When Tracy awoke, it was to a delicious soreness. A satisfied smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Jazon had claimed her as his woman. Joy unlike anything she had ever felt bubbled up inside of her. He was a solid, warm mass behind her verifying that the incredible passion he had shared with her the night before had been real. A blush heated her cheeks at the memory. Her hybrid warrior excelled at protecting her from sea snakes and commanding his own. Jazon’s laughter rumbled through his chest. Tracy lifted up and kissed his stubbly jaw. Then, she pressed her face to his neck and inhaled.
“You are even more beautiful when you wake. I had thought while you were sleeping that you were the most beautiful creation that I had ever before witnessed in the universes.” Jazon meant the words and through the new bonds they shared seemed to caress her soul with the power of his love. She laid against him and let his feeling for her wash her clean. “Tracy, take me as your husband. I beg you. Any attempt to live my life without you now would fail.”
She ran her palm over the hard muscles of his chest and moved the sole of her foot up and down against the crinkly hairs on his leg. She drew in a breath when her motions left her juncture open to his hairy thigh.
“You bound us together last night. I am yours, and you are mine. We can never be parted, or we would both be broken pieces. Our minds and emotions are joined like two sides of a shell. Our souls will create together our own pearl as we overcome each grain of sand together.”
Jazon, who Teagan had nicknamed Knife, died in Tracy’s arms. Her love, desire, and acceptance had killed him. Jazon tumbled Tracy beneath him and rolled pleasure through her as he made slow, passionate, love to her. After they had showered, dressed, and had breakfast, Jazon went down on his knees before her as Parvac males did.
“Lady Tracy Heintz, I formally offer myself and all that I am to you. Will you accept me as your husband?”
Tracy’s heart thudded in her chest as she looked down into Jazon’s black eyes, now ringed with white sclera. “I will.”
Her words were cut short as Jazon surged to his feet, took her into his embrace, and kissed her until she saw stars. He knew what she had been prepared to say. She was promising to be loyal and obedient as all Eriopis females vowed to their husbands. Jazon helped Tracy sit on the couch and then fumbled with his vid-screen. His hands shook and in embarrassment, he wiped at his tears.
“Allow me,” Captain Agata offered.
Jazon handed the device to him. Captain Agata had a wife who had given him a daughter. He pulled up a standard Parvac marriage contract. In the contract, Jazon gave Tracy the standard half of his credits. She would want for nothing. In his former life as an outcast mercenary with his brothers, he had amassed a fortune doing the dirty work of the rich and powerful. Captain Agata returned the vid-screen to Jazon. After giving it a glance, he pressed his palm to the screen and handed it to Tracy.
Her thoughts had cleared from his kisses. Being a pragmatic young woman, she sat and read the entire contract. “Jazon! This is too much! How do you have so many credits?” She was shocked by his wealth which pleased him.
“You will want for nothing. On Parvac, you may purchase whichever home you wish. There are universities in the Empire where you may continue your studies. You may do anything you desire. I am bound in service to the Imperial family. Where Princess Probus goes, I must go. When, like now, I am ordered to complete a mission, that is what I must do. You will have the freedom to either join me or remain in the Empire.” Jazon felt sweat beading beneath his armpits. What if she changed her mind?
“It is a standard marriage contract for the Empire, Lady Tracy,” Captain Agata said.
Tracy said, “I don’t need any enticements to marry you other than yourself.”
Jazon grinned at her as pride bloomed in his chest. “Then, accept me. To offer you less would be unseemly.”
Tracy pressed her palm to the screen. Jazon felt like he could fly. He smiled up at Tracy before hiding his face in her lap. He felt her fingers in his hair. Jazon had a true home all of his own in this woman. “I need to complete my mission so that I can take you home. I can’t wait to show you off at every ball.”
Tracy laughed. Jazon lifted his head and frowned. His expression prompted her to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“I need to keep you safe.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing. You saved me from Strass, a sea snake, and Lord Radford’s guards.”
Jazon took Tracy’s hands in his and kissed her fingers. “I must find the one responsible for the creation of the former Ambassador Jiri’s clones. Our futures depend on it.”
With redoubled efforts, Captain Agata, Lieutenant Vasco, and Jazon prepared for the infiltration of the lab on Leucon. The area where they would be docking was a frozen wasteland. Regardless of the long hours devoted to planning, the trip had consisted of the happiest days of Jazon’s life. Tracy often looked up to find Jazon staring at her with a smile on his face.
