“The good of Parseon requires it. You will not be able to get near enough to do the deed.”
“
I
can.” Anika pulled out of Urazi’s embrace.
“No!” Urazi gently scowled at her. “I will not permit it.”
She planted her scarred hands on her hips and jutted out her chin in the stubborn way she had. “It is our best option. It is Parseon’s
only
chance.”
“I will not allow it, and I do not see how you will be able to get closer to him than I can.”
“I will pretend to be one of his breeders.”
Perce cocked his head. “That might work.”
Urazi glowered at Perce before growling at Anika. “No. Have you lost your mental faculties? He already knows your face.”
“He will never see my face. His breeders are veiled.”
“True.” Perce nodded. “My sire demands all females in his presence cover their faces.”
The oddity distracted Urazi. “Why?”
“Because engaging in congress with a female revolts him. Prior to mating, he employs a beta to stoke the necessary tumescence to complete the act. Even then, failure often occurs.”
“But he kills his—” Anika broke off. Urazi had shared Perce’s revelation that other sons had died at birth and his own suspicion that Qalin had been responsible.
“Male offspring?” Perce finished her sentence.
“You know?”Anika gaped at him.
Perce’s face twisted with self-disgust. “Yes. One of the many atrocities I have tolerated.”
“Despite his revulsion, he continues to eliminate his sons, but mates to replace them?” How did that make sense? Urazi rubbed his chin.
“Perhaps he feels the need to prove he can produce sons, but fears contenders to his command,” Anika suggested.
“I have reason to believe my sire is afflicted by an irreversible disease of the brain,” Perce said. “While the illness has not affected his
intelligence
, it has attacked his judgment and discernment. His compassion. You would not know from what has transpired in recent years, but my sire was a benevolent Commander once. He adhered to Protocol, but he was fair. His personality altered until the last year or so when the rate of change sped up threefold.
“He is no longer the sire I knew.” Sadness settled on Perce’s face.
“What makes you think an ailment has stricken him?” Anika asked.
“When he first exhibited unusual behavior, he had cut himself on his dagger, and my uncle obtained the discarded bloody bandage and took it to a medical technician for analysis.” Perce sighed. “My sire suffers from a malady causing mental deterioration.”
“Why didn’t he seek treatment?” Anika gasped. “I know sickness is viewed as weakness, but—”
“By the time he was diagnosed, it was too late. At the onset of the disease, either he experienced no symptoms, or he ignored them. The med tech suggested infection occurred through sexual contact when he was a promiscuous young alpha. The disease lay dormant until recently.”
“But-but-his betas! The breeders! Is he spreading the sickness?”
“Not anymore,” Perce said. “He is no longer contagious. The damage is only to himself.”
“And Parseon,” Urazi said.
“And Parseon,” Perce agreed.
Qalin had to be checked before his madness destroyed their planet. However, that did not change Urazi’s mind about Anika’s involvement. “Regardless—”
She cut him off. “I am doing it. You cannot stop me.”
He scrutinized her chemical burns, some of which penetrated all the skin layers down to the underlying tissue. What torture she had endured. He would not risk her life or safety again.
He braced for a battle; she would not concede easily. “After the torment you have suffered, do not make me chastise you to gain your compliance.”
Please, Anika.
She didn’t so much as flinch, but assumed a defiant stance, feet planted apart, chin raised with determination. “After the torment I have been through, do not make me fight
you
to do what needs to be done.”
Her gaze, more obstinate than he’d ever seen, locked on his. Her stubbornness hinted of a more personal issue than destroying a despot. Anika
would
fight him—even if it meant injuring herself. Urazi could blister her buttocks with the sudon, but, afterwards, she would rise and march on as relentless as Qalin himself.
Urazi could not win. He only had as much control over her as she permitted.
He stared at the bare stone where the Veronian had lain. Anika had not just survived, she had emerged victorious. Battled with a Veronian and
won
. Perhaps she
could
triumph where he and Perce would fail. But it tore him up to allow her to put herself in danger.
Allow
her? Urazi twisted his mouth.
