Forged in Shadow Read online

  She could barely stand to see him like this, with his body about to be defiled by those two Humans, who were preparing some sort of surgical equipment. It was pure torture for Arin. She wanted to rise up and smash their faces into the wall.

  But she was bound and helpless, with nothing covering her body but a thin white gown, and tight restraints around her waist, wrists, and ankles.

  In the blink of an eye, they had taken everything from her.

  What kind of people were these? What kind of dirt was hidden behind the smoothly oiled machine of the Federation?

  “I see you’re awake, Sergeant Varga.” E1’s flat voice reached her ears, and Arin found herself looking up into the woman’s expressionless face. The agent was wearing her datalenses again, and they flickered with information as she stared at Arin. “Don’t worry. The internal examination was carried out while you were unconscious. It was no surprise that we were able to collect a valuable sample of alien semen.”

  “How did you know?” Arin hissed, a wave of revulsion coursing through her. They’d violated her while she’d been knocked out. She clenched her fists in anger. Oh, if only she had the strength of a Kordolian right now. She would tear this place apart.

  “Your escape pod’s networking systems aren’t exactly secure. My people were able to hack the intercom. I heard most of it, Arin.”

  “You have no idea what you’ve done, agent,” Arin said. Her voice was flat and lifeless. “You think they’re going to let you get away with killing one of their own? You’re just poking a hornet’s nest. You shouldn’t provoke them, agent. They will take Earth and everything on it, and we Humans won’t be able to do a thing. Not you, not me, not the entire fucking Federation.”

  “I don’t have much sympathy for traitors, Arin Varga, and you almost sound like a Kordolian. You shouldn’t be so quick to write-off your own race.”

  “What do you think we’re going to do when the entire Kordolian fleet turns up on our doorstep? Fight them?” Arin closed her eyes as a fresh wave of despair crashed over her. She didn’t have the energy to fight anymore.

  “Senator Monroe was right to have been suspicious of you. From the very start, she didn’t like the way you talked about these aliens, almost as if you admired them. Stockholm syndrome can be dangerous, Arin. Look what it’s made you do. My offsider is in a critical condition because of you. Shame.” E1’s smug, self-assured tone made Arin want to punch her in the face.

  “I’ll fucking kill you,” Arin whispered, her voice thick with hatred. “When the Senate finds out about what you people do behind closed doors…”

  “But the reality is that they don’t care. They know we exist, but they don’t want to know what we do. They just give us orders and we get them done. They turn a blind eye to our methods. Up here, we’re not bound by the conventions of Earth. People disappear in space all the time, Arin.”

  Right then, Arin knew she wasn’t getting off this vessel alive. She’d been snatched from the jaws of death only to be delivered to an even worse fate. “Does my mother know about you people and what you do?”

  “If it’s any consolation, General Varga just thinks you’re being picked up for a debrief. She’s going to be told the official story, the one that everyone else will hear. We’ll inform her that we received a distress signal from your pod. Shortly before you disappeared, you were in a panicked state, saying something about there being a Kordolian onboard. After that, we lost the signal.” E1 stepped away as two men wearing surgical masks and lab suits entered the room. “She’s a traitor,” the agent said coldly. “You both know what we do to traitors. Get the information out of her, then dispose of her.”

  Arin glanced from side to side, searching for something; anything she could use to escape, but she was hopelessly trapped. All she saw were plain white walls on one side, and Rykal’s mutilated form through the glass on the other side. She strained against her bonds, but they were made of metal and held fast, cutting painfully into her skin.

  E1 walked out of the room, her footsteps a hollow echo as she left Arin to the mercy of the two men.

  Arin was well and truly alone.

  One of the men ran a gloved hand up her leg, caressing the inside of her thigh, exposing her as he lifted the hem of her gown. Arin froze as she heard the sound of a zipper being undone.

