Reclaiming Mystique (SpaceStalker Saga Book 2) (35 page)

But his eyes, Naria thought worriedly, they looked completely black and had the beginnings of emptiness within them.

“Jace?” she asked again, barely aware that Arana had neared Jace and watched him with tears in her eyes. Koneru too stepped forward and grimaced at the sight of his captain lying so injured before them.

“Naria?” Jace croaked. He blinked up at her in surprise, flinching when he seared off more of his flesh as he turned to face her.

Naria stroked his hair tenderly and leaned down to kiss her lover gently on his mouth. His lips looked red and raw and she wanted nothing more than to heal this proud man.

With a gentle kiss and a whisper, she healed his mouth and the wounds on his face, taking the pain and absorbing it into her system.

Arana blinked. “How did you do that?”

“She can heal,” Jace answered with a faint smile now on his healed lips. He lifted an injured hand to cup Naria’s cheek before Arana’s presence figured into Jace’s tired mind. His eyes widened and he turned his head to stare intently at Arana.

“Your sister, Jace,” Naria said quietly. She saw tears of disbelief and joy enter his expression before he banked all emotion.

“This is a trick, another of Orsan’s clever ploys to manipulate me,” Jace said and tried to sit up, wincing at his wounds as he did so.

“No, Jace,” Koneru said quietly. Jace blinked and studied the large Rovi with confusion. “This is no trick. Your sister has aided us to rescue you. Now we need to leave before they come back.”

Jace shook his head and Naria wondered why he resisted them. “We can’t go. At least, I can’t go with you. Orsan is tied to me.” Jace tapped his head. “He probably already knows you are here.”

“Quite right,” a malignant voice sounded all around them, echoing off of the round walls holding them inside. Suddenly Orsan appeared and Naria could only stare at the nightmare in front of her. He shimmered into existence next to Jace, cutting through Jace’s healed flesh with a long curved talon. As the blood welled up on the cut along Jace’s cheek, Orsan studied the crimson line with pleasure. Then he studied Naria and the others intently.

“Why, Jace,” Orsan said with a frown. “You never told me how lovely she was.” And so saying, he grabbed Naria and disappeared with her.

Jace cursed and tried to stand but didn’t have the strength to do so. Koneru stepped forward and lifted Jace in his arms.

Hurry,” Arana said, her dark eyes shimmering with fear. “We must leave before he returns.”

We can’t go.” Jace struggled to go free but under Koneru’s massive strength, his spent body could move nowhere. “He has Naria.”

“And he will keep her alive only to torment you,” Arana said. “Come Jace. You can do her no good if you’re dead. Let us take you and heal you. You know Orsan only wants to draw out your punishment for escaping so long ago.”

Giving Jace no time to argue, Koneru stepped into the passageway with Arana. They moved quickly, expecting trouble but surprisingly encountering nothing unusual.

“I’m protecting us with my mind, Koneru,” Arana explained as they moved. “Orsan is trying to find us but his attention is diverted between us and Naria. For that reason alone he has not the strength to find us just now. Her hold on his interest is most unusual,” Arana said with a frown.

“It’s because she’s from Dark World,” Jace protested. “And I have to save her.”

“Soon, brother, soon,” Arana said softly as they made their way to the safety of the jungle once more.

-21-

“My, my.” Orsan smiled and Naria flinched at the sharp white teeth prominently standing out against the yawning emptiness of his mouth. “You really are a beauty, aren’t you?”

Naria stared in horrified awe at this creature of chaos. He had seemed to blink out of the tower room as his conscious though propelled them through space to the throne room. And his large red wings flapped in the air of the great hall without making a sound.

Naria swallowed audibly, her nerves at being closer to the nothingness above them making her tremble. She had encountered untold horrors and evil in Dark World, but those things she had been able to cope with, even understand. Orsan and his minions however, stood outside her realm of comprehension. They had no rhyme or reason for their actions save to cause harm and confusion.

Even the devels of Dark World usually fought against the demons for a reason, for some power they might wrestle to control or to right a wrong felt done to them. Yet the Cazeth had lived and fed off of Mystique hoping what? To one day destroy it all? For what purpose?

“For that purpose,” Orsan said, reading her mind. “You, Naria, you come from Dark World. You know how things should work.”

