Chapter Two

Khal

 

 

W ith the drugs they’d pumped into me, it was hard to focus. Not so hard to scent, though. I caught the reek of fear mixed with excitement from the curly-haired woman outside my cell, her face pressed to the viewing hatch. The guard who would never enter the sparse room but had, for days now, slid a tray of cold slop across the floor toward the hard sirdar bench that served as my bed, gave off a stench of his own, but always feigned indifference. At least when the door between us was safely locked.

This other woman, though. She tumbled to the filthy stone floor, remaining on one hand and her knees, her left arm pressed to her stomach. Her position almost feline, her back arched as though she was ready to either pounce or flee. Yet she didn’t give off any kind of fear. More a resilience, a barely controlled anger as though, despite her ragged, emaciated appearance, she had a core of gypsa, the unbreakable gem melded by heat and pressure, beauty formed in the ugliest of conditions.

I swung my legs from the bed, planting my bare feet on the gritty stone. My movement was slow, thanks to the combination of drugs retarding the healing of the laser wounds across my chest, and the black and blue markings— shaded with yellow, now—that patterned my tan skin. Not that the guards dared beat me while I was conscious. No, they waited until the drug they darted into me from the safety of the observation hatch had taken effect. Then they’d pile in, boots and fists flying.

Never any questions from them, nor demands.

I knew the tactic. Brute force used as a conditioning tool to inspire debilitating fear, so I’d quake whenever I heard the rattle of my door, signifying someone approached.

Shame these bastards didn’t realize they didn’t have what it’d take to scare me. No one did.

They could piss me off all they liked, but I was a Cheetakin shifter; they had no hope of subduing me. The second these damn drugs cleared my system, they’d pay for every minute I’d spent in this room. This woman, though, what had they done to her? How was it she didn’t seem cowed?

Unless she was Regime, a spy sent in to coerce information from me.

I scented carefully again, pulling the odors over my vomeronasal organ and separating them.

If she was a spy, they’d taken her disguise to the next level. Sure, what appeared to be bruises on the pale face she tilted toward me could be makeup. But there was no faking the metallic tang of dried blood in the stagnant air of my cell.

Blood that wasn’t mine.

I thrust to my feet, taking a moment to allow the pain to scream through my thighs, reminding me of my most recent beating. Good. The memento would fuel my anger, stoke the fire that I’d let burn inside until my opportunity came.

When the Regime forces caught me, I’d been creating a diversion. It’d been Leo’s idea for me to draw the guards away from him and Janie while they hit the medical center. They intended to hack the mainframe within the lab and destroy the data the Regime had compiled on some DNA project that Janie, our doctor, said threatened the lives of both us Felidaekin and the Glians.

Having bought them time, I was supposed to breach one of the gates in the wall encircling the compound and flee across the desert. We’d reconnoiter with the other two cat shifters from our team, Herc and Jag, in the Resistance headquarters far to the north.

As soon as Leo laid out the plan, I’d known that there was no way for all three of us to get clear. Though the Regime forces were below optimum numbers, with the bulk of the army deployed to attack the Resistance stronghold several days’ march away, the compound still housed enough soldiers, armed with enough firepower, to cause serious shit for a couple of cat shifter mercenaries.

I’d warned Janie and Leo that their attempt to break into the med lab and destroy the Regime’s research was a suicide mission.

What neither of them had realized was that it was my own death I’d been predicting.

I took a step toward the woman in my cell, and her eyes narrowed at my approach. Pain lanced through my thighs, which had taken the brunt of yesterday’s beating, forcing a grunt from my swollen lips.

Shame I hadn’t been right.

Death would hurt a fuckload less than this.

In a lithe movement almost too quick for me to catch, the woman shifted to her haunches.

I paused, testing the air. No fresh waft of blood, but maybe the filth that covered her masked it. “Who are you?” My voice came out like I gargled a mouthful of pebbles. Not surprising, as I’d not used it for days. Suspecting that part of the reason the guards beat me was to goad me into shifting, I’d refused, taking their blows on my human form. I’d not so much as roared since I’d first been brought in here.

