He barely got in a bite, though, before The Beast writhed backwards and changed shape before his eyes, becoming something much shorter and smaller so that Stone’s second bite missed, his teeth clicking on empty air.
He did, however, manage to grab the blaster. He shot low, hitting the Imposter directly in the middle of his mass of writhing tissue just as he was shifting to another shape.
The Beast let out a high, ululating scream and collapsed on the stage in a heap of unidentifiable flesh.
One down, but Stone wasn’t nearly done yet. Turning, he pointed the blaster at Gozeriam—only to see that the slug-like Slimerian was laughing at him. His coterie of female guards stood alertly around him, their long silver spears held at the ready, but none of them moved to try and stop Stone from shooting.
“Go on,” the Slimerian roared, still making his mud-sucking laughter. “Shoot me, Kindred. See how well it works for you.”
Enraged, Stone pointed the blaster and shot a full-force blast—only to see it bounce off the thick layer of slime that covered his enemy.
“Did you think our slime was only for pleasure purposes?” Gozeriam burbled. “It is our armor! No weapon can penetrate it—not laser or metal or fire. We are invulnerable and now you will be dead! You and your partner shall die and we will record it all and pleasure ourselves to it afterwards!”
As he spoke, the female guards began advancing on Stone. He froze, the Rage leaving him abruptly. He could not hurt females. And behind him, he heard the sounds of more guards coming. Soon he would be surrounded. He needed to get Cassandra down from the round silver frame but how could he, if he was fending off Gozeriam’s guards?
As he stood there, momentarily frozen by indecision, he suddenly heard a strong, feminine voice speaking to him.
“The slug is not so invulnerable as he thinks, Warrior,” the voice told him. “You will find what you need to defeat him and end his evil in your own back pocket.”
“Goddess?” Stone asked hoarsely. He could think of no one else who could have spoken with such power. But there was no answer and he had no more time to wonder—he had to act on what the Goddess had said or die.
Reaching into his back pocket, he found something thin and flat. Pulling it out, he recognized it as the pressure-compressed sodium solution he had gotten to kill the wall-crawler he’d seen in the ship, what felt like a hundred cycles ago.
At first he just stared at it. How could this possibly help him? If a shot from a powerful blaster didn’t kill the Slimerian, how could the sodium spray?
Think, whispered a little voice in his head. How does it get rid of the wall-crawlers? It doesn’t actually kill them—it just dissolves their slime and leaves them vulnerable.
Finally, Stone understood. Waving his blaster to draw attention away from his other hand, he stepped forward.
“You want to shoot us again, do you, Kindred?” Clearly Gozeriam hadn’t heard the Goddess’s voice, though it had sounded like thunder in Stone’s ears. “Go ahead. Let him try once more, guards. It amuses us to see the Kindred’s failure.”
Stone didn’t say a word, he simply lowered the blaster and raised the nozzle of the sodium packet instead. Turning the setting to “full,” he blasted out a stream of compressed sodium vapor that surrounded the Slimerian like a cloud.
“What? What’s this?” Gozeriam’s voice—formerly deep and rumbling—was getting higher. “Help!” he screeched as the cloud coalesced around him, forming into sodium particles that ate into his precious coat of slime.
His guards drew back, looking at him uncertainly. As the thick slime was eaten away, his true skin became visible—a dull gray, wrinkled hide like an elephants’, only not nearly as thick. In fact, it looked quite thin and easy to penetrate to Stone.
He took aim once more, but the Goddess spoke again and this time her voice was not just in Stone’s head. It thundered through the entire throne room, making everyone look up in awe and terror.
“Listen, guardians of Gozeriam,” she said, clearly talking to the Slimerian’s personal guards. “You have been held in bondage long enough to this creature. For years some of you have been here, longing to escape but knowing he would have you killed if you tried to leave. Countless times he has defiled and violated you. Take your vengeance now, before it is too late. This is your only chance!”
The thunderous voice stopped and Gozeriam’s personal guards looked first at each other and then at the thin-skinned, wrinkled, mewling thing that had been their boss.
