held on to me almost with desperation. I felt her inhale my scent then rub her face against my neck.
“Why, Falihna?” My voice hid none of the hurt. “Surely you know by now you can tell me anything? I thought we had gotten past that tonight.”
“We have!” She pulled back to look up at me. “I wasn’t withholding it from you deliberately. At least, not consciously.”
She explained how the ability first manifested on her mother and sister’s deaths and how she’d kept it a secret all these years from Gruuk. That was how she avoided detection during her escape. It had always troubled me that she’d succeeded with such apparent ease. It still saddened me she’d kept it a secret e
ven when telling us how she escaped. But I understood survival instincts all too well.
“Anything else you should tell me about but haven’t yet?”
She shook her head, never breaking eye contact.
“No more secrets, okay?”
“No more, I promise.” She pulled my head down to rest her forehead against mine.
We quietly held each other. Her hands cradled my face as she tilted her head to give me a long, tender kiss that moved something deep within me. She once more gave me the look so similar to the one my mother used to give my father; the look I’d never dared to hope a female would cast upon me. She gently ran her thumbs along the raised ridged on the upper side of my ears, sending a shuddering ripple of pleasure through me. A deep purr rumbled out of my throat.
“You’re always so good to me.” She smiled with a mixture of affection and awe. “You never stay angry with me, and when you are, you don’t yell at me. You believed me when I told you about my hacking abilities and tonight my visions. Most people would dismiss me as insane…”
“And they would have died,” I interrupted. “Don’t idealize me, my mate. I’m not perfect. I do get angry, very angry. I want to believe the day will never come that I’ll be so angry as to yell at you, but it could happen. But should that day come, I’d take my own life before I ever raise a hand to you.”
I sat on the edge of the bed before sitting her on my lap. She snuggled into me, leaning her head against my shoulder.
“I don’t like it when there’s tension between us, Falihna. My father once told me one of the secrets to his happy bond with my mother was that she never allowed them to go to bed angry. Dark thoughts thrive and fester in the cold dead of night.”
“Your mother sounds like a wise female.”
“She was.” My chest tightened at the ever-present pain of her loss. “She would’ve loved you.” I softly kissed Amalia’s lips. “As far as believing you, remember that I’m a general. I regularly make life and death decisions on the fly. When we first met, I didn’t have much to go on. I assessed the situation and analyzed what you said, and how you said it. The real questions were what you would gain by lying and what would we lose if you weren’t. So I’m afraid my reactions aren’t that romantic. That said, I genuinely thought you were confused by a nightmare after I told you what the boys had been up to.”
She chuckled at me using her term. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I loved the laid-back male I was around her.
“But the conviction in your voice when I challenged you made it clear you were fully awake. We’d also received a warning that an attack might happen. It was better to err on the side of caution. It saved the lives of many males who mean a great deal to me. For this, I thank you. It seems you are the one protecting me after all.”
“Pfft, hardly!” Despite her denial, she beamed at being acknowledged. “This was a team effort. I just pointed you in the right direction. You did all the ass kicking. By the Goddess, Khel! You and Ghan were amazing! I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. The way you took out those four males, they never saw it coming.”
I blinked slowly. “How do you know Ghan and I took out four males?”
“Oh… I took a peek.” She blushed, twisting her hair. “I couldn’t see you on the surveillance monitors. I was worried something bad might happen so I had a look into your future. You have to teach me how to use a sword like you do. That was every possible shade of awesome.”
My face heated at the praise and I reveled in Amalia’s admiration. “So you were worried about me, my mate?” Yeah, I was fishing for her to tell me she cared.
I have no shame.
She nodded and kissed my cheek. “I needed to know you were safe and that you were coming back to me.” She suddenly stilled and touched her neck pensively. “You bit him… You bit that Terran and he went all weird. Did you drink from him?”
Eww!
“Goddess, no!” I looked at her, horrified. “We only drink from females and only if she’s had an orgasm. I injected the male with my venom. Remember what I told you about our two glands when I explained Mirvhen’s punishment?”
She nodded slowly in recollection.
“I only explained what happens to a male who loses his glands. But our fangs are also used as weapons, and each gland has other functions. The Rhykin produces a venom that causes temporary paralysis when given in small amounts. In larger doses, it destroys the nervous system and causes organ failure. I paralyzed the Terran to interrogate him later. Then gave him a bit more as punishment for attacking our home, but not enough to kill or do permanent damage. That’s what the spasms were about.”
She tilted her head, frowning. “But sometimes, when you bite me, it feels good.”
I gave her a smug smile. “Yes. That’s because, in small quantities, Thylin venom acts like a recreational drug and causes euphoria. Large amounts, though, cause hallucinations or dementia. It’s common for males to inject some while mating to enhance their female’s pleasure. And nothing pleases me more than your pleasure.”
