The Siren's Call (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance) (FORCED TO SERVE) (10 page)

***

Malachi was walking down the hall with Boca when the vision of Ania in shackles hit him. Boca called out when he squeezed her shoulder tightly in alarm. It wasn’t the reaction to his touch he had been striving to get from her, but Ania’s condition had sent him into full alert mode and caused him to lose control.

“Sorry,” he said, patting her in apology. “I…I can’t do dinner after all. Liam—I have to tell him Ania is in trouble. Sorry.”

Not wanting to leave his physical body, Malachi took off running to the bridge, yelling “Move, move, move,” to anyone who got in his way. He found Liam and the newly appointed Lieutenant Chiang bent over the map console, studying the layout of the city on Terris Rein where they had concluded the Sirens were being held.

“Liam—I’ve come to tell you that Ania has been captured. I saw her in…”

Malachi stopped, realizing it was probably best to not share the exact details given his master’s possessiveness where his mate was concerned. Bogdan Synar might not have ordered the deaths of his mate’s captors, but his son Liam would do anything to protect Ania. Also, despite his compassion to his brother, the younger Synar would likely not think twice about forcing Malachi to leave Conor’s body unattended and dying in the process. In the end, it was simple self-preservation of his new host form that had him rethinking what he told Liam.

Ania wasn’t in complete danger, just naked and restrained. She was tough enough to endure it. He had made sure of it.

“Ania has been captured. She’s been drugged and needs our help. We need to leave immediately. She’s fine for now, but we need to go before her captors do worse to her,” Malachi said, figuring that even a partial truth held enough sincerity to merit action.

Synar stood and walked quickly to Malachi, calling over his shoulder as he moved with Malachi to the door. “Lieutenant Chiang?”

“Aye. I understand. I’ll contact dispatch and tell them to have the shuttle ready when you get there,” Chiang said, going to the com on the captain’s chair.

“Wait—I need a guardian for the body. I can’t leave it until I must,” Malachi said, counting on Synar not wanting to risk the body either.

“There are no warriors left to take with us,” Synar said harshly. “We can’t leave the Liberator unguarded.”

“Take Boca Ador,” Malachi said. “She…” He looked at Chiang the Greggor and then back to Synar. Sooner or later the truth is always revealed, Malachi thought, pushing away the tiny bit of disloyalty he felt revealing Boca’s confidence.

“Boca Ador was not always a healer. She was training to be a Sumerian assassin until her mate forced her to stop. I trust her to guard Conor’s body—and she has the medical training to keep it alive until my return,” Malachi said.

Since Malachi’s competition with Chiang over the attention of the Sumerian female was the latest gossip on the ship, Synar had to assume the demon would not have risked revealing such an intimate piece of information unless it was truth in both what he said and crucial to help Ania.

Glancing over his shoulder, Synar met his new lieutenant’s startled gaze. He well understood the shock because it wasn’t long ago he’d discovered Ania was a warrior. But there was nothing to do now but use the resources he had in order to do what must be done. Four members of his crew were in danger. The only other option was Jurek or an Ensign, but they didn’t know about Malachi.

But Liam made a vow in that moment. When his crew was back where they belonged, he was going to make sure this never happened again.

“We’ll call Boca on the way. Lieutenant Chiang, are you able to maintain and take care of my ship?” he asked.

“Aye…” Chiang answered, wanting to say more, but all he could think of was Boca talking about destroying her former mate’s severed hand as if it were nothing of importance. Now he understood, even though he wished he didn’t. Now he knew why she was so strong even after what she’d endured.

Synar nodded his head to Malachi and they hurried to the shuttle dock.

They were climbing the shuttle ramp when Synar saw Boca Ador come running out of the elevator with his new lieutenant on her heels. He and Malachi headed inside the shuttle. The demon was reluctant, but Synar wanted Chiang to have a moment.

“Come on. This is not for us. I want you to tell me what you saw in your vision of her.”

Malachi looked at Chiang and Boca with a sigh of resignation before following his master as commanded.

Boca was starting up the ramp when Chiang’s commanding voice called her name and stopped her. She’d never heard him use a harsh tone, much less yell. But then what did she know about the Greggor male? Nothing, she decided. She knew nothing.

“Come back safely,” he ordered. “Do what you must to survive and come back. Nothing matters but that. Boca…” He stopped. What else could he say to her? Last time he saw her, she’d waved a bundle of scalpels at him.

Chiang watched as Boca slowed, glanced back to nod at his words, and then continued up the ramp, only stopping at the shuttle’s door. He heard her swearing and was wondering what he had said to upset her just before he saw Boca’s fist slam against the door jam. Then she spun, running back in his direction, flying down the ramp to launch herself at him.

Chiang caught her up, his mouth unerringly finding hers, realizing he’d been waiting since the day he met her to do just that. The sheer rightness of their kiss rocked him, but her trembling told him she wasn’t unaffected by the contact either. Her angry sob almost made him drop her in concern, so he tightened his hold.

“I do not want another mate,” Boca said firmly against Chiang’s mouth, his lovely, warm, spicy mouth that she wanted to drink from until her thirst for him was quenched.

“So? I never wanted one in the first place. Why are you bringing this up now when you’re leaving?” Chiang demanded against her lips, going back for just one more unbelievably amazing kiss before he could make himself let her go.

Synar was waiting. Malachi—the demon who desired her—was waiting. And Ania and Gwen needed her help.
But Shades of Kellnor, he didn’t want her to go.

“This does not mean anything more than…we just…” Boca stammered, the words dying as she glared at Chiang, not wanting to leave with so much unsettled, so much unexplored. She ran a hand through his hair, then stroked his face.