Falling in love with Jazon had made it clear to Tracy how little she really knew. After earning her degree and having a relationship with Strass, she had thought herself to be knowledgeable and worldly. However, she had been blind to the truth and had allowed the preconceived and unfounded prejudices of others to influence her own perceptions. She was thankful that she hadn’t come to her senses too late. However, now she had a job to do. Lieutenant Vasco had taught her how to search the communications frequencies for the signature associated with the regeneration cloning serum they had been tracking. She documented each of the small quantities of the serum that arrived with the nanite shipments on Leucon from the distributor on Epopeus. They would pay for their culpability in her father’s death.
Tracy smiled. He hadn’t been able to sneak up on her since he had telepathically and empathically bound them together. It didn’t stop him from trying. “What gave me away this time?” Jazon asked.
“Well, I didn’t hear you or smell you. I didn’t sense your thoughts or see your reflection in the console.”
“Then, how did you know?”
Tracy swiveled her chair around and stood up to kiss her husband. “I could feel your love warming my back like a fire on a cold night.”
Jazon brought his lips down to Tracy’s and enjoyed the soft press of her lips to his.
“We’re heading out. I want you to stay onboard. When I get back, I’m the one who is going the need to be warmed up.”
“Be careful,” Tracy pleaded.
“I will. There’s nothing I want more than to return to you.”
Tracy watched as he left. Then, she allowed her mind to be consumed once again by her assignment.
Jazon, Agata, and Vasco blended in seamlessly with their surroundings. Their white gear covered them from head to toes. Snow fell quickly and concealed the tracks made by their gliders. The machines slid noiselessly to their agreed upon point of entry. The cloning facility was located far beneath Leucon’s surface beneath an ancient stone fortress. Their imaging technology had allowed their scans to penetrate the otherwise impregnable shielding surrounding the fortress above the illegal lab. They worked quickly to set up a modified mining drill. Anything stronger would register on internal security scans.
Vasco placed the shield stabilizer into the ground. He had attached it to a spike as protection against any possible seismic tremors that might occur and disrupt it. The pocket of shielding prevented cold air from rushing into the space they had just drilled into an airshaft. They had to trust that no guards would venture out into the blizzard to investigate the mound of snow that had begun to form around their shield.
Jazon dropped silently into the opening and took the packs Agata passed down to him. When the two inquisitors joined him, they crawled through the airshaft on their hands and knees until they arrived at the first vent opening. While Jazon scanned, Agata and Vasco removed their snow gear and stowed it in their packs. Then, Vasco dropped down into the restroom below. Jazon stowed his gear while Agata continued to scan for life signs. The facility was crawling with guards at the upper levels. Jazon and Agata dropped down to join Vasco.
The three men had to communicate with hand gestures. The Parvacs were skilled warriors, but they weren’t telepaths like his brothers. While they scanned with their technology, Jazon hunted with his mind. He found a blank spot and then another. It was almost as though the life forms wore neural blockers but not quite. The minds functioned but had no thoughts. Their minds were simply being used to control their bodies’ regulatory systems.
Jazon motioned, and they spread out with their weapons drawn. Jazon led them down two more levels using a set of ancient stone stairs. They made it down to the lab without being discovered. At the bottom of the stairs, they found a thick wall of plasti-glass. Jazon moved aside and provided cover while Vasco applied a dissolving enzyme to the wall in front of them. They had agreed it would be best to avoid security checks while entering the lab. Their goal was to amass as much information as possible and destroy the clones before either slipping out the way they had come or fighting their way out through the front. Vasco had made the hole in the plasti wall large enough for them to crawl through at floor level.
They remained crouched down low and close together. Jazon concentrated on keeping their minds hidden from the Laconian scientists present. He kept his back to Agata and Vasco. Vasco began hacking into the lab computers and downloading the contents of their amassed research and knowledge. In turn, Agata worked efficiently to send all of the data to their ship where an automatic encoding system transmitted all of the information to Inquisitor spy stations at unknown locations. Leucon was too distant for them to transmit their data directly to Parvac, and they didn’t trust the security of the relay system in Laconian space. If they were killed during their mission, it wouldn’t be for nothing.
Vasco and Agata were among the best operatives the Inquisitors had to offer. They completed their tasks faster than Jazon had expected. Each of them secured data chips with the copied files within their body armor. The armor had been embedded with force activated shielding. None of them would ever forget what Felix had done to General Luca Braga.
The things Jazon wanted to do to punish Felix made him a monster in his own mind, but he wasn’t alone in it. The team moved forward. Jazon realized the magnitude of his erroneous thinking on Aurilius. The lab where he had found Tracy was nothing in comparison to the one before him. The lab’s robotically operated equipment was enclosed in sterilized plasti-glass environments. Scientists controlled their work with vid-screens. The laboratory was huge.
