Alien Redemption [Clans of Kalquor 06] (34 page)

This time the orgasm was a bright, white-hot lightning strike, and Rachel did scream, her voice shattering loud. Conyod moaned, release his bite, jerked three more times and groaned.

The cock in Rachel’s rear pulsed.

After the spasms passed, the Imdiko rolled off Rachel, going down the cushion to land face up on the floor at Erybet’s feet. The Dramok sat on the edge of the sleeping mat next to the still supine Sletran. He studied his gasping clanmate who splayed like an accident victim.

“Sletran, when was the last time Conyod was allowed to top?”

The Nobek shot his leader a dark glare. “To top
me
?”

Erybet rolled his eyes. He cocked an eyebrow at Rachel, who was still layered on the rounded top of the cushion catching her breath. “Just because the Imdiko is our gentler breed, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to dominate on occasion. His performance just now lets me know he’s not had the opportunity in a while. Conyod does not get that savage, usually.”

“Not with you two,” Conyod grouched. “I like keeping my hide, thanks.” He looked up at Rachel. “Did I hurt you, my love?”

She shook her head and grinned despite her entire body feeling like well-cooked spaghetti.

Forming her words in his language she said, “Like Conyod do that. Fuck good.”

Sletran and Erybet laughed. Conyod grinned back at her, then turned his head to scowl at their Nobek. “Your next assignment is to teach her nicer euphemisms, like ‘make love’.”

“But it sounds so raw and primal when she says ‘fuck’.”

Conyod glared. Sletran snorted and rolled his eyes. Giving the Imdiko a long-suffering look, he said, “Fine. I’ll teach her to call your cocks her double prongs of happiness while I’m at it.”

“Bastard.”

“Now who has bad language?”

“Doesn’t count when it’s not Kalquorian, you big shit elbows.”

That got them all laughing. Shaking his head, Erybet rose and went to Rachel. He picked her up and carried her to the sleeping mat, laying her down and spooning behind her. Still snickering, Sletran helped Conyod up so they could both join their Matara and Dramok. Rachel snuggled into Conyod’s chest, with Sletran curling behind the Imdiko.

She’d thought she would spend the entire night making love to her new clan, but the stim tab was apparently wearing off. Her body was utterly relaxed, and her eyes were heavy. Sleeping in the arms that surrounded her seemed just as delicious an option right now. So she let herself drift, warm and … and safe. Yes. She did feel safe with the three men.

My clan
, was her last happy thought before falling asleep.

Chapter12

Perhaps an hour after he’d drifted off, Sletran’s eyes opened.

He felt the warmth of his Imdiko against his chest and belly, a sensation comforting for its familiarity. He’d almost begun taking it for granted when he’d been sent out to war, then the loss of it had been an ache. Being curled around Conyod once more had been the only thing completely right since coming home. Still, pain remained, torment that not even returning to his clanmate had erased.

The smell of lovemaking was heavy in the air. It coated Sletran’s body, as well as Conyod’s. And he could scent Erybet too.

And her.

Sletran sat up, taking care to not disturb the others. He stared at Rachel, her face still discernable to his sharp eyes despite one cheek being pressed into the shadow of Conyod’s chest.

She looked so sweet, so innocent in her sleep. As innocent as all the other women on New Bethlehem.

How he had wanted to help them! Those frightened, shrinking Earther Mataras, crying over their lost world and loved ones back on Earth. Cringing anytime he came near them. It was wrong for the lifebringers to suffer so, and it had been his shame to know that Kalquor, no matter how inadvertently, had been such an instrumental part of their pain.

I just wanted to help. To somehow make it better.

Then the insurgent attacks had started. No matter how much aid they’d offered, how many of the Earther children the Kalquorian peacemakers had fed and sheltered, how much medical assistance they’d offered, many of the Earthers had turned on them. Including the Mataras.

He thought back to that one terrible day, the sweating, trembling Matara that had approached, asking for food. Her whispered thanks as she went to the dining area. And then the explosion, the men screaming, the shattered bodies of the dead.

