My gaze darted side to side as my breathing quickened. I backed up a step at the nodding heads. Even Anja nodded obediently. I knew the Verak had a natural inclination to follow a pack leader, but this was taking things too far. ‘Beowyn rules you.’
‘The Great Alpha rules Vayhalun, and until he gets back, that is you.’
I stared at him and imagined my tea cup slamming into the side of his furry head. ‘Wulfyn, I do no think–.’
‘Transmitting on the emergency frequency.’ The Seneschal rose his gnarled hand, and the room fell silent. ‘Quiet. The Great Lady speaks.’
Mouth agape, I froze, not a single word in my head. I stared unseeing at the domed lens hovering at eye level.
‘Sìne,’ Patrick whispered. He made a rolling gesture with his hands then pantomimed speaking.
I snapped out of my paralysis. I rubbed the base of my throat to ease the constriction there. ‘Good Greetings.’ My mind blanked again. I tried to remember something from the last Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech I’d seen back on Earth. I hazily remembered my clan booing then changing the channel. I was pretty sure I’d been the one holding the remote. ‘Remain calm. Everyone. Help each other. Drink plenty of water. Don’t go off alone.’ I tried to think of practical things to say. I rubbed my nose tiredly. Those who were hearing this had already been sensible and gotten to safety. Anybody managing to watch or hear this message through the communication disruptions wanted reassuring by someone who looked like they knew what they were talking about. I dropped my hand and plastered on a broad smile. ‘Remember you are no alone. No matter what trials we face or the danger to come–know it will pass. We’ll survive this.’ I waved the Seneschal forward with a hard jerk of my fingers. ‘Now you’ll be reminded of the protocol for what to do after the storm passes, but you don’t fool me. I know you know best.’ I scurried off to the side and scrubbed my hands over my face.
My cheeks were hot, and my forehead damp with sweat. I gripped the collar of my tunic and pumped my arm to create an airflow between my breasts and against the underside of my jaw.
Patrick sauntered over. ‘At least it largely made sense.’ He chafed the back of his neck and studied his scuffed boots. ‘I know you know best?’
‘Are you no supposed to be kissing my queenly feet or something?’
‘Don’t go off alone? I thought you were going to start spouting on about stranger danger.’
I bit my inner cheek, laughter surging from my middle in a startled hiccup. ‘Sod off.’
His shoulders shook. ‘You were the epitome of grace.’
Had they expected something other than inchoate ravings where I hemmed and hawed? I was hanging by a frayed, dirty thread. Sugar the bitter rind juice wrung from me and call it good. ‘Any news?’ It had been less than an hour.
I tried not to feel a rush of expectation and hope. Tried not to peer at him with my heart in my eyes and my next breath lodged in my throat.
‘No.’ He pushed off the wall and jammed the heels of his hands into his bloodshot eyes. ‘I’m working on it.’ He spoke over his shoulder. ‘You’ll know where they are the minute I do.’
I shrank into my lonely corner.
Peering up to seek divine intervention, I palmed my SonCom.
It will no hurt to try.
Now knowing about the emergency frequency built into the SonComs, I couldn’t help myself. ‘Owyn?’ I hunched over the device to block ambient noise. Static. I called for him again. I realised then it was a terrible idea. I could hear myself unravelling. ‘If you can hear me just come back, okay? I need you and Orik to come back now.’ I thunked my head against the wall. It was dumb to confess my feelings to the ether, but I did it anyway. ‘I love you.’ My voice broke. ‘I wish I’d had the courage to tell you before.’ I palmed the tears from my face. ‘Come home. Bring our Commander with you, and I promise to do kinky stuff, okay? I’ll find tentacles.’ When there was nothing but crackling, I rolled my eyes. I tucked the SonCom into my leathers. ‘Don’t fall apart.’
I took a bracing breath then emerged from the corner and signalled to Anja. I wanted to hold my daughter and maybe catch a nap. Even though it was the middle of the night and the sky bright as in the daytime, by body clamoured for sleep.