Orsan landed them both before the throne and plunged a large hand in her hair, forcing her neck back as he stared at the slim, white column of her vulnerable throat. He leaned down and bit her softly, making her gasp in pain as she felt a trickle of blood run over her neck.

“So tender,” Orsan murmured thoughtfully. “Such lovely flesh for a Dark Worlder. Or should I call you an Offworlder now? Seeing as how you refused your people for the affections of a mere Psi?” Orsan sniffed in disdain and Naria wondered at the hint of pride that tainted him.

“Why am I here?” Naria asked. “What do you want from me?”

Orsan dropped her suddenly and Naria fell to her knees painfully on the solid rock beneath them.

“I want nothing from
you
,” Orsan said in a mild voice, his many cadences blending curiously into one as he studied her. “Nothing except to pleasure you beyond your wildest dreams.” Orsan smiled. “Imagine what that might do to your lover, Naria. To see you writhing beneath me, to watch me plunder your tender flesh and fill you with my seed,” he said, his eyes mottling from black to white and back to black. “I do believe that sight might very well take precious Jace Arel into madness. Oddly enough I couldn’t break him using the elements or with mind control. But you, Naria, you are the key.”

Naria flinched under his hungered gaze and refused to look above her, needing to control her fears and shield her thoughts.

“You won’t break Jace, Orsan,” she said quietly. “There is a strength in him that you have never seen, nor have I, for that matter.”

“Nonsense, girl.” He flared his wings behind him and curled his hands into fists. “Jace is the only creature ever to escape from me. And I find his challenge thrilling, alive and so very, very tempting.” Orsan stopped speaking then and tilted his head as if listening to something.

Naria could pick up the faint sounds of that foreign clicking before it faded.

“So he’s got more friends now, does he?” Orsan smiled evilly and turned his attention back to Naria. “Well then, let’s give them all a little show, shall we?”

Just as Jace and the others had rejoined in the jungle, they all fell to their knees in anguish as a large mental roar echoed throughout the kingdom. Koneru tried to shield Jace but could not stop himself from falling to the ground. Jace tumbled from Koneru’s arms, his scored flesh bitten with sticks and dirt from the ground.

Jace said nothing, merely waited to see Orsan’s latest vision of evil. But what he saw made his blood run cold.

Before everyone floated a vision of Orsan holding Naria naked in his arms. She lay stunned, limp and staring sightlessly out at them. Then Orsan bent over Jace’s woman and kissed her brutally, his long taloned fingers carving lines of pain and blood into Naria’s soft flesh.

Jace growled low in his throat, his heart churning as his control began to slip. How he had managed to maintain his core of strength under Orsan’s earlier torture had surprised him, but he had maintained. Threats to Naria, to his very heart, however, undid him as nothing else could. Even knowing Orsan only did these things to provoke him couldn’t stop Jace’s temperature from rising, his anger growing uncontrollably.

“Jace, don’t let him control you!” He heard Naria’s mental shout before the vision faded, Orsan’s cry of outrage overwhelming Naria’s tired mind.

“Naria,” Jace groaned and sagged on the ground, struggling to control himself until the time when he could again see her, touch her to make sure that she suffered no fatal harm. Jace cursed at his physical weakness and withdrew into himself, needing to heal at this critical moment when all seemed lost.

Jace could not lose Naria, not now, he thought. Mystique herself held not the allure of life that Naria did in her deep purple eyes and welcoming smile.

At his thoughts, the planet seemed to shimmer around him and Jace heard the others gasp and murmur as the ground trembled beneath their feet.

“Come,” Castor shouted over the noise. “We have to get to safety!”

Jace found himself again lifted by Koneru as the large party moved quickly into the heart of the jungle.

“Sorry for the rough ride,” Koneru mumbled but Jace was lost to his deep feelings the planet urged him to feel. As if against his will, Jace found himself tracing every step of his adventures with Naria. From their very first meeting in Dark World to the passionate interlude on Rovi and further into Vembi, his memories lingered on her taste and the feel of being deep within her, of feeling joined to her, one in spirit.

And as his thoughts and memories consumed him, Jace smiled and relaxed, comforted in Mystique’s strange grasp.