  “Interrogation’s the boring part. All we have to do is inject her with Acufol and she’ll spill everything. Boss won’t mind if we have a little fun first.”

  “Get your filthy hands off me,” Arin hissed, as the man got up onto the bed, straddling her.

  “Shut the fuck up, traitor.” A gloved hand struck her in the face, and Arin tasted her own blood as it pooled in her mouth. She took a deep breath and spat with great force and venom, her blood splattering across the man’s white lab suit and mask.

  “Fucking bitch!” He slapped her again then pressed his hand hard against her cheek, grinding her face into the hard metal surface of the bench. “You can’t do anything here. Why resist it? Just give up and take it, traitor.”

  The cold metal of the bench pressed painfully into Arin’s cheek as she was forced to look to one side. Her breath caught in her throat as she raged against the futility of her situation.

  She was completely, utterly helpless.

  She stared at Rykal’s still form, watching as a scientist inserted a long needle into his stomach and extracted a tissue sample. Another man in a white lab-suit stood behind a monitoring device, interpreting data.

  Rykal was getting probed. The indignity of it made Arin want to scream, but she held her tongue.

  Because she realized that Rykal’s scorched face was turned towards her.

  When had that happened?

  In death he was staring at her, his eyes wide open. Gone was the brilliant gold of his irises. The entire surface of both his eyes had been bleached milky white.

  But it was almost as if he were… looking at her.

  Cold air touched her bare thighs and pussy as a gloved hand encircled Arin’s neck, clenching tightly so she could barely breathe. “Be a good girl and stay quiet now,” her attacker whispered into her ear. “Otherwise we’ll have to restrain you.”

  His words faded away, becoming a faint buzz in the background.

  Arin wasn’t focusing on him anymore, because Rykal’s mouth was moving.

  Maybe she was going insane.

  No, it really was moving. He was trying to mouth silent words to her, but she couldn’t lip-read, because he didn’t have any fucking lips left. What was he trying to say?

  Her heart started to hammer as hope fluttered in her chest, faint and tenuous.

  And then the man straddled above her froze. He swore. His companion swore.

  Because Rykal’s hand had shot up and grabbed the scientist by the arm, and then Arin understood what he’d been trying to tell her.

  Don’t watch.

  Hope rose in her heart like a solar flare as the scientist screamed. Her attacker cursed and got up off her, dropping off the table as he and his companion ran out of her room and into the glass-walled room.

  Bad move on their part.

  A deep, shuddering sigh escaped Arin as she stared at Rykal’s burned body.

  Bruised, battered and horribly disfigured beyond recognition, he was coming to life, like a modern-day Frankenstein.

  A true monster in every sense of the word.

  Her glorious monster. It didn’t matter if he was hideous or beautiful. He was hers, and nothing was going to change that.

  Not the Federation, or the Empire, or even a fucking nuclear missile.

  Rykal’s deformed hand gripped the scientist’s arm. There was a crack, and the man’s screams tore through the silence.

  And despite what she’d thought he’d been trying to tell her, Arin couldn’t look away. She was transfixed by the scene before her. The air was thick with a sense of impending horror, even as her heart swelled with hope.

  She didn’t know whether Rykal wo
uld ever fully recover from the damage he’d taken, but even at a fraction of his usual strength, these Humans would be no match for him.

  Shit was about to get brutal, and Arin couldn’t look away.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Pain invaded his consciousness. He couldn’t see, because his eyes had been burned. He couldn’t smell, because the small fibers of his olfactory nerve had probably been seared in the blast. But he could still hear, and he’d heard everything those Humans had said to his beautiful mate.

  They’d restrained her, stripped her, and tried to violate her right in front of him.

  Her soft gasps, laced with pain and fury, had drawn him out of his comatose state, thrusting him into a world of darkness where everything was agony, and those pitiful Humans scurried about, thinking they could mess with him, and mess with his mate.

  Despicable Humans. They had almost killed him, and then ironically, they had saved him.

