Mastered by the Zandians Read online

  “Seals and atmosphere at 100 percent,” I report.

  “Check tow status.”

  “Tow craft damaged, no life forms present,” Domm says.

  “Lanz, secure the passengers.”

  I turn my attention to the humans. The mother and child slave are in shock, but it’s our little warrior who needs the most help.

  She’s panting and pale, her shoulder a mess of ragged flesh, bone showing. Blood soaks her tunic, dripping on the floor. Sweat beads her brow and she shudders, over and over. I hate that she’s human—so fragile, despite her courage and skill.

  I grab an intact medi-pack, thankful that Dr. Daneth gave us advanced training on emergency medic actions. “I’m going to put this onto your wound.” I open it quickly. “It’s got painkillers and antibiotics, and a proprietary medicine which will speed the healing.” I unfold the device and push the button to activate the SmartSys.

  “All right.” Her voice is weak. I grab her wrist; her pulse is thready.

  “Veck.” I lay the pack onto her shoulder and she winces, but then her eyelids flutter and she breathes out. “Is it working?”

  I peer down, unable to tell.

  Domm appears beside me, the downward slash of his brows telling me he’s as concerned as I am. “Is she all right?” He’s already ejected the body of the Ocretion into space.

  I shake my head. “I’ve put on the pack.”

  Domm squats. “Looks like it’s activating.” The flexible, thin LED panel on the front flashes messages. “Healing started. One percent complete. Medicine administered.”

  As we watch, the numbers change. “One point five percent complete.”

  “I think she needs more help.”

  I take her hand. “What’s your name, little warrior?”

  “Mirelle,” she croaks through dry lips and her eyelids flutter closed.

  “Mirelle, hang on. We’re taking you back to Zandia and you’re going to get medical care there.”

  Her lips move, but her lids don’t open. I can’t tell what, if anything, she’s trying to say.

  I look at Domm, raise my eyebrows, but he shakes his head. “I didn’t catch it.”

  He motions to me, and we step away from the little female. He speaks in an undertone. “She’s pretty much an enemy capture at this point. Giving her medical treatment is voluntary.” But his jaw clenches. I can tell that he doesn’t see her as any ordinary capture.

  I growl. “She helped us escape.”

  “After she caused the problem in the first place,” he points out.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know what King Zander will do with her.” He crosses his arms like he’s angry, but his gaze is on Mirelle, concern still etched on his face.

  There’s something about her that’s irresistible. Clearly, I’m not the only being who feels it.

  “I want her.” I’m staking my claim, yes, but also measuring his interest.

  My best friend shows no surprise. “Yes. She’s perfect for us.” We both watch as her chest barely rises with her breath. “If she lives.”

  Her face gets even more pale and she coughs, but it’s like her whole body can’t handle it.

  Fear tears at my chest, more fierce than any I’ve experienced in any battle. Worse, even, than the invasion of the Finn, when I was forever parted from my family at just four solar cycles. Why should I fear for this tiny rebel, a human whom I don’t even know?

  It doesn’t make logical sense, but the need to protect her, to help her somehow, overwhelms me.

  I sit beside her, leaning my back against the wall, and talk to her unconscious form, as if my words are a scaffolding holding her up in the air so she doesn’t fall. So she doesn’t fly away from us forever.

  She coughs—a death rattle—and something seizes in my chest. I touch her hand. She’s getting colder.

  “She’s still fading.” My voice is loud with concern. “We need something more. We’re running out of time.”

  I glance toward Archer, but he’s busy with the other slave and her child.

  Domm gets up and fetches something from a med container. “Dr. Daneth said to use this in an emergency.” He holds up a narrow glass test tube with some kind of yellow substrate in the bottom.

  “What is it?” I frown and reach for it.

  “Blood donation kit. We can give some of our blood to Mirelle.”

  “I’m no physician, but I know that our blood is incompatible.” I cross my arms. “We’d kill her if we try that.”

