Venomous Hunger (Eok Warriors Book 2) Page 15

  “They had a late first meal. They’ll be back soon.”

  Kamal lifted his eyes to hers, and she was overwhelmed by the strength of the feelings that invaded her mind and soul. Such a short time since she’d met him, and now their lives were linked in a way that could not be undone.

  That she did not want to undo.

  Aliena mentally shook away the intrusion of emotion and walked up to Kamal. With every step she took closer to him, her body felt more covered in tiny electrical sparks. She glanced down at the tiny device on the table and the display showing the relief of the planet down below but didn’t bother to study the writing above the drawing. She couldn’t decipher a word of it as it was written in Eokian.

  “The Mellark has only a short-range scanner, but it was able to get a reading of a good portion of the surface we’re above.” Kamal pointed to a square structure, embedded in what looked like a mountainside. “This is the only building we’ve found so far.”

  “Is it Knut’s house?” She stared in awe and horror at the simple, angular building. Was this where hope for humanity died?

  “No.” Kamal shook his head, his face still drawn in serious lines. “It doesn’t suit Knut’s taste. Much too utilitarian. It’s probably a warehouse, but for what, we can’t know.”

  Aliena nodded, knowing full well what Kamal was implying with his answer. Humans were goods; they didn’t need to live in fancy houses, or see the sun on their faces in the morning. All they needed was four stone walls and a ceiling to contain them, keep them safe. They lived the same way rich people kept precious stones and gold bars. Under lock and key.

  “Do you think my uncle is there?” Her hands fisted and her nails dug into her palms.

  Kamal’s eyes gleamed and his mouth pursed, then his face relaxed.

  “Could be, but I doubt it. If I were Minister Knut, I would not leave my most precious possessions where I could not see them. This is probably an outpost with only a few guards, and a communication tower.”

  Aliena nodded, unable to hide the disappointment in her face. “More news from Prime Councilor Aav?”

  “No.” Kamal shook his head, a grim expression on his face. “And she would be wise not to contact us.”

  “He has ears on us?” It wasn’t really a question. There was no way one as powerful as Minister Knut didn’t possess the means to spy on nearby communication signals. “Does he know we’re here?”

  “He’ll have known as soon as we entered his orbit, maybe before.” Kamal’s expression became even grimmer, his brows drawing together and his hawkish nose wrinkling with anger. He looked like the predator he was, only his enemy was out of reach, and the frustration made the glow in his eyes deadlier. “You can be sure he’s waiting for us.”

  The vision made her shiver, even if she’d never seen the monster behind the human slave trade. Minister Knut was a ghostly presence, lurking around the humans’ existence, waiting for their tiniest mistake to pounce. His name alone was enough to fill her nights with terror and screams.

  “He could kill them, just to prove to us he can.” She hugged herself, pushing away terrible visions of her uncle Markus being prey to Minister Knut’s cruelty only to get at her. To prove to her that he could—and would—destroy everything she’d ever cared about if she dared to challenge his power.

  “He won’t.” Kamal moved fast, walking around the desk to hold her shoulders. His fingers dug into her flesh, strong and comforting. “He will not risk having human corpses on his soil, not now that the entire Ring is looking over his shoulder.”

  “I’m so afraid.”

  Aliena snuggled her head in the hollow of Kamal’s neck, breathing in his scent, feeling the firmness of his chest under her cheek. So much already, she relied on his presence to soothe the knots of fear in her belly. She feared she could never feel safe away from him ever again.

  Time felt suspended as Kamal’s strong arms folded around her, shielding her from the fate of a world where weakness meant death. If only she could stay here, never open her eyes again.

  His large palm ran up and down her back and he whispered calming things in her ear, things that made no sense but that she wanted to believe anyway. Things made up of softness and warmth, of a home and children. Of a life she’d never dared to dream of.

  “I will protect you, my Little Bird, with everything I am.” Kamal kissed her hair. “You will only have to be strong for one more day.”