Xempi Gozeriam was much diminished. In fact, without his slime, he was barely half of his normal size. It made Stone realize that the slime had not only protected him, it had magnified his size and strength exponentially.
“You heard the Goddess,” he said, turning to the guards. “Buy your freedom with his life. He cannot hurt you anymore.”
The guards looked at each other once more and Stone saw all of them nod their heads at once. As one, they raised their sharp silver spears…and plunged them down.
“No! Nooooooo!” shrieked Gozeriam as the spears continued to rise and fall. His voice was so high now it hurt Stone’s ears. “No, you cannot…you must n—”
The hideous shrieking was cut off suddenly and Stone knew that Xempi Gozeriam was no more. His evil had ended in a fitting way, as he was skewered by those he had violated countless times. The Slimerian had gotten exactly what he deserved.
Good fucking riddance.
Fifty-Six
Sending a prayer of heartfelt thanks to the Goddess, Stone was at last able to get back to his partner.
Cassandra was no longer writhing in pain. Instead, she hung limply from the leather bonds that tied her. Looking at her hanging from her bindings, Stone had a horrible flashback of the crime scene back on Earth. The Beast’s victim had hung just like that, limp and motionless from the St. Andrew’s Cross.
“Please, Goddess,” he prayed hoarsely. “Oh, please no!”
Gently, with a hand that trembled, he brushed her long black hair away from her face.
“Cassandra?” he whispered. “Gods, sweetheart, please tell me you’re alive!”
“Stone?” She looked up and Stone saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks were streaked with tears.
“Sweetheart!” Stone cupped her face tenderly. His heart felt as though an iron hand was squeezing it ruthlessly.
“It hurts, Stone,” she whispered, her tears sliding over his fingers. “Oh God, it hurts so much…”
Stone was horrified. He had assumed that she had passed out from the terrible but momentary pain but that it was over now. Now he realized she had simply run out of energy to cry out or thrash but the burning pain was still tormenting her. To know that she was still in agony—agony he had caused—made him wish to die.
“I’m so sorry,” he told her, his voice breaking on the words. “Oh Gods, sweetheart—so damn sorry! I never meant to hurt you.”
“Make it stop,” Cassandra begged him, her eyes huge and filled with agony. “Please, Stone—make it stop.”
Stone opened his mouth to say he didn’t know how to make it stop—he didn’t know the antidote for the Amaryllis Fatalis serum or even if there was an antidote at all—and stopped. He suddenly realized that he did have a way to stop her pain after all—or at least, he could counter pain with pleasure.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” he told Cassandra. “I don’t know if this will stop the pain, but I hope it will.”
And, tilting her chin to one side to bare her throat for him, he opened his mouth and sank his fangs in deep, pumping as much essence as he could into her bloodstream.
Please Goddess, he thought. Let it work—let this ease her pain. Please!
Fifty-Seven
The burning agony inside was the worst pain Cassie had ever felt. She had heard lots of women say childbirth was the worst. Of course, she hadn’t had kids so she couldn’t say, but it was hard to know how anything could top the horrible feeling of being burned alive from the inside out.
The pain was so bad it seemed to have sapped all her strength. She could barely even raise her head to talk to Stone when he came back to her. She had a vague idea he had been fighting—maybe for his life—but she had been completely unable to get free and go to his aid. The pain was so bad it ate up everything else and soon, Cassie feared, it would eat her sanity.
There was just no way anyone could hurt so badly for so long and stay sane.
Then, for some reason, Stone bit her.
Cassie wanted to protest—she knew he didn’t want to bite her. That would make his body think he ought to bond her too, which was the last thing he wanted to do, since he only wanted to be friends.
She opened her mouth to say all this…and then a blessed coolness ran through her veins. It washed through her like a river of relief, quenching the horrible burning inside her, putting out the fire that had been tormenting her for so long.
Cassie began to sob again, tears running down her face as the pain finally eased.
