“Of course, Doctor,” Gothran said as he walked away. He returned in a few minutes with a hypodermic needle that he jabbed into Sheala’s thigh.
Sheala began to regain consciousness almost immediately.
Bakom began to strip. “Excellent, Gothran. Strap her down so she doesn’t slip and then tilt the table. I prefer that her first sexual experience be upright.”
Blinking as the room spun around her, Sheala regained consciousness quickly—but try as she might, she couldn’t move.
The room tilted. Dizziness assailed her and she closed her eyes. She opened them again.
No, the room wasn’t tilting. She was.
A naked hermaphrodite appeared before her.
At first she simply stared. Then she realized who he was. A cold dread surged through her veins, but she swallowed her fear and glared at him. “Rodak don al’ Bakom, my father and brothers will break every bone in your body and hang what’s left for the scavengers.”
Laughing, he lifted his thick tail and began to stroke it. “You have spirit. Breaking you will be a joy indeed.”
“Do you want mithrin, Doctor?” a huge, ugly hermaphrodite asked as he too began to remove his clothing.
Dropping his now jerking tail, Bakom stepped closer to Sheala and cruelly squeezed her breast. “I think not, Gothran. A virgin should experience the pain of her first sexual experience to truly appreciate it.”
Sheala gathered as much moisture as she had in her mouth and spit in his face.
He backhanded her.
Blinking back tears as her lip began to swell immediately, Sheala sneered, “You will live to regret this.”
“I had thought to be gentle with you your first time, but I’ve changed my mind.”
Before Sheala could reply, he jabbed his tail between her thighs.
She gasped but did not cry out. Raising her chin, she sneered into his face. “Not what you expected?”
He slapped her again. “Whore.” Withdrawing, he pushed the now naked Tetiras over a table and finished on her what he’d begun with Sheala.
“Who?” he demanded from Sheala after he’d finished with Tetiras.
Sheala’s refusal to answer earned her a third slap.
She blinked back tears.
Bakom grunted. “The high and mighty Alalakan daughter no longer a virgin. You didn’t waste any time, did you? Or, perhaps, you lost your virginity long before you assumed your majority, and that nose stud you wear is nothing but a lie. An interesting tale to tell everyone, don’t you think?”
Turning away from Sheala, he said to Gothran and Tetiras, “Enjoy yourselves with her and put her back in her cage when you finish. I’ll return tomorrow. Eliana, you’ll have to forego your pleasure for tonight. I wish to return to the Academy, and the shuttle must be returned to its owner. I leave that task to you.”
As the door closed soundlessly behind her family’s enemy, Sheala looked at the two naked hermaphrodites who stood before her. “My father will reward you handsomely if you return me to him.”
Both Tetiras and Gothran ignored her. “Do you wish to enjoy her first or shall I?” Gothran asked as he lowered the table to its usual horizontal position.
“You take her, my love,” Tetiras said as Gothran untied Sheala and rolled her onto her stomach. “I will enjoy you while you enjoy her.”
Only the Gattan woman writhing in sexual frustration heard Sheala’s screams.
* * * * *
“Yes,” Eliana replied in a soft voice. Sheala’s nonvirginal state had obviously soured his mood, and he’d brooded in silence for the entire time it had taken them to arrive here.
“Good,” he grunted. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Eliana sighed with relief as Bakom walked away from the shuttle. Now if only she could get to the Alalakans in time.
* * * * *
Around him, Sheala’s relatives argued.
“We have to do something,” Ban snarled. “We can’t just sit here.”
“Bakom would never have taken Sheala if it weren’t for me,” Brianna said with tears in her eyes.
“Perhaps it would be best if…”
Every gaze snapped to her.
“Don’t think to complete that thought, Brianna,” Jamiros snapped. “You’re married to my son and carry my first grandchild. You’re just as much a part of this family as Sheala, and you will go
nowhere
near Bakom. Do you understand?”
Brianna nodded, but she had a defiant look on her face.
“Char,” Jamiros ordered, “keep an eye to your wife. Do
not
let her out of your sight. We don’t need her to do anything stupid, we have enough problems.”
