A roar of frustration followed amazement. She lunged up, intent on straddling one of them to find satisfaction. They were waiting for her move.
The moment she was up off her back, they flipped her to her belly and drew her up on her knees. Her skin was vibrating violently and the moment that Ailan moved behind her to bite the nape of her neck while caressing between her thighs with his claws, she shifted.
The world was brighter, smells stronger. Her own arousal was heavy in the air, but so was the scent of male. Their musk made her shake her head and twitch her whiskers. She was panting, but her body felt wonderful, as if every cell she had had sneezed at the same time.
When her acute vision took in her mates, a low growl came from her throat.
They thought they had the right to tease her and it was not the case. She could and would teach them that they could not arouse her and then leave her to shift into a bobcat.
Eckhar shifted completely into a wolf, Ailan a lion and they stalked her, low snarls in their throats.
She lunged and swiped her claws along Ailan’s rear flank.
Eckhar got his claw on the front shoulder.
She hunched low and lashed her tail, waiting for the response.
Razi, can you hear me?
She blinked and tilted her head in surprise.
Ailan, yes, I can.
You need to shift back now.
She shook her head, loving the feel of her fur shifting with her motions.
Why? I like this form.
It is dangerous to let the instincts take hold. For the first few shifts, you need to make them short and complete.
This is complete.
She stretched in a slow showing of her wonderful new shape.
Now it is time to make it short. Come back to us.
Her cat form snorted.
Spoilsport.
Eckhar rumbled in her mind, his wolf form nuzzling her side.
If you shift back to human form, we will be released from this place and can return to the surface.
She scowled, her furry face wrinkling.
Well, if we can get out to where I can run free…How do I change back?
Just relax and concentrate on your human form. Thinking of your hands does the best job.
With that advice, Razi walked in slow circles until she took up a sphinx-like pose. She stared down at her paws and concentrated. Fingers…thinking of fingers.
Her hands shifted back to flesh with no fur. She looked at the pale expanse of her nail beds and the long middle fingers on each hand. Her body was suddenly cold where the metal floor pressed against her.
“Well, I am back. That was fun.” Her voice was hoarse to her own ears and with a little concentration, she was back to normal. A light clearing of her throat tested pitch and when it sounded right, she nodded.
Ailan and Eckhar joined her on two legs. They quickly dressed and she couldn’t help but watch all that muscled flesh disappear with a certain amount of disappointment.
Eckhar nodded. “Nala should let us out of here now.”
The voice came through the loudspeaker. “You have met the transformation criteria. You are free to go. Be a proud member of the Oefric species, serve your masters well.”
Eckhar wrapped a hand around Razi’s mouth as she opened it to screech at the computer. She was no male’s slave.
The door to their cell opened and they left. Her Oefric companions lifted her off her feet to haul her out of the find of the century.
Chapter Four
Her boots were the only piece of clothing that was in one piece when they got to the outer chamber where the bots had come upon them. The remainder of her garments had been shredded.
Razi glared at the men while she put her feet in the boots and relaxed as they wrapped their way up past her knees. Thigh-high boots were not in her normal fashion sense, but extraordinary times called for bizarre measures.
Ailan brought a medical sheet to her and she wrapped it around herself while muttering.
Her companions kept quiet and Razi knew why. Nala may be an AI, but many computers had come up with logical paths to explain unusual decisions. It was time to get back to safety as quickly as possible.
The chasm that had swallowed her and started this whole mess loomed above them. “How am I going to get up that?”
Ailan stepped in front of her and turned his back. “Climb on. We agreed to take turns bringing you to the surface. I will carry you for the first leg and when I tire, you will climb to Eckhar’s back. Together, we will all get to safety.”
Razi leaned back and murmured to Eckhar, “Do you still have the recordings?”
At his nod, she smiled, “Then let’s go.” She hopped onto Ailan’s back and held tight as he shifted his hands into elongated claws and started pulling her to the surface.
