Feral Series V: Feral Foretaste Read online

  "We're almost there,” Vult announced.

  The softly-illuminated corridor tunnel didn't hint we approached anything.

  Suddenly, we stepped around a bend and a dimly-lit glowing opening to the right led into a cavernous space with more intense lighting upon entry. Not that bright like lightbulbs hung in the space. Fires burned in the floors somewhere hidden beyond barrels and bins. For the life of me, I couldn't spot a flame in the quiet space. “What is this place?"

  "Container storage. Trade goods are unloaded here. Containers are kept in case we need them. The planet has no trees. No wood. These containers are recycled and modified as necessary."

  Good to see the !Dakos learned to make do with what they had instead of altering their environment as they'd done in the past. All the more reason to help them correct the genetic kink in their genome. But how?

  Vult led me to the end of the storage area, beneath an arch, and into an even brighter wide corridor. Enormous tall crystals stretched from floor to ceiling down the area like natural pillars, emitting bright white light. We passed the crystal columns until coming to a wide opening leading into another cavern filled with the luminous lights.

  "How do these crystals light this space, Vult?"

  "Nanites. The crystals are injected with nanites that absorb sunlight during the day. The nanites create the light with the solar energy."

  Solar cells! The !Dakos had become incredibly mindful of their new home. Almost revering the new planet or whatever this place was they now called home. A home without families. Too unnatural. And life just seemed to be all about reproduction when reduced to a sauce. I have to help them find a way to have daughters once again. The only way to do this is to become the Goddess they believe I am.

  A soft clanging rang through the long illuminated corridor.

  The pillars led us to two steps leading down into an underground courtyard with many !Dako warriors working with metal between fires and mounded structures.

  Probably forges.

  The clanging noises were so intense I stretched my stride to keep Vult walking as fast as possible. He undoubtedly restrained his stride to keep the pace comfortable for me.

  Funny how I suddenly recalled that book I read in college—The Inferno. Just how far down would we go? And what would we encounter when we stopped? Nothing bad. Not with Vult.

  The metal-working area opened up onto a sunlit courtyard fanning out toward fields of beautiful green plants.

  Just like back home.

  The plain of vegetation was mostly rimmed by black mountains.

  Virgin igneous rock. This place had to be a young planet. With oxygen? Thinking about it might give me a headache. So, just breathe and forward ho, Cassie.

  Vult led me to the right, across the black rock skirting the mountain's feet until another doorway gaped. The metal door had been slid open inside the doorway.

  Nice way to keep the rude neighbors out. “Nobody else lives here?"

  "The planet was uninhabited when we arrived."

  I stepped into cool darkness scented with earth. “No vegetation?"

  "Only algae."

  Okay, an oxygen source. Plants from beyond the Rift. Sunlight. Land. All they needed was protein. Big guys like a !Dako warrior would require more than an Earth male. “Do you have any livestock?"

  My vision suddenly flicked on and revealed a series of doorways lining a long passageway we followed.

  "Just fish we raise underground in contained areas,” Vult said. “We didn't want to risk releasing any fauna until we had a firm understanding of what we were doing to this place with the flora we introduced."

  Lovely caution. “Where are you taking me?"

  He shot me a grin. “To my bedchamber. Unless you'd rather not go."

  He knew all the right answers. “As long as you're with me, I'll be fine."

  The doors were entrances to individual quarters. Hundreds. Or even thousands of doors barring our passage. Isolating warriors. My heart began to ache for the men who resided in each room. It's like they lived here on this lifeless side of some crack in space, without souls, while the rest of the universe carried on without the !Dakos. Fearing them. The rest of the universe would laugh learning about the most feared culture's wicked fate. But I couldn't turn away and pretend I knew nothing. Not hidden away here on this side of the Rift.

  Vult shoved a door into a room lit with muted sunlight that pierced the space from three round windows. The green beyond the portals indicated this was a room with a view of the field.