  Aliena shuddered under the alien feeling. She wasn’t strong enough to push away the warmth that rose inside her at his words. She let the comforting presence of Kamal enclose her, penetrate each of her pores, appease her gut-wrenching worries, even for just a few minutes.

  Then peace was shattered by a female screech.

  Kamal was already at the door by the time Aliena understood the female voice could be none other than Tailan’s. He turned his head to her, his pale blue eyes shining like deadly jewels.

  “Stay here. This room is totally secure. Don’t leave it for anything.”

  Then he was gone, and the door slid back down with an unbearably clean sound.

  Aliena was alone again.

  Her heart beat fast and her head swam with frustration and confusion as her eyes trailed down the control panel. So many buttons, dials and keyboards, none of them familiar. She’d lived all her life in the wilderness, even the most basic technology on this spaceship eluded her.

  She was useless.

  Aliena turned away from the maze of buttons and blinking lights and looked around the technology-filled room to see a wall of screens gleaming back at her. Under the glass, gray, metallic walls and floors, harsh white lights in perfect color and high resolution panned across all the screens. All familiar, yet all indistinguishable from the others. Then finally, her eyes latched on to something familiar. The gathering hall, then the kitchens, the dining hall.

  Every hallway, every room of the ship except the private quarters was displayed in high resolution. Each hallway, each room was deserted.

  Uneasiness gave way to fear as she stared at the stark emptiness displayed on the screens.

  Where are they?

  Her eyes trailed to the top right, where the figure of Kamal appeared, walked the length of the hallway, then quickly disappeared, to re-appear on the next screen. She followed him from screen to screen until he stepped into a large room, then paused. It took her a few seconds to recognize the gathering hall.

  Kamal stiffened, and he kept staring at something outside the camera’s range. Whatever he saw, it was enough to make him stand his ground, his feet spread wide apart, his arms rigid like he was ready to fight. As his talons grew from his fingertips, dread invaded Aliena’s mind.

  Then another figure joined Kamal in the screen. One she’d thought she would never have to see again.

  Wyol.

  Hatred slithered down her spine as the slim form of the Avonie male walked in front of Kamal, a sneer on his thin lips. He spoke, his head tilting in an arrogant, mocking gesture, then glanced over his shoulder to someone—or something—standing behind him, outside of the camera’s view.

  Time felt suspended as Kamal faced Wyol in the otherwise empty room. All Aliena could see of Kamal was his back, stiff and rippling with tension. Then Wyol spoke again, harshly this time, his mouth moving fast and his face contorting with anger.

  Whatever he said, it made Kamal retract his talons, the deadly weapons returning to their sheaths inside his fingers.

  Kamal turned his head and his surreal blue eyes found the camera in the top corner of the room. His face was set in grim, tight lines and on his lips, she read the words, as clear as if he were shouting.

  Don’t come.

  Her thoughts went blank and Aliena blinked, then blinked again. Kamal had turned away from the camera to face Wyol once more. His head was high and his shoulders squared as two figures were dragged into the camera’s view, then rudely forced to their knees.

  Marmack. Tailan.

  Taila
n’s usually shiny and perfectly tamed black hair was in a mess around her head, and a long gash bled a shocking red on Marmack’s forehead. They had been fighting, then. Fighting—and losing, too.

  Four more males stepped up behind Marmack and Tailan, ionic guns pointed at their heads, their faces set in grim lines. Aliena recognized them immediately from the crew. They had unforgiving expressions on their features, the faces of those who would not blink twice before murdering the people they’d worked with for ten years. They wouldn’t lose a single minute of sleep over it.

  Wyol turned his head then said something to Kamal, and the faces of the traitors split into ugly, expectation-filled grins. Their eyes gleamed with the glee of those about to commit and witness violence, and who enjoyed it. Kamal’s shoulders slumped and he shook his head in negation but walked to stand beside his friends, facing the camera. A solid blow behind his knees made him drop to the ground.

  Wyol turned to the camera, putting his back to his men and to Kamal. His eyes gleamed with perverted joy and his tiny, wicked teeth showed as he smiled like an animal about to rip open a poor creature’s throat.