Boca finally stopped trying to talk, clamped her mouth shut and pressed her lips together to keep from saying something that would cause false hope.

“I will be praying that the Creators bring you back to me,” Chiang said quietly, setting her back down and stepping back. “Now go while I can still let you.”

Boca lifted her chin.

“Let her?”
she thought.
While he could still
let her
. Chiang the Greggor was Rogan all over again.

Well, she would not be controlled, no matter how appealing the male.

“Wish for what you want, but I will not become your mate,” Boca warned, her voice firm, her tone uncompromising.

Despite her furious glare, Chiang merely bowed his head to her respectfully. “Take care of yourself, Boca Ador,” he said calmly, fighting his urge to snatch her up again.

She nodded once more, turned, and charged up the ramp, barely disappearing inside before the door closed.

Chiang swore at how hard it had been to let her leave, then turned and ran to get out of the shuttle’s blast as it fired up all engines to full, preparing for flight.

He barely made it back behind the vacuum shield as the Liberator’s docking-bay doors opened to let the shuttle out. Standing with both hands pressed against the transparent wall, Chiang watched the shuttle disappear into the darkness of space before dragging himself unwillingly back to the bridge.

Being a lieutenant was yet another life he didn’t want to be leading.

So was knowing with everything in him that when she came back, Boca Ador was going to be the only female he had no choice but to claim.

Chapter 8

When he woke, it was to the feel of something being attached to his head. Opening his eyes as much as he could through the haze clouding his mind, he looked into the doctor’s face and heard him order the assistant to administer another dose of some drug they had already given him.

Grabbing the doctor by the throat, he raised forward and threw the surprised male against the bars of his prison, satisfied to be watching his torturer’s body crumple to the floor. He swiped at the rest of the wires attached to him until he’d freed himself from them.

The pain that suddenly traveled through him like a stun blast slowed his moments, but not enough to stop him from grabbing the guard with the remote. Twisting his assistant torturer’s head until his neck snapped made the pain stop completely. His bleary gaze watched the remote go sliding across the floor with what he thought might be satisfaction as well, but he was way too foggy to judge his own emotions.

Then he saw the door to his cage was open, and no one with a remote blocked it for once.

But the collar was still on him. He felt its weight still resting on his neck. So he stumbled to where the remote had landed and tried to read the strange symbols on it. None seemed to indicate unlock. Instinct made him afraid to press those he didn’t know on a weapon he knew could harm him.

Sliding the remote under the bed, he went to the doctor’s body and searched through his clothing for a key to release the collar’s lock. Repeating the search through the guard’s clothing was equally futile. Giving up, he stumbled out and closed the cage door behind him, glaring a final time at the broken bodies of his captors on the floor.

He walked slowly to the entrance and out of the building, glad to find his freedom from the drugs and the cage, even if he didn’t have any idea where he was going to go.

***

Gwen saw them coming for her at last and sighed.
Finally
, she thought. Her patience for waiting had been exhausted several hours ago, but she’d managed not to voice it aloud. Barely.

“Time to go home, my beautiful prize,” the chief guard said to the glaring female with a smile, motioning to two other guards to open the cell and let out his new slave.

Gwen rose from the floor and looked back at her cell mates who had stayed in the corner all afternoon whispering as they shunned her. She shook her head, more saddened than angry about their collective victim mentality. Unfortunately, there was no time to work on fixing their will to break free if it didn’t already exist within them. She had her own escape to deal with first.

She turned her back to them to face her captors once more, but soon found herself feeling guilty. Sighing at the urging within her to help the captives, she finally turned back them. Okay, she supposed she could at least ask—damn Zade for these feelings anyway.

“I don’t suppose any of you plan to help me?” Gwen demanded.

The answer she got to that question was a ripple of laughter from the five or six males who watched her now with almost no sympathy in their disbelieving gazes. The females wouldn’t even meet her eyes.

“Fine. Be that way. I’m out of here,” Gwen said flatly, shaking her hands and legs to loosen them enough to fight.

Two guards aimed remotes at her, while the big one, the chief guard who thought he owned her, just smiled. She smiled back at the chief guard and looked beyond him. There were two more guards at the door, both with weapons more dangerous to her than the remotes.

Looking down in disgust at her bare feet, Gwen swore and raised her glaring gaze to the chief male. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me back my shoes?”

“If the stones hurt your feet, I might be willing to carry you. I can be benevolent or I can be cruel. It all depends how well you please me,” her would-be owner said.

Gwen walked out of the cage and looked to the male on her right holding a remote in a death grip while he eyed her body with envy. Young, she thought. Young and too inexperienced to see past her nearly naked appearance. Earth females appealed to many species. She had concluded long ago that nothing beat a rounded ass and long legs for distracting males.

“You really shouldn’t point that thing unless you intend to use it,” Gwen said to him sweetly, giving him a wink.

He let out a single snort of laughter just before Gwen broke his neck with sharp kick to his throat. She looked at the other guard. “Sorry. I swear I was just trying to maim him. How fragile is your species anyway?”

The second guard, one as young as the first, seemed shocked about his fallen counterpart, and in his shock forgot to press the button on the remote. Gwen laughed as her would-be owner grabbed the device from the shocked male who had obviously not seen a slave fight back, much less kill someone.

Another kick dropped him to the floor as well, and he was calling out in pain when she advanced on the chief guard. The panicking male was now shocking her steadily as he called for help from the guards at the door. She silenced the second guard with a second kick as she walked over him. Death throes of her enemies just tended to annoy her.

Gwen felt her collar buzzing madly and laughed in the chief guard’s face. The only thing keeping her from blowing up the building with one of Chiang’s explosives was the need for stealth—and some misplaced sympathy for her pathetic, unhelpful cellmates.