Lord of Capra (16 page)

Evana snapped her
eyes closed, held her breath and called to Nemesis. Her body dissolved,
accompanied by the sound of a loud curse from her mate.

Pilot, I have you.
Are you comfortable?

Evana slowed her
breathing and tried to relax. She was in the pilot bed. His smell was still
with her, teasing her, calling to her to…
Oh, Nem, what is wrong with me?

I think it is
pheromones.

Well, stop them.

Nemesis actually
laughed.
I cannot. They are his pheromones. You will have to resist.

I can still smell
him. It’s…distracting.

Perhaps I can help.

A familiar tingling
began at her feet and continued upward until it seemed as if every molecule in
her body vibrated. She became liquefied. It was a clean feeling. Once she
reformed, a gust of air blasted through the pod to replace the old. She took a
quick breath, then another. She relaxed.

“I think it worked,”
she muttered aloud, grateful.

This is an
unexpected development. You reacted to his scent, Evana. I believe you were
overwhelmed because he had been exercising and pheromones are chemicals found
in sweat.

“Then he’ll just
have to stop exercising,” she proclaimed.

Pilot, I believe
this is the first time he has been able to exercise so strenuously. You have
not had any problems before now, have you?

No.
It was a lie. She
loved the way he smelled.

Then until you can
build up a resistance, you should try to avoid him after exercise. Just allow
him to shower, unless you have plenty of time to enjoy him in that state.

Evana wasn’t sure
if she was embarrassed or furious with herself. How could she be so weak? She’d
acted like an animal in heat. It was all his fault, she decided. If he wasn’t
so deliciously tempting she could control herself.

I’m doomed
.

There are worse
fates.

She was sorely
tempted to ask Nemesis to name a few. Instead, she put all thoughts of
pheromones out of her mind
. Are we ready to resume course?
She was
anxious to get to Capra.

Yes. I will speak
to your mate afterward. He is demanding to see you. He does not sound happy.

“Good!” She left it
up to Nemesis to decide how she meant her comment to be taken.

* * * *

Drake had advanced
to free fighting, level three. He sliced through his dueling partner’s neck and
then stabbed him one more time just for good measure before letting him fall to
the ground.

“Level four.” He
snarled the request, secure in his stance as he waited impatiently for the next
reincarnation of Darth Vader to form. Drake was still itching to thrash his
sparring partner again.

A soft, melodious
feminine voice ordered, “Cancel fight program.”

“I’m in no mood for
talking right now, Nemesis,” he said with a growl, fangs extended, eyes burning.
He’d never felt, or controlled, so much anger.

Nemesis caressed
him with a cool gentle breeze, trailing a path across his brow and around his
neck, dissipating the heat from his mind as she swirled a chilling wind around
his tensed body. Not wanting to release his anger, he resisted her attempts to
calm him.

“Let me help,”
she offered. Her
voice was hypnotic, cooing as if pleading with a lover.

Dammit.
Drake dropped his
head and relaxed. Resistance was futile, especially with Nemesis. “Where is
Evana?” he grumbled, even though he knew full well she was piloting again. He
could sense the physical change in Nemesis and hear the sound he associated
with traveling faster than light.

“She is recovered.”
Nemesis
answered his next question, ignoring the first one. Her voice was back to its
normal non-emotional tone.

Drake tossed his
weapons to the ground in surrender. He walked to the lounge and sat wearily. “Why
did you take her away like that?”

“She asked me to.
Evana left the pilot bed for a few minutes to take nourishment and to see you.”

Okay, he felt a
little better, but still didn’t see why she’d wanted to leave so fast. “What
was she recovering from?”

“You.”

He really hated it
when she answered questions that way. “Me? What did I do?”

“She was overcome
by your scent.”

“Huh?” Drake took a
quick sniff, checking himself. Not bad, he’d smelled a helluva lot worse
before. “Sorry. Stinky man smell, but she wasn’t really trying to get away.”

“No. She could not
stay with you either since we are trying to reach Capra as quickly as possible.
You must remember that all of your senses are heightened, not just eyesight and
hearing. They are all tools you can use. As a human, you tend to forget about
your sense of smell.

Drake nodded. “We
rely on animals for most things like that.”

“Evana is a pilot.
Her senses are all hypersensitive. She responded to the mass quantity of
pheromones your body produced.”

“Oh.” Drake thought
about how great a long dip in the relaxation pool might feel. He was still
sweaty.

