Helion (10 page)

“Yes, but…” Gwen stopped as if embarrassed, casting her gaze
to the floor for a moment before lifting it again. “Just be careful. Don’t take
any unnecessary risks.”

“Are you worried about me, little mother? Does that mean you
care for me?”

Gwen blushed but didn’t deny it. He’d know if she lied.

“Maybe I just don’t want to be someone else’s prisoner.
Especially if they’d demand the same…concessions you do.”

Helion narrowed his eyes, amusement gone and replaced with
his usual frosty glare. It was a look that promised Gwen he’d be paying her
back for that remark. She had dared to imply once again she was not a willing
partner in their love play. When he destroyed these Scourge he resolved to make
her beg for his cock before he made love to her again. Them he’d make her
scream his name over and over again.

“Get your rest while you can, woman,” he retorted, his eyes
promising a reckoning before he marched from the tent.

Verdun stared after him for a moment before returning his gaze
to Gwen. She fidgeted under his stare and turned away to eat her meal. Gwen
hoped he didn’t want to talk about what was happening between her and the Commander.
She was still unsure how she felt about what had happened between them earlier.
She’d attempted an escape, gotten caught, had Evelyn taken from her, been
spanked so hard her ass was still on fire, then had been taken over a desk and
against a wall. She was sore all over, especially her ass and thighs, not to
mention her pussy.

Her mind couldn’t process what had happened, not entirely.
Helion, the cold, composed, mocking Commander, had literally fucked her into a
wall when she’d refused to obey him. After he’d taken her over a desk. His men
had been waiting for him, the enemy closing in, and he’d taken valuable time to
teach her a lesson. And what a lesson! Gwen ached fiercely inside, even as the
pleasure he’d given her still coursed through every vein with delicious warmth.
She wanted him again even now, to duel with his tongue until her lips were
chapped. Insanity.

Gwen had wanted to deny her attraction to Helion, deny it to
him and herself, but he’d forced her to admit her lust by not only taking her
when she wanted to resist, but also by shattering her in so doing. She was so
confused. It was tempting to trust him, to allow herself to relax and be
protected for a while, to have this fling with a hot alien without forming an
attachment. But she was already too late. She was obsessed with him and had no
idea how to extricate herself. Her word that she wouldn’t attempt another
escape had been given and taken. But how could she prevent herself from falling
in love with him?

How desperately she wanted a hot bath to alleviate the pains
Helion had caused. She wanted to remove his woodsy smell too—it clung to her
like a second skin and reminded her of the ornery Keeper constantly. His seed
and her own juices made her feel uncomfortably damp and she was eager to remove
the evidence of what had occurred between them. But even she wasn’t silly
enough to believe now was a good time to call for buckets of hot water. Her
needs would have to wait until after the battle.

The Scourge were another issue entirely. In her heedless
rush to prevent further growing feelings for Helion, she’d placed her daughter
in danger again. Just like before they’d been right in the line of fire. After
trying so hard for three months to keep Evelyn’s fragile life intact, it was a
hard pill to swallow that without Helion’s intervention, her sweet girl would
be dead twice over. Her pride had taken a beating but she was so relieved they
were alive.

And now…for now they had found a safe haven. Her fear of
Helion and his men had faded to practically nothing. They’d all been kind and
even protective and had gone out of their way to accommodate her and Evie’s
needs. Gwen didn’t know why they were so kind. Verdun had told her Keepers
revered women and children, as on their home world women were greatly
outnumbered by the men. Verdun had also told her of the struggle Keeper women
fought to conceive and carry a child to term. So all women were cherished and
all children adored.

But still, the women on Earth were not Keeper women. So why
were the Keepers so protective of her and Evelyn, what was in it for them? Had
she become so cynical that all men, even those from an alien planet, were
suspect, no matter what their actions said? Had Steven and his abandonment
really jaded her that much? Here she sat waiting for the other shoe to drop,
for these comforts to be stripped away when Helion tired of her sharing his
tent. But she was a survivor, right? Even if Helion dropped her like week-old
garbage, she could survive it. She’d survived worse. Right?

The problem was, of course, her silly infatuated feelings.
Starving physically and being on the run was nothing new. But now she was
developing feelings for Helion. Her lust for him was intense but her feelings
went deeper. She felt tender toward him, was afraid for his safety. The idea of
him facing down two thousand Scourge was terrifying. Even thinking he might not
make it back alive made her heart pound and ache. What was to be done about
this?

