Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I (22 page)

The battle was brief. Pete was no
match for him in either stature, weight, or speed. Unfortunately,
it pissed him off that the bastard had hit him and he retaliated a
lot harder than he’d meant to. Looking down at the fallen man with
disgust, he finally crouched down to check his vitals and was
relieved to discover he hadn’t killed the stupid
son-of-a-bitch.

Shaking his head, he picked the
unconscious man up and carried him into the bathroom and locked him
in—just in case he came around again and thought he was up to
another battle.

“
I hope you didn’t have
any plans for Pete,” he muttered when he returned and saw that
Tariq was focused on taking the console apart to get to the memory
banks.

Tariq paused, whipping a look at him.
“You killed him?” he asked sharply.

Koryn’s lips tightened. “He tried to
brain me with something. He’s alive. I just won’t know what, if
any, permanent damage I did until we get him back where we can get
a scan.”

“
Well, fuck!” Tariq said
irritably. “I was going to give him to Lady Seana.”

Koryn glanced at him in surprise.
“Really? What for?”

Tariq released a disgusted huff.
“Gods, Koryn! I know you have your nose in your work all day, but
it seems to me you would’ve picked up a little understanding of the
way the world works. She’s on the high council and one of the most
powerful at that—and she doesn’t have any heirs. It never hurts to
do someone a good turn—especially if you think you might need a
favor yourself,” he said dryly.

Uneasiness flickered through Koryn.
“You think there might be a problem keeping Emerald,” he said
flatly.

Tariq’s expression hardened. “The
problem is I don’t know and I don’t like to leave anything to
chance. Maybe, maybe not, but she’s a friend, beyond that and,
according to Merrick, he should be a prime breeder. In any case, I
offered to arrange it for Pete if he helped and I’m not in the
habit of going back on my word.”

Koryn didn’t especially
like the fact that Tariq seemed to be in some doubt about the
outcome even though he’d worried about it himself. It unnerved him
when Tariq was generally completely confident that he could do
whatever he set out to do—mostly because he usually
could
do whatever he set
out to do.

It occurred to him after a
few moments that it might not be doubt as much as it was anxiety
because of the way he felt about Emerald. He’d been at pains to
convince himself, and
him
for that matter, that his possessiveness toward
Emerald was purely a matter of having selected the female he
wanted. She appealed to him sexually and she had excellent
bloodlines. His interest was nothing but a combination of personal
taste and reason.

Naturally they all wanted the best
breeder they could get, but they hadn’t actually managed to find
that many—yet—and it wasn’t impossible that they might find one
that was even more desirable than Emerald—in both respects. If
Tariq hadn’t been so fixated on Emerald, he would have considered
that possibility and at least waited a while before he made his
selection.

He hadn’t even asked about their
latest finds, however, either the survivors that had been found or
the people they’d found in the tunnels that he was currently
reviving. In point of fact, Merrick had reported that not only were
more than half the survivors they’d found female, but they were all
reasonably healthy and all of an age to be breedable.

Tariq would’ve been given that report
long before the ‘gossip’ trickled down to him. And yet, also
according to the gossip, Tariq hadn’t even inspected them after
they’d been brought back and cleaned up.

Tariq was a decisive man, but he was
also intelligent. He wasn’t in the habit of ignoring new
developments and clinging to his decision only because he’d already
made it. If anything new surfaced that affected the original
decision, he reviewed it and adjusted accordingly as
necessary.

Granted, having looked all the
possibilities over himself, he’d concluded that Emerald was still
preferable to any of the others, but he’d at least looked. The fact
that Tariq hadn’t was telling, he thought.

Apparently Tariq didn’t realize that,
though.

After considering it for a while, he
finally decided that he needed point it out, whether Tariq would
particularly welcome it or not. He waited until they’d collected
everything they thought might be useful from the Dinjins’ craft and
loaded up for the return trip.

“
I heard they had found
thirty or so breedable women among the survivors they
found.”

Tariq slid a glance at him as he
powered up the skimmer. “Thirty three.”

“
I didn’t know the exact
count, but I did go down to the hold to check them out.”

“
Did you find anything of
interest?”

Koryn’s lips tightened, anger
flickering through him at Tariq’s tone. “If you’re asking me if I’d
rather have one of them than Emerald, the answer is no.”

Tariq shrugged. “I’m at a loss as to
why you brought it up, then.”

“
Because there’s already
talk,” Koryn said tightly. “You were clear enough that the only
reason you were willing to allow me to get near Emerald was to
prevent that kind of talk. They’re going to speculate if you don’t
even have enough interest to look at them.”

Tariq looked like he might explode for
several moments, but after he’d wrestled with his temper for a
moment, he relaxed fractionally. “Point taken. I’ll take the time
to look them over when we get back.”

“
Fuck one or two while
you’re at it.”

Tariq’s jaw tightened. “If I see one
that appeals to me, naturally I will,” he said through gritted
teeth.

“
Do it if you
don’t
find one that
particularly appeals to you! You haven’t touched a woman since you
fixated on Emerald and it’s been noticed. If they knew you were
fucking her, it wouldn’t be so bad, but they know she isn’t strong
enough for that yet.”

“
How the fuck would they
know that?” Tariq growled.

“
They know how long these
things take,” Koryn said dryly. “It isn’t as if we’re doing
anything radically different here than all of them are completely
familiar with. Gods! Half of them have been cloned themselves at
least once!”

“
She’s taking care of my
needs, regardless,” Tariq said stiffly, “aside from the fact that
I’ve been focused on training her.”