“I did not
anticipate this complication. Once we reach Capra, you and Evana should
exercise as much as possible in order to build up your resistance to each
other’s pheromones.”

“Okaaaay.” He
wasn’t sure how he felt about being instructed by Nemesis to have great
animalistic sex with his mate after a super sweaty workout. It certainly didn’t
sound too bad, though. “I guess we could expose ourselves to that, if you think
it’s a good idea.”

“I knew I could
count on your cooperation,”
Nemesis stated.

Drake laughed
heartily. “Oh yeah, always.”

After she didn’t
respond for several minutes, he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the
pool. The water wrapped around him, welcoming him as he sank down neck deep. All
the remaining tension seeped out of his body. He just wanted to cool off, and
Evana’s relaxation pool was the perfect temperature. Enjoying the comfort, he
startled when Nemesis spoke again. He’d thought she was gone.

“Are you hungry?”

Drake considered
his hunger level for a few seconds before answering. “Not too much right this
minute.”

Before he could ask
her why, Nemesis said, “Then perhaps you can sleep again. You have gone without
feeding for a long while. Please call me if you become uncomfortable.”

“I will.”

“Drake.”

“Yes?”

“Evana thinks of
Capra as her home. I hope you will too.”

“Then I’m even more
anxious to get there, Nemesis.”

“Would you object
to spending a few years there?”

Now he was becoming
a little concerned about their conversation. Nemesis didn’t seem the type to
just…chat.

“No, but I thought
you liked to, you know, explore the galaxy, visit new worlds, go where no ghost
ship has gone before…right?”

“I have been weary
of exploration for some time. I think Evana would like to have a more normal
experience for a while. For many decades, I have been spreading sensors and
communication beacons throughout the major quadrants. The greatest threat to
this galaxy would be an attack from another ghost ship. It is unlikely, but
something to consider. And soon, I hope, we will destroy the wraith, either
near Capra or in another system. It would be a simple matter to patrol Free
Space borders if we were close to Capra.”

“Sounds like you
really like this Free Space
area. Does Evana?”

“Yes. And we are
the sworn protector of Capra since the battle to free them of the abomination.”

Drake cleared his
throat and yawned. He was surprised to feel sleepy again so soon. “Sounds like
I need a quick history lesson, Nemesis.”

“I will be brief.
Approximately two hundred years ago, we encountered our first abomination on
Capra. It had been there long enough to kill thousands of the inhabitants and
had created an army of creatures, hundreds of them. There were so many Evana
could not possibly fight them all alone.

“She went among the
people of Capra, to every village, and taught them how to fight the creatures.
Then, in each one, she would wait and let the creatures come for her. With the
villagers’ help, most of the creatures were destroyed. In the end, the abomination
sought her blood and Evana destroyed him. The natives were able to destroy all
the remaining creatures. It took the span of an Earth year to free the planet.
Unfortunately, they hailed Evana as a goddess, which she would not allow. No
amount of explaining could sway them in their belief. So we left. We returned
after one hundred years. There were none alive who knew her. However, they
remembered her deeds, and in our absence, they’d built a temple with a statue
of her image standing in the middle.

“One hundred years
is a long time for some planets, and the people had advanced. They were no
longer so primitive. Evana had more success in convincing them that she should
not be worshipped. Instead, they now refer to her as Lady Evana, Defender of
Capra. She dislikes the title. They built her a palace. That, she likes. It has
been five years since our last visit. They will be happy to see her return so
soon.”

Drake dragged
himself out of the pool, laughing uproariously. He reached the lounge and fell
onto the cushion, flat on his back, uncaring about his dampness or lack of
clothes.

He choked back his
laughter. “I’m sorry, Nemesis. I really do care about what happened. It was
evil, but,” he chuckled again, “Lady Evana. Defender of…” He lost it again.

Damn, if he didn’t
hear a small laugh from Nemesis. “You will most likely be known as
Lord
Drake, Consort to the Defender of Capra
.”

“Oh hell no!” He
was no longer laughing. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I cannot tell you
that.”

“I’m no lord of
anything, Nemesis,” he mumbled. The relaxation pool’s affects worked on him,
lulling him to close his eyes and sleep. He fought to stay alert so he could
argue about his absurd title with Nemesis.

“Sleep. We will be
close to Capra when you awake.”

He heard her parting
words as he lost his fight. An invisible blanket of warmth seemed to surround
him before he slowly drifted off.

