Read Alien Redemption [Clans of Kalquor 06] Online
Authors: Tracy St. John
Alien Redemption [Clans of Kalquor 06] (19 page)
The moment the door slid shut behind their commanding officer, Sletran sagged. His head and shoulders drooped as if he didn’t have the strength left to hold them up. “New Bethlehem.
Sometimes I feel I’ll never put that place behind me.”
Erybet took a deep breath. “You must, my Nobek. You can’t undo what happened there, and it’s time you stopped blaming yourself for what you had no control over. Stop letting it run your life. Let it go.”
The Nobek shook his head slowly from side to side. “All those broken bodies, lying in parts all over the place. All those lives ended because of me.”
“It’s over, Sletran.”
“Is it? That dismembered Matara might not agree if she could argue the point. Maybe it will never be over, my Dramok. Maybe it is only beginning.” His head came up and he stared at Erybet. There was fury in his gaze, and his fangs had descended.
Erybet’s heart seemed to freeze in his chest. He steeled himself to not show the stab of fear Sletran’s look gave him. “Stop it, Sletran. With Rachel you have an opportunity to make things right. Focus your thoughts on her, on being her Nobek, her protector.”
All at once the threat in Sletran’s face disappeared, replaced by that terrible blank hopelessness that Erybet knew too well. “Like I protected the others on New Bethlehem? I’m no protector, my Dramok. I’m a monster.”
He turned towards the door. It slid open and he stepped into the waiting transport. “Close.
Shuttle dock,” he said.
Erybet lunged for the Nobek, but the command had already been accepted by the carrier.
The door slid shut in his face, cutting him off from his clanmate. A low hum announced the transport was already in motion.
There was nothing the Dramok could do but shout impotently, “Sletran, get back here!
Sletran!”
The door swished open, and an empty car awaited. Erybet fought off a scream of frustration, not wanting to frighten Rachel out on the balcony. Even if he followed Sletran to the dock, the Nobek would already be gone by the time he got there. And there would be no way to find a man like Sletran, not if he didn’t want to be found.
Erybet’s world lay in shambles once again. Rachel hadn’t cured Sletran after all. Even her need for a strong, protective Nobek had not stopped the terrible madness that possessed the man.
The bright hope of only an hour ago had been extinguished.
Conyod entered the home, hoping the day had gone well and Rachel would still be with his clanmates. As he crossed the greeting room, he heard sounds and detected the smell of food coming from the dining room. He headed there immediately.
Erybet was stone faced, setting out food ordered from the building’s kitchen. Trying not to worry over his clanmate’s expression, Conyod made himself smile. “Four settings. Rachel is still here then?”
Erybet turned to him and offered his own smile. “She’s out on the balcony enjoying the sun and the view.”
“Sletran is with her?” Conyod was surprised the Nobek hadn’t showed off his cooking skills to their would-be Matara.
Erybet turned away. “Commander Akrij stopped by. The visit upset Sletran and he stepped out for a bit. I don’t know where he went.”
Conyod grabbed his Dramok’s shoulder. He made Erybet face him. “Sletran does not ‘step out for a bit’. His behavior is not normal, Erybet. He can’t go on this way. We can’t go on this way as a clan.”
Erybet eyed him, and Conyod readied himself for the same old argument. Instead, his leader shocked him.
Erybet’s shoulders slumped. “I agree. But something wonderful happened before Akrij’s visit. Sletran became like his old self with Rachel. She … invited our attentions today. It made him whole again for a little while.”
Conyod’s heart leapt to hear his beloved had taken that important step of bedding with his clan. She was determined to join them, and the depth of her love for him made him truly happy despite for his worries over Sletran. “Well, that’s a start,” he said, the understatement of all time.
“It is a start. A good one.” Erybet took a deep breath. “When Sletran left, I was at first hopeless. But I keep thinking how he was with her. I know we can build on that progress. You were right about Ray-Ray, Conyod. I want her as our Matara. Not only because she could save Sletran, but because of how she makes me feel.”