Lumen skipped-walked down the corridor. ‘There you are.’ She mock punched my bicep. ‘Nice work on the announcement. It calmed the most high-strung Verak right down. Amazing how they just needed to hear the voice of an alpha.’ Her voice was approving. I straightened. ‘I wanted to let you know Fergie’s asleep. She didn’t much like me telling her what to do, but Rowan got her down. I moved the injured to the medical centre and shifted the elders into the apartments across the hallway. The cubs are cute but noisy. Oh, and they’re doing just fine too. I fed them some of the vegetable mash Aled sent, and Cobra’s telling them hunting stories trying to get them to sleep. This daylight at night thing is confusing their internal clocks. Fiercely and Venomous–.’
Imperceptible and misplaced, a whisper of sound glanced my hearing.
I slapped a hand over Lumen’s flapping lips. I loved her, but the woman could ramble. ‘Do you hear that?’
Hazel eyes grew big, and her reply was a muffled drawl.
Whimpers echoed down the hallway.
Anja tensed. ‘I hear it.’
I put a finger to my lips and dropped my hand from Lumen’s mouth.
We crept down the hall towards the furtive noises growing louder. The meaty thud of a fist hitting flesh and a soft cry had me bolting around the corner into a deadened offshoot.
Scrawny and short, a Verak male struggled on the floor between two larger males holding him prone. His hips were pulled up, knees spread, a gag tied around his gaping mouth.
One abuser holding his arms over his head grinned as the other yanked down their victim’s pants in rough jerks, fiddling with his own fastenings.
A crisp-edged void appeared where once stretched a cruel leer.
Face folded in and skull peeled out, mulch-grey and sticky red gore splattered against vibrant fresco.
I realised a discharged blaster was attached to a pale, freckled hand attached to my forearm, and I froze.
‘Never will I force another.’ The remaining rapist scuttled on his hands and knees, eyes locked on his faceless companion. ‘I vow it. Never again.’
‘People are dying.’ Anya was a study in swift, deadly motion. ‘You prey on the weak?’ She grabbed him by the horn. Twisting her wrist, she snapped it off. He convulsed. ‘Your duty as one of the strong was to protect them.’ Shrieks ripped from his chest as he clawed at her armoured legs. His cries morphed into wet gurgles as the edge of her blade parted his throat. A torrent of blood soaked his tunic. ‘To the darkest pits of hell this warrior sends you.’
‘T–Trial?’ My lips were numb.
Anja spat on the corpse. ‘King’s judgement. Sexual predators are executed on sight. Vayhalun is a lusty place, but we do not force play.’
Sweat popped on my forehead, and when I gulped a breath to calm down, it smelt like metal and tasted of raw meat.
I bent to spew soured chunks.
Groping for support, I stained my sleeve with greenish bile from my chin and sagged against the cool wall. The stink of my vomitus pervaded the air. My hands were freezing. Cramped and white. I chaffed them together and realised they shook the same second the droning buzz in my ears lessened.
‘Great Lady, please speak.’ Anja squatted beside me, taloned-hand reaching but not touching.
‘We need to move the bodies.’ My tone was flat, words stilted. ‘There are children about.’ As I spoke of the orphans, I blinked to stanch tears. Thoughts of them at that moment was an excuse. I forced myself to acknowledge it. I wanted to cry because I’d taken another life, and there was no erasing the killer’s mark from my immortal soul.
Lumen stood motionless at the mouth of the recess. She hadn’t tweaked a muscle. Her gaze skittered, vacant, then locked onto the crying Verak.
I touched her hand.
She jumped. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’ Her overblown pupils shrank and her eyes flooded. ‘Oh, God, Sìne.’
‘Breathe.’ Strange how easy it was to comfort another while you felt inconsolable. ‘Breathe.’
She focused on my face, and grabbed my reaching hand. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Not until they’re back. This is just part of the nightmare.’
‘Right.’ Lumen faced the grisly scene. She knelt then scooted closer to the Verak huddled in a puddle of his urine. She removed the gag. ‘Is that better? Are you hurt?’
Anja blanched. ‘But he is a cub.’
Verak reached the age of consent at thirty seasons–roughly fifteen years–but if the male had seen more than twenty-five seasons, I’d be shocked.