“I don’t like this, Mikhel,” Arana heard Castor say as the
SpaceStalker
crew hunkered over Jace’s prone form. “He hasn’t moved in half the night and even his sister says she can’t touch his mind. Maybe what he saw pushed him over the edge.”

“It would have nearly killed me to see Carinna so abused,” Nesham admitted quietly, his gaze drawn to Jace’s still body.

“No, he’s stronger than that,” Mikhel said frowning, drawing Arana’s attention. Arana still didn’t know what she felt about the large male with extraordinary senses. He was unlike any male she had ever met, not that she had encountered that many non-Psi in her lifetime. “I can’t explain it but I feel something very odd forming around him. It’s as if new life is generating but I can’t fathom how…”

Arana approached her brother with more healing towels containing Mystique minerals and hot water. She continued to place them over his burnt body and as the men watched, she cared for him gently. She sighed, thinking it had been years since she had been able to care for him properly. Though junior to her brother in years, she had always held the role of healer in her home, taking after her mother.

“It has been many years since we have seen Jace,” Arana said softly. “And now that our parents have died, it is only fitting that the new king be ready to take his throne once we have disposed of the Cazeth.”

“New king?” Castor asked in amazement. The others around him looked startled as well.

Arana glanced up at them. “Hadn’t Jace told you who he was? I would assume that since he trusted you enough to bring you to Mystique, he would have told you all of it.”

“No,” Castor said with a scowl. “Why don’t you tell us?”

“It’s simple really.” Arana shrugged and returned her attention to Jace, feeling a bit startled that her brother would trust these men with Mystique, his life’s blood, but not the simple truth about his lineage. “Our parents were a part of the Zescha, the royal family of Mystique. Jace and I grew up in the keep. Though our royalty is much more relaxed than royalty throughout the System, it is a position of much authority.

“Once our parents were killed fighting Orsan and the Cazeth, the fight then fell to Jace. I always knew he would one day return to us, that he had escaped with the sole purpose of coming back to fight again. And now that he has, he will assume the mantle of leader of the Psi. It is his birthright.”

Mikhel laughed and everyone turned to look at him. “By the Goddess, but that man has more surprises than anyone I know. He comes from a planet that doesn’t exist, and of course he has to rule it.”

The others grinned and even laughed.

“Of course we exist,” Arana said, affronted. She stood after finishing with Jace and would have left when Mikhel grabbed her arm to stop her.

“No offense intended, Princess,” Mikhel said with amusement, a twinkle of humor lining his bright blue eyes. “But to know your brother and work alongside him, well, it’s hard to see him as a king.”

“Perhaps in the System, but not here. Jace has untold powers that only a Psi ruler can be born with,” Arana said and stared at Mikhel’s large hand on her arm. She didn’t know why this man intrigued her more than the others, but something about him bothered her on a fundamental level she couldn’t quite explain.

She watched as Mikhel stared at her and his eyes narrowed. Incredibly the blue in his eyes intensified and Arana blinked, surprised to find Mystique prodding Mikhel as if looking for something only a Psi would have.

“What
is
that?” Mikhel asked as he let go of her arm.

“It’s Mystique,” Arana answered, waiting curiously to see what the foreign man made of her words. But instead of scoffing in disbelief or laughing, he merely nodded.

“Of course,” Mikhel said, as if her answer explained his question clearly. “The life around us is very strong, but moreso due to the planet’s life energies.”

Arana looked to see what the others made of his words but found that they had drifted away, now conversing with her people. Arana frowned, not liking that she’d been so wrapped up in the Fenturi that she’d disregarded her surroundings.

“How is it that you can accept this so readily?” she asked Mikhel curiously.

“Ah, sweet,” he said in a husky voice as he stared at her. “I’m a full-blooded Fenturi. Know you anything of my people?”

Arana frowned and stepped back from him, not wanting to be caught in his seductive web again. She had too much to worry about to fall prey to his advances, and yet her body refused to acknowledge the truth. Instead, it leaned towards his touch, reveled in his affectionate words and heated glances.

Arana shook her head and moved away, needing a brief respite from the overwhelming male. She knew the Fenturi were reputedly fierce warriors and devastating lovers, a sensual people that were soon to vanish into extinction at the hands of the Bylaran king.