Chapter Nineteen

Now that Nemesis
had left the system, the wraith known as Bayal orbited Taneth. Curled up on the
floor next to the pilot bed, Bayal’s pilot, Grendhal, waited for his master to
devise their next plan to destroy the pilot of Nemesis.

Since the Pilot
Evana had taken a mate, things were more complicated, and Grendhal knew the
task of destruction would ultimately be his responsibility. He dreaded the next
encounter. Bayal had been furious at him over the last failure, and the
punishment he’d suffered afterward was the worst yet. He hated the pilot bed.
It was a cruel device of torture when Bayal was angered, and the wraith was prone
to great outbursts of anger.

He shivered, unable
to block out the excruciating memory of his last punishment—liquefaction of his
body, then boiling for an unknown amount of time. Grendhal had tried to escape
from his servitude before by using his ability to shapeshift, but no matter
what he did, Bayal always found him. He’d even refused the elixir, hoping to
die, but the wraith had put him in the pod and injected him with the gold
venom, painful but not deadly for him, unfortunately.

The only being
Grendhal knew who was more horrific than Bayal was the ghost ship Lilitu. It
was she who’d created Bayal. She was the reason they were ordered to destroy
the pilot Evana and then Nemesis. She was the reason they had left his home
world, his galaxy, behind and traveled to this small spiral on a mission of
evil.

Lilitu had a
diseased, twisted hatred for Nemesis, which began when the original Bayal had
spurned her. The Ahnu, their leader, had banished her from Horde because she’d
succumbed to the control of her new pilot, a thought master.

The thought masters
from the planet Mazreel were all power hungry, and the unfortunate ghost ships
who took them for pilots were soon overcome by their influence. Lilitu was
lost, now just a reflection of her malevolent pilot.

The Horde had waged
a great war against the ghost ships infected by the thought masters. All but
Lilitu and a few wraiths had been destroyed. Unfortunately, the Horde’s victory
had come at a great cost. Their leader, the Ahnu, had been destroyed. The ghost
ship Bayal was chosen as the new Ahnu, no longer to be known as Bayal. And in
sick response, Lilitu named her latest creation Bayal, flaunting her loathing
of all things that the Horde stood for.

The new Ahnu swore
an oath to destroy Lilitu and her wicked spawn. Grendhal knew Lilitu, the
wraith Bayal and the other wraiths had fled in separate directions, leaving his
galaxy behind, probably forever.

Grendhal shivered
again. The temperature in the control room was dropping, an indication that
Bayal was leaving orbit, increasing speed to sub-light and would soon demand
his services.

The wraith would
never waste power for his pilot’s comfort. Grendhal curled his naked dark red
body tighter into a ball so he could cover himself with one of his leathery
wings, trying to keep warm. A shiny cap of dark red hair covered his head,
aiding to retain heat. He tucked his long, smooth tail between his legs,
threaded it up his torso, through his crossed arms and wound the prehensile tip
around his neck, desperately wishing he could choke himself to death.

*

Bayal cursed the
black void he moved through, the very same one Nemesis rode with such blinding
swiftness. The arrogant ghost ship taunted him with her blatant show of power
and speed. He could never hope to catch her or even equal her.

Now he had to
choose his next course. The only thing working to his advantage was time. Time,
enough of it if he was patient, might provide an opportunity. If his creator
appeared before his mission was complete, then he would have to endure her
wrath or die. She was still very far away, and Bayal was tired of the game he
played with the ghost ship. It always ended in stalemate. He knew where Nemesis
headed. Her course was a straight path to Capra, a planet full of weak beings,
primitive in development with no ability of space travel. And Capra was
shielded by Nemesis. He could not get near it without detection. Not like
Taneth.

Grendhal had
brought back valuable information regarding the Pilot Evana’s mate. The
vid-monitors at a small business had recorded them when they’d rented skimmers.
Now Bayal had video and audio records of her mate, and when the time was right,
Grendhal could put it to good use.

Miserable creature,
Bayal seethed privately. His pilot was pitifully weak for the task his creator
had given them. So far, he had not found another who was any stronger to
replace his present pilot. This galaxy was overrun by soft humanoids who were
only useful when dead, and Grendhal was still physically stronger and his
ability to shift forms made him valuable.
Yes.
Killing Evana or her mate
should not be difficult for Grendhal.

Bayal charted a
course to the edge of the Milky Way, deciding to orbit the outer edge and
explore the far side of the galaxy. He would bide his time and wait for Nemesis
and her pilot to lower their guard.