  "We'll stay here,” his voice rumbled. “Sok and Tvrist will guard the door. You will be safe here. Safe while I tend to !Dako affairs.” His hand curled around my elbow and led me to a window. “I must meet with the Colony's Council.” He turned me to face him in the white light. “Will you wait here for me? I don't want you wandering around until you are more familiar with this place."

  And that's the way things unraveled for a handful of days.

  Days had drifted into night and back into days until my boredom got the best of me where I paced inside my quarters before the jewel-like view of life passing me by outside my windows. Vult kept me busy with his undivided attention whenever he could lounge and preen my ego upon our bed. But why were we here? Why was I here? I had a job to do. And I couldn't do a damned thing on this rock tucked inside some fold in space like a festering wound. Any moment, the !Dakos could lose the tight grip they had on life and burst into the known universe to harvest and loot anything they wanted like the vilest puss sentient beings had ever seen. Hell, I would! These warriors had a Crellon spacecraft and a pilot. And their Goddess.

  Was I merely the sign for the !Dakos that it was time for change? And how would change ultimately be interpreted by the Council? My duty was to see the change didn't affect any culture adversely. So, just what was going on?

  The metal door swung wide, producing my tall blond grinning mate.

  Obviously turned sex machine for the moment by his expression. He wasn't getting to play until he answered my questions.

  The door clapped behind him as his long legs snatched the rock floor up in hungry strides between us.

  I crossed my arms uninvitingly. “Vult, we need to talk."

  His gaze tightened, furrowing his brow. But he kept walking until halting on the opposite side of a window from me.

  Sunlight painted concern over the desire he wore moments before on his face.

  Good. I've got his undivided attention. “Why am I here?"

  "You're my huv'ria. You're here with me."

  "No, why did you tuck me underground here? I have work to do for The Order of the Marshals. I believe you brought me here to hide me from something."

  His stoic mask didn't change. “I want my mate with me."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "I came to assess the agricultural development of the Colony. And to determine if we could force a Crellon pilot to bring us through the Rift in his ship."

  "Well, you've finished. It's time for me to return. I have work to finish."

  He just looked at me.

  "Dammit, Vult. You're keeping me here on purpose. I need to speak to M'yote."

  "I told you that was far too dangerous to risk."

  That's why he buried me under this mountain.

  The betrayal in my huv'ria's eyes only told me that my selfishness was going to undermine her duty. “Cassie, you are my responsibility. I need you with me so I can't blame anyone but myself if anything happens to you.” Didn't she realize how I'd failed my wife and daughters so long ago? That if she were captured, I'd fail her?

  She glared. “You meant to bring me here and detain me here. Didn't you?"

  Was I wrong? She wanted to travel to M'yote. What if the slavers attacked?

  "How could you do this? I have responsibilities. I am a Marshal. And, dammit, you're a Marshal's mate. We're supposed to be working together. Besides, I can handle anything with my psychic gift."

  As if I didn't
have responsibilities. “I must make choices for my huv'ria."

  "And the Goddess? Where is the Council? I wish to speak with them."

  Something in her tone indicated she had more in mind than speaking. More like reigning as the Goddess. But what would the Council think if I refused a command of the Goddess?

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  Chapter Sixteen

  The Council consisted of four elders all of which looked the same age as Vult. But I wasn't here to preach about their fountain of youth. I needed them to pay attention and get me back to where I could find a way to correct their problems because that wouldn't be happening with me here at the Colony.

  Hirm had a squared jaw that didn't look like it would give a smidge. And his amethyst eyes were a tad bit disturbing. And probably why he landed the job as a councilor. “Well, I need you all to just back off and give me a chance to do my job. That means keeping this meeting between us. Vult is obviously not thinking straight. For whatever reasons, he's holding me here at the Colony so I can't finish what I was meant to do."

  Hirm's emotionless expression didn't flinch. “Why do you say he's detaining you?"