“
That’s exactly my point!”
Koryn snapped. “We
also
don’t want it common knowledge that we’ve had to
discipline her!”

Tariq was too pissed off to think
straight for a time. It occurred to him as the ship came into view,
however, exactly why he didn’t want to fuck any of the others—aside
from his dislike of being told what to do. He wanted Emerald with
an intensity that made it impossible to consider an alternative.
Beyond that, he realized that he was deeply concerned that Emerald
might learn of it and either be hurt or angry about it.

It made him so furious when he
realized that that he immediately decided Koryn was right. There
was every reason for everyone to believe he was fixated on
Emerald—because he was!

He was still so angry by the time he’d
deposited Pete with Merrick to patch the stupid bastard up and
stalked to the hold that he was radiating fury and all of the
humans flew to the back of their cells and cowered there. He was
dead set on putting the rumors to rest, however, by that time.
After scanning the women, he picked one at random and hauled her
off to one of the interrogation rooms. She screamed and fought him
all the way and then promptly fell into a dead faint the moment he
dragged his cock out of his uniform.

“
Well fuck!” he growled,
wondering whether to wait until she came around or head back to
collect another possibility.

Grimly determined to finish what he’d
started, he hauled her back and tossed her into her cell on her
ass. She came around then, which made him suspect she hadn’t
actually fainted to start with, but he decided to ignore her and
pick another one. The second was worse than the first. It wasn’t
until later that he realized it was a combination of his anger and
the condition of his first ‘victim’ when he returned her that
prompted her hysteria and he was certainly in no mood to see the
humor in the situation even then. The second female screamed all
the way to the room and kept on screaming while he stripped. He
wasn’t sure if it was the screaming that did it, or she just didn’t
have that much appeal, but he discovered that time that he couldn’t
get his cock hard enough to do anything.

Thoroughly disgusted, he didn’t even
bother to dress before he hauled her back and thrust her into her
cell. She was still screaming when he left her—he thought. Most of
them were screaming hysterically by that time, however, and it was
hard to tell one from another.

“
Satisfied?” he growled at
Koryn when Koryn joined him in the interrogation room.

“
Infinitely,” Koryn
retorted dryly. “It’ll be all over the ship inside of five minutes
that you raped half of them and left broken women in your
wake.”

“
I didn’t rape either one
of them,” Tariq said disgustedly. “The first one passed out the
minute I dragged my cock out and the other one was screaming so
deafeningly I couldn’t focus enough to get it up.”

Koryn’s lips twitched, but
he was wise enough not to smile. “It doesn’t matter what happened.
It matters what they
think
happened.”

It was going to matter to Emerald,
too, Tariq thought angrily, but she might as well get used it! He
owned her not the other way around, regardless of what she seemed
to think!

It wasn’t until he climbed into bed
with her later that it occurred to him that he had absolutely no
reason to suspect that Emerald was the least bit possessive about
him. He should’ve been relieved about it, but he discovered he
wasn’t.

Chapter Ten

Tariq was torn between absolute
delight at the discovery that Emerald was indeed possessive of him
and anger for the same reason. He was almost equally torn by the
fact that it was Koryn who told her.

They’d met in his quarters to discuss
what they’d discovered in the Dinjin ship over lunch three days
later. He’d summoned Emerald to sit on his lap. It had started as a
test of her obedience, but he’d discovered he enjoyed it even if it
wasn’t particularly comfortable for either of them on several
levels.

“
The memory cards were in
pretty bad shape,”
he said with
disgust,
“but I got enough to confirm that
the ship we found was part of an attack force. According to the
propaganda issued to the fighters, the humans provoked it by
attacking one of their colonies and the objective was to eradicate
the threat to their interests.”

“
There’s no saying that
was true,”
Koryn pointed out.
“They would want to inspire the fighters to do
their worst.”

“
It doesn’t matter one way
or the other,”
Tariq said grimly.
“The fact remains that they brought the fight
here when the dispute was with the colonists. I’m not sure that
would even weigh with the council if it is true. They knew exactly
who it was they were attacking. I’ve confirmed that and the
objective wasn’t merely retaliation. They fully intended to erase
their existence. They’d planned to wipe out the people here and
move on to the other colonies—which they knew about.

“
That suggests that they’d
already targeted the humans before there was any dispute. According
to what Emerald told us, they’d taken great pains to prevent the
Dinjin from learning about the other colonies. That could only mean
that they’d been watching them before the humans knew they existed,
let alone were a threat. I don’t see any other possible
explanation.”

Koryn nodded
agreement.
“It’s good you managed to get
that. I haven’t had much luck on my end. Not that I’m ready to
concede defeat, mind you! There might still be some useful
information if I can decode it.”

“
Such as the locations of
the colonies? I didn’t find that, unfortunately, and there’s a lot
of space out there. Without at least a clue of where to look
….”

“
The chances are that
we’ll never find them—or know if the Dinjin succeeded or
not.”

“
No. I don’t believe they
did, though. The defenders hit them so hard they took out almost
half the battle fleet in the first few minutes of the battle.
Unfortunately, the ship we found was one of them and that was where
the recording stopped. We do know that there was a ground battle,
though, and from what we’ve learned it was a fairly prolonged
campaign.”

“
I guess that rules out
any mention of taking prisoners?”

“
The two we found were
dead when they hit the ground. There was nothing in the orders I
found to suggest that was part of the plan, but the ground battle
probably changed all the rules.”