Oh thank you! she prayed, though she wasn’t sure who she was praying to. Oh thank you for finally making it stop. Thank you for making the pain go away.
But her tears must have made Stone think he was hurting her because he pulled away quickly.
“Cassandra?” he asked, looking at her anxiously. “Did I make it worse?”
“N-no…” Cassie shook her head weakly, wanting to make him understand. “No, the pain…it’s finally going away. It doesn’t hurt anymore, Stone…or not as much.”
“I’ll give you more essence,” he said and bit her again. And then again and again. And again the cool rivers ran inside her, damping the last embers of pain. At last, he pulled back and looked into her face again. “Is it gone? All gone this time?”
“Yes.” Cassie nodded. “Thank you, Stone. I know…know you didn’t want to do that but thank you for doing it anyway. It hurt so much.”
His face looked stricken.
“I know I hurt you, sweetheart and I am so fucking sorry. If I could take the pain I caused you on myself instead, I would.”
“Better now,” Cassie assured him. “Really, Stone, don’t be upset—I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he said fiercely. “But I’m going to take you back to the Mother Ship for healing.”
He started to untie the black leather thongs that held her in place, cursing under his breath when the knots gave him trouble.
“Can I help, Kindred?”
Looking up wearily, Cassie saw it was one of the guards—not the one who had slapped and injected her. Stone looked at her too, giving her a distinctly unfriendly glare.
“You helped us kill our captor,” the girl told him. “Many of us have been here for years, longing to be free from the Slimerian’s horrible penetration. Please, allow me to help you free your partner.”
Stone’s expression softened somewhat.
“All right, if you would. I cannot get these knots free.”
“Here—there is a trick to it.” The guard’s small fingers were nimble and quick and before she knew it, Cassie found herself untied and cradled in her partner’s strong arms.
“Thank you,” Stone said to the guard. “Your help is much appreciated.”
“Is there anything else we can do?” the guard asked him.
“That one.” Stone nodded down to what remained of The Beast. “I need to bring him—or it—back with me for trial, if it still lives. Can you carry it to my ship? I do not want to leave my partner.”
“Of course.” The guard hefted The Beast’s strange shape and tossed it easily over her shoulder. “Lead the way—I will bring him to your ship for you.”
“Thank you,” Stone said again. He looked down at Cassie, who looked up at him.
“Stone,” she whispered wearily. “Let’s go home.”
“Yes, sweetheart.” Gently, he kissed her forehead. “That’s exactly where we’re going.”
Fifty-Eight
Cassie was in and out of consciousness during the flight home. She had a vague memory of Stone buckling her in and covering her with a warm blanket to conceal her torn dress. She heard him calling to the Mother Ship to open the fold in space that would take them home and then she slipped into darkness.
When she woke, gentle hands were loading her onto some kind of floating gurney. She could feel it bobbing under her as she looked up and the Docking Bay of the Kindred Mother Ship swam into focus.
“We have two for the Med Center and one to be locked away in a secure cell,” she heard Stone’s deep voice saying.
“I see,” Commander Sylvan returned. “I can tell that your partner is one for the Med Center and the strange creature cuffed to your back seat must be The Beast, who we will, of course, put in a secure cell. But you look unharmed yourself, Commander Stonev.”
“I am the one you must lock away,” Stone said harshly. “I am the one who hurt Cassandra. As for The Beast, he must have medical treatment, if he still lives—I shot him with a blaster just as he was transforming.”
Cassie wanted to protest that it wasn’t true—that Stone wasn’t to blame. But when she tried to speak, her voice came out as a whisper and no one heard her. In fact, she couldn’t even hear herself.
“You hurt your partner?” Commander Sylvan sounded doubtful. “Why, Stone?”
“I did not want to,” Stone said stolidly. “Nevertheless, I did. She has also been injected with a serum made from the Amaryllis Fatalis plant. She needs a full exam including…” He swallowed hard and his voice went harsh and low. “Including a rape kit.”
This time, Cassie did manage to speak up.