The Imdiko hated to disagree with Erybet, especially when his clanmate looked so encouraged for a change. And especially now when having Rachel in his life permanently was within his grasp. But he had to do the right thing, the best thing for them all. Despising the words coming out of his mouth, Conyod said, “She can’t save our Nobek, Erybet. Only coming to terms with what happened to him in the war will do that.”
“I know you’re concerned, and I respect your insight, my Imdiko. But this latest spell came over him after she left the room. I think if she’d been with us the entire time, Sletran wouldn’t have fallen into it. He’s his old self with her. I can see it.”
Conyod wanted so badly to be swept up in Erybet’s newfound hope. He also knew he had to put his traumatized Ray-Ray first. “But you admit reminders of the war set him back again.
He’s not here now, is he?” He bit his lip. “I love Ray-Ray with all my heart. I would do anything to have her in my life forever. But if Sletran is a danger to himself or anyone else—”
Erybet’s jaw tightened. “He would never hurt her. Conyod, you know him better than anyone.
When he commits to someone, he can’t be turned from that.”
The Imdiko swallowed. “I knew him before the war. Until whatever happened to him can be dealt with openly, we won’t get him all the way back.” He looked at Erybet, and the full brunt of the pain he’d carried for the better part of a year swamped over him. His voice almost failed him as he said, “You’ll be lost to me as well because I’m watching as you fall apart too.
You may be doing it more quietly than Sletran, but it’s twisting you beyond recognition.”
His Dramok suddenly pulled him roughly into an embrace. His arms wrapped around Conyod in a tight, viselike hold, he whispered, “I’m sorry, my Imdiko. I’ve let you both down, and I’m doing everything I can to make it right.”
Clutching handfuls of Erybet’s shirt in his fists, Conyod begged, “Don’t you know I would keep anything you tell me confidential? Why won’t you trust me? There’s nothing you or Sletran could have done that I won’t forgive. Damn it, you have to know that!”
A tremor ran through the other man. Conyod sensed Erybet’s struggle. All he could do was hold on and hope. After a few moments, the tension bled out of the Dramok’s body. He took a deep breath, his chest moving against Conyod’s.
Finally. Erybet was going to tell him what had gone so terribly wrong during the war.
Conyod could feel the weight his leader bore shifting, ready to fall away.
The soft pad-pad sound of small feet on the stone floor of the balcony outside warned them of Rachel’s imminent arrival. The moment between the two men passed, and Erybet gently pushed away from Conyod, turning to smile at Rachel as she walked into the room.
Conyod wanted to scream. Not at Rachel, whose face made his heart throb painfully with emotion. Not at Erybet, who’d finally been ready to let him in. But at stupid, ever-capricious fate, which had thwarted his attempt to fix his broken clan.
He struggled to smile at his beloved as Erybet said, “Look who’s home, Ray-Ray. And just in time for our meal. I don’t know how much longer Sletran will be with his errand, so we may as well eat.”
Rachel beamed at Conyod, her love for him shining from her eyes. The Imdiko wrapped its warmth around him, finding solace in her regard. He went to her, taking consolation in that at least one part of his life worked well. He enveloped her sweetness in his arms and pretended everything was all right. “Hello, my love,” he whispered. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
* * * *
The eateries were busy tonight, as were the clubs. A series of dull thuds reverberated from the one across the walkway. The more uninhibited unclanned Mataras liked to gather there, moving their tiny bodies to the pulse of Bi’isil tribal music while hopeful clans watched the alluring display. Kalquor had changed greatly since he’d left for the war. If not for the ever-present threat of the innocent-seeming Earther women, he’d have appreciated the more joyful atmosphere. Hope these days flowed as freely as the leshella the Earther females liked to drink, supplied by eager men looking to please. Optimism, a strange and exotic mindset after centuries of living under the threat of extinction, had cloaked the Empire.
And it was all a lie.