Now, I wasn’t even sure I could shift.

The woman rifled one hand through her short, spiky hair, revealing bruised, grazed knuckles. But she didn’t reply. Maybe she didn’t speak the common tongue.

I shrugged, regretting the movement instantly, and spoke more slowly. “Okay, let’s try ‘what are you’?”

Her head snapped up, gaze narrowing as a frown creased her forehead. “What?” Her voice sounded as rusty as my own.

“Regime? Resistance? What?”

The frown fled, as though there were worse things I could’ve asked her. “What’s it to you?”

Great. I’d be better off without a cellmate than with one who was going to snap and snarl worse than a feral she-cat.

I retreated to my bunk and sat on it. Maybe with more room—not that there was much to be had in the tiny cell—she’d feel less defensive. “I’m Khal.”

She stood, her forearm still protectively pressed against her stomach. “I can see you’re not a coward. And it seems the Regime has no love for you either,” her chin jerked at my injuries. “So, what are you?”

“Mercenary,” I said. That was as close to declaring a side as I planned to come right now. Though I guess it’d be common knowledge that the cat shifters had turned traitor and thrown their lot in with the rebels—despite being hired by the Regime—given that Herc had lit out across the desert after his woman, Maya, when she fled to join the Resistance.

Hopefully, Leo and Janie had also made it out of the compound.

Hells, we were going to be in a fuckload of trouble back on Aaidar when news of our defection reached the government. Not that it looked like I’d ever be getting back there to face the music.

“Hired by whom?”

The woman’s question surprised me. Not only the phrase, but the articulation, snapped out like a command.

I lifted one eyebrow, aware of the tight drag of a crusted gash across my forehead as it split open yet again, blood oozing down despite my attempt to palm it aside. For some reason, the ring of authority in her words pulled me back to my feet like I needed to stand at attention. “Seems you’ve already got two answers up on me.” I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting.

She stared at me unblinkingly for a long moment, then nodded curtly. “My name is…Lyrie.”

No missing the hesitation in her voice, as if the name was unfamiliar on her tongue.

Her chin lifted. “I’m with the Resistance.”

The words were thrown out proudly, almost a challenge, but as I shuffled the few steps across the cell, she flinched. Then she squared her shoulders, her nostrils flaring, her lips clamped together as she faced me fiercely.

The knowledge hit me with a visceral punch; she expected me to strike her.

Instead, I extended my hand, waiting for her to reciprocate. When she did, I turned my wrist, bowed, and pressed my lips to her scabbed knuckles. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Lyrie.”

She snatched her hand back, clenching it. Her gaze traveled from me to her fist. “How did you—” she bit at her lips, holding back whatever she’d been going to say. “And your allegiance?”

“Told you. I’m a merc. Guns, fangs, and claws for hire. Until recently, to the Regime.”

She shook her head. “That’s your employer. Not your allegiance.”

“You’re suggesting I don’t give my loyalty to my employer?”

“Given who your employer is, I hope not. And considering your state, I assume not.” She nodded at the gash on my forehead. “You should clean that up. Infection runs rampant in this shit hole.”

“It’ll heal soon enough.”

“Here.” She awkwardly ripped a piece of fabric from her tattered tunic with one hand. “Did the guard give you water? At least wipe the worst of the blood away.” She gestured impatiently with the rag as I didn’t take it. “Don’t expect me to do it for you.”

“I’m Felidaekin. It’ll heal itself.” Gods knew why I felt compelled to share the fact with her. Maybe I was just trying to reassure myself, given how long the damn process was taking lately.

She took a step back, brought up short by the jagged rock wall. “Cat shifter? Really?” Somehow, her words held more curiosity than the alarm I half-expected.