  "How many of you have huv'rias? Don't make me guess that you all do given your status here as councilors. But the best I can do is guess at the moment. Vult hasn't bothered introducing me to the other females. And, ultimately, all I can guess here is that he's protecting me."

  Hirm blinked an odd sort of casual motion he probably could have controlled if he had a mind to. “My huv'ria lives on Treusch. I was summoned here upon your entering the Council chamber."

  So, they just stepped through the tear in space. “Must be nice to just turn and cross such a vast distance in a nanosecond, gentlemen, without nary a heartbeat lost in the process. But I can't. That's why I'm mated to one of the Five Fathers. Nonetheless, to do my job. I'm supposed to be working on resolving your cultural issues so you can begin living on your home world without struggling to live normal lives. With your huv'rias giving birth to live viable females. Isn't that why the Goddess has come? To return Treusch's Sacred Seed to the planet of its origin? I can't do that being held here in this displaced pocket of hope where your sons struggle to eek out a soulless existence."

  Hirm's expression shifted into curiosity. “And what would you tell Vult if he joined us in this discussion?"

  "That he has to let me go. He must allow me to do my job."

  Hirm's gaze slid past my shoulder, and he nodded. “Then you are free to leave."

  Something told me not to look. That I didn't want to know what he was looking at.

  My heart sank regardless.

  "Yes. She must go,” Vult said.

  One by one, the councilors vanished, slipping through space, leaving me standing there with my heart wallowing in the pool of fear my gut had become.

  I didn't mean to hurt him.

  I never wanted to go behind his back to his superiors.

  The gritty whisper of a lot of weight bearing down the soles of boots against the stone floor only made my heart flounder in the pit I'd tossed it into.

  The noise ceased behind me.

  "Come, Cassie, I'll escort you to the Crellon ship. Sok and Tvrist will meet us there with the pilot. They will take you wherever you wish to go."

  Not one mention of my mate journeying with us. I pivoted to stare into his emotionless mask. The gorgeous face I didn't want to leave. But had to or the insanity would never end for the !Dakos. “I want you to go with me."

  "I have been ordered to stay here."

  "By whose orders? I am the Goddess. What I say cancels out anything else."

  "Not this time. I have been deemed irrational.” His body turned ninety degrees, but his accusing gaze never left me. “Sok and Tvrist will take care of you. After all, I chose them for the duty because they are the best !Dako warriors."

  Holy crap couldn't even begin to summarize the mushrooming sense of betrayal seeping into my bones. What had I done? I stepped toward the door.

  Would my Vult ever forgive me?

  My heart squeezed and chugged up a round of choking tears.

  Tears he'd never see where his boots thumped at my heels.

  We turned into the shadowy passageway lit with crystals. Sok fell in before me.

  Leading me back to my universe. Away from the man I'd just stabbed in the back. My lover I cared about. Oh shit. I'd insulted him beyond belief.

  Like a death march, I was quietly led all the way back to the ship where Tvrist marched his Crellon prisoner up the gangplank.

  What had Vult overheard? Everything? What would he do if I whirled around, threw myself at him, and begged him to come along? I'm such a horrible mate. A soulless soul. I don't deserve him. Hell, he had to know I was right. That I loved him. Or he would know. I pivoted.

  He blinked into nothing but hot sunny sky and black mountain.

  Sifted through space like a phantom.

  So damned gone.

  There is nothing I can do other than to prove to him I did all of this for him.

  For his babies.

  And maybe he'd see how much I loved him. In the end.

  The flight back to M'yote was nothing to note. Boringly painful. Ridiculously mind-numbing. The Crellon wouldn't die. Not because of me. I just reaffirmed his value by utilizing his skill in transporting me to planet Prall. Right back to stare my future in the face in the King's stony castle where my blue mentor sat in a window's light as the clear crystals glinted in his fifty-some-odd almost-white long blue braids.

  M'yote's white eyes sent chills racing through me.