  Archer swallows. He’s back at our side, after having settled the other humans. “This kit extracts essential Zandian components from our blood, not the whole blood cells and plasma.”

  “Like our crystal energy?” Domm tilts his head.

  “Yes.” Archer clears his throat and glances at Mirelle. “She’s getting weaker. We need to try it.”

  “Can’t we use crystals directly?” Domm glances around the cabin. “Faster and easier?”

  “He said this.” Archer shakes his head. “At the last briefing.”

  I stick out my arm, angry that I had to miss that update. “Then do it.” I swallow hard. “How does it work?”

  “It’s easy.” Archer reads the tag. “Affix it to your arm and the needle will extract some blood. The substrate in the tube will absorb all but the critical nutrients she needs.

  “All right.” I take a breath and hold the device to my skin. “I’m ready.”

  The pinprick doesn’t hurt, but it startles me for a second, and when I see my blood filling the tube, I’m mesmerized by the color and the way it flashes in the light. It’s rare that I see my blood outside of a battle, and this peaceful flow is strangely enticing.

  But then the cylinder beeps and flashes red.

  “Did I do it wrong?” My heart quickens.

  Archer steps up. “No. But we can’t take much from a single Zandian. We can’t afford to deplete our own energy on a mission.”

  “Well, is it enough to help her?” I frown.

  “Not yet.” Archer blinks.

  “Let me. I can help.” Domm rolls up his sleeve. “Hurry.”

  There is just enough to make the tube flash green.

  “Hurry. Give it to her.” I’m in a rush, and I don’t care that the other two see my interest in her.

  When Archer puts the device to her arm, she doesn’t flinch. And for a few minutes, nothing seems to change.

  But then I notice a very subtle change in her skin, a flush of pale pink suffusing the waxy gray, and her breathing evens out just a touch.

  “It’s working.” Relief pours through me.

  “Good.” Domm’s shoulders drop.

  My whole body vibrates with concern for her. I don’t know what it is about her that has me entranced. She nearly got us all killed with her stunt. But veck if I don’t have more interest in this small troublesome human than in any other creature in all of my solar cycles in this universe.

  And as we speed back to Zandia, Domm and I sit over her, taking turns talking to her, and by the time we arrive, we’ve come to the agreement—this human is ours now. And nothing is going to take her from us.

  * * *

  Mirelle

  * * *

  The deep voice of the Zandian lulls me away from my pain.

  Lanz.

  I see him now and then when I open my eyes, but it’s short bursts and flashes of light. His lips move, but I’m not sure what he’s saying. Is he telling me battle stories?

  I want to fade away, but his voice compels me to listen. Gruff and husky, there’s a tone of something that intrigues me, and despite the fatigue in my bones, when I hear him talk, I want to keep living. Even if I have been captured.

  Then the other one talks—Domm, and my body wakes up. Because when he talks, my veins dance, pushing the blood. I can almost see it in my mind. Probably it’s because I’m close to dying, but I’ve never been so aware of my own heart pumping before, how my veins are hollow fleshy tubes, thin and pliant. But although they’re thin, they’re strong and there’s a new energy in me now. I don’t know where it came from, but I grab it with all of my ability and ride it around, as my blood flows, encouraging my body to stay and fight.

  Chapter 4

  Mirelle

  * * *

  “No!” I wake up screaming, heart pounding, body soaked with cold, acrid sweat. My shoulder burns like it’s on fire and my whole body fights me, but the adrenaline rush is so strong that I pull free of the restraints that fasten my arms down. “Stay away!”

  I pant and shake, eyes blurry, head swimming. Shapes form and reform in front of me, but everything’s underwater and I can’t make sense of it.

  “Get back!” I lash out with my fighter’s moves, but it so exhausts me that I fall backwards onto my drenched pillow, my hair smelling like a dead animal, strands stuck to my face like entrails. When I reach out to push it back, strange clear tubes dangle from my arms and hands, like body parts all inside out.

