Chapter Thirty
Lauren sat huddled on the tiny triangular seat, crammed into the claustrophobically small holding cell and tried not to cry. It’s going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right, she told herself over and over. If she gave in to panic now, everything would be lost. She had to believe she was going to get out of this somehow. Even if her best chance of escape—Xairn—seemed to be completely conflicted about his feelings for her. If he has feelings at all, she thought. He certainly didn’t seem to want to admit it if he did. Could she break down the wall he’d built between them and get him to see that she was important to him? That he needed her as much as she needed him? Lauren hoped so.
The ship had decelerated and landed smoothly and then she’d heard murmuring from the front of the cockpit. The deep, quiet voice she recognized as Xairn’s. The other voice—high and hissing—made her skin crawl. It belonged to the AllFather—the one who wanted to—No, don’t think about it. If you think about it you’ll lose it completely.
Lauren put her fingers in her ears and hummed softly to herself to block out those hateful, hissing tones. The humming started tunelessly but turned into the lullaby her mother used to sing her when she was little. After a few minutes, she could almost hear the beloved voice murmuring the words in her ear… Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. And if that mocking bird won’t sing, Momma’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if—
“Lauren?”
She looked up to see Xairn standing there with a terrible look on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or just upset but whatever he was feeling, it wasn’t good.
“Xairn?” She stood up and took a tentative step toward him but her legs were weak from sitting in the cramped position so long. She stumbled and started to go down.
“Careful!” Xairn caught her and dragged her out into the main part of the ship before swinging her up into his arms. He held her easily, as though she was lighter than a feather.
“What’s going on?” she asked softly, looking into his eyes. This was the closest she’d ever been to him—the most he had ever touched her.
Without answering, Xairn carried her out of the ship and into a long concrete tunnel which appeared to be a hidden landing strip. Despite the tense expression on his face, he handled her gently—as though she might break if he wasn’t careful.
As they left the ship, panic gripped Lauren by the throat. “Where are you taking me?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice from wavering.
“To a holding cell.” His red-on-black eyes flickered to hers quickly and then away.
“But why?” Lauren begged. “This is the perfect opportunity—we can leave in the ship together. Just the two of us.”
“Do you think that scenario didn’t cross my mind?” he demanded in a low voice. “Unfortunately, it crossed my father’s mind as well. He has the control wand in his possession. I cannot start or steer the ship without it.”
Despite the bad news that the AllFather had the key to the ship, Lauren felt encouraged. At least Xairn had admitted wanting to take her away—or at least admitted to thinking about it. That was a definite start. “What are we going to do, then?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Stop talking—these hallways are monitored.”
Lauren was obediently silent as he nudged a button which opened a huge set of double doors that looked like they were made of some kind of metal alloy. The doors swung open silently, revealing a long central corridor with many smaller hallways leading off from it on either side.
Xairn stepped inside and the doors swung shut behind them with a finality that had the panic clawing at her throat again. Lauren refused to give in to the fear. Have to keep calm. Keep my head and trust that he wants me enough to keep me from his father. To keep him from… She cut off that line of thought abruptly and rode silently in Xairn’s arms as he walked down the long hallway, his boots echoing in the empty space.
Lauren supposed she could have walked by now—her legs felt fine. But she didn’t want to. The echoing, empty corridor was creepy—like some kind of a ghost town—and most of the smaller hallways leading off from it were dark and filled with shadows. The air was musty and foul and the few light panels that were on overhead flickered as though they might decide to go out at any time. It was like Xairn was carrying her into a haunted house—one she desperately wanted to escape from. But the man bringing her into it was her only hope of getting out again alive, so she clung to him for dear life.
At last they came to a slightly larger hallway branching off from the main one at an oblique angle. It was blocked by a set of metal doors exactly like the ones that had led into the building in the first place, only smaller. Xairn stopped and nudged a black button which caused the doors to slide silently into the wall, revealing a dimly lit space filled with glass doors and strange equipment.
“What is this place?” Lauren breathed, forgetting she wasn’t supposed to talk.
Xairn closed the door behind them before answering. “The medical wing. We can speak here. This wing is shielded from the rest of the Complex.”
“The medical wing?” she asked.
Xairn nodded. Where my father and his chief medical officers used to perform… experiments.”
“Experiments? What kind of experiments?” Lauren shivered as she looked around. There were several glassed in rooms—some were bare but one was set up like an operating theater. But the instruments that lay scattered on the floor and the exam table were strange and brutal. Saws with jagged teeth, long, thin picks with razor sharp points at their ends, something that looked like stainless steel barbed wire unwound in a lethal, shining line across the glassy red floor…
“What kind do you think?” Xairn said in a low voice.
Lauren felt sick. “Torture—my God, they tortured people here, didn’t they?” The fear she’d been trying to hold back suddenly grabbed her by the throat and she couldn’t breathe. “Oh please, Xairn. Please, no,” she whispered in a low, trembling voice. Clinging to him desperately, she buried her face in his neck. “Please…please don’t hurt me.”
