Thieves' Guild Series (7 eBook Box Set): Military Science Fiction - Alien Invasion - Galactic War Novels

by C. G. Hatton

  The guy gave him a shove. “It’s called not dying, mate. Your lot aren’t doing too well in those stakes, are you?” He undid the cuffs and threw a set of clean fatigues onto the floor. “Get the hell cleaned up, and be fast.”

  He wasn’t fast. He took his time. He set the shower to tepid and stood in the torrent of water, head down, letting it wash away the blood and dirt, reaching out as he stood there and draining as many people in range as fast as he could. Screw all of them.

  He dried and dressed slowly, feeling the virus respond to the influx of energy, healing, revitalising, neutralising any residual neurotoxin. The hive was there, watching, the shamans close. And the guys with guns were waiting outside. They had him covered from all angles.

  If it had just been Drake, Anya and their cronies, he might have had a chance. With the Bhenykhn there, lurking, the shamans waiting for him to try something…? And with Spearhead apparently able to short-circuit his brain at any time? He figured he was about as far up shit creek as anyone ever had been. And unsurprisingly, the view wasn’t great. He pulled on the shirt and buttoned it with trembling fingers, rolling up the sleeves and tucking it in, using the time to breathe, focus. He needed to bide his time. He was on the wrong side of a twisted and disgusting line and he wanted none of it. But as much as it sucked, at least there was no fight pit, no one was beating the crap out of him and the shamans were keeping their distance. And he knew Anya wanted him alive. He just needed to figure out how to get hold of a staff without Spearhead zapping him again and there might be a way out of this.

  As if it could ever be that easy.

  He woke lying flat on his back, hands manacled, the chains heavy on his stomach. On a bed, he realised, a soft bed, legs bent at the knees and dangling over its edge, head spinning. They must have dosed him with the neurotoxin again. So much for the virus being able to handle it.

  Anya was straddling him, leaning down and unbuttoning his shirt. As if they were fourteen again. Except she’d never had him tied up before. Or drugged.

  “It’s been too long, my love.”

  “Wait,” he muttered, slurring the word.

  She pressed a finger to his lips, her other hand ripping open his shirt and tracing immaculate fingernails along the black lightning on his chest, lingering on the intricate pattern of the brand.

  He couldn’t get his head straight enough to read what was going through her mind but he could read her body language. Latia’s bracelet was gone from his wrist. He could see it on hers. As though she’d taken it as a trophy.

  He could hear running water, see out of the corner of his eye heavy drapes covering the window, the room lit and warmed by a dying fire. The hive felt distant, watching but distant, the ever present hint of decay tainting the scent of her perfume. He had no immediate sense of Spearhead but no doubt the bastard AI wasn’t far.

  He wasn’t sure how to play this but he wanted that bracelet back, more than anything, tensing as she hit a sore spot.

  “Don’t fight me.” She moved her hand to his shoulder, to the fresh claw marks. She leaned down and kissed him, stroking a finger along the jagged scars.

  “You heal fast,” she murmured. “Not as fast as NG. But then it took us a while to realise he had to be conscious.” She sat back. “We almost killed him before we started to understand what he was doing.” She gave a small laugh. “Wait, we did kill him. That was fun. You, however, miya luchik, I always knew you were special…”

  “Can you?”

  “What? Heal? What do you think?”

  He watched as she reached to a holster on her thigh and pulled out a stiletto knife, razor edged. She licked her finger and caressed the blade, holding it between them, teasing. “Want to find out?”

  He could see in her eyes the same girl who had dared him to drink bootleg liquor when they were kids, dared him to climb to the top of the Merchants’ tower building across the square from her uncle’s house.

  She pressed the tip of the blade against his cheek, not quite enough pressure to break the skin but not far off. He let her, half curious to see how far she’d go, a hair’s breadth from grabbing her hand as she pressed harder, when she let up.

  She put her hand on his chest, over his heart, possessive, laughing, leaning to whisper to him, “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re mine. I’m keeping you.”