“Well, I’d offer to show you, but I’m not really in top form at the moment.” I waved a hand down my naked torso, the bruises shining through prison muck.

“How did they take you down?” Her interest quickened. “I’d…heard you were invincible?” She made an odd noise in her throat, something between a chuckle and a snort. “There again, I also thought you were a dream or something.”

“I’m sure some women consider me a dream,” I couldn’t resist the line, though the situation sure as hell wasn’t conducive to flirting. Still, it could be my last chance. Ever. Scoping for opportunity was habit, second nature to any jag. Apparently, it didn’t matter how beat-up I was.

She scowled. “Myth would’ve been a better word choice. Why aren’t you healed, if you’re a shifter?”

Clearly, she had no intention of being won over by my tongue. Which was fine, as my tongue had no intention of going anywhere near her filthy, gaunt form, and I had neither the interest nor the energy to do anything beyond making a bit of desultory conversation, anyway. My head throbbed, and one of my ribs was definitely broken, jabbing into my skin.

That sucker was going to be an issue when I shifted. I’d been shifting for nearly twenty years, since I was a teen, and it still hurt every damn time. My Cheetahkin form was about the same size and weight as my human form, but my muscles, bones and sinew had to crack and break to change position. I could only imagine what hell shifting was for Herc and Leo, who were even larger in their cat forms.

I waved a hand toward the prison hatch, the only opening in the windowless cell. My ears twitched as I made sure the curly-haired woman had moved away and no guard lurked to overhear my confession. No need for them to know they were succeeding in keeping me subdued. “Maybe because those bastards keep shooting darts through that damn door. Crap litters the floor like dead stingers, but they eventually get me with one or two.”

“Penner,” she breathed.

“Huh?’

“The drug they’re darting you with. It’ll be Penner. Are you getting side effects?”

I shrugged, then decided I really needed to sit again, fairly quickly. “At the moment, I wouldn’t know what’s a side effect from their drugs and what comes from getting kicked in the head when I’m unconscious.”

She edged closer and used the rag to dab at my forehead, like smearing the blood around was preferable to letting it run free. Or maybe she was trying to staunch the flow because the cell now reeked of the iron tang of blood. Even though she lacked my feline senses, it’d have to be offending her nose.

As she clumsily pressed the wound, I reared back, shoving reflexively at her. My hand caught her left arm, still braced across her stomach, and she gasped, staggering back. Her face paled, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead.

Ignoring the pain, I leapt to my feet and reached for her, grasping her shoulders and steadying her as it looked like she’d fall.

She closed her eyes for a few seconds, sucking in ragged breaths. When she seemed to have regained some control, I took her left wrist, gently this time. “Let me see.”

I expected to shift her arm and uncover bruising or something similar on her stomach, given her tattered, beaten appearance. But as my fingers closed around her forearm, her right hand shoved against me, surprisingly strong. “Don’t move it.”

“It?”

“My arm.”

My fingers tracking lightly up her arm, I realized why. Hidden beneath the sleeve of her tunic, the limb was swollen, yet I could feel the bone beneath the ballooned flesh. Or more correctly, I could feel the pieces of bone. “Broken?”

She nodded.

“How?”

She rolled her eyes, a quick, humorless grin quirking her lips “Would you believe I slipped and fell on the way here?”

Sudden anger surged through me, the rush of adrenalin spiking my own pain. Bastards. Even if she was a Resistance sympathizer, what could this woman have ever done to deserve such treatment? That settled it. When I got out, Lyrie was getting the hell out, too.

“Sit,” I said, gesturing at my hard bunk.

She looked from it to me for a moment, as though she’d refuse, then gave a jerky nod. I noticed she lowered herself as carefully as I had, giving away hidden injuries.

I grunted with disgust as I peeled her sleeve back.

She glanced at her distorted arm, then fixed her gaze on the wall beyond my shoulder. “Looks worse than it feels.”

“I doubt that.”

“They just shot me up with pain killers. Doesn’t hurt now. Not unless someone grabs it, anyway.”