  Because if his body hadn’t been brought to this place, he would have died in space, starved of oxygen, his nanites in desperate need of protein as they guarded his most vital organs. They were eating away what was left of his flesh; his muscles, connective tissue, and skin, in order to protect and maintain the necessities of life. They surrounded his heart, brain, major blood vessels, and abdominal organs, sustaining him even as Kaiin, lord of death, called his name, trying to drag him into the underworld.

  A dark vortex opened up inside him, a swirling mass of hatred and fury and emptiness. He could barely move, because his muscle tissue was hopelessly depleted, but as the Human approached, he drew on the cold fury within him and willed himself to move.

  He drew on his pain, embracing agony.

  He drew on the presence of his mate. He could hear her. He could feel her. He knew exactly where she was.

  Hold on, my love. I’m coming.

  He heard the Human, its footsteps drawing near until it was right beside him, probably preparing to extract more of his tissue.

  Rykal fought his body, which didn’t want to move. His damaged nerve endings felt as if they’d been shredded and dipped in molten lava. It would be so much easier to give up and allow Kaiin’s embrace to take hold.

  But the thought of Arin spurred him on. He forced himself to move, his left arm shooting upwards and grabbing whatever he could of the Human. He was weak, and he almost failed to form a decent grip, but his fingers found purchase, curling around the fabric-encased upper limb of the Human.

  All Rykal needed was a little bit of protein, blood, or tissue, anything organic that could feed his hungry nanites, to stop them from eating him alive.

  He squeezed hard and felt bones cracking underneath his fingers. Through excruciating pain he forced his sharp claws out past the mutilated flesh of his fingertips, digging through cloth and skin and flesh, drawing blood.

  The Human screamed. Rykal dug harder, and precious life-giving blood started to run down his arm, coating his raw flesh. Nano-particles swarmed to the surface, drawn by the promise of sustenance. They began absorbing the blood, drawing energy from it as they retreated back into Rykal’s body.

  The Human struggled, but Rykal held firm, even as two other Humans entered the room.

  His insides were on fire. The nanites were repairing the most essential organs first. His heartbeat went from a faint flutter to a steady thud. His lungs expanded, drawing in vital oxygen. Blood started to course through his body. Neural connections in his brain were repaired. His olfactory nerve was replaced, and now he could smell the coppery tang of the Human’s blood. A piercing sensation hit his eyes, like a thousand shards of glass, as the nanites worked on his retinas and eyeballs, restoring sight.

  Hands were on him, trying to restrain him. Someone thrust something towards him, trying to inject him, but Rykal batted the offender away with his free arm, sending them crashing to the floor. He could see a little now. The room was blindingly bright. He craved darkness.

  Bit by bit, the world came into focus, and bit by bit, Rykal grew stronger.

  The Human’s screams were growing louder. Someone was trying to place restraints on his legs. He kicked blindly and was rewarded with another scream.

  Rykal sat up and gasped, his world coming into sharp relief.

  He was alive, and he was angry.

  Because they had dared to touch what was his. They’d intended to violate her.

  Unforgivable.

  As he squeezed harder, drenching himself in Human blood, he turned to look at her, and what he saw made him blind with rage.

  She was strapped to a bench, wearing only a flimsy white gown. The garment was pushed up, revealing her sleek thighs and a glimpse of her delicate sex. She couldn’t move, not even to preserve her modesty.

  They’d rendered her utterly helpless, and to Rykal that was a crime far worse than all of the deaths he was about to cause.

  His chest heaved as he looked at her face. Sympathy cut through his pain and anger. She was his precious female, more precious than all the stars combined, and she should never ever have had to endure what they’d just put her through.

  He wished she didn’t have to see what happened next, but time was scarce. The Humans would send backup, and he needed to be in good enough condition to fight.

  He would have to become like the Ancestors of old and do as the savages of the Lost Tribes once did when they encountered a particularly hated enemy.