To my surprise, she put her fists on her hips and glared at me. “Well, you stingy male! Why are you giving me Tylin only sometimes instead of all the time? And yes, I know I messed up the h.”
I burst out laughing, watching her struggle to maintain her fake anger. “I promise you love, I would never give you Tylin. As for Thylin,” I winked at her, “I can’t give it to you too often because it’s quite addictive for some species. A male could bind a female to him that way.”
She dropped her fists from her sides. “To him specifically or to the venom in general?”
“To him specifically,” I said. “The addiction is DNA bound.”
She nodded slowly in understanding. She chewed on a lip for few seconds then asked with a small voice, “Do I want to know what Tylin is?”
I chuckled and tried not to cringe. “No, my heart. You really don’t.”
She snaked her hands under the bottom of my shirt and caressed my abs with the tips of her fingers. “Well, I haven’t had any Ty… cool venom in a while,” she said with an adorable pout, “and I’m starting to feel mightily neglected.”
“You’ve been sick,” I said without much conviction. I wished she’d touch me with her whole hands instead of teasing me with her fingers.
“And I’m better.” Her hands ventured a little higher, the tip of her indexes circling my nipples.
“The doctor said not too much exertion.” My groin awakened.
“Yup. That means you do all the work, and I just lie here.” She grinned shamelessly.
She got off my lap, removed her nightgown in one swift movement before tossing it to the ground. She sprawled on the bed, pulling me to her.
* * *
The next couple of days went by in a blur of activity. The attack on the estate had obviously not gone unnoticed, not with missiles blowing up mid-flight. Lhor managed to get Detective Gravhin on the case. He also got him to run interference and keep track of any third party who showed too keen an interest in what had happened.
The captured Terran was a mess. It made no sense. I fought enough people throughout my career, including Terrans, to know exactly how much venom is too much. The dose was accurate. The Rhykin should have caused excruciating pain for six hours and the paralysis shouldn’t have lasted more than twelve. We were at forty-one hours and counting. According to Dr. Volghan, the Terran wouldn’t be coherent for at least another twenty-four hours.
After much coaxing, Minh convinced me to let him run some tests on me. If he could, he would do so every day. Truth was, I couldn’t blame him. Not quite two weeks since my Fastening and my Taint was all but gone. Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was Prime. My tests confused Minh. It was normal for a male to have bursts of energy and strength once his Taint halted. But it seemed like Amalia’s hormone not only reversed the Taint, it had also enhanced me.
My strength, speed, and endurance had noticeably grown, and so had the potency of my
venom. It was a miracle I hadn’t killed the Terran. Over the past few days, my bone density and muscle mass had also increased.
My venom and saliva made changes within Amalia as well. It strengthened her immune system, saving her from the thallium poisoning. But Minh believed there would be more changes, hence he wanted permission to perform tests on her as well. I wasn’t too keen on it but promised to talk to her.
I spent the morning with Lhor, who coached me on how to be a proper Councilor. What I wouldn’t give to simply transfer the role to him. Xelix Prime was profoundly broken. It was impossible to remain blind to the horrors revealed to us over the past week. I knew of the injustices of our system. Yet, like everyone else, I accepted them as the way of things while recognizing deep down how wrong they were.
Minimum wages, working conditions, segregation, discrimination and basic social and medical protection for the Tainted all needed to be addressed, among others. It was mind-boggling how far things had degenerated while we were all looking the other way. It crawled its way through our way of life, insidiously unchallenged.
I never imagined the existence of Blood Houses, yet there were plenty of signs for those willing to see. That this could have gone on for so long only confirmed how deep and widespread the corruption went. But no more. If they thought my father had been a dissident, they had another thing coming. The gloves were off.
* * *
We had just finished Amalia’s first combat training. Initially, I only intended to test her general fitness, strength, and agility. Then I would move on to an hour of basic defense and call it good. Turns out, my mate had yet another surprise for me. She didn’t just want to learn how to defend herself, she also wanted to ‘kick ass and take names.’ Apparently, seeing me behead that Xelixian had given her a hard on for swordplay. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or disturbed by her bloodlust.
She was an average swimmer but possessed a phenomenal disposition for combat. That definitely disturbed me… well, it disturbed my overprotective, overbearing self. Imagining her in combat and getting hurt frightened me. And yet, picturing her ‘kicking ass and taking names’ stirred a sliver of pride. But she wouldn’t need me to keep her safe and that bothered me beyond words. She had an instinctive talent with a sword. I had to pull it out of her hands while she threatened to bite me to get it back. I only intended to show her she wasn’t ready – or meant for – swords, but that sure backfired.