He glowered. “If you…if anything goes wrong”—he could not bring himself to utter the word
die
—“and something happens to you, you
will
feel the sting of the sudon.” He found a modicum of solace in the empty threat.
She tossed her head cheekily. “If anything goes
wrong
, you’ll have to ride in on a beast and rescue me.”
Chapter Twenty One
In the corridor leading to the chamber Qalin used for breeding, Anika trod purposefully, flanked by the two males.
“I restate my objection,” Urazi growled into her ear.
Besides securing her identity, the robe she wore hid that her legs trembled like leaves in the wind. She could show no fear. She’d taken a stand and won the battle with Urazi, but if he suspected how terrified she was, he would drag her to her quarters. “This is our best chance to save Parseon,” she reiterated.
Perce nodded. “After everything that has happened, it is fortunate that my sire still intends to mate with a breeder.” He met her eyes through the slit in the veil. “I cannot get over the change in your eye color!”
Before donning the voluminous robe and head covering, Anika had removed the colored contact lenses and returned her irises to their natural amber shade, surmising Qalin might recognize “Anjot’s” blue eyes.
“With the robe, no one can tell whether you are male or female. I should take your place,” Urazi said.
She and Perce shook their heads. “You are far too large to pass for a female,” he said.
Operating under the dubious assumption that she would be successful, beneath the robe, Anika wore an alpha winter uniform in anticipation they would need to flee the abode.
She looked to Perce. “When this is done”—
after we kill your sire
—“you should come with us.”
He shook his head. “Without a leader, chaos will reign. Someone must remain to restore order.”
Urazi’s countenance still appeared worried, displeased.
Anika snaked an arm free of the voluminous sleeve to squeeze his hand. “It will be fine,” she lied. “You will be by my side.” Their quickly drafted plan had Urazi acting as the alpha guard who would escort Anika to the chamber. Qalin had never seen his face, so he would not recognize him. Perce, who was least likely to draw attention for loitering, would serve as lookout sentry.
They rounded the corner, and two alpha guards stationed outside the breeding chamber snapped to attention.
* * * *
Anika stumbled from the anteroom into Qalin’s inner sanctum on a shove. “Get in there, female!” Urazi barked.
As before, Qalin lounged on the elaborately adorned platform. To her relief, he had no alpha or Veronian guards with him; however, a couple of betas knelt at his feet, and another stood to his left side. Would the betas defend Qalin? They were not trained fighters, but they outnumbered her and Urazi. Two she had not seen before, but she recognized one of those who knelt from his broken nose. It had doubled in size, and though it no longer bled profusely, a rusty crust remained around his nostrils.
“I expected to receive the female sooner.” Qalin scowled with irritation.
“My apologies, Commander,” Urazi replied. “After first one proved herself unsuitable, we subjected the others to increased scrutiny.
“I do not know you.” Qalin tilted his head to study Urazi. Anika had trimmed his hair, and he wore a gray fair-weather uniform to enable him to prominently display Qalin’s insignia. He appeared every centimeter an alpha guard except for a lack of personal armament. He’d left his weapons behind upon Perce’s advisement they would be confiscated. Perce had been correct. Anika had sweated as the guards outside the anteroom gave Urazi a thorough once-over, but they paid her scant attention. For the first time, she was grateful for a lack of status that enabled her to move almost unnoticed.
Perce then dispatched the guards to the Chamber of Familiars, some distance away from the breeding room. They’d questioned his orders, at first, but he’d produced a written directive forged with Qalin’s seal, and they’d left.
“Honor to the brave,” Perce had saluted them.
Urazi saluted Qalin now. “It is my greatest honor to have been initiated into service, Commander.”
Qalin did not reply, but accepted Urazi’s statement as his due, and jerked his head to the stout wooden frame in the middle of the room. “Put her in position.” A plank, perhaps a half a meter in length and half again as wide slanted upwards, supported by four sturdy legs. The posts on the high end of the plank ran perpendicular to the floor, but the back two angled spreading to nearly a meter at the bottom. Two leather cuffs were attached near the base of the angled legs.