“Then while it doesn’t hurt, I’m going to bind it.”

A premonition of pain flashed across her face. “I’m pretty sure that’ll equate to someone grabbing it.”

“Can’t be helped. You want it to set straight, right?”

She took a deep breath, blowing it out between pursed lips. “Not at all sure I want that, right now. But yeah, do it while I’m doped up.”

There wasn’t enough fabric left on her tunic to make a decent wrapping so, concentrating so hard my shoulders shook, I forced my claws from the ends of my fingers, slashing at the fabric of my shirt, which I’d been using as a pillow.

Lyrie never took her eyes off me, a frown marking her forehead as she watched my claws, almost unblinkingly. “Gods, if I had weapons like that…”

“You’d likely be in the same position as I’m in right now,” I finished for her. “This is not a great place to be a cat shifter.”

“There are better places?”

I knelt before her, hiding my own wince. “Plenty.”

“Tell me.”

I figured she was talking to distract herself, though as I bound her arm, her questions stopped, her teeth embedded in her lower lip.

“Aaidar, for one,” I said, winding the fabric.

“That’s—” she broke off, shaking her head, so I picked up the conversation.

“That’s where I’m from. Plenty of cat shifters. And other kinds, too.” I rattled off a load of the different shifters, heaping shit on the more pathetic varieties like honey badgers, as I tried to divert her.

By the time I’d finished, blood stained Lyrie’s lip and her teeth.

“Okay,” I wiped my hands on my camos, as though I could rid myself of the taint of her pain, then straightened slowly, every muscle aching. “Well, we’re a great pair, aren’t we? Hope you’ve got some awesome plan for how we’re busting out of here, Lyrie, because I’m not sure either of us will last too much longer.” Nor did I have the faintest idea why the Regime had suddenly decided I needed her company.

“Does anyone know you’re here?” Her tongue worked through the blood on her lip and she grimaced.

“Doubt it. The rest of my guys should be safe with the Resistance, now.”

“Rest of you? There are more shifters here? How many?”

“Five.” I winced as I remembered Spike’s death, days earlier, taken out by an armed drone. “Four, now.”

Her gaze rested on mine for a long moment, the green iris hazed by blood. “You lost one of your brothers? I’m sorry. But you said your guys have gone to the Resistance? You’ve chosen a side, then?”

I nodded, taking a seat beside her. Guess we both needed to grab whatever rest we could. “My alpha, Herc. He bonded with a Resistance sympathizer. She fled the compound, and he went after her. Sent word for the rest of us to follow.”

Lyrie jerked upright, twisting toward me. “Someone escaped the compound?” I frowned at her sudden eagerness, and she glanced away, lifting one shoulder. “I know some of the sympathizers here. Obviously. Just wondered who managed to get out.”

“A load of rebel—I mean, Resistance—prisoners got out. Led by a nurse from here. Maya. Do you know her?”

Lyrie was silent for a moment, then she nodded firmly. “I know of her. Now, this plan of yours to get us out.”

“Wish I had a plan, Lyrie. Unless the Resistance are likely to come looking for you, I’ve got nothing.”

She shook her head. “They don’t know I’m—”

She broke off as I held up a hand to silence her. Footsteps approached from far down the corridor. I moved to the grid in the door, scenting. Overlaying the mustiness of the underground corridor was a whiff of the merspice that our commanding officer—my former C.O., now, I suppose—wore by the bucket load, reeking like an expensive purchase-mate in an upmarket sleaze-easy.

A snarl curled my lip, and I prowled back to the bunk. “Smithton. And someone I don’t recognize.”

“General Hartlin, most likely.”

I’d sat close enough that I could feel the tremor run through Lyrie’s body as she spat the name. Hartlin had to be Janie’s estranged father, who’d sent troops after her and Leo.

Now I had names for those who’d caused her harm. Men who thought it permissible to beat up on a defenseless woman.

