Chapter Seven

 

Treffon saw Violet’s face go pale. She blinked back tears at the sadness of it. In anyone else, he would have been annoyed by such weakness, but in her, oddly, he found it made him like her even more. And it made him trust her with his secret – the secret he’d kept inside for years.

“I’m so sorry. How did it happen?”

“I do not know. I never met her,” he admitted.

She looked at him in confusion. “Are you making fun of me again?”

“I was never making fun of you in the first place, I promise you. As for my true mate…I felt her presence for many years. This is not unusual for a Vulfan, and especially for a Reginar…we have strong psychic abilities. I felt as if she needed me, as if she was waiting for me. I searched everywhere for her, but I never found her.” The shame of it stabbed at him like a hot poker.

“Oh. I am very, very sorry. But how do you know she’s dead?”

“I cannot feel her anymore. Bit by bit, the connection that I felt to her faded until it was gone completely.” He scowled. “Nobody else knows of this.”

“I would never tell anyone,” she assured him.

“I know.” He meant it, too. He had a feeling he could trust her completely. Then he glanced over at Dorcas and the pack of Eeplings. “We will leave now,” he said. “If you want to bring that oldling with us, then you must fetch her at once. Otherwise I will pick you up and take you to my ship right now.”

“And he’s back to being a dick again,” she said, addressing the heavens. She looked him in the eye. He liked how bold she was, how fierce. Few Vulfans dared challenge him.

“I’m not leaving the Eeplings,” she informed him. “And you can’t kidnap me. You have no legal right to take me.”

He laughed at that. “On Ilyria? I am the law.”

“If you take me away from the Eeplings before we can get them back home, I will keep running away,” she threatened. “You can’t watch me all the time. I’m sneakier than you think.”

He felt a surge of frustration. Perhaps her feisty nature was not so admirable after all. “I am trying to protect you, foolish human!”

“I didn’t ask for your protection, and I can’t leave a bunch of helpless children alone in this dump.” She gestured at the camp.

Two huge, bull-like aliens with tusks curving from their massive lower jaws were circling each other. One charged, his head down, and they collided with a heavy smack, then began grappling. A meandering queue for rations curved around the fight, some of the aliens waiting patiently while others cheered on the brawling creatures. Far from stepping in, one of the guards seemed to be taking bets on who would win.

Several tiny, birdlike aliens fled chattering in terror from the lazy, loping pursuit of a humanoid half-shifted into a big, spotted cat. A female, clutching a ragged pair of trousers, gave chase, spitting feline curses at her wayward mate.

Treffon considered. She was a stubborn one, all right. And he suspected that if he simply used brute force on her, it would somehow not end well. He did not want her to hate him. He had no idea why he felt that way, but he did.

“I will make you an offer. If you agree to stay with me and let me guard you, I will let you bring the Eeplings with us. I will find a way to contact their families, if their families are still alive, and I will ensure safe passage for them. While we wait, I will enroll them in our school.”

“Couldn’t they travel by transporter?” she asked.

“There needs to be a functioning transporter on the other end. For security reasons, there are no transport trips going to any areas that are currently harboring cyborgs.”

She stared up at him, frowning. Finally she heaved a sigh, which made her chest rise and fall in a most tantalizing fashion. “I’ll do it,” she agreed reluctantly.

She looked around at the camp again. “This place is a disaster. Those big horned beasts keep stealing food from the weaker aliens. Fights breaking out all over. Can you do anything about it before we leave?”

She stifled a yawn. It was getting late.

He nodded. “I do not like to see such disorder anywhere on Ilyria. When I left this place a week ago, everything was running smoothly. I will find out what went wrong. Stay with your oldling and remain where I can see you until I have taken care of this.”

Violet shot him an annoyed look. “Have you heard of the word please?”

He answered her with a look of puzzlement. “A word that weaklings use in an attempt to get their way?”

She snorted. “I’m glad I’m not your true mate, because you’re rude, and you’re mean.” And she turned and stalked off, heading for the old woman who was playing with the Eeplings.

He yelled after her, “And I am glad you are not my true mate, because…because…” he couldn’t find a reason. “Because!” he finished angrily, and stomped off to find the Chief Peacemaker.