“You think I brought you here to torture you?” he demanded hoarsely. “To take pleasure in your pain?”
“I…I don’t know.” The tears were coming now, hot and fast and there was nothing she could do to stop them. “Please, Xairn, please…”
“I won’t hurt you,” he said roughly. “Lauren, look at me.”
Reluctantly, she pulled her face away from his neck and looked up into those burning crimson eyes. “Yes?”
“I won’t hurt you,” he repeated. “And I won’t let anyone else hurt you either.”
“Not even your father?” she whispered.
“Especially not him. I won’t let him have you.” His eyes blazed and a muscle in his jaw clenched. “And I won’t let him harm you.”
“You…you won’t?” A rush of relief came over her so strongly she felt faint.
“No.” Xairn shook his head grimly. “I don’t know how I am going to manage it, but I swear on my honor, I will take you away from this place unharmed and bring you back to your home planet. Do you understand?”
“Oh Xairn!” She almost laughed through her tears. “I…I could just kiss you!” Throwing her arms around his neck she leaned forward impulsively and pressed her lips to his. They were surprisingly soft but before she could register much more, Xairn jerked away from the sudden contact.
“Don’t.” His deep voice was harsh, strained. “Don’t ever do that again, Lauren. Or I can’t be responsible for the consequences. Do you understand?”
Not really? Why did a simple kiss upset him so much? But she only nodded contritely. “I’m sorry. I’m just so glad. So glad you care about me enough to help me.”
“Let us be clear about one thing.” He held her eyes with his. “You have aroused emotions in me—very strong emotions. But that is not a good thing.”
Lauren stared at him uncertainly. “Do…do you mean that you hate me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not hate, no.” He shook his head. “What I feel for you…let’s just say it will be better—far better—if those feelings are never explored or acted on.”
“I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say,” Lauren said softly. “But I do want to thank you for promising to help me.”
“There’s no point in expressing your gratitude yet—I haven’t even worked out a plan.” He sighed. “Until I do, I must pretend to comply with my father’s will. And you’re going to have to trust me. Can you do that?”
Biting her lip, Lauren nodded hesitantly. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Thank you.” He nodded gravely. “That means a great deal to me. And now I have to put you in one of these cells and secure the rest of the Complex before reporting back to my father.”
“You’re leaving me alone? In here?” She couldn’t help glancing at the instruments of torture strewn around the surgery suite room again.
“Nothing will harm you,” Xairn said, his rough voice almost soothing. “We are the only creatures alive on this planet. Well—other than a few minor life forms like the black crested lizards. But they live mainly on the beaches and won’t come inside.” He shook his head. “The point is, you’ll be safe, even if I’m in another part of the building.”
“But what if…if your father decides he wants to come, uh, see me?” Lauren asked, unable to keep the fear out of her voice. “If he touches me, Xairn, I swear I’ll go crazy. I can’t help it.”
“He often has that effect on females,” Xairn said grimly. “But you don’t need to worry about him—not yet. He is ensconced in his Souda—it’s a special room within the Complex which channels the power of the planet directly to his person. Once he enters it, a dravik forms.”
Lauren frowned. “A what?”
“A dravik—a large bubble made of nourishing blood which forms around him. He can move about the Complex while ensconced within it, but until it bursts, he will be unable to touch you.”
“But how long will that be?” Lauren protested. The idea of the hideous, skeletal AllFather encased in a bubble made of blood was horrific enough. But the idea of him coming for her after the bubble had burst and he was covered in the stuff—well, it didn’t bear thinking about.
“At least a few hours—most likely more,” Xairn said patiently. “But you don’t need to fear—I will return for you long before that. I promise. I just have to lull my father into believing all is well and we’ll make our escape.”
“How? I thought your father had the only key to the ship we came in?”
“He does but there are abandoned ships not far from here—many of them—from the last battle that was fought here with the Kindred. We can take one of those—they should still be operational.”
“All right.” Lauren sighed and nodded. “I trust you to do right by me, Xairn. Just please hurry—this place gives me the creeps.”
“It has been the site of untold horrors,” he agreed, taking her into one of the empty, glassed in cells. “But they’re over and done and in the past. You have nothing to fear now.”
“I hope you’re right.” As he deposited her gently onto her feet, Lauren reached up impulsively and gave him a tight hug. “Come back soon,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
“I will come as soon as I can.” Xairn gently disengaged her arms from around his neck and when his face came into view, it wasn’t at all happy. “But you must stop touching me that way, Lauren. It…is not a good thing.”
“Because it makes you feel?” she asked softly.
Stiffly, Xairn nodded. “Yes. I must go now.”
“All right.” She stood with her back to one glass wall and watched as he locked her in. “Goodbye.”