  The message was clear.

  This was for Aliena’s benefit. Some kind of grisly spectacle for her to understand what would happen to them if she didn’t do what Wyol asked of her.

  Which was basically to die.

  Her breathing became fast and erratic and Aliena looked down at trembling hands. She had a choice, then. Come out to a certain death or stay safe and hidden to watch her friends die. And not just her friends, but the one who had become an extension of herself in a way she could not fully admit yet, but which was as real as the fingerprints on her hands.

  She straightened, pulling back from the wall of screens but unable to look away. She clutched her hands together, forcing them to be steady.

  Wyol lifted a hand. It was a casual, unbearably dismissive gesture, and a tall male—frighteningly familiar—stepped into view. Sheegar held a shining blade and wordlessly brought it under Kamal’s chin, pulling his face up so she could see it clearly. Kamal’s expression was closed off, serene in the face of impending doom. Not a trace of plea tainted his handsome features.

  Anguish coiled in her veins, cold as fury. It drowned everything else in her mind, an arctic wave of abject dread flowing in her blood vessels.

  He was ready to die for her. They all were.

  No.

  Aliena couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her body refused all the summons of her mind and soon her lungs were burning, but still her body did not draw in life-giving oxygen. She was locked in a mesmerized agony.

  Words formed on Wyol’s mouth. Words as clear as the blood that pumped in her veins, as clear as the lifeless existence that would be hers if she lost Kamal.

  Come out and play.

  She breathed in, her lungs expanding in their thirst for air, burning and hurting like flowing lava. She felt it as a remote fact in the back of her mind.

  A black void replaced her fear, a bottomless pit from which nothing escaped, swallowing her heart and everything else with it. It left behind only blind rage. Aliena moved, leaving the screens behind.

  She was no prey anymore.

  Chapter 15

  Kamal

  Dying was the easy part. As an Eok warrior, he had trained all his life to face the moment when he would return to the Midnight God with his head held high, and he would not fail his forefathers.

  It was the mourning of life’s promises that was hard. For Marmack and Tailan, and all they would never get to experience. For Aliena and the burden of rescuing her people he would not help fulfill.

  For himself, too.

  Aliena awoke something in him that had been buried under a thick layer of grief and bitterness for so long, he’d even forgotten it was there to begin with. Beneath his unrelenting anger, he had stopped hoping for a better future for himself, for some sort of redemption in the eyes of his people, turning to a life of crime instead. But with the wonderful human female in his life, that had changed. He had dared to hope, to plan and to dream—all because of Aliena.

  Now those dreams were going to die with him.

  I’m sorry, Little Bird.

  As Sheegar’s blade pushed under his chin, Kamal lifted his head higher. His gaze locked on the pink-purplish eyes of Wyol.

  “We fought together. All of us.” Kamal turned his head, forcing his features to remain hard even though the blade pierced his skin and blood seeped down his neck in a small, steady trickle. “Each one of you owes Marmack or me your lives, more than once over. And now this?”

  Kamal held Wyol’s stare as his words descended on the group in the gathering hall. Silence wrapped around the males, and Kamal could feel their shame and uncertainty in the air, as sure as the stale scent of unwashed male skin. They wouldn’t change their minds, though. They knew he would not hesitate to kill every one of them now that they had betrayed him. No, his words had one target, and one target only. The only one of them for whom honor was not a long-forgotten encumbrance.

  “Where are the others, Sheegar?” Kamal kept his voice steady, full of authority. “I count only four of you.”

  “Gone,” Wyol answered with bile. “Ten of them took the money. The rest—those who didn’t take my offer—took a nice stroll into open space.”

  “You killed them.” Kamal gritted his teeth. “A traitor and a coward. I should have known.”

  Sheegar’s fingers on his shoulder stiffened, and the blade distanced itself from his skin. Not by much, as the Mantrilla male was fully aware that forgiveness was not a part of Kamal’s character, but because honor was a leash he could never be freed of. This was what Wyol would never understand in others, and what Kamal hoped would be enough.