  “Easy, Mirelle. No being is going to hurt you.” A calm female voice intrudes into my panic.

  “Who are you? Get away from me.” My voice is so raspy it doesn’t sound like me. My heart pounds so fast I fear I’m going to pass out.

  “You’re in a medical pod on the planet Zandia. Your shoulder is badly damaged and you’re weak.”

  This much is true, the part about my shoulder. The throbbing pain there drains my whole body of energy. But I don’t know why and how—

  Memory floods back and with it, I vomit, leaning forward to expel everything in my stomach in a violent outburst.

  “You're going to be all right.” The tone is so soothing I almost want to trust the speaker, but I know better. Because now that my memory is back, I realize where I must be. “If
you stop fighting, I won’t retie your arms.”

  I’m on Zandia. A captive. The worst place for a freedom fighter.

  Well, not the worst. The worst would be that slave bay on the Ocretion ship. Or the auction from which I rescued my two humans. Or—the point is, there are worse places, but this one still isn’t good. Because if I couldn’t get away from them when it was just a handful, how can I possibly escape from a whole planet?

  The speaker cleans me with hands that are small and cool and efficient. And—human.

  I gasp and look at her. Blink, and my vision obliges for a few moments.

  “You’re human?” I shiver as she removes my thin garment and helps me replace it.

  “You’ve sweated through this one. And messed it up with vomit. Let’s give you a dry one.” She looks at me. “Yes. I’m Bayla.”

  “You are a slave here?” I cough. “And they let you work in a med pod?”

  She puts a fluid tube to my mouth. “Not a slave anymore. I work with the doctor. I’m his mate.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Please don’t tax yourself. There will be time later for questions. Right now, focus on healing.”

  “No, I need to know this right now.” I struggle to sit up, new sweat forming on my brow even though she’s wiped and wrapped my head in a soft cloth.

  She sits on the edge of my bed and takes my hand. I almost start crying at the touch, and grab her hand with both of mine. Then tears do fall, because it’s another human, and she’s not in danger.

  “I was a slave. The Zandians rescued me, and I was mated to one of them. Now I’m free and I live here, part of the Zandian society.”

  “But Zandians take humans as slaves. Buy them. Use them. Everyone knows it.”

  “They do buy them.” She strokes my hand. “They are needed here. The Zandians are nearly extinct and there are only three living Zandian females capable of child-bearing. Humans are the next best mates for Zandian males.”

  “So you are breeding slaves.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated means not free.”

  “I need to check your shoulder. May I?” She gestures to my body.

  I look down. “Yes.”

  I watch her strip back the bandage, which barely sticks to the wound.

  “Good.” She sounds pleased. “The edges are sealing nicely. When they brought you in, bone was exposed and you’d lost a lot of blood. Not to mention the burn damage.”

  “How did it heal so fast?” I’m mesmerized. “It’s not possible.”

  “The healing pack helped.” She picks up something from a side table. “It’s a new kit developed by one of our human physicians in training.”

  “Really?” I lean forward, attention at full alert. They have humans, training to be physicians on this planet? Just think of the good it would bring if I could get one of them to Jesel.

  “Yes. But I think what really helped was the blood donation from two Zandian warriors on board the ship.”

  “Zandian blood?” I frown.

  “You don’t remember?”

  I shake my head. “After I was injured, I don’t remember much.” I do remember the two Zandians, though. Their square-jawed faces and horns. Their alert eyes. Their enormous muscle-bound bodies, strong and taut.

  Heat pricks between my thighs and I’m startled by my reaction. Was it from hearing I might be turned into a Zandian breeder? I shudder, yet the heat only increases. The thought of those large Zandian males rutting into me makes me shift my hips and squeeze my thighs together. Would they be as agile in sex as they are in battle?

  I shake my head to throw that thought back to the ether and lie back, watching Bayla.

  Every time she looks away from me, I attempt to scan the room, to memorize the layout, the exit, the items. When my eyes cooperate, that is—my vision keep skipping and blurring out. It’s good news. There are so many wonderful things here that could be fashioned into ad-hoc weapons; even in my weakened state, I could kill this human without trouble.