‘There now.’ Voice as gentle as her touch, Lumen crooned when he shied. ‘Let’s get you away from here.’ She urged the hollow-eyed boy onto his feet and pulled up his soiled leathers. They skirted around the bodies and out into the main passageway. She wiped at the blood dripping from his battered face. ‘You need a healer, huh? Come on then.’ Her voice drifted off down the hall. ‘We’ll stay with my nest. My Rä’Veks will keep us safe….’ Her soothing ramble drifted off the further they went.
‘She has been harmed before.’ Anja looked aggrieved. Her hectic gaze strayed to the deceased. ‘Such things do not happen here. The penalty is harsh for this reason among others. Monsters. What sickness of the mind perverted them? Did they believe the chaos absolved them of such a crime?’
‘No.’ I shivered. ‘They did no think they’d be caught.’
My eyes drifted closed.
Things frayed around the edges. I wasn’t the Great One; I didn’t have the power to keep the predators at bay.
‘Beowyn,’ I whispered. ‘Éorik.’
Where are you?
Chapter 36
Éorik. If he closed his eyes, he could hear her voice. Where are you? He knew Sìne would be worried, frightened. They had to get back to her. ‘Owyn?’ The light was bright. ‘Answer me.’ Too bright. ‘Open your eyes.’ Éorik twisted at his middle and craned his neck to see better. The more time passed, the harder it was to breathe. ‘Owyn!’
‘Damn rock cracked my skull.’
Éorik spluttered. Relief thundered through him. ‘More like your skull cracked the rock.’ He exhaled through his nose. ‘You are fine.’
Beowyn curled into a seated position, shielding his face from the glare. ‘Are you hurt?’ He squinted when his query met with silence. ‘Orik?’
‘I…am not hurt.’
‘Why do you sound like that?’
‘Do you remember what Venomous One told us? What Lumen asked him to do once she discovered the L’Odo hid the coordinates beneath the flesh of her arm and were coming to retrieve her?’
‘You are lying to me.’ Beowyn went to stand but ended up on his ass. ‘Dah, I am dizzy. Your voice is strange. Tell me what is wrong.’
‘I have been thinking.’
‘Now I worry less.’ Beowyn’s voice strained, his breathing ragged. ‘Thinking is one of your better traits.’
‘Lah, how you flatter me.’
‘You have also always been the smarter of us. Well, until as of late. Bedding my One and risking your life? These acts smack of stupidity.’
‘I am not strong like you.’
‘Faster by a length. You got us out from under the stone.’
Éorik unsheathed his knife. He rubbed this thumb against the flat of the metal at the base of the blade. ‘If a little one like Lumen can decide to withstand the severing of a limb, why not I?’
‘Éorik!’
‘Calm yourself.’
‘Can you come to me?’ Beowyn pressed closed his eyes. ‘I see double.’
‘Rest awhile. It will pass.’
‘If you cannot come to me, I will find my way to you.’ Beowyn felt around. He shifted unsteadily onto his hands and knees. He crawled. ‘Should you ever speak of this indignity, I shall flay you alive.’ He shoved aside a chunk of rubble. ‘Keep talking.’
‘I am overly dramatic.’
‘How unlike you.’
‘In the last half-span, I have discovered I am a vain creature.’
‘You have reason to be.’
‘I never cared what anyone thought of how I looked or how they thought of anything else. Except for you and now Sìne. I care very much what you think.’
‘Do you not see I feel the same?’
‘Perhaps.’ Éorik tossed the blade higher then snatched the hilt from the air. ‘I am going to cut off my foot.’
Beowyn reached him and lifted up into a squat. The branches of his pupils dilated and contracted independently of each other and their nucleus.
As Éorik watched, they normalised, shrinking against the flooding light.
Perspiring and covered in grime, smelling strongly of wet rock and body musk, Beowyn still held a sorcerous allure. Encased in the reinforced embrace of the battlesuit, he was at once sleek and hulking, physique coiled with banked power. He called his Commander and Defender beautiful, but the Great One was gruff, masculine, and so far above traditional beauty, it made Éorik’s breath catch and his heart thud. Even his staff throbbed against his thigh, indifferent to the growing discomfort of its host.
Beowyn’s silver gaze fixed on the appendage trapped beneath the solid stone slab. Features relaxed in a cool, placid expression, his throat bobbed. His eyes flicked up, glassy with fear. ‘You cannot move it at all? At all?’