  He closed his eyes.

  She kissed him again and reached her other hand to his belt.

  He could hardly think, but he knew better than to say no to her. He’d learned when he was fourteen not to say no to her. There were other ways to stop her, saying no wasn’t one of them.

  He tugged gently on the restraints. ‘Let me free.’

  She leaned harder into the kiss, smiling, working free his belt and undoing his top button.

  He couldn’t breathe but he managed to send again, ‘C’mon, Anya, let me free.’

  She bit his lip. ‘I’ve missed you, LC. Imagine what we can do together.’

  Her hand went lower.

  He tensed, trying to shake clear his head. He didn’t want this. Didn’t want her. Not in a million years. Not like this.

  If she overheard she didn’t care. She nuzzled her face into his neck and bit him there, her breath warm on his skin. ‘My father was wrong to keep us apart.’

  Mendhel. She was thinking about Mendhel.

  She didn’t know.

  Her fingers had undone the rest of the buttons, wandering over his abdomen, playing, circling the scars of bullet holes and tracing the old scar from the knife wound.

  It was making his skin crawl. He had no idea how far she’d go. If she was just messing with him.

  “Know what?” she murmured.

  Shit.

  She froze. Sat up, scowling. Staring at him with those brilliant blue eyes.

  He should have realised it the minute he’d first encountered Sebastian.

  Her face was stone. “Who’s Sebastian?”

  He didn’t reply. Just clenched his stomach muscles, bracing himself, shutting down his thoughts as hard and fast as he could.

  “LC, who is Sebastian?”

  Her hand flew to his throat.

  He threw his weight at the same time, sending them both tumbling to the floor. She was gripping his throat, landing punch after punch against his head, and, damn, was she strong. He twisted away, scrambling to his feet, shouldering her off him and using the weight of the manacles in his blow against her chest to knock her away.

  He heard her yell, ‘Wait,’ not to him, as she spun, kicked his legs out from under him and slammed him back onto the floor. His head hit the stone tiles hard, vision blurring.

  She straddled him again and pinned him with one hand pushing into his throat, cutting off the air and close to pinching a pressure point.

  “Who the fuck is Sebastian?”

  He tried to shut his mind down, threw up barriers and closed down tight.

  She took it anyway and demanded, “NG did what?”

  LC shook his head.

  She squeezed his throat. “What the hell does NG know about me?”

  He tried to push back, the way he had against Sebastian.

  She pounded her other fist into his temple so hard his senses rattled, vision blurring.

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he just about managed to think back, grey closing in.

  She hit him harder and the lights went out.

  Feeling started to tingle through his body. He moved, the slightest motion sending a spasm of pain arcing across the back of his shoulders. He looked up slowly. He was hanging by his wrists, arms stretched above his head, muscles screaming, chains hooked over a beam in a dirty, tiled ceiling. He kicked slightly. He was hanging, suspended, about a foot off the floor. Both forearms were slit open with deep gashes, blood still trickling down his arms.

  He breathed through it.

  This was nowhere he hadn’t been before. Last time it had been a tree the aliens had strung him up in.

  He shivered. Cold. No s
hirt, no boots, but not completely naked. No idea how long he’d been there. His head felt fuzzy but better. No neurotoxin, like they were testing him, seeing if he healed. He couldn’t tell. If the virus was healing him, it was taking its time.

  He geared himself up to send a blast into the manacles. He didn’t have much but it could be enough.

  Something stopped him.

  He squinted, looking around, breathing ragged. There was a figure in each corner, all holding staffs, watching him. He glanced up. There was a viewing window high up, cracked glass and burn marks around its frame.

  Anya was standing there, a satisfied smile dancing across her lips. There were four of the massive Bhenykhn with her, all staring at him with dull orange eyes, as if they were waiting to see what he would do.

  There wasn’t much he could do. He felt drained, sluggish.

  He was a mess. He should have kept Anya happy. He’d been in her bed with its soft blankets. How much more stupid could he be?

