Purge of Prometheus (15 page)

“Get undressed, then you can watch me.”

Yen hurried to pull the white shirt over his head and undid his belt, tossing it across the room in his haste.
 
The shoes tossed aside and socks removed, Yen pulled free his pants and stood before her, naked.
 
Smiling as she admired his body, Scyant slipped the dress to the floor and removed her hands, revealing her naked body.
 
Yen’s breath caught in his throat as he ran his eyes along the length of her body.
 
As he stepped forward, another jolt of pain ran through his mind and he paused, staring at Scyant as though seeing her for the first time.
 
To his mind, her behavior seemed like that of a fantasy, not a real woman.
 
His power was flowing freely from his body, and Yen was afraid of knowing what influence it had on Scyant’s behavior tonight.

“Scyant,” he said, “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.
 
I don’t think you’re doing this for the right reasons.”

Scyant placed a finger on his lips before grabbing him firmly around the waist and twisting, sending his sprawling onto the bed.
 
She climbed onto the bed next to him and slipped a leg across his body.

“Let me decide if I’m making the right decision or not,” she said, her voice quivering with anticipation.

She rocked up on one knee, placing the other leg across his body and straddling his prone form.
 
Reaching down, she ran her fingers down his chest, pausing as she lowered her hips into his.
 
Her back arched in pleasure and a soft moan escaped her lips as their bodies merged.
 
Yen’s own body exploded with pleasure, the feeling heightened by his wayward power.
 
Every move of her body sent spikes of warmth radiating through his abdomen as she rocked back and forth in rhythm with his hips.
 
Yen sat up, his previous doubts forgotten as he embraced Scyant, her legs wrapping around his back and they continued to move in unison.
 
They kissed, her lips greedily searching for his in between haggard breaths and groans of pleasure.
 
Yen closed his eyes, letting his senses fade away and focusing only on the motion of their two bodies.
 
Around the pair, wrapping around their writhing bodies like a cocoon, the air wavered wildly like dancing flames in a fire, reflecting the heat of their combined passion.

They moved together, his breath leaving him in rough grunts in response to her ever-increasing moans.
 
He opened his eyes as she moaned louder and he froze in place.
 
Where Scyant had once stood, Keryn now straddled him, writhing in the same pleasure Scyant had moments before.
 
She continued to move, opening her own eyes and looking into his concerned face.

“Don’t stop,” Keryn moaned.
 
“Please don’t stop.”

Yen felt his power roar from his body like an avalanche in response.
 
His hips moved of their own volition as tendrils of power stretched from his body, touching, caressing, and probing Keryn’s.
 
Her hitched breath and cries increased as his power enveloped her, caressing all parts of her body as they made love.
 
Keryn’s hips began to move quicker as her moans grew increasingly louder.
 
Yen felt warmth spreading in his stomach and tried to fight against it.
 
His passion was like a tidal wave that he was trying to stop with only a single towel.
 
As Yen felt himself become overwhelmed with the motion of their rocking bodies, he heard Keryn scream out in pleasure, her body tightening against his as he matched the ferocity of her orgasm.

Finally spent, they held on to one another, their sweat intermingling as Yen’s power collapsed into his body.
 
Slowly, they lowered down toward the bed until Keryn was able to slide from on top of him, to collapse exhausted into the bed.

“That was absolutely incredible,” Yen heard the woman next to him say in a voice very different from Keryn’s.

He turned toward the woman and stared into Scyant’s sparkling green eyes.
 
Overwhelmed, he watch tears stream from her eyes.
 
Her chest still heaved as she struggled for breath, her whole body spent from the experience.
 
The air around him slowly settled; the shimmering subsided until he was left alone with the Uligart beside him.

“I can’t believe how powerful that was,” Scyant said breathlessly.

Yen felt the pain building within his skull.
 
The soft light of the room seemed suddenly like he was staring into the center of a sun and he squinted against is brightness as his headache grew.
 
The pain spread from his temples into his neck and shoulders, stiffening them with tension as he gritted his teeth against the pressure.

“Are you okay,” he heard Scyant asked, genuine concern reflected in her voice.

He looked at her again, her naked body covered in sweat.
 
His eyes passed over her small breasts as he looked up toward her face.
 
Frowning, Yen suddenly couldn’t figure out why he had found her so attractive earlier that day.
 
Her body, though athletic, seemed lacking and, while handsome, was still far from beautiful.
 
Scyant sensed his displeasure and absently covered her chest with her arm.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, seemingly scared of his pending response.

“This was a mistake,” he growled, the pain in his head threatening to split his skull in half.
 
“You need to go.”

Scyant sat in stunned silence as she stared at Yen.
 
Tears unrelated to her pleasure welled in her eyes, but she still didn’t move.
 
His anger growing, he felt the power reaching out again, probing eagerly.
 
Yen knew that his power would not be caressing were it released this time around.

“Go!” he yelled at her, shocking her into action.
 

Visibly crying now, Scyant got out of bed and hastily pulled on her dress.
 
Yen noticed now that her dress seemed a poor cut for her body, hardly accentuating what she barely had to begin with.
 
She turned as though to say something venomous in response, but froze, her mouth agape, when she met Yen’s evil stare.
 
Turning, sobbing loudly, she rushed to the door and fled out into the hall beyond.

Yen leaned back into bed, his mind racing and a battle being fought along his nerve endings.
 
He cringed in pain, knowing that sleep would be hard to find tonight.
 