  She was staring at him, her blue eyes wide, the tracks of dried tears visible on her perfect cheeks.

  Unforgivable.

  But her face was serene; she was the very image of the Goddess herself, and her eyes were filled with love and warmth, even though he must appear monstrous right now. She was the calm in the center of the storm.

  Her lips parted, and she silently mouthed one word: go.

  The way she looked at him and that simple word meant everything in the Universe.

  Do what you have to do. I’m on your side.

  Rykal sat up, dragging the screaming Human with him. The man was losing a lot of blood, and Rykal was benefiting. The Human started to go limp as Rykal squeezed, growing stronger with every waking moment.

  The other three Humans had managed to get their hands on some surgical equipment; blades, clamps, and long needles. They advanced on him and Rykal grinned, his fangs protruding from his lipless mouth.

  He was the perfect embodiment of a monster right now, and for once, he embraced it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Screams bounced off the cold white walls of her cubicle. Blood splattered against the clear glass of the window that separated them, obscuring her vision somewhat.

  In a flash, all four Humans were dead. Rykal had killed them with his bare hands.

  He was back.

  Her fierce, terrifying warrior was back.

  Strangely, she didn’t feel any regret for the Humans he’d killed. A weird stillness had settled over her. She didn’t feel much of anything. She was cold all over, and she was willing Rykal on.

  Arin watched the terrible tableau play out before her. She could do nothing but watch, even as Rykal dropped to his knees beside one of the corpses, facing away from her.

  She couldn’t quite see what he was doing anymore; he was below her line of sight.

  She heard crunching and squelching, as if he were tearing through flesh and bone.

  At last, Arin turned away, staring up at the ceiling as she granted Rykal a brief moment of privacy, because whatever he was doing, she suspected he wouldn’t want her to see it.

  Not that she cared. Survival wasn’t always pretty.

  Arin closed her eyes and thought about Earth. The brief time she’d spent on Nova Terra before returning to the Hendrix II had reminded her how good it felt to be on home soil. The sunshine and the salty sea air had evoked a strong sense of nostalgia.

  Just a few minutes ago, she’d thought she’d never see Earth again.

  She began to shiver. It was more than just the cold air brushing aga
inst her bare skin. Arin wasn’t the sort to cry easily or give in to her vulnerabilities; she’d been the leader of a squad on a remote mining station, she’d done her job damn well, and she could hold her own against any soldier.

  But the way she’d been treated just now had evoked some powerful memories, memories she’d tried so hard to bury.

  “Arin.” A soft, familiar voice dragged her back into the present, and it was the best thing she’d heard in her entire life.

  “Rykal?” Her voice trembled. She sounded so weak; so vulnerable, and she hated that, but her body wouldn’t stop shaking.

  “I’m here.”

  She hesitated, not wanting to open her eyes just yet. She didn’t know what she’d see. It wasn’t that she was afraid; never that. It was just that she didn’t want to see the full extent of Rykal’s suffering.

  He didn’t speak again, but she could feel his presence, even though he was as silent as ever. The first thing he did was pull down the thin gown she wore so it covered her groin and thighs, preserving her modesty.

  Then his hands, bare and smooth and intact, were sliding over her wrists.

  He grunted and snapped the restraint over her right wrist as if it were nothing more than brittle plastic. He brushed his fingers over the tender area where the restraint had dug into her skin, a low growl issuing from his throat.

  He did the same with her left wrist, before moving to her ankles. Arin moved her arms experimentally. She was a little stiff, but otherwise okay.

  After her legs were freed, he moved to her side, wiping the tracks of her tears with the soft pads of his thumbs. His gentle movements were in stark contrast to the room full of bodies he’d left behind.

  “Open your eyes, Arin. It’s only me.”

  Slowly, she did just that, blinking against the harsh light.

  Rykal’s face swam into view, the bright white light forming a halo around his moonlight-crowned head.

  She gasped.