Eckhar was in a similar shape, long bodied, long claws and feet that resembled hands quite closely. They moved up the rough walls of the chasm rapidly, but daylight was a tiny slit far above for a very long time.
Razi’s arms ached and her legs were cramping, so she could only imagine what Ailan was feeling with her wrapped around him.
When he stopped and made a coughing noise, Eckhar was at their side in an instant. The transfer had sounded acceptable when they were on the ground, but stuck to a rough wall with a drop that almost killed her once, it was an effort of will to let Ailan go and transfer her grip to Eckhar.
They were moving more slowly now but still a steady climb. While the fall had seemed to be almost instant, the re-emergence to the surface took hours.
The edge of the crevice was so welcomed that they all simply lay flat on the ground next to it while their muscles twitched and trembled. Amusing quips were beyond Razi for the first time in her life. She was exhausted and all she had done was to hang on for dear life.
The sun was taunting her, flirting with her lids and warming her hands. Razi groaned, every muscled in her body screaming. With superhuman effort, she sat up and perused her surroundings.
She was still in the chamber with the rift in the floor and Ailan and Eckhar were asleep on either side of her. Blood covered their hands and feet, while cuts and bruises decorated the rest of them.
Razi staggered to her feet, walked slowly to her shuttle and pulled on a ship suit. She snagged her medical kit and returned to her companions. Triage meant that the long gash on Eckhar’s back be tended first. He woke while she was puttering but lay still until she finished sealing the wound.
Ailan was next, the bruises on his biceps and open fingertips on his left hand getting her attention while he blinked at her, pain in his gaze.
She went back and forth treating the more serious injuries, until minor scratches were all that were left. When they were both sitting up and as patched as she could get them, she got some supplies from her shuttle and brought a tray of food and water to them.
“Is anyone going to mention what happened down there?”
Their exhaustion was still obvious, but before they could answer, the ground shook again. En masse, they ran for the shuttles and waited out the earthquake.
Razi’s panic ceased when she realized that, wounded as they were, the Oefric were bracketing her on either side with arms around her waist. She wasn’t going to fall again.
“I think we need to evacuate this world. We have learned that it was indeed the home of the Oefric species. With the data I was able to grab, we should be able to figure out why the facility was abandoned.” Eckhar leaned back and let Razi get back to her own balance.
“They had to deal with Nala, that’s why.” Her grumble made her companions smile.
The men shared a look over her head. “We need to get you somewhere safe. You need far more medical exams than I have equipment for.”
“Fine, we can send a signal and have an Alliance warship pick us up.”
Ailan disagreed. “I believe that your condition would be best examined by an Oefric medical team. It is definitely a more suitable facility.”
She scowled. “This is an Alliance mission. I will report to them before anything else.”
“Fine. We will leave the surface and dock out of orbit. The planet is becoming far more unstable than we anticipated.” Eckhar seemed to have taken charge and the planet rumbled under their feet in agreement.
Razi could smell the newly tumbled rock, felt the electric discharge in the air. The new senses her body was exercising were distracting. She wanted to get back into pristine and cleaned space where there were no moments of impending death at the hands of the planet you were standing on.
“Fine. We will discuss this off planet. Send that message to the Alliance first thing, or you are going to hear about it.” She was about to stomp into her shuttle when Eckhar grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a kiss.
Her lips parted and she tasted him for a moment.
Ailan spun her away and overrode Eckhar with his own mouth.
She was breathing hard and fighting to stay on her feet when he let her go. Leaning up against her shuttle, she glared at them both. “Seriously?”
They raised their eyebrows in surprise at her irritation.
Eckhar straightened and asked the question that both of them were thinking, “I beg your pardon?”
“I am about to pilot a ship off a planet in gravitational flux and you just overloaded all of my senses. Jerks.” Snorting, she minced into her shuttle and did a quick inventory. Aside from the destroyed instruments, everything was in place.