The apparatus was a mating bench. Her torso would rest on the plank while her legs would be spread and immobilized. Why hadn’t she paid more attention when she’d been here before! She’d focused so much on Qalin and her fear, she’d ignored the room and its accoutrements. They’d never factored into their plan she might be restrained. She would have to go through with the breeding!
But she couldn’t! As soon as Qalin spotted her uniform beneath the robe, their scheme would be revealed. Panicked, she sought Urazi’s gaze. He gave no indication he was aware of the impending disaster. His expression appeared as hard as a statue, as if he
had
transformed into one of Qalin’s guards.
He shoved her toward the bench. “Move!”
She wobbled to the apparatus and slowly bent over the plank.
“Spread your legs, breeder!” Urazi kicked at her heel.
This is Urazi
.
Urazi. He is acting for show.
Her legs shook like reeds.
“Wider!”
Carefully to avoid displaying her boots beneath the floor-dragging robe, she broadened her stance. They hadn’t discussed any of this.
Urazi moved to her side, his body blocking Qalin’s view. As he bent to secure her leg to the bench, his mouth brushed over her ear. “Trust me,” he whispered.
She appreciated his effort to comfort her, but words could not solve their predicament. Urazi was weaponless; she would be rendered immobile. Qalin would either kill her when he discovered her uniform and weapons—or follow through and mate with her. Her heart stopped pumping. What if impregnation occurred, and she were forced to bear the monster’s offspring? Why hadn’t she thought to drink a contraceptive tea?
Because she’d never expected this scenario. Anika grabbed ahold of the front legs of the apparatus and squeezed until her knuckles blanched.
Urazi knelt at her feet, reached under her robe, and shifted her foot so that her ankle touched the leg of the stand—then rustled the buckles of the restraint as if attaching them, but left them loose. He scooted around to the other side and repeated the action. “There!” he said. “That should hold her.”
They had a chance. Slim. But a chance.
Anika peeked at Qalin. His eyes were closed, his pants were undone, and the beta with the broken nose fellated him. She winced in sympathy for the beta as Qalin thrust his hips, driving his manhood deeper into the beta’s mouth and ramming his nose in the process. The beta never broke a stroke, but tears of pain streamed from his eyes.
Urazi pretended to adjust her position in front. Another quick whisper. “Keep in place until he is in close proximity.” He straightened.
Qalin’s eyes popped open.
Had he heard Urazi’s murmured instruction?
The Alpha shoved the beta away and rolled off the platform. His erection curved like a sickle, its overlarge head reminding her of the crown of a toxic fungus.
Urazi waited at attention a few meters away. He might well have been on the opposite side of Parseon, the distance seemed so vast.
Qalin motioned to him. “Lift her robe.”
No. no. no
.
Not yet!
The Alpha was still too far away. Keeping her legs motionless, she twisted her head to watch his approach.
Urazi shuffled toward her, delaying.
“Never mind!” Qalin snapped, closed the distance and yanked up her robe.
Silence enveloped the room for a second until it was cleaved by his roar. “
Guards! Guards
!”
Anika grabbed for her dagger strapped to her thigh, but her hand caught in the voluminous folds of the fabric, and she fumbled. Urazi lunged at Qalin, but the Alpha’s powerful defensive blow sent him crashing into the wall.
Anika tore the dagger from its sheath and dove at their nemesis. He twisted out of reach, so that she only nicked his ribs. With a chop, Qalin knocked the weapon from her hand. It clattered onto the stone and slid away.
He rammed his fist into the side of her head. She flew like the knife and hit the floor. Her ears rang.
Betas scattered. The one standing fled out a rear exit. The one with the broken nose cowered behind the lounging divan, while the last one hovered close to the fray, as if he would jump in. Urazi had risen to his feet, and Qalin advanced on him in a crouch, his dagger drawn. The Alpha’s manhood was still exposed, but flaccid again now that vengeance overrode lust. Rage vibrated off him in waves, his misshapen features unrecognizable as anything Parseonoid.
A drum banged inside Anika’s skull, in her face.
We must not fail. We cannot
. Anika pushed through the pain, yanked off her robe, and unsheated another dagger.