The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (35 page)

Please? Had I just said please?
First time for everything, he guessed.

“Kimraig’s troops are on the floor above. Luna will bring them to us. I will hold this stairwell and the hallway.”

“Good choice,” Marta said as she looked around the defensive position the kid had prepared. “Keep that big woman safe, good fit for you.”

He listened to the dark flooding the stairs below him. He did not know why he felt secure, but he knew there was nothing down there he had not seen before. What had happened in the last few hours? He checked his Brody, still out yet breathing normally.

That first time he had called her by her childhood name, without adding her building number, remained a fond memory.

“Brody,” he had said as she was in the process of using his body for her own pleasure. She had pulled back and aimed a roundhouse blow to his head. He had grabbed her fist with his opposite hand and pulled hard. Off balance, she tipped too far and he hunched up, rolled them, and pinned her on her back. Now he was in the dominate position.

She fought. He did not defend, the angle was wrong for her blows to be effective. He did bite. That tender part of one breast. Sucking her into his mouth with steady even pressure then his teeth, just a nudge, warning what could happen if she continued to resist. He had remained locked inside her and slowly started the sideways jamming motion she habitually used on him. He had always made good use of his stomach muscles to withdraw most of the pressure so she would have to work harder. This time he jammed his pelvis against her for maximum contact.

The blows continued. Fists became open hand slaps, then ineffectual fingertip bats—blunt fingernails feebly clawed into his shoulders.

He did not roll away; he took her there twice more. Each time he whispered her birth name, “Brody.”

The last time she had looked into his eyes and tenderly held his head in her overlarge hands. “Idiot,” she said and pulled him in for his first kiss.

Luna’s second yell from the top of the stairs brought him back to his fortified landing.

“Luna and others coming down the stairs,” she barked a second time.

“Come,” He answered.

“They need your size up there to help. I will hold here,” she nudged him up the stairs.

“Why me, they have half an army up there.”

“Kimraig asked for you, is why.” No nudge this time, she pushed.

Hunter Curtis did not remember running up the stairs, only the first sight of Kimraig supported between Rat and another Trooper. He suppressed the pleasure that first sight brought him and joined them.

* * *

Marta was there, at the edge of his dream, treating Breen’s inert form. Hunter Curtis observed anxiously.
Where am I
, and he remembered being carried down the stairs to the next floor and along a hallway to join badly wounded Breen.

Kimraig tried to push formless hands from his face, wiping his tender mouth with water—their precious water. There would be reservoirs in this building, why worry?

“You knew this would happen when you did not swallow those leaves.”

LaJay slapped at his hands as he tried to push hers away.

“I am finished, done; you might survive this dose of stupid. Next time...?”

She shrugged leaving her half-formed question unanswered.

Her eyes followed his trembling arm as he struggled to point to Breen.

“She will live,” LaJay shrugged again; the condition of the other woman of little interest.

“What?” Kimraig retrieved his arm to rub at his sore mouth. The other arm did not respond to his command.

“Your mouth is sore from me digging out those leaves,” a wicked smile washed brightly across him as she spoke.

“No,” he mumbled. He was unable to form more words, so he lifted his arm again towards Breen. She knew exactly what he wanted but chose to be obtuse.

“Oh, of course, how did she get here?”

LaJay had taken a long time to form her thoughts into words. Females had a habit of doing this when they wanted males to wait. Usually, that pissed Kimraig off. Not so much lately since he was beginning to understand she was all about teasing him out of his normal steady command of every situation. She saw wonderful things, where he saw only duty. He had tried to join her several times. Funny, it did not seem to hurt.

It took every ounce of strength to point his arm again. She had to know he was interested only in how Breen’s condition affected any decisions he would make in the next few hours.

“Well, seems like those piles of rags around her are what is left of Outsiders.” She paused for emphasis. “They must have linked up with the bubbles or baby Ergots...whatever...for the attack aimed at Breen. Someone stuck them good enough to kill, only rags left just like all the other times. I still smell them here.”