Jazon and his team concealed themselves behind a large cryogenic freezer and watched the lab and its occupants through feedback from a miniature drone camera. Two naked, hairless clones of the former Ambassador Felix Jiri were attached to neural stimulators. From the mind of the scientist working with the clones, Jazon learned that he was attempting to download Felix’s memories and personality traits into their brains. Agata stared into Jazon’s eyes. He had his orders.
Concentrating on the clone farthest from the scientist, Jazon convinced its brain to stop breathing. Monitors began blaring throughout the lab. The scientist rushed to the clone, identified the problem, and attached the clone to a ventilator.
“Stop what you’re doing, or the girl dies screaming,” a man said through the lab’s communications system. “Did you think your ship’s defenses to be impregnable? Look around you. I’ve been expecting you since you took out the guards on Epopeus, Jazon Ponidi of the Omnes Videntes.”
Jazon released his psychic hold on the clone and allowed it to breathe. The monitors ceased their blaring and returned to a quieter level of discord.
“Good choice,” the man said.
Over each laboratory section, plasti containment walls lowered transforming the lab into a clear labyrinth. Each walled off section had a single palm scanner beside its entrance. Scientists placed their palms to the scan pads, were released, and evacuated by the guards who had spilled inside.
“I can’t leave them, not like this,” the lead scientist said. “He’ll kill them! Stanley was a fool! A fool! He never listened.” The scientist continued to mumble to himself.
Telepathically, Jazon asked his team, “Do we kill them or play along? I’m emotionally compromised.” He could hear Tracy’s gasp of pain through the communications system. Then, he could see through Tracy’s eyes the face of the guard who was squeezing her delicate arm with excessive force.
“Tell, your guard to stop hurting the female,” Jazon growled out in an almost unrecognizable voice.
Tracy was his. No one would touch her but him. Feral rage unlike anything he had ever known consumed him. Tracy screamed as the guard squeezed her arm tighter.
“I’m in charge here. You are a constructed tool, and I intend to use you from now on. You will obey me if you want her to live,” the man said.
Jazon continued to watch the guard through Tracy’s eyes, and something within him snapped. He channeled the force of his telepathic rage through Tracy and into her male aggressor. The man’s grip on Jazon’s female slipped free. He fell as seizures took him, and blood began to dribble from his nose. Only once before on Amphictyon had Jazon been enraged enough to kill in this manner.
“You are not in charge. I am not a tool. I’m a predator, and you are prey. With you is the only one who can ease my rage. If I lose her, each of you will die screaming, one by one. As you listen to each of your men screaming and watch as they die, each knowing that he could be next, you will know for certain that I am saving you for last. Should you allow her to be hurt again, you will not escape me.”
“Get away from her!” the man ordered just before the communications system went silent.
“That was effective,” Vasco said.
“Who is the lead scientist?” Captain Agata asked.
“The crazy one who keeps mumbling to himself,” Vasco answered.
“Lock him and the clones down. Destroy all of Felix Jiri’s genetic samples. Well, go get Tracy. Ready?” Agata asked.
“What about our mission and my emotional state?” Jazon asked.
“We are on our mission. We weren’t put on a timer. We can save the girl, kill the villains, capture the scientist, and destroy the clones. Right?” Agata asked. In that moment, Agata earned himself a friend.
“I won’t forget this,” Jazon swore.
“You have done many things that I will not forget. For one, you served on the team that brought Empress Neema home.” With that, he stood up, raised his weapon, and began a careful jog along the plasti-glass labyrinth. Jazon followed him.
The clear walls vibrated with the blasts fired by the guards. Agata took one of them down. The man left a red streak of his blood as he hit and slid down the clear wall panel. The murderous rage that had overtaken Jazon because of the threat to his mate meant nothing to Agata. The Inquisitors were trained to be brutal killers, sent out to bring justice and a swift death to the Empire’s enemies. They were a branch of the Parvac Empire’s military trained to spy, hunt, and execute. They were masters of disguise and torture. Jazon felt he could be himself with Agata and Vasco.
Out loud, he said, “It’s nice to have a friend, other than family.” Then, he blasted a soldier who was about to throw a pulse grenade at them. The combined blast and explosion made a mess. Jazon and Agata ducked.
“I feel the same,” Agata said with a nod of his head. Then, he brought his blade down across the throat of a coward who had hidden beneath a downed comrade.