In the end, there was really nothing she could do. So she
ate and she prayed. When the sounds of battle reached her ears, she held Evie
close and prayed some more. She prayed that the Keepers would win the battle,
that Helion would be unharmed, that she and Evie would live to see another day.
But when she heard the fighting begin right outside the thin tent walls, she
knew her prayers hadn’t been answered. As Verdun shielded them with his body,
her soul cried out with just one question. Where was Helion?

The horrible sounds of fighting outside the walls
surrounding them escalated and fear nearly overwhelmed Gwen. She heard the
clash of metal on metal, the screams of the dying, the battle cries of the
warriors, until the din became deafening. Evelyn started whimpering in fear at
the noise and that enraged Gwen. These damn creeps, they couldn’t allow even
one safe place on the entire damn planet? Helion had told her the Scourge
couldn’t find Keeper camps. But clearly they could, because they were here now.
Their safe place was now a battlefield and their lives were practically
forfeit.

Within a few scant, horrific minutes, the enemy were
threatening the tent, finding a weakness in the defenses and tearing inside in
a great swarm. A part of her wanted to cower and rely on Verdun to protect them
but the greater part was infuriated that once again her daughter’s life was at
risk. Grabbing a small sword from Verdun’s back, she began slashing at Scourge.

Soon Gwen and Verdun were working as a unit, him wounding
and her slicing throats. And to her surprise she felt a savage pleasure in
ending enemy lives. This vicious, cruel species had turned her life into a
living hell and she enjoyed the hell out of making them pay for their crimes.
Gwen soon lost the sense of time passing as she held Evie against her with one
arm and with the other struck out over and over again at the enemy. Whenever a
Scourge would get too close to her, Verdun seemed to know and was able to
deflect their blows with lightning-fast flashes of his sword.

Gwen very quickly realized her initial impression of Verdun
was entirely incorrect. This was no kindly, passive butler type. Verdun was as
deadly a warrior as any she’d seen in this camp. But they couldn’t hold out
much longer against this tide. Already her arm began to tire and her fear
screamed through her veins, increasing the desperation of her attacks. Verdun was
performing amazing feats, but as more and more Scourge stormed the tent,
hopelessness began to crush her spirit.

And then she saw him. Helion burst through the tent in a
wash of Scourge blood, his gleaming white hair once again dulled with the
grotesque detritus of his slain enemies, his golden armor equally tarnished
with gore. He looked a mess but was still the most beautiful sight in the world
to her. Her earlier confrontation with him was swept from her mind like leaves
in the breeze.

Then their eyes met across the melee and out of nowhere a
tidal wave of emotion burst through her veins like liquid fire. He was there;
he had come once again to save her and Evie. That moment of contact, so brief but
so poignant, made her heart clench painfully. She wanted his lips, and his body
over hers. And she wanted his heart, as he had hers. This was no obsession. It
was love…and lust. Watching Helion eliminate the threat to her and Evelyn made
Gwen unbelievably hot under her clothes. She wanted him. And she loved him. And
she had no idea what to do, could only stare helplessly as Helion fought.

Helion had been cutting through another Scourge, then
another and another. His armor was dark with blood, his blades dripping, and
still the enemy came in wave after wave. The Keepers battled fiercely, their
eyes glowing with feral intensity inside their helms. The enemy forces were
slowly decimated, flanked by Commander Melithan’s troops in the rear, with
Helion’s terrorizing them in the front, until the panicked fiends were caged
inside a circle of bloodthirsty warriors.

But something had been amiss. Helion felt tingles of
foreboding slide up his spine, an internal warning he knew always to heed. As
he sliced the head from another Scourge, he took a quick look around to assess
the situation. His men still fought strongly, showing no signs of fatigue,
Commander Melithan and his troops too. And then he heard it, a call on his link
he did not expect.

“
Sire, the tent is surrounded! The Keepers outside are
battling hard but they will be overwhelmed soon. We need reinforcements.
”
Verdun’s voice in his mind was grim and then cut off entirely, a clear sign he
was diverting his energies to battle.

Helion didn’t stop to wonder how enough Scourge had escaped
their net and made it into their camp to overwhelm the warriors he’d left
behind to guard his woman. He barked an order to his second in command, Tohran,
handing him the reins of the battle before calling his guards and lightstepping
to his tent with all speed. What he saw upon arriving made his blood turn to
ice in his veins before rage made it boil. His men were under siege,
outnumbered, and many were battling with terrible wounds. And a large hole gaped
in the side of his tent where Scourge began to swarm inside.