Char nodded and sent a searing look to his wife. She didn’t appear in the least intimidated.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ban added in a sharp tone. “Do you really think Bakom would give Sheala back if he got his hands on you?”
Before Marljas could add his opinion, a loud commotion in the street drew their attention.
Looking out the window, Char’s brother Rodane said in an astonished voice, “Someone’s landed a shuttle in the middle of the street!” He leaped away from the window and through the doorway into the hall.
Marljas joined Ban by the window. A slight figure left the shuttle and headed for the front door.
In what seemed only seconds, Rodane had returned, leading a panting woman.
“Come, quickly! I know where he has her!” she gasped.
Growling, Marljas stepped forward only to have Char lay a restraining hand on his arm. “Wait, she’s one of Bakom’s assistants. How do we know this isn’t another trap?”
“You friend Dr. Sedenton,” Eliana shouted. “I work for her. Cindar, one of the lieutenants on your ship, is my sister. Now hurry! There’s no time!”
With those words, the woman ran back out the door.
Snarling, Marljas wrenched his arm free of Char’s grasp. “Trap be damned! I go with the girl.”
“So do I,” Ban snapped.
“Char, Rodane,” Jamiros ordered, “go with them. If this is a trap, I promise you, I’ll pull the Academy down around Bakom’s ears.”
Marljas pushed open the door and leaped from the shuttle before Eliana turned off the engine.
“Wait,” she called as she locked the controls then slid out after him. “You don’t even know where you are going. This way.”
Snarling impatiently, Marljas waited for her to lead the way. The other three men followed after them.
When she halted in front of an elevator door, Marljas held up his hand. “Someone might be inside.”
The sight of five lethal claws emerging from his fingers precluded any arguments. After he made sure no one was waiting inside they all crowded in.
“I tell you this is not a trap!” Eliana said in frustration as she pushed a panel and the elevator began its descent. “Bakom has secret laboratories below this building that I only found out about tonight. He’s never trusted me with this secret before.”
“If you’re lying…” Ban growled.
“…I will rip out your guts while you watch,” Marljas finished with a snarl.
She did her best to ignore their threats. “The elevator will open onto a dimly lit corridor. I don’t know what experiments Rodak is performing on the first two levels, but Sheala is being held on the third level.
There’s a stairway at the end of the corridor, follow it all the way to the bottom. There’s only one door that I saw. Sheala will be in that laboratory.”
Char’s voice was as menacing as Ban’s. “Laboratory?”
She swallowed and nodded. “You had best prepare yourselves. I don’t know exactly what her physical condition will be.”
Rodane’s voice was just as deadly. “Will there be anyone in there with her?”
A small voice in the back of Marljas’ mind noted that having these three Alalakan men angry was far more dangerous than he’d originally thought.
“Two of Bakom’s assistants were there when we left. Sheala has—she’s been raped by now, more than once.”
The blood ran cold in Marljas’ body. Rape? Anyone who had touched Sheala was a dead man. As the door to the elevator opened, Marljas sprinted down the corridor, ignoring Rodane, who tried to stop him. No one was going to stop him from finding Sheala. He flexed his fingers and his claws emerged fully.
Anyone who tried would lose a great deal of blood, and anyone who had hurt Sheala would die.
He exploded through the door of the laboratory as a hermaphrodite Drakian rolled off a table. Both he and another, more feminine hermaphrodite, whirled to face him.
Marljas’ gaze leaped to the table.
Whimpering and moaning, an obviously bruised Sheala shuddered on the table.
“Sheala!” Rage pouring through his veins, Marljas attacked. Claws on both hands fully extended, he sliced the larger, male-looking hermaphrodite open from neck to groin. Ignoring the gushing blood and the running female, he kicked the screaming man out of his way, stepped to the table where Sheala lay, and gathered her into his arms.
“I’m here, my love,” he whispered. “I promise, no one will ever hurt you again.”
The sound of the door slamming into the wall jerked Sheala back to full consciousness—and pain.
Grunting, Gothran rolled off her. “What’s going—”
Lifting her head, Sheala struggled to regain control of her body as the drug wore off. She blinked to clear her blurry vision.
When Gothran screamed, she turned her head to the left.
Blood splattered everywhere.
Sheala blinked again.
