Vanquished (21 page)

“I thought I would
find him on Nibiru while in my new appearance. It would have been more
difficult to slay him there, so once again fate has intervened.
Always for me.”
He flexed his hand, the fingers misshapen
and swollen. His eyes narrowed on her, now the same surprising shade of blue
Vayne’s had boasted, the pupils lacking the Juxtant trait. But it was Baraith.
“What are you to him, Neira Grekov?
Bodyguard?
Mistress?
Pet
?”

“His
chosen.”
She said it with pained pride and watched with muted
satisfaction as Baraith’s astonishment kept him silent. Just not for long.

Glee replaced the
incredulity and the bastard capered in place, gloating. “Revenge is indeed so
sweet.”

“Too bad you won’t
have much time to enjoy it.” Neira followed her assertion with a sudden move
over Vayne that brought her well within Baraith’s reach. As she thought, he
didn’t expect it as he sadistically savored her proclamation, and the blow she
dealt his leg took him down, the kneecap shattered and mangled through his
uniform pants.

She danced away,
taking care not to slip on the blood or trip on the bodies, because she needed
to finish this before the emptiness in her chest and the barely contained
screaming in her brain incapacitated her. Baraith could conceivably take over
the ship with his experience and resourcefulness if he got away, to wreak
havoc. He might even get to Nibiru, because he didn’t even look like himself
anymore, hiding in plain sight. But she knew.

Someone moaned and
she shot a look toward the man Vayne had been helping.
Leric.
Oh God. Victoria. The distraction almost cost her, but Baraith couldn’t have
known how much a ruined kneecap hurt and his hiss of pain as he attempted to
stealthily rise and step to her was enough of an alert to keep her distance.
She watched for another opportunity, and when he reached behind him to free
another blade, snatched out her own and lunged. His upper body was covered in
light armor, negating a killing strike, so she buried the point deep in
Baraith’s upper thigh.

He howled,
then
made a guttural sound as she dragged her knife back
out, slicing along the length of his leg. The outpouring of blood gave her
hope—she might have slashed an artery, and if so he would bleed out. But she’d
entered his space, and his injured hand swung hard and caught her face,
thudding against the cheekbone. She rolled away from the impact, losing the
knife in the process. Her retreat helped to mitigate the damage, but the vision
in that eye immediately clouded.
Orbital floor fracture.
Neira choked back a pained groan as
she catalogued the injury and scrambled another few feet. Baraith wobbled on
his injured legs, unable to put any real weight on his knee, and clearly in
pain as a result of the stab wound to his right thigh.

But he was still
dangerous. “You’re running out of maneuvering room, pet. The Juxtant heal
quickly, even from injuries such as these.” He was using that mesmerizing voice
on her, the one he’d employed when he soothed Alexi, tricking him into
believing it was all over, building cruel hope before inflicting more creative
torture. But the damage she’d exacted interfered with his tone, adding another
layer, and she was able to resist him.

“You won’t come
back from the dead.” She barely recognized her voice, flat and barren of any
inflection. It didn’t matter what happened to her but she had to stop him.

He leered at her,
one now black soulless eye as hypnotic as a snake, only far more dangerous—what
had to be a contact lens still shrouded the other in that vibrant blue. He
threw his blade in a sweeping underhand. She caught the movement and lurched
sideways,
hampered by the nausea and dizziness resulting
from the head injury, and the knife, meant for her gut, pierced her side. It
hurt like the furies of hell, an almost welcome reprieve from the crippling
sense of loss she could no longer hold at bay.
Vayne.

Blinking, trying to
find a way to exacerbate his collapse before her own, Neira feinted with the
palka
, ignoring the agony in her ribs.
When her foe lowered his fists to block her, she whipped her cherished weapon
upward, at his face. The polished wood made a resounding
whack
as it
cracked Baraith’s forehead, and the impact shuddered the
palka
from her hand. It fell to his feet. Neira desperately reached
for it, grunting at the effort, and the polished piece of wood slipped into her
grasp. The room stank of coppery death and freshly spilled blood, and warm liquid
ran down her side to saturate her leggings. She had to get this done before he
outlasted her and concocted some story to explain the slaughter.

His uninjured hand
rose to strip away the bandages and despite her flawed vision, Neira took the
sight in, unable to swallow back her reaction. Baraith smiled, his huge body
weaving in front of her as he balanced on one foot.

“We’re cousins,
pet.” He suddenly flinched and she wondered if it hurt him to speak, if she’d
managed more than a concussion. She wouldn’t let herself accept his appearance.
How like
Vayne
he appeared. Her belly knotted in on itself and forced
bile up her throat as he continued, “And the Home World has remarkable
reconstructive surgeons when one has the right connections.”

“No.” She couldn’t
voice anything else and dropped into the fighting mode she’d trained in for
years and years, the pain of her injuries fading away. She had the impression
of taking Baraith by surprise once again as she drove herself forward, using
her strong legs, wielding the weapon of her native land with precision and
accuracy.

As she drove him
back, she knew she did more damage to that travesty of a face, his nose
crunching beneath her fevered blows, and thought she might have landed a
telling one on his temple before he had her by the throat. His huge hand
wrapped around her neck, a brutal parody of the way her lifemate had gripped
her with possession and love. Vertebrae creaked and she had a sense of flying
before everything went black.

****

Vayne nearly
screamed with pain when hands lifted him and moved him to a flat surface. He
knew it was urgent that he attend to something but the agony was crippling,
like a burning steel rod was stuck in his back. Drawing a full breath was
difficult, but if he concentrated, it became a little more orchestrated, as
though his brain was short-circuiting commands if he rushed. He hadn’t felt
like this since—

Someone moaned—a
male, and that someone was placed beside him. Vayne peered at him, barely
turning his head, unable to lift it for a better look.