Sletran knew his work would never be finished as long as even one Earther Matara remained alive. He looked over the still-sleeping trio in his bed. How both Erybet and Conyod sandwiched Rachel between their bodies, their arms circling around her protectively, keeping her safe. For now, anyway.

Meanwhile there were others, women not sheltered by adoring Kalquorian men, women left vulnerable, easy to get to. Sletran’s eyes narrowed. His breath quickened. His lip wrinkled back, displaying his fangs.

In an instant, he was out of the bed and pulling on a formsuit. Silent as death, he left the room.

* * * *

Conyod woke. Rachel was burrowed against him, her warmth and smell a lovely reminder of how he was part of a full clan. His gaze flicked to Erybet’s face. The Dramok slept too, a gentle smile playing on his lips as if still basking in the earlier lovemaking.

However, the pressure Conyod was used to feeling at his back was missing. Taking his arm from around Rachel’s slight form, he reached back, groping for his Nobek. The sheets were still warm, and a slight indentation remained where Sletran had been when Conyod fell asleep. But his clanmate was gone.

Dread pulsed through Conyod’s heart. He rose from the sleeping mat, careful to not disturb Rachel and Erybet. Padding naked through the home, he searched every room and the balcony for Sletran. There was no sign of him anywhere.

The Imdiko went to the com in the greeting room and checked the bay where the clan kept their personal shuttles. Sletran’s was missing.

The Nobek was gone again, not cured in the least by having a Matara to keep him sane.

Conyod swore to himself. He prayed he hadn’t made a mistake bringing Rachel into the clan.

That wherever Sletran had gone, he was all right and wouldn’t leave her without her protector.

Fear gnawed at his guts as he wondered where his Nobek was.

* * * *

Breft got the call at home before the sun had finished clearing the horizon. He spared just enough time to kiss his Matara Amelia and the sleepily blinking twins before heading to the Earther Matara complex.

He found Raxstad, Lidon, and forensics already at work in the middle of the courtyard, which was the central area of the compound. Formsuited local police officers, identifiable by their gray shock and blade proof vests, held the curious Mataras back, far enough away so they wouldn’t see what was going on. Compound security officers also abounded, though the majority of them were conferring with Global Security officers.

Breft let the police scan his credentials and hurried past them once he’d received clearance.

He passed by the banks of flowerbeds, firepits from which the sweet aroma of lit scentwood wafted, bubbling pools, and massage beds. Had he not been so intent on the latest activity of the Beast of New Bethlehem, he would have been glad to see how well Kalquor was treating the Earther women. By the ancestors, they certainly deserved it after all they’d been through.

He joined Raxstad and Lidon. Before he could ask, Raxstad gave him a grimace. “The privacy scene shielding we brought isn’t operating. And the localized force had five other calls at the same time, so they didn’t bring one. I sent someone to headquarters to get a mechanism that works.”

“Good.” Breft blinked at the dozens of small, slender objects arranged in a round starburst pattern in the center of the black marble tiles flooring this part of the courtyard. At their center was another sheaf with the now too-familiar writing awaiting him to read.

For now, he was busy puzzling over the whitish-gray and brownish-gray objects making up the starburst design. After a moment he realized what he was looking at, and his heart slammed hard against the wall of his chest. His lips curled back.

“Fingers?”

Raxstad nodded grimly. “Nearly a hundred. Small, like those of Earther females. Analysis will have to confirm that, though.”

Breft looked up at the women being kept at the periphery of the crime scene. Their eyes were wide, and they whispered excitedly to one another. “Tell me none of the Mataras saw this.”

Lidon said, “The staff found it, thank the Mother of All. They kept the Mataras away.”

Breft swallowed, took a step forward to study the macabre arrangement better. “Clean cuts through the bone and muscle with ragged edges on some of the skin. It’s as if they were taken off the hands in a hurry. Some look burnt.”

Raxstad said, “I think the note explains it.”

Breft tore his gaze from the tiny bits of flesh to read his antagonist’s latest missive.

Here are the trophies of the first to fall, my initial blow on New Bethlehem. These were not
the ‘innocents’ everyone would have us believe, their deaths not a slaughter but justice. They
point in accusation at the other daughters of betrayer Eve who would lay us low.