  “Shut up.” Wyol took a fast step closer. His face was twisted in an angry scowl and his eyes darted up to the others. “We know you’d sell every one of us for your little human whore. That deal you made with the humans, it’s not nearly as much as Knut offered us. When he proves to Prime Councilor Aav that humans can’t fend for themselves, he’s going to be back in control. And we’ll be richer than we’d ever have thought possible. Maybe we’ll even be able to buy a little human whore for ourselves. Maybe we’ll buy yours.”

  Instinct took over. Kamal snarled and moved, but Sheegar’s blade stopped him in his tracks. Beside him, Tailan erupted with a flow of profanities even the most ruthless pirate could not hope to rival.

  Laughter started amongst the males behind him. Wyol’s jest shook their guilt away, bringing the riches they were promised to the forefront of their minds.

  “And you think it’s going to be enough?” This time, it was Marmack who spoke. His voice was brimming with a fury Kamal had heard only once before, long ago. On the night he’d held Tailan’s battered body in his arms and changed both their destinies. “You’ll be witnesses, all of you. Knut isn’t going to let you walk away. You’re as dead as we are.”

  Marmack spat on the ground in Wyol’s direction. The Avonie male’s face twisted with disgust and anger, but his eyes glittered with what looked like hesitation. It was gone fast, though, and soon Wyol landed a straight kick to Marmack’s stomach. The blow made his friend cough up a generous amount of bile on the floor, but the males were not laughing anymore. Marmack’s words had done their job.

  “It’s not too late to turn your backs on this,” Kamal continued. “Of course, you won’t be remaining on the Mellark crew, but I can drop you off at the next spaceport. No hard feelings—it’s just business, after all.”

  His words were not true, but they had an effect anyway. Hesitation, fear in the eyes of those who just seconds ago had laughed at the idea of seeing his bloodmate reduced to slavery. They feared him, yes, but the cloud of Minister Knut hanging over their lives was even scarier.

  Just as he was about to say more, a female’s furious screech reached his ears. Ice poured down his spine and fear invaded his mind. Because he knew that voice.

  She
appeared at the end of the room, through the hallway leading to the command center. Two Ilarian guards held her by the arms as she kicked and shouted a mass of insults and threats even Tailan couldn’t hope to best. The Ilarian guards had identical faces with unimpressive, falsely non-threatening, rounded humanoid features, pale yellow skin with slate grey eyes, and neutral, emotionless expressions as they dragged the human female around.

  Then a tall, slim silhouette clad in white synthetic silk walked into the room. The male had pale, almost white skin and the way he held his long, fine nose high spoke volumes about an aristocratic, pampered life. His long, perfectly tamed black hair was pulled back, revealing two pointed ears. On his chest, the Ring’s emblem was embroidered in shiny, multicolored thread. A string of planets linked by a gold chain. How befitting.

  Minister Knut walked behind Aliena and the Ilarian guards, a serene smile on his thin lips. A smile Kamal would love nothing more than to rip away with his talons.

  Aliena kept screaming and shouting, her words melting into a blasphemous, senseless slur. Minister Knut frowned, the pupils retracting into thin black lines into the blazing purple of his irises. He didn’t approve.

  “Those are not words fit for a well-mannered female.” Minister Knut spoke evenly, but his tone was heavy with a love for pain that sent shivers deep inside Kamal’s soul. “You will not use such language anymore, not now that you’re my property.”

  He lifted a single long, fine-boned finger, and one of the Ilarian guards slapped Aliena, hard, making her head snap to the side in a quick jerk. His bloodmate screamed, her voice filled with surprise and pain, and fell to the floor.

  “Aliena!” He could not refrain from shouting her name. Kamal moved, but the blade sliced through the top layer of his skin again as Sheegar’s hands closed around his shoulders. His eyes flitted to Minister Knut’s and the other male stared at him, a sardonic expression on his face, his brows lifted in mockery. “I will kill you with my bare hands. Midnight God be my witness, I will see your lifeless body.”