A thousand other thoughts crossed his mind – that he needed a shower to wash her smell from his body, that he had a meeting with Merric and Captain Hodge tomorrow to discuss upcoming strategy, and, most importantly, that he truly did miss Keryn’s touch – but he lacked the conviction to do anything about any of his thoughts at the moment.
 
Instead, he reached over and remotely turned off the lights in the room, sitting in blissful silence and cradling his head against the wracking pain within.

CHAPTER 13:

All was quiet now in a city once teaming with life and activity.
 
Not the sort of quiet one normally thinks of.
 
Not silence, but a solemn hum of death and defeat, a murmur of subjugation.
 
The sun had been gone from Miller’s Glen for two long weeks and a bitter and unforgiving cold had settled across the city.
 
The dropping temperatures dumped more than two feet of snow over the ruins of the once bustling trading city.
 
Buried beneath the snow lay metal and glass like assassins’ daggers, waiting patiently for the clumsy or tired to collapse upon their blades.
 
The stone and exposed girders protruded from the snow like giant’s fingers, probing the surface of Othus.

Beyond the city, the jungle had quickly withered and died.
 
Without sunlight, the proud green leaves had faded to brown before passing quietly in the eternal night and falling forgotten to the ground.
 
The undergrowth that had once hindered movement now laid shriveled, mere shadows of its former self.
 
Where once the lush green jungle had stood now lay a graveyard of foliage; the skeletons of trees twisted idly in the frozen wind.
 
The world had died, a stark reflection of life within Miller’s Glen.

Following the invasion, the Terrans had herded the survivors of the bombing to the far side of town from the spaceport crater, far away from the barracks established for the Terran soldiers.
 
Their new homes, in which once lived a single family, now housed dozens of men and women.
 
At night, the floor was littered with the bodies, people too exhausted to make their own space and too cold to complain about the body heat.

By daybreak, loudspeakers, barking orders for them to dress and gather for the day’s labor, roused the homes.
 
Marched day after day into the heart of the city, the survivors slaved and died, trying to clear away the rubble and bodies of those who had been lucky enough to die in the explosion.
 
Those who hadn’t managed to collect warmer clothing to protect themselves against the arctic winter.
 
Some died of exposure; they collapsed into the snow and disappeared under the surface, their blood as frozen as the ground.
 
Others dug under the snow with numb hands, not noticing that blisters spread and tore open, only to be replaced by more.

Bundled with coats stolen from one of the surviving shops in the central part of town, Keryn, Adam, and Penchant stood in the frozen wasteland and watched as the Terrans paced back and forth while they supervised the clearing of the old city.
 
The Terrans stood confident, their bodies warmed by the insulation within their combat suits and their weapons bristling with deadly energy.
 
Reaching down, the trio moved a rock or two into an awaiting cargo truck, hovering a few inches above the snow surface.

The invasion force had said little after the destruction of Miller’s Glen.
 
They had made their point when they dropped two plasma bombs on the city.
 
Little more needed to be said after that.
 
Conversation between the trio had been light immediately following the invasion as well.
 
They had gathered their belongings in sober silence and moved quietly through the streets, ignoring the cries of the wounded and dying.
 
Even then, the temperature had started dropping, leaving the damp air cold and the wind strong enough to cut through their thin jackets.
 
Passing through the ruined towers of the business district, they found stores with wares openly displayed in the windows and bodyguards long since gone, either from the destructive explosion or from fear.
 
They had smashed open windows, stealing the thick wool jackets that they still pulled tightly across their bodies and the insulated boots on their feet.

Keryn reached down and dug through the snow as a Terran passed close by.
 
Moving a large stone out of the way, she uncovered a small hand buried beneath a collapsed stone wall.
 
She looked at the hand dispassionately, her heart hardened to the bodies that littered the city like confetti.
 
Gesturing toward the other two, they moved the rest of the stone slab and pulled out the body of a young girl, her blond hair caked with dried blood.
 
Penchant took the girl’s body in his clawed hands, his face always an emotionless mask, and tossed it into the truck alongside the rubble they had collected.

The trio had been quick to hide their weapons on the far side of town, in an abandoned department store, certain that being caught with them would be the same as a death sentence.
 
The Terrans had been conducting thorough searches of the survivors.
 
The haggard people were lined up outside randomly selected buildings where the Terrans had set up registration booths.
 
As they entered, the survivors were photographed, their information added to a computer database, and then were unceremoniously stripped of their clothing.
 
Each person was thoroughly searched for hidden weapons and explosives and underwent a genetic scan before their clothes were returned.
 
All Lithids that had assumed a different form were identified, forced to assume their natural state, and tagged with a tracer bracelet.
 

Penchant turned back to the uneven rubble, scratching absently at his bracelet.
 
He wanted nothing more than to pull it from his wrist, but they had already identified the explosives that were firmly attached to the perimeter of the thin metal band.
 
Unsure of how potent the explosives would be, they had wisely decided to leave it well enough alone.

As a whistle blew over the installed loudspeakers located throughout the city, the trio collapsed heavily in the snow, caring very little about the cold that seeped into their skin.
 
For two weeks, they had been laboring in the city, unable to escape.
 
The Terrans had established a curfew and enforced it with deadly efficiency.
 
The time they had chosen, time that would have been considered nighttime before, had been chosen arbitrarily.
 
It was always nighttime in Miller’s Glen.