  But I won’t. She’s my own species, and I will never hurt another human, an innocent one. Of course, if the human behaves like—I shudder, pushing away old, rotten memories from childhood that need to stay hidden.

  “Are you looking for something to use as a weapon?” She smiles at me.

  I frown at being so easily read. “I’m curious about my surroundings.”

  “I know you’re a fighter. We all know it.”

  I don’t respond.

  She takes my hand again. I let her.

  Her voice is low. “You’re in a unique situation. Mirelle, yes?”

  I nod. The touch of her hand is so kind, it creates an uncomfortable shifting in my chest. Mother Earth, the injury really has me all messed up. I need to get my head on straight.

  “You’re not a slave, but you’re also not free.”

  “Prisoner of war.” My voice is flat.

  She bites her lip. “Well, not exactly.”

  “Do they consider me dangerous?” I crane my neck to look at the door, but it’s closed. I can’t see who—or what—waits, or guards, beyond.

  “Yes.” She swallows. Look away.

  “And yet you’re in here alone? They’re not worried?”

  “Not really alone.” She smiles briefly. “I have a comm unit.” She touches her wrist. “And humans never hurt other humans, the women, at least. It’s almost a universal law.”

  “A universal law.” I repeat her words. “Yes.”

  “Because we’re all in this together.” She nods. “Also, the doctor is here, too.”

  I snap my head around, startled—how did I miss him? He’s a Zandian, older than the warriors on the ship, but still tall and fierce. He carries an expression of deep interest and intelligence in his eyes. He’s standing back, but I should have caught him in my peripheral vision.

  My reflexes are completely messed up. Panic surges, and I breathe fast.

  “He’s going to examine you, Mirelle. I need you to stay calm. Will you do that?”

  I nod, watching his movements closely. “Yes.” Stay collected. Learn my surroundings. Plan for later. “What’s going to happen?”

  The talking tires me, and my head swims, my vision blurring again.

  “Once you’re strong enough, you’ll go before King Zander, our leader. He’ll decide your fate.” The doctor’s hands are fast and professional, checking my wound, doing something with a device.

  This doesn’t sound promising, but my body has started to slip into unconsciousness, and I can’t fight it.

  “What’s your name again?”

  He says it, but I’m already over the edge, and the words fuzz out into static as my eyes close.

  Domm

  * * *

  King Zander puts his hand on his dagger. His horns quirk as he examines each of us in turn.

  “So to be clear.” He paces. “A human freedom fighter stole the slaves you purchased at auction, got away from you, attracted the attention of Ocretions, and is responsible for the biggest rescue debacle in over a solar cycle?”

  Archer and Lanz shift.

  “Correct, my lord.” Heat builds under my collar.

  “And now she is in custody in medical care?”

  “Yes, my lord.” I bow my head. “She’s healing from a serious wound that nearly killed her.” I add, “She worked with us to distract the Ocretion to save our ship. She fought well, even used her human skill in deception.”

  King Zander doesn’t answer. He looks to Master Seke. “Your thoughts?”

  “I’m intrigued by her skills. The way you described the battle to me makes me think she has superior reflexes and training. Are there other human females like this?” He looks at the King. “If so, we should investigate. She could be a potential benefit to our society. Genes worthy of mixing with ours for future generations of warriors.”

  “We believe she was on her way to Jesel,” adds Archer. “And that she’s done this before. More than once.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Lanz steps forward. “Her familiarity with process. I think she’s rescuing human women and bringing them to safety.”

  “Stealing, you mean. If you call Jesel safe.” Archer frowns. “The Ocretions raid it once in a while, not to mention random pirates who could stop by. And it’s lawless—human women have males to fear there as much as anywhere. Their own species. How any being could survive there, I don’t know. It’s far worse now than it’s ever been. Probably every being there will die off soon.”