Her systems check showed everything was green and she lifted off the surface of Nala’s damned planet before the shuttle could change its mind.
The controls felt a little odd, but she attributed it to the gravitational variance. She was able to lift from the surface and exit the atmosphere with only a few smooth moves. Once out of the grasp of the planet’s gravity, she waited for her companions.
The Oefric ship had a lot less difficulty than she had in separating from the planet. They locked onto her signal and came straight for her without hesitation.
“Razi, we have sent the signal and are preparing to dock. Don’t move.” Eckhar’s voice came clearly through her system speakers.
“Fine. But be gentle. You haven’t even bought me dinner yet.” She set the systems to passive access and waited.
The Oefric shuttle glided into position, silence ringing through the air in her ship until the moment they made contact. The ships clunked together, the magnetic seals intimately connecting as the grapples fixed to her shuttle.
Razi smiled as she got a travel bag together, tucking it under her bunk.
A polite knock at the door got her attention. The seals were green and she opened her shuttle to her visitor.
Make that visitors. She stood aside to allow them in.
“Your shuttle is very…functional.” Ailan was peering into cupboards while Eckhar went straight for the console.
“You can say it. My apartment is ugly. I am used to the idea already. It has been my home for months at a time at different digs. It is hideous, but it gets me where I need to go.” Razi shrugged.
Eckhar finished what he was working on and turned to them with a bundle of wires in his hand. “I have her.”
“What did you do to my ship?”
“Nala jumped your systems via your communications terminal. She downloaded herself into your steering systems.” He waved the circuits and connectors in the air. “She trapped herself in a closed loop and when you went passive, she was stuck.”
Razi was amazed. “How did you know?”
Eckhar grinned. “You are not that clumsy a pilot. Your trajectory was off, your steering sluggish…and when we contacted you, she tried to jump our systems.”
“That would do it.” Razi examined the object in Eckhar’s hand. “Hold on a moment. Did you just rip out my steering?”
“Our shuttle is locked to yours. We can and will do the piloting for you.” Eckhar put the bundle in a small case.
Ailan found her bag and put it on her bunk. “She may have affected your life support, so we should be going now. Come along, Razi. There is a warship on the way to pick us up.”
“Good. I can hardly wait to debrief on this one.” She stretched and grabbed her notepads. “Let’s go. I have some questions to ask.”
Ailan bowed with a formal wave to his hand. “We will answer anything that we can. The first change is a time of adjustment for everyone. Normally we are at home and have our families around us. You don’t have that luxury, so we are at your disposal. Now move your ass, it’s getting cold in here.”
Glaring at him, she lifted her chin and moved through the hatch. Her shuttle was behind her and her future followed on her heels.
Chapter Five
When the warship arrived, she didn’t have the answers that she wanted. They had shared a meal and all climbed into one of the large bunks to sleep in a tangled heap.
Razi had squirmed around to get comfortable until Ailan pinned her shoulders with one arm and Eckhar draped his legs over hers. Surrounded by warmth and the steady beat of their hearts, she slept.
When her back got cold, she woke. Eckhar was at the controls and they were approaching a huge ship. Ailan had her cuddled against him and she really didn’t want to move.
Eckhar turned and spoke to her. “They are prepping medical teams. We all need a good going over and Ailan isn’t in any condition to do it.”
She looked at the man who had her in his arms and noticed the pallor of his skin. There was a fever in his flesh and she couldn’t see the cause.
“What is wrong with him?”
“The bots worked us over while we were trying to get to you. I am fairly certain that they did some internal damage to Ailan, but he insisted on carrying you out of that crevice.”
She stroked the dark hair away from Ailan’s forehead as the twined shuttles parked in a brightly lit hangar. The emergency hatch was blown from the exterior and a swarm of medics charged in.
“Please let him go, miss. We need to care for him.” The kindly faced man had the scent of a feline with feathers.
Razi nodded her head and reluctantly released Ailan into their custody. She sat up and a kindly older female was sitting nearby.