  ‘Tell me who Sebastian is,’ Anya whispered inside his head, cold.

  LC laughed and twisted round in the chains. ‘I can’t believe you don’t know.’

  She gave a slight nod.

  One of the shamans was standing in front of him before he realised it had moved. It was eye to eye with him, expressionless. For half a second he had no idea what it was going to do.

  Then it touched the tip of its staff to his chest.

  A burst of agonising energy flared into the lightning marks, shooting along each one. He jerked away, gasping a curse and kicking out.

  ‘Tell me who Sebastian is.’

  Taloned hands gripped his shoulders from behind, too strong for him to fight, keeping him pinned there as the shaman pressed the staff against his skin, keeping the contact as he tried to shy away from the pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and gave in to it, feeling the virus suck in the energy that was dancing across his flesh and pull in more, using it to heal the wounds, replenish his cells, all in a flash of instant self-preservation. The intense pain turned to exhilaration, an addictive intensity that was like the hit of a hundred simultaneous shots of insanity.

  It realised what he was doing, snapped the staff away and shot its hand forward to grip his throat. Every ounce of energy he had in his body drained away, nothing he could do to stop it. He sagged, heavy, dangling from the chains. Something hit the back of his head and he dropped.

  He stirred a couple of times as they took more blood, vaguely aware that Anya was watching, the shaman close each time. Then he woke and she wasn’t. He couldn’t sense her anywhere in the fortress.

  Spearhead’s voice was an insidious whisper inside his head. “It’s just going to get worse.”

  He was still hanging from the chains.

  “Anya has gone. Whatever it was you told her, she’s not happy. She’s gone haring off to find someone. Who could that be, do you think?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” he sent, still no idea how he was communicating without a Senson.

  “You should care. Anya wanted you alive. Drake and her cronies don’t care if they kill you. Be glad I need you alive.”

  He didn’t know what was worse, knowing that Sienna wouldn’t be there to get him out of this, knowing NG was in as bad a place, if not worse, or knowing that Sean and Hilyer and Duncan could already be dead. There was no end to this. No way that he could see it ending. Ever.

  “What do you want?” he said out loud.

  He chanced reaching into the hive, for the hell of it. They were waiting. Anticipating… something. Spearhead had made them an offer.

  “You’re using me,” he said. “Why?” He forced himself to calm, to breathe. “What have you offered them? They’re alien, you demented fuck. They’re not going to stop. Don’t you realise that?”

  “Don’t be naive.”

  “What do you get? You’re just a damned soulless machine. What the hell can you get from the Bhenykhn that’s of any use to a machine?”

  The pain hit so hard, so fast, he screamed before he could stop himself.

  Chapter 28

  The Man’s mouth twitched, eyes dark. “It disturbs you, Sebastian, to hear of Nikolai’s daughter, your daughter, working with the Order, Drake… Spearhead… manipulating the Bhenykhn.”

  Sebastian laughed. “It takes more than that to disturb me, old man. Nikolai would be disturbed. Nikolai would be beside himself if he knew. But me…? You know me better than that. Trust me, I find it amusing to hear that the bastard child of my jailor and his treacherous lover turned out to be a psychotic bitch with the power to get the Bhenykhn to do her bidding.”

  “Do you care that she doesn’t even know who you are?”

  Sebastian started to disassemble the main body of the rifle. “Why do I get the impression that you want me to care?”

  •

  Spearhead laughed.

  LC breathed through the pain. “She doesn’t know what you’re doing, does she?”

  The AI laughed. “Of course she doesn’t. She wouldn’t have left you here with me if she knew.”

  The door opened, two guards and what looked like a medic. He glanced up to see who was watching. Drake was at the observation window that time, a couple of human faces either side, all staring down at him.

  He tried to twist away as the guards caught his legs, not much in him to fight with, mind numb. They held him there as the medic stabbed him in the thigh with a needle that felt like a knife and filled pouch after pouch with blood. For their experiments.