“Stone, no!” she croaked, her voice harsh and painful from all the screaming she’d done earlier. “He didn’t,” she managed to get out, looking at Commander Sylvan. “Stone didn’t…”
“All right. All right, Officer Steel.” Commander Sylvan leaned over and took her hand in his. “It’s all right,” he told her soothingly. “Clearly a lot has happened to both of you and there are some…problems to be ironed out. But don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Thank you,” Cassie managed to husk out. And then the blackness took her and she didn’t wake up again until much later.
“She’s been through a lot,” an unfamiliar female voice was saying. “Her blood work looks like chemical soup!”
“Poor thing!” another female voice answered, but this one sounded familiar. “I wonder what happened to her?”
“Kat?” Cassie croaked, opening her eyes, which felt like they had lead weights tied to them. “Kat, is that you?”
“Yes, doll—it’s me.” Kat sat on the side of her bed and took one of Cassie’s hands in both of her own. She peered anxiously into Cassie’s face. “Are you all right? My friend, Liv, here says it looks like you took a beating!”
“Not exactly a…a beating…” Cassie coughed harshly, her throat was still raw.
“Oh, here—I know your throat is a mess. Now that you’re awake, we can take care of it.” The owner of the unfamiliar voice who Kat had called, “Liv,” was a pretty woman with blonde hair and silvery-gray eyes. She held a cup with a metal straw in it up for Cassie to sip, which she did.
Something cool and sweet rushed into her mouth and the minute she swallowed, it seemed to coat her ragged throat with a healing chill. Also, she began to feel more awake and alert.
“Oh!” Cassie widened her eyes in surprise and took another sip. She finished the entire cup and when Liv pulled it away, she put a hand to her throat. “It doesn’t hurt anymore!”
“That’s Kindred medicine for you,” Liv said, smiling as she tapped the empty cup. “Isn’t it great? You know, I had so many cases of strep throat when I was a kid—I would have killed for this stuff!”
“I bet.” Cassie coughed experimentally and nodded. “Yeah—it’s really all better.”
“Well, that’s more than we can say for the rest of you,” Kat said, eyeing her critically. “What happened to you, doll? It’s c
lear somebody hit you in the face more than once and there are bruises all over your hips and thighs.”
“Whatever it is, you can tell us.” Liv patted her arm comfortingly and lowered her voice. “Your partner said that you needed a rape kit done? If that’s the case—”
“That’s not the case!” Cassie exclaimed. She sat up in bed and groaned—she ached inside. “Ugh—it feels like somebody went after me with a jackhammer!”
“That’s kind of what it looks like too, hon,” Liv said seriously. “Look, I can tell you’ve had some pretty rough sex recently…was that consensual?”
“Yes,” Cassie said firmly. “Yes, it absolutely was. And it was Stone but he had to do it. I would have died otherwise.”
“You would have died if he didn’t diddle you?” Kat looked supremely skeptical. “Care to explain that, doll?”
Cassie took a deep breath. This wasn’t something she really wanted to disclose but she was afraid if she didn’t, Stone’s guilt over what had happened would send him straight to jail. He had already tried to have himself locked up once—she didn’t want him to try again and possibly succeed just because she was too embarrassed to admit the truth.
“Okay,” she said to Kat and Liv. “I’ll tell you everything. But I’m only going to tell this once, all right?”
“Got it, doll.” Kat squeezed her arm. “Go ahead—spill it.”
Cassie went over the entire mission. Partly to get it off her chest and partly because she couldn’t bear to start with the scene in the throne room—she needed to work up to it. Kat and Liv listened silently, only rarely interjecting to ask questions.
“And that’s why I’m such a mess,” she finished at last. “But as you can see, none of it was Stone’s fault.”
“That’s not how he feels, I’m afraid,” Liv said, frowning. “He’s already asked Sylvan to lock him away several times.”
“I need to talk to him,” Cassie said. “He needs to know it’s not his fault. Only…” She bit her lip. “Only, he might not want to be alone with me.”
Playing Their Parts: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 28