The Peacemaker winced when he saw Treffon.

“This is unacceptable,” Treffon informed him. “There were no fights when we were here last week; the situation has deteriorated, and I will not tolerate it. We will donate housing structures to keep the different groups separate so they are less likely to clash.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do they have enough food?”

“They have plenty of food. We serve meals three times a day, and they can eat as much as they want.” The guard sounded aggrieved.

“What are you doing to keep these people busy?”

“Well, we…we were playing holovids for them in the main hall, but they kept getting into fights with each other, so we stopped offering the holovids. As a punishment.” The guard scowled and looked away. “It’s not our fault the cyborgs are poisoning their solar system.”

“Right. Well done.” Treffon’s tone was laden with sarcasm. He glanced at the overflowing trash that had been tossed all over the camp. Then he marched over to a table, climbed onto it, and bellowed, “Attention!” At the same time, he sent out a blast of mild anger – not enough to cause them pain, but enough to make them take notice.

The chatter and caterwauling ceased instantly.

“The next time I witness an assault or a crime against another person, there will be no detention hut. I will end you right on the spot. Understood?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“I can’t hear you! I expect a yes, sir!”

“Yes, sir!” came from all corners of the camp.

“Now. I am sure you do not wish to live in a garbage dump. We will begin cleanup immediately. Come forward so I can start organizing cleaning crews.”

He quickly formed ten cleaning crews and assigned captains. He had the guard turn off the communications damper, and called Tristao to tell him to send ten guards and to request the same of the Wor-Lans.

Then he glanced over at Violet, and saw the way she was looking at him. Her earlier look of annoyance had been replaced by one of approval.

He felt a swelling of happiness deep within him. It made him feel warm all over.

The glow of happiness was replaced just as quickly by a dark cloud of gloom. He would find out who was trying to kill her, and he would kill them, and then she would be safe again.

And then she would leave.

And find “the one”, as she put it. And she would have a wedding or pair-bond ceremony, depending on who she found. And he would go to the ceremony and kill the man who’d dared lay his hands on—

No!

He quickly banished the mental image of himself bashing in the head of some quailing male. Where had that thought come from? Of course he would not do that. He could not deny Violet her happiness.

He deliberately avoided meeting her gaze, and walked over to the opposite end of the compound. He was a master at denying his feelings, his true desires. Being close to Violet felt too right and good. He would not allow himself to get used to it.

He nodded his approval at a skinny stalk-like alien who was picking up trash.

“Well done,” he said to it, and the alien responded with a trill of happiness.

“Treffon?”

He started. He hadn’t noticed Violet walking up behind him. What was wrong with him? He’d been concentrating so hard on not paying attention to her, on not wanting her, that he had let his guard down.

He had never, ever, not even as a cub, let his guard down like that. He hadn’t dared. His father had sent assassins to test his readiness, to ensure that he was ever vigilant. And if he had failed to detect, evade and kill them, his father would have allowed them to kill Treffon. Treffon’s two older brothers had been killed that way – with the full support of Treffon’s mother. Treffon’s father never tired of reminding him of that.

Treffon had wept when his first brother had died. His father had responded by breaking every bone in Treffon’s body and tossing his limp body into the middle of a forest to survive or die, he did not care which.

That was the last time Treffon had cried.

He wrenched his attention back to the present.

“This is amazing,” Violet said. “You’re keeping them busy and giving them a sense of purpose and control over their situation. I can see the mood improving already.”

“Yes, it is.” He tried to keep his voice gruff and unwelcoming, but it didn’t seem to work. She was smiling and exuding happiness – he could feel it streaming from her. It was making him want to smile too.

He put his hand to his mouth. Was it some kind of contagious virus? Why did he always want to smile when she was near him?

“You should stay with the oldling,” he told her.

She stifled a laugh behind her hand. “The oldling’s name is Dorcas, and if she hears you call her an oldling, she’s liable to whack you with her cane.”

“So she is related to you, then?”

Violet giggled. “Did you just make a joke?”

“I did not mean to.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You know, you could actually be sweet and charming if you weren’t such an obnoxious, horrible jerk of a bully.”

And she walked away, leaving Treffon scratching his head and trying to figure out if she had just insulted him or not.