  The eyes of a blind man. A man who cleansed his planet and reaped the punishment for something deemed selfish by nature. He saved me and his mate from being killed by the microbe that kills females on his home world. Could anything be more ridiculous than a man's punishment for saving lives?

  That's my future. Futility. Did I deserve anything else after hurting the warrior who saved me and loved me in the same breath? Vult deserved better. He deserved my punishment in cleansing Treusch. So, I just flew here for nothing. M'yote's knowledge no longer meant anything.

  "You're quiet. I thought you traveled here to speak with me.” The blue alien's calm words struck me as hard as a bat.

  I stared at his useless black leather armor he'd worn in space. He sat in a large recliner-like chair, staring at my shoulder as if my eyes watched him from there. “I did. But I screwed up everything to come.” Thank God, Sok and Tvrist were outside the closed door. Nobody heard me puke up my guts.

  M'yote's face cocked slightly to one side with curiosity. “What happened?"

  "I didn't want to be blinded from cleansing Treusch.” Pointing out like M'yote had been wasn't wise. “So, I struggled with my duty. And Vult, the Father who mated with me, swore he'd think of another way to make the genetic changes necessary to please the !Dakos. But,” I sighed, “I insisted I travel here. And he was publicly insulted."

  "That's why you worry? A !Dako doesn't cast his mate aside, Cassie. You are not a piece of clothing. You are another aspect of him now. Besides, he can't be separated from you for long. His nanites won't allow it."

  Well, the nanites weren't helping me in that respect. “He turned them off."

  "Why would a !Dako do something so foolish?"

  Foolish? What did that mean? I studied M'yote's calm mask. “Why do you say foolish?"

  "Because a !Dako catches his mate with pheromones. To turn them off means he risks her walking away. And you haven't known him long enough for him to predict an inseparable bond had formed between you both."

  Another chill skittered down my arms.

  Vult risked losing me? “What?"

  "Yes, Cassie. Vult's only means of maintaining his soul was through his pheromones. Well, until you fall in love with him."

  Dealing with the issue would drive me crazy. I needed information. Now. “Why do you think he did it?"

  M'yote wagged his head. “I can't read a
!Dako's thoughts even if I wanted to. Only he can tell you. You will have to ask him when you return to him."

  Right. “I don't think he wants me back. He wouldn't look at me after he overheard me informing the Council that he was holding me hostage on their colony planet."

  M'yote's brow furrowed. “Hostage? And you went behind his back to speak with the Council?"

  "I had to. I asked him to bring me to you. He only took me through the Rift, farther away from The Order of the Marshals."

  M'yote nodded, his braids shifting. “I think you have your answer."

  "What answer? I know very little of Prall or Treusch cyborgs. Please demystify this for me."

  "For whatever reasons, he felt the need to hide you away more important than allowing you to fulfill !Dako prophecy. And he turned off his pheromones. You must interpret his actions for yourself."

  Hell. I hate the run around. “Did I ever tell you talking to you is like talking to Goro?"

  He chuckled, flashing a brilliant white grin at me. “No. But I like the comparison. Why did you want to see me?"

  "I need to learn how to heal a person. So I can attempt to change babies in utero. Maybe then I can make a difference on Treusch by helping them give birth to viable females. They're really nice guys."

  M'yote's eyebrow arched. “I'll take your word for it."

  "How do I heal a child without hurting the mother or child?"

  "You listen."

  For what? I don't see any stethoscopes laying around.

  "Your silence tells me you don't understand."

  Sometimes I could really feel better if I could smack the smug blue guy. “Then continue."

  "When you develop an awareness for your surroundings, you'll hear either something harmonious indicating a healthy environment or a disharmonious sound reflective of disruption. When I stepped off of the Crellon ship after it crashed on Prall, I focused my thoughts and heard something akin to bad background noise."

  That's how he did it. “You could have told me this before."

  "You weren't content with learning you could heal by touch. So, I left you to digest what you'd learned. Forgive yourself for your frustration, Cassie. We are all still students of a greater lesson."