“I’ll return,” he said shortly. “Remember, you’re perfectly safe. There is no one else on the entire planet besides the two of us, my father and his guards. And they are programmed to stay exclusively with him and protect him.”
“All right.” Lauren nodded and watched as he left the medical wing. She listened as the echo of his boots died away to silence and then began to pace. The glass holding cell was small—barely bigger than the one she’d been kept in aboard the Fathership, although thankfully larger than the tiny cramped space she’d been shoved into on the adjunct ship. Still, it only took her five steps to get from one end to the other and eight steps to go across diagonally.
Lauren supposed she ought to conserve her strength but she couldn’t help it—she was nervous. She had faith that Xairn would keep his word—or try to, anyway—but she didn’t like being locked in a cell on a dead planet with an evil being who wanted to rape her. Not to mention his monstrous, soulless guards. Those things were eight feet tall if they were an inch and she had no idea how Xairn was going to get around them if they got in the way when she and Xairn attempted their escape. Or—
Lauren stopped pacing suddenly and listened. What’s that sound?
At first she thought Xairn was coming back because the faint noise sounded like the echo of his boots in the hallway. But it was coming from the opposite direction he’d left from and soon she could tell that it wasn’t just one set of boots approaching her. There were at least two, maybe more, and the deep, masculine voices she heard murmuring over the tap-tapping of their boots were wholly unfamiliar.
My God, she thought, panic rising in her like a tidal wave. There are other people here—strangers—and I’m locked in this cell like a sitting duck. They can do anything they want to me and I can’t stop them, can’t get out.
She was trapped.
* * * * *
“I thought I told you not to disssturb me.” The AllFather floated forward, his skeletal form partially obscured by the round crimson-black orb of the dravik which surrounded him in a bubble of polluted blood. In each of the four corners of the Souda stood an eight foot tall soldier—the AllFather’s personal guard were silent as always. Xairn ignored them.
“I know what you said, Father, but I wanted to let you know that the Complex is secure.” He kept his voice neutral.
“I sssee.” The shape inside the blackish-red bubble nodded. “Well then, that isss all to the good. Where isss the girl?”
“Securely imprisoned within the medical wing, as you requested.”
“Very good. Sssee that ssshe isss ready.” The AllFather’s voice was a hiss of pure lust. “I’ll take her the moment my dravik burstsss.”
Xairn felt a muscle in his jaw clench and forced it to relax. Nothing I feel nothing. But it was no longer true. Lauren had woken something inside him. Something that would have been better left undisturbed.
“My ssson?” The AllFather floated closer, seeming to glide within the confines of the dravik. He was always in the exact center of the glistening, blackish-red bubble, no matter which way he moved. “Isss all well with you?” he enquired.
“Yes, Father.” Xairn did his best to appear stoic and unconcerned. “Of course.”
“I sssense sssomething from you. A disturbance…” Claw-like hands reached out but the AllFather couldn’t penetrate the wall of the dravik, which was feeding him power, and his fingertips stopped inches from Xairn’s face. Thankfully, the bloody bubble also kept his mental powers in check so he couldn’t rifle through Xairn’s mind—though it was obvious he could sense that something wasn’t as it should be.
Xairn didn’t move. “I yearn for the completion of the prophesy. The fulfillment of our race. Perhaps you sense that.”
“Perhapsss.” The fingers withdrew and the vast, quivering, slimy bubble moved away. “We ssshall sssee in time. For now, leave me and prepare the girl. My guardsss and I will be in the medical wing presently.”
“Of course, Father.” Xairn bowed submissively and left the room. As the door to the Souda hissed shut behind him, he took a deep breath and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes.
The feelings were growing stronger. The need to possess, to dominate, was flowering in his heart like an evil bloom. Xairn had always known that the seed was there—it was part of his very DNA. But he had hoped and prayed that it would never sprout, that he would never be tempted to the depravity he had witnessed for so long in his father.
I must be calm. I must repress these feelings for a little longer—until I can get Lauren safely home.
But how safe would she be if she was with him and the feelings continued to develop? Xairn feared to answer that question, even to himself. The need that was growing inside him was already so strong. Though he hated to admit it, he knew she would be better off away from him.
I must take her home as quickly as possible, Xairn thought. The need is too great, the desire already too strong within me. If she is to be kept safe, she must stay away from me.
The thought of just dropping her off on her home planet and leaving, made his heart ache fiercely. But it was the only way. And besides, what had he thought was going to happen between them? It wasn’t like he could stay with her once this was over. They had to go their separate ways and never see each other again.
His life would be empty again without her. Meaningless. But if he cared for her, the best thing he could do was take Lauren home and then chart a course for the farthest star he could find.
Lifting his chin, Xairn continued down the corridor, heading for the medical wing. He had no time for the storm of emotions boiling within him now—there was a plan to carry out.
And if it didn’t succeed, they were dead.