Éorik chuckled, rough and low. He smoothed his palm along his horn, flicked off a clump of dust. ‘I can wiggle my toes. My battlesuit protected me well. Truth, I wish I felt not a thing. This next part will tickle.’
‘Hand it over then.’ Beowyn gestured to the knife. ‘If there is a mutilation to be done, I will see to it.’
Lips curving into a grim smile, Éorik relinquished his weapon hilt first. Having to amputate his limb wasn’t a task he’d anticipated with joy.
Waking to find an unconscious, but whole-bodied Beowyn, a fierce surge of pride blazed through him.
He’d done his duty.
He had saved his One.
Once he’d tried to gain his feet, however, a creeping portent of dread very nearly stole his nerve. The building had imploded. Other abodes on the street were fine, if smouldering or afire, but they were upright.
Trust his King to sally forth into this structure.
Éorik studied Beowyn’s strained expression. Recalling the words just spoken, he glowered. ‘Do not call it mutilation. You are saving my life. We cannot remain out here much longer.’ His gaze touched the searing brightness on the horizon then flinched from its intensity. ‘The storm will peak soon.’
If only they were not in the midst of a natural disaster. Machines would be brought to lift the rubble. Healers would be sent for to mend whatever injury he’d sustained. If only–If only!
Sensible Verak were hunkered under barriers as his lover was and where his King needed to be.
‘My Defender,’ Beowyn said with a hitch in breath, tension in the rigid line of his shoulders. ‘You cannot protect me from everything.’
Éorik hunched. ‘Stop pilfering my duty. It is mine, my honour.’
‘Cease fussing. Prepare yourself.’
‘Do you still see double?’
‘Triple.’ A faint smile, crooked and twitchy. ‘We shall make the best of it.’
Éorik lay back and covered his face with his arms. ‘Above the ankle but below the thickest part of my shin, I should think.’ The light was too bright. ‘Lah, but I would welcome the darkness of a good swooning.’ He sighed.
‘Do not make that noise. I cannot do this if you make that noise.’
Squeezing his eyes shut, Éorik swallowed thick, bitter saliva. ‘Make it pretty.’ He wiggled his hidden toes.
‘As if you need ask.’ A thumb brushed over his panting mouth. Leather, a hair tie, was pushed between his fangs
and over his dry tongue. It smelt of star seed. ‘Nothing worse than an unsightly stump.’
Beowyn stared at his Commander’s leg. A tremor run throughout his body.
His soul howled a refusal for the unspeakable act he was to commit.
Make it pretty, he’d said.
To shorten the recuperation there needed to be decent muscle for the healers to attach a synthetic extremity to…unless he cut as close to the ankle as possible then cauterised the wound. The healers could cut higher to fix the damage he left behind.
Beowyn did not think of the trapped male as his friend, his companion. This was not his lover. It was a trial for the Great Alpha. To think otherwise would be to falter. He sliced. Knife tip parted flesh and sinew. A hot, metal scent plugged his flaring nostrils. He flipped over a flap of dark brown skin, downy pale fur on one side, a thin layer of rubbery fat on the other.
Pungent sweat gathered under his arms, between his shoulders, under his seed sac; the stink of fear.
Next came the connective ligaments, nerves and the deeper, tougher tendons. Tricky. The inelastic, fibrous tissue tended to stick to the blade.
Guttural, animal sounds Éorik yowled were raw and ugly.
Beowyn blotted the muffled shrieks. He ignored the quivering bucks higher up the limb he held still, cutting into his Commander until it seemed he saw nothing but severed gristle.
Clotted gore smeared his claws, and blood soaked his fur, moistened the thirsty soil. His pounding heartbeat drowned all other sound.
By the Boar God’s tusk, the air was scorching.
Beowyn used a laser from his utility belt to seal the gushing blood vessels. He took a heartbeat to breathe. He studied his hideous work and yanked his fractured, scattered mind into order.
Calcified skeleton slicked with red was exposed. His arm juddered as he scraped the blade back and forth.
Aside from slivers, the bone remained whole. ‘The knife is not sharp enough to saw through.’ It was not a hacking weapon. Stomach sinking along with his nerve, he adjusted his hold on the knife even as he willed himself to remain calm and focused. ‘I must break it. Then I can remove the rest.’