The hatch covering the grille slammed back, and Smithton peered in.

He stepped aside and another face appeared at the small opening. Purple eyes glared at me, then ranged to Lyrie before moving away.

“Hartlin,” Lyrie murmured.

I’d already figured that. Janie had the same striking feature.

Keys jangled and the door unlocked, the snub nose of a Teyraus rifle poking in before the guard appeared warily behind it, Hartlin and Smithton beyond him.

“I hope you appreciate that we’ve given you company, shifter,” Hartlin enunciated clearly, his back ramrod straight.

“I’d appreciate freedom somewhat more.” My eyes quickly assessed his uniform, the epaulettes on his shoulders. “General. I have a right to know on what charges I’ve been detained. Under what ordinance do you hold me?”

He moved his head minimally. “Think of it as an extended R&R break.” He clicked his fingers in Smithton’s face.

“Khal. Cheetahkin,” my C.O. supplied.

Hartlin barely nodded. “Consider it R&R, Khal. You’ve only one duty, here. As you can see, we’ve supplied you with a purchase-mate. Fortunately for you, she’s been held long enough that we’re certain she’s at the peak of her breeding cycle. She’s also been injected with hormones daily to ensure her fertility.”

I felt Lyrie tense beside me, her shoulders rolling forward as though she’d pounce on Hartlin. Yeah, right. Even I wouldn’t do that with both the armed guard and Smithton standing there.

Hartlin raked a hand through his peppered hair, his jaw ticking with anger. “You can thank the Resistance for your new duty. Their destruction of years of study and meticulous DNA analysis forces my hand, now. Where I would’ve chosen to proceed more cautiously, in fact, had experimented prudently, the loss of the research means we’re running out of time. I don’t have the luxury of replicating the experiments, which means now I’ll need an advanced specimen for tissue sampling, along with umbilical cord blood for gene replication, if the crossbreeding project proves successful. Your sole duty is to impregnate this…” his gaze swept Lyrie disdainfully. “This sample.”

Lyrie recoiled from me, as though she thought I’d actually pin her down and do it this second, right in front of whoever wanted to watch.

I jerked to my feet. “Hells, no.”

“In cat form,” Smithton interjected, his eyes darting from me to Lyrie, his fingers twitching like a centrian’s hairy little legs.

Disbelief made his words ring in my head, as the cold of the stone room seeped into my bones, dread oozing through my veins. It wasn’t possible for Felidaekin to mate with non-Felidaekin in cat form. Gods, it wasn’t right, never mind possible. I shook my head.

Hartlin said calmly, “I thought you might have reservations. Therefore, I’ve arranged for some persuasion.”

I snorted, and waved a hand down my bruised torso. “Haven’t you learned that doesn’t work?”

“Indeed. Accordingly, this time my men won’t touch you.”

I stiffened, my eyes sliding to Lyrie, but Hartlin shook his head. “Or her. We need the breeding stock.”

I frowned. Why would I care who else they tortured? I mean, sure, I didn’t want them to hurt anyone, but it was implausible they thought to persuade me with the faceless, nameless plight of some stranger.

Hartlin clicked his fingers again, and Smithton pressed the com in his ear, turning away slightly, as though that’d prevent me hearing him. Idiot.

“Do it now,” he said.

The door of the room vibrated as a guttural snarl curled around us, and I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears. Shock bowed my knees, and I dropped to the bunk as the blood rushed from my muscles.

Cheetahkin couldn’t roar. Instead, we snarled. The guys always ripped into me about it.

Almost all the guys.

Except one.

The impossibility screwed with my mind. Because I knew that snarl. I’d heard it so many times, though always in fierce anger, a battle challenge or thrilled bloodlust, compensating for the fact that, like me, he couldn’t roar.

But never had I heard the pain and fear that now rattled the solid door of my prison.

Only a puma growled like that.

And there was only one puma on this damned planet.

One dead puma.

Spike.