In clear writing, Breft had before him a direct reference to the Slaughter of Innocents. Breft thought of Erybet and Sletran with their clan the night before, celebrating a new Matara.

Drinking. Laughing. And, for one of them, perhaps plotting this horrific display?

Speaking past the bile rising in his throat, Breft seized on the most curious mention of the note. “Eve?”

Lidon answered that one. “According to the Earther’s mythology, the first woman. She betrayed their god, leading man to be cast out of Paradise. All Earther Mataras would be the daughters of Eve.”

Breft raised an eyebrow at him.

Lidon shrugged. “My Matara was quite traumatized by the differences between her beliefs and ours. I have begun studying her religion to better understand her faith, which still means much to her.”

Breft nodded. He looked around the complex, taking in the apartment windows that looked out over the courtyard from as high as ten levels up. At regular intervals on the ground floor were the vid recording devices he’d noted from previous visits, along with two sentry stations.

How had the bastard gotten in and out undetected?

“Wasn’t security doubled here? How is he getting in and moving around so easily? Have you checked the employment records?”

Raxstad bristled. “Of course. I also took it upon myself to forward the worker list to Emperor Bevau. He confirms no one who works here was at New Bethlehem.”

Lidon frowned. “That doesn’t mean the killer isn’t coming onto the grounds and posing as a member of support staff. There are over 1700 Imdikos, Dramoks, and Nobeks on the roster, with more coming on board every month as more Mataras enter the lottery.”

Breft scowled. “Then it’s common to see unfamiliar faces around here.”

“Identification checks haven’t yielded results either,” Raxstad added. “He may have forged his own set. We already know he’s got the technical know-how to pull something like that off.”

Breft eyed the monitoring devices again. “Which brings me to my next question. What about the security systems? Same interruption in service as before?”

“That’s right. He’s using random fluctuating frequencies to cause interference.”

“The devices that do such things are too big to be portable.”

Lidon’s eyes narrowed. “Known devices. This man is smart, sir. Genius turned to evil is a monstrous foe.”

Raxstad sighed. “He moved really fast during his visit a couple of hours before dawn, when vid monitoring began to fail. He got in here, set this up, and got clear too quickly for security to get a fix on him. The sentries were so busy trying to restore the vid surveillance, they missed him doing this.”

Breft raked his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. “Damn! The only thing going for us is he’s getting cocky. If the sentries had just glanced into the courtyard, they’d have seen something.”

“At least there were no new deaths this time,” Raxstad offered weakly.

Lidon nodded. “‘We must accept small favors as great things when the sky goes dark.’”

Breft snorted. “To beg the Book of Life’s pardon, one less dead Matara is a big favor.”

Lidon managed a semblance of a smile, a huge undertaking given the grisly body parts at his feet. “I will not argue with that.”

The elder Nobek’s handheld beeped and he checked it. His eyes widened, an extreme reaction given how much self control Lidon usually exhibited. “You’ll find this interesting, sir.”

“What have you got?”

“Forensics has delivered analysis on the victim we found on the beach. They came up with a positive species I.D. on the animal hair found on the body.” He looked at Breft, his frown deep. “It came from a kestarsh.”

* * * *

Conyod walked down the halls of the psychiatric wing with Rachel at his side. She was looking around with a bemused expression, almost as if she hadn’t spent a year of her life in its environs.

“What is it?” he asked.

She stopped walking and he too paused, waiting patiently as she typed on her handheld
. It’s
weird to be back here and not as a full-time patient. It’s only been a few days since I left, but it
seems like almost a lifetime ago. I was thinking that it must mean I’m where I should be, with
your clan.

Conyod smiled. “But you’re all right being here for a short visit, aren’t you?”

Rachel nodded.
I like being anywhere you are.
She pulled a face and added
, Excuse the
sickeningly sweet sentiment.

That made him chuckle. “I like the emotion, no matter how saccharine you think it is.”

They continued on until they reached Govi’s office. The door was open and Conyod stuck his head in.

Govi looked up from his computer vid. “Yes? Oh, hello, doctor.”