“…survivors.
Thought we had another but his brain must have been scrambled because he seized
and then expired. Massive blows to the head and a knee. Stab wounds.
Nothing to be done.”

The sovereign
recognized that voice above him.
Stenlor.
He tried to
clear his throat but managed only a cough of sound.

“Sovereign?”
Stenlor crouched beside him to make eye contact. Although with the way Vayne
was lying he could only see the man out of one eye. It was disconcerting and
his beast railed against the weakness. He coughed again in acknowledgment and
pain lanced through his chest.

“You must remain
completely still. You took a blade to a heart. No exit wound. We don’t want the
bleeding to start again.”

Decades of war,
fighting, and the only injury he’d sustained during that time was the stab
wound that badly injured one of his hearts.
And now, a second
such injury.
He blinked his eye in agreement and Stenlor apparently
understood.

“Whoever applied
the tourniquet saved your exec,
sir.
We’ll take you both
to sick bay shortly.”

“Anyone
else?”
He managed to whisper the question, because there was a traitor
on his ship, the injured hunter.

His medic hesitated
and Vayne cursed his enforced immobility.
“Stenlor.”

“There is a dead
human and three dead hunters, and the landing bay crew member responsible for
the area has also faded, sir. It’s a bloodbath. I’ve never seen the like aside
from hand-to-hand on the field.”
      

He felt
surprisingly better, knowing the traitor was accounted for—dead—and elated that
he’d saved Leric. He knew he’d deal with the loss of his crew member and the
loyal hunters later and want to unravel the mystery of the traitor, but for now
he was focused on the living. Something chewed at the edge of memory, something
about the attack, but he couldn’t recall… “Don’t tell my chosen. Not until I’ve
been stitched, whatever, and ready for release.” His order came out in bits and
pieces of gravelly monologue.

“No,
sir.
I won’t tell her.” Stenlor’s voice was hoarse to Vayne’s ears,
hardly the cool scientist. Perhaps he was worse off than he thought, and he
prepared himself. No, he couldn’t die, couldn’t be that gravely injured. He’d
only just found her…Neira.

Stenlor’s orders
precluded any further conversing. The transfer to medical was excruciating, the
lift being so narrow he was propped
upright,
and also
because the medic was reluctant to administer pain medication until his heart
issue could be better assessed. Vayne thought it might well burst from his
chest when the pain made it thunder in his ears, despite Stenlor’s continual
reassurances.

The cool,
antiseptic air of the medical bay soothed his senses and, now on a medical cot,
still on his belly, Vayne suffered the prodding and poking of Stenlor’s trade.
Physicians.
They administered pain without apology for the
greater good. His medic stepped away with a satisfied grunt. Leric’s pale face
came into Vayne’s narrow viewpoint, his exec stretched out on the next cot. He
was to have been moved first at Vayne’s insistence but apparently Stenlor outranked
his sovereign. Leric looked well under the blanket of a dose of numbing drugs,
and while he was glad the male wasn’t in pain, Vayne was envious.

A static sound
filled the air around him as Stenlor oversaw the test to determine Vayne’s
heart damage, and after an eternity the medic crouched to face his sovereign.

“Your heart is
destroyed—the one that suffered the previous damage. It pumped out considerable
blood volume before your other heart asserted itself.
Prevented
total exsanguination.
I’m going to remove the affected organ and seal
the wound and you’ll receive a sedative for the process.”

Impatient and in
discomfort, Vayne grunted. “Get on with it, then.”

“Is the pain
diminishing? You are quite coherent.”

“I thought someone
was standing on my chest and driving their heel and their sword into my
sternum. That feeling isn’t so prominent now.” Thank the gods of Isord.

“That would be your
other heart assuming the total responsibility for maintaining circulation,
Sovereign.
Powering your body.
I’ve read studies that
cite such a process and it is recorded as being excruciating.”

“Then perhaps it’s
a good thing I was out for a while,” Vayne gritted out.
Scientists
and their case studies.
Physicians and pain.
And Stenlor was all in one, something the sovereign was extremely grateful for.

The laparoscopic
removal of the destroyed heart went quickly, utilizing the stab wound, with
Stenlor giving him a synthetic blood transfusion during the process. The medic
detailed his every move but Vayne felt nothing, despite being wide awake, his
Shadalla abilities already promoting fast healing. Stenlor cautioned him and
insisted that he rest for more stints than he cared for. But he didn’t want to
upset Neira any more than he had to, so grudgingly obeyed. She would be wondering
where he’d gotten to, and that too was bothersome. Stenlor agreed to relay an
excuse, busy with his tasks.

Eltrast was
summoned to make a full report and fill in the holes. Vayne was grateful that
his
medic had insisted he rest and allow
both his own
physiology and modern medicine to heal him. He knew Rush had been murdered, had
seen two of his hunters and a crew dead or dying and his exec fighting for his
life. He even had a dim memory of subduing the bandaged hunter with a blow
before administering to Leric. It was the information Eltrast shared about the
traitor that sucker punched him.

“Juxtant?
You’re certain?”

“The facial
reconstruction would have misled anyone, sir. The Shadalla and the Juxtant are
closely related, as you know. It was his eyes that gave him away. A contact had
been dislodged in the fight and his identity was obvious.
Juxtant.
Stenlor advises we should have his identity from his RNA shortly.” Eltrast
shuffled and looked away.

“I’m thoroughly
sick of having my crew crouch and talk to me as I
lie
on my belly, Eltrast. Do me the courtesy of a complete report rather than me
dragging the details from you. What aren’t you saying?”

Three beats. “He
looks like you, sir. With additional surgery and the right color of ocular
implants he would
be
you.
Same size and weight.
Identical in
appearance.”