He thought of the pleasing faces of women, of their sweet smiles. The way they could look with warm gazes at men. The haunted agony that lurked behind their expressive eyes. The Earther women knew pain. They knew heartache. It moved behind their hopeful faces, plain to see for one who knew such horrors. Perhaps that was what made all their kind such monsters.
Women of Earth had been marginalized and often treated harshly by their government. Of course it must have twisted them. It made sense. Sometimes he could almost feel sorry for their plight.
But mostly he hated them for what they’d done to his men. For what they would do to his world, given the chance. Scarred, battered, and utterly compelling, the Earther Mataras would sneak into the heart of the Empire and destroy it. They had to be stopped.
Yet his mind turned to sympathy once again, where he felt more want than anger. Some were such beauties. It was often hard to cut into soft, warm skin, to mar it with his blade. To remove sturdy legs, slim arms, and perfect oval-shaped heads. To take a gorgeous whole and render it into parts so that a woman was no longer pretty, could no longer entice and lie with her body.
It was terrible to have such responsibility foisted on him, but he’d faced harsh duties before.
Had carried them out not just with a sense of pride, but with honor, knowing it was the best for all concerned. And if he couldn’t sleep well, if nightmares followed him even during the waking hours, if even his clanmates looked at him in confusion or fear, then he would live with it. For their own good. For the good of the Empire.
A trio of laughing Earther females passed him by, the scent of alcohol overlaying the warm aromas of their bodies, the sting of their colognes. They’d been enjoying themselves to great distraction, and continued to do so, the slender bottles of leshella gripped in their hands. They didn’t notice him standing there in the pool of darkness, didn’t sense how his eyes followed them as they made their way towards the market exit, probably heading to the Matara complex.
Sometimes one would stagger a little, making her companions laugh louder as they grabbed hold to keep anyone from falling. Every Kalquorian man in the vicinity paused to smile and bow and watch them make their happy way.
The Nobek started after them, walking casually so as not to draw attention to himself. The Earthers were so easy to take when they drank, completely without any ability to defend themselves. And there was a stretch of perhaps half a mile between the market and Earther Matara complex where foot traffic would be light, sometimes nonexistent. The new monitors that recorded the path where he’d taken two other victims did not trouble him. He thought his device would thwart those as easily as the ones in the Matara complex.
The new sentry stations also worried him little. They were manned mostly by Nobeks just out of training camps and set beyond sight distance apart from each other. Far from deterring him, the latest security measures instead goaded him to chance capture. He relished the opportunity to show the Earthers they had no defense against the righteous judgment of the Beast of New Bethlehem.
If he could time his attack just right, it would be nothing for a man of his abilities to overcome three inebriated Earther women. He planned to quickly kill two and knock the third unconscious. He’d hide the bodies in the underground wooded area where the others lay undetected. Then all he had to do was spirit the one still living to his special place only an hour’s shuttle ride away. There, the punishment for her people’s sins would commence until she apologized for her misbegotten race’s wrongdoings. Finally, he would kill her and make her into a warning for the rest. The Beast of New Bethlehem would make them all pay.
He thought about the look he’d gotten of them as they’d walked past. He already knew which one he wanted to concentrate his energies on. They were all fair skinned with long hair, nothing like the woman he truly wanted to capture, the lovely, doe-eyed female who no longer spoke her own language. That was the woman he ached to take away. But one of his quarry was shaped similar to the one he desired above all others. She had that poignant mix of pain and hope etched into her eyes despite the leshella’s attempts to erase past sadness. That was the one he would take to his hideaway. He’d use her torture and death to prepare him for the ultimate prize. She would ready him to kill the one who tried to bend his indomitable will with compassion he couldn’t afford to have.
The Nobek left the marketplace at a discreet distance behind his prey, and then veered into the stand of trees that ran along the trail leading to the complex. He kept pace with their drunken progress and waited for the moment when he could take them right out from under the noses of those who truly deserved protection. Then all three of these beautiful monsters would be the unlucky winners of his personal lottery tonight, and Kalquor would be made a little safer.