Helion roared with rage and shot forward, slicing through
every enemy in his path. Nothing existed to him but that breach he had to
reach, to fight through before those monsters killed Gwen and her daughter. His
claims to his woman, that she’d be safe in his camp and his tent, rang
mockingly in his ears. Even with the fierce sounds of battle raging all around
him, he still heard the distressed whimpering of the baby girl and her mother’s
labored breathing. He cut a swathe of brutality through the enemy, mutilating
and killing without a hint of compassion, until he finally broke through into
the tent.

It was immediately apparent Verdun had been fighting with
everything he had. Bodies were strewn all over his tent in great heaps between
overturned furniture and shredded linens. Rivers of blood coated everything in
sight, including his woman, who was the biggest surprise of all. No cowering,
not for her. She stood back-to-back with Verdun, one arm protectively over her
daughter while her other hand gripped a stained short sword. As he watched in
stunned disbelief, Verdun sliced a Scourge across the stomach while Gwen
delivered another savage cut across its throat, felling it to the ground.

As if she felt his gaze, Gwen suddenly looked up and locked
eyes with him. The sweetest look of joy and relief and something else he couldn’t
define flared in her eyes. That look told him much but now wasn’t the time to
ponder it. Reinvigorated, he rallied his troops with a roar and they quickly
fell upon the remaining Scourge. Helion sprang into action to slaughter the enemy
inside the tent, a brutal ballet of steel and guts. Helion’s sword flashed with
bright light, the musical sound constantly interrupted by the slice of metal
meeting flesh and the cries of agony from its victims until nothing remained
but pieces of bodies and a river of blood.

Even as he destroyed his enemies, he kept one eye on his
woman. Gwen’s own borrowed sword now dangled limply in her hand as she watched Helion
massacre the enemy, barely seeming to notice his guard was there and doing the
same. Helion wanted her to see him like this, to see him as the killing machine
that could take care of her and Evelyn, so she’d never doubt him again.

Once the killing was done, he shook off his bloodlust. But
it didn’t leave him. It morphed instead to lust of a different kind, lust for
his woman, Gwen, who was staring at him with heat and adoration on her face.
There was a promise in those eyes and he’d take his time when he collected on
it. Unfortunately, there was more work to be done. But soon, he promised
himself. Soon.

* * * * *

The traitor watched the proceedings, the only sound a subtle
grinding of his teeth. Those imbecilic Scourge couldn’t get the job done even
though he’d personally led them inside the barrier himself! And in such
ridiculous numbers that eleven Keepers and two humans should have been easy
prey. So now, not only was this carefully planned assault a failure, costing
the lives of two thousand Scourge and very few Keepers in return, but the woman
and child still lived as well.

But perhaps there was a way to remove one obstacle in his
path. Mithrain had rushed to Helion’s side to save the woman. Having the camp’s
sensory Keeper out of the way would clear the path for a more successful ambush
next time. It would take Helion a long time to get a replacement. Sensory Keepers
were a unique and scarce breed. Most of the Keeper units had only one, if any.

Mithrain was relatively easy to cull from the rest of the
Keepers, a pack of Scourge surrounding him like wild dogs. Archery was
Mithrain’s particular talent but he was more than proficient enough in
hand-to-hand and the short swords to dispatch all his enemies and that just
wouldn’t do. Mithrain needed to die tonight.

The traitor lightstepped to Mithrain’s side, his arrival
acknowledged with a quick nod before the fool turned his back, trusting the
traitor to guard it when he had just the opposite in mind. A quick look around
confirmed no one was there save the Scourge, the rest of the men rushing into
the tent to save the woman. With relish the traitor quickly thrust his sword
under Mithrain’s arm where there was a gap in his armor. The sword thrust deep,
brutally destroying muscle and tissue.

Mithrain’s look of shock and pain was delicious but there
was no time to savor it. He needed to get Mithrain’s body far from there before
help could arrive and foil all his plans. So he grabbed the limp Keeper and
lightstepped again and again until he found a pile of rubble far away, to
unceremoniously dump the unconscious Mithrain on top of it. When he didn’t
stir, the traitor, satisfied, stepped back to the fight to pretend once more he
was a good little Keeper foot soldier.