Fury radiating from his body, Marljas kicked Gothran out of his way.
His snarl echoing around the laboratory, he leaped to her side.
Tears rolling down her cheeks, Sheala began to cry as he pulled her into his arms. At last, she was safe.
Marljas had found her.
She buried her face against his chest, her body shaking as she sobbed. “I knew you would come. I knew you would find me. Bakom, he…they…”
His voice cracking, he held her tight. “Hush,
Cheta
, I’m here. I’ll never leave you again.”
Sheala looked up into his face. Never? Did he mean it? Her body shaking, tears still streaming down her cheeks, she held up her left palm. “Forever?”
Marljas unsheathed the claws on his right hand. “I cannot do this for you. You must do it yourself.”
As Sheala pulled her left hand over Marljas’ unsheathed claws, Ban, Char, and Rodane stepped into the lab followed by the woman who’d been with Bakom earlier.
Char cried out and leaped towards them. “Sheala, no!”
Before he could reach them, Marljas ripped his vest open and sliced his claws down over his left breast.
Taking Sheala’s still-bleeding hand, he held it against his open cuts. “Blood to my blood, heart to my heart, we are one forever.”
Relief surged through Sheala, and she stopped fighting the pain attacking her body. As her new husband placed a gentle kiss on her lips, she fainted.
Lifting his head, Marljas looked squarely into Char’s eyes. “She’s mine now, Alalakan Dragon. My wife. I will care for her.”
Char looked to his older brother, who stared at the Gattan holding their bruised and battered sister in his arms.
Ban broke the heavy silence as he dropped an unconscious Tetiras on the floor. “No more than you’re hers, Marljas. I hope you realize what you’ve done.”
Marljas didn’t reply.
“Help me,” came a faint voice from one of the cages at the back of the room.
“Bakom treats people like animals,” Rodane said with disgust as he looked at the other woman. “The cage is locked.”
“Gothran has the keys,” Eliana said in a helpful voice.
“Who? Oh,” said Ban as he looked at the bloody body on the floor. “You definitely don’t do anything halfway, do you, Marljas?”
His snarl rattled the jars on the shelves. “He raped her. What would you have done?”
“With your weapons, castrated him and shoved his balls down his throat,” was Ban’s terse answer.
Marljas said nothing but nodded with approval. Bandalardrac was becoming easier to like the longer he knew him.
As Marljas lifted Sheala’s unconscious body into his arms, Ban lifted the ring of bloody keys from the floor next to the body then joined Char at the cages. He stopped short when he saw the naked woman imprisoned there.
“Sosha!”
Marljas looked up when he heard the name. Still cradling the unconscious Sosha in his arms, he joined Char and Ban.
Huddled on the floor of the cage, the naked Gattan wiped tears from her cheeks. “Please get me out of here. I only have an hour of so of coherent thought.”
The anger that had begun to lessen now that Marljas held Sheala in his arms surged anew. “Sosha, what has been done to you?”
“I am addicted to mithrin,” the young Gattan woman sobbed as they opened the door to her cage. “I’ve been the sexual plaything of Bakom and anyone else he brought here.”
Ban lifted her into his arms and cuddled her to his chest. Sosha lay listlessly in his arms.
Eliana tugged at Char’s sleeve. “We must get out of here. I don’t think Bakom plans on coming back tonight, but you never know.”
Hope leaped in Marljas’ eyes. “ Then he is a dead man.”
Sosha struggled in Ban’s arms. “The files. Bakom kept notes on everything. There are also videos.”
An ugly smile appeared on Char’s face. “Where are they?”
She pointed to a spot on the back wall. “In the wall safe, behind the cabinet. Be careful, it’s set with a chemical dissolvent. The wrong number code will trigger it.”
Char cursed fluently—in three languages. “Without the correct code those files may as well be on Gattan.”
Sosha’s voice was bitter. “Six, two, three, seven, four.”
Char looked down at her. “Are you sure? If you’re wrong…”
“I’m sure,” she answered bitterly. “Bakom would often recite it in my ear when he mounted me. It was a game he played. He thought I wouldn’t understand because of the mithrin.”
Rodane shoved the cabinet out of the way. “There’s only one way to find out.” In a few short minutes, the safe was open.