  He let his head drop and his eyes close, and sent, “What have you offered the Bhenykhn?”

  Spearhead ignored him so screw it, he went for it, dragged in as much energy as fast as he could, draining the two guards and the medic so bad they hit the floor, blood spilling, left a shaman reeling, and went for the AI.

  He got in deep, trashed a path through its core systems and trampled in its memory before it threw him out.

  He woke with a jolt, a pain piercing into his spine, a fraction of an inch from excruciating. It felt like someone had stuck a suction pump into his back and pulled out half his spinal fluid.

  “You gain nothing by attacking me, Luka.”

  He was still strung up. It felt like one of his wrists might be dislocated. “What have you offered the Bhenykhn?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because you’re using me as leverage.”

  “Would it make a difference if I said it was to give them the AIs? The Seven, as you call them. You hate them, don’t you?”

  LC forced himself to relax, every muscle sore, every joint aching, shutting out every throbbing abrasion and slowly healing wound. He was caught in the middle of a battle that was so far from humans versus aliens that it was ridiculous. It was nothing to do with him.

  “You think the Seven haven’t used you? You think Aries didn’t see something in you the very first time you encountered him?”

  Aries? Elliott. LC hung there, head relaxed back, staring at the ceiling.

  “He saw what I saw,” Spearhead said, direct into his head, giving him no choice but to listen. “When you were being such a smartass on Redemption. You are an anomaly, Luka. You might be a mutant now, the telekinesis is tremendously impressive, but believe me, you have always been an anomaly and you know it. What you did on Kheris? No normal human child can do those kinds of manipulations, Luka. The Thieves’ Guild saw it. The Earth military saw it. I saw it. And you’ve proved us all right.”

  “If you’re banking on Elliott coming here to rescue me, he won’t. Elliott doesn’t give a shit about me.”

  “You underestimate your value, Luka. For whatever misguided reason, the AIs you call the Seven have decided to side with humanity. You are the human’s most valuable asset in this war. The Seven will have no choice but to attempt to rescue you.”

  He doubted it. He was having trouble breathing. “Let me down,” he sent. “I’m no good to you if I’m dead.”

  “You’re not going to
die. You’re immortal. You’re going to live forever.” It lowered its voice to a whisper. “What are you going to do when everyone else around you is dead, Luka? You don’t do well with that, do you? Charlie, Mendhel, Nikolai… They all left you. Abandoned you. You’re still a child and, because of the Bhenykhn, you are going to live – for – ever. You are cursed, forever to be tormented.” It laughed, dismissive. “You’re not going to die – unless I choose otherwise.”

  After that, he lost count of how many times he slept or blacked out. They took blood time after time, multiple biopsies. Strapped him to a table, knocked him out and took samples of god knows what. At least he was lying down now. His right wrist was swollen, definitely broken or dislocated, he wasn’t sure. Hurt like hell though. He was feeling vague distant pops of void, people dying, irregular, no pattern, coming in surges that were hitting deep inside his chest, hurting in so many places, he was losing track of what was even happening. And it was Drake who was directing it. Human medics doing all the procedures. His nightmares had always been the Bhenykhn, the shamans, orange eyes glaring and the forever-present stench. And here they stood back and just watched as his own species screwed him over.

  “They’re getting desperate,” Spearhead whispered. “I thought you were renowned for odds of fifty fifty, Luka. Want to know your latest stats, child? Hundred percent.”

  As much as he thought he didn’t care, his stomach flipped.

  The AI laughed. “Failure. Lethal. No matter what they try.”

  So that’s what it was. They were killing people as they tried out the virus. It felt horribly like the Alsatia after they’d been rescued from the FOB and NG had ordered Evelyn to use it. There was a dark pull at his soul each time a life went out. So many at once was draining.

  “Humans are so frail. The Bhenykhn are enjoying the show.”

  He was tired but he couldn’t help asking again, “Why are you siding with them?”

  In an instant he was cold, isolated, reality spinning away, and he was standing there in the AI domain.