“Breen was the main objective for that guy named Bradley. Tried to throw her over his shoulder and run off with her. I think the old boy bit off more than he could chew. Cut his throat, she did.”

LaJay scuttled the few feet to Breen and retrieved a slim object from her open hand.

She returned to his side holding up a long thin knife. “Filleting knife, an old one, used to cut meat from fish bones, makes a nice clean slit.”

A battle commander would not carry a knife like that around, no good in combat.

LaJay chose not to pass that one. He would have to make that decision himself, since he knew her.

“Who found her?” Kimraig asked.

LaJay did not answer instead she went to retrieve Marta.

When Marta scuttled over to his side he had one awful thought,
I hope LaJay can maintain control and not throttle Breen.

Marta crouched beside him blocking his view, just as his leering black woman mimed a chocking action with thumbs extended—very funny girl that LaJay.

“Please repeat how you found Breen,” he asked Marta gently, remembering she was a Crosser soldier, his peer.

Since this Hunter was so like her own commander Colt, Marta did not recite by rote what she had told Hunter Curtis. She visualized the scene from hallway to hallway and lived it for him with vivid oral description.

“You did not see this, you guessed...,” he cut that thought off and began again. “You analyzed all the facts available and came to that decision?”

“Only one available,” she grinned as she finished. Marta saw why LaJay was so hot for him. Here was a male who had used tact for the first time and did not bother to apologize. Hell, any male in this world who attempted to change was worth chasing just to uncover all the layers. Builders were different she knew, but still. She preferred Luna; they had been together a long time.

“The bubbles came when you returned to the stairs to inform Hunter Curtis.”

Marta understood he was thinking in words and waited, nodding to him at end of each section. She watched him trying to judge her thoughts by her body language.

“You returned to Breen and found her clothes pulled from her healed wounds. That pile of rags had been Bradley.”

“The rags and that skuzzy lower leg with black swollen foot.” Marta was impatient but she had to wait a little longer. “Bubbles do not eat everything.”

“I cannot see any other explanation here, so we will put this kill in Breen’s basket.” He thought for one more second and continued. “A certain woman on the stairwell is waiting for relief. Go on, battle is over for now, take some time for yourselves.”

Marta bent over him and spoke softly. He smiled. She was gone.

LaJay fumed—again.

The curious hole those leafs had gnawed in him, seemed to have dissipated into a mere pinprick. His head felt somewhat better. That did not carry over to his wide chest and its constant dull throb, chomping at his nerves. Strong enough, so maybe roll over, wedge an elbow under, and attempt to push.

Nope, not so good on first try, once more then.

“Wait old man, let me help.” LaJay was behind him, lifting gently by shoulder and waist—mouth chipping constantly—gently helping him to the wall.

“Even I know better than to get involved with a male. A male Builder yet, what is next?”

“Are we involved?” Kimraig groaned, as he finally sat erect.

“No, no, no.” She was silent for a moment. Then anger, anger directed inward. “If I ever want to be with a male, I certainly will be bright enough to pick one who does not strip every woman he sees with his eyes, and him ready to jump her bones, and then makes that crude action into some kind of game thrown right in her face, while she is doing exactly what he told her to do and then not even bother to thank her; damn men are the same here as they are at home...”

“LaJay,” he stopped her. “Take a breath.”

Kimraig had trained in the art of hiding his emotions, yet this abrupt message was not lost on him. It was refreshing, so much like Char when she had first brought him out of his shell. That memory carried a certain amount of guilt that he could not put a name to. He had not thought of her, and he knew that was wrong.

“Please explain. I am at a loss trying to figure out what this is about,”

“Marta,” LaJay gestured in the vague direction the Crosser soldier had disappeared. “She was going to meet you later, alone.”

“No, she was thanking me for sending her back to her lover, Luna,”

Kimraig lied, not wanting to reveal the concern Marta had shown; no sense in explaining her warning to be careful with LaJay’s heart. This side of females was still just out of his grasp.

“Oh...oh… oh... that is why they were always touching here and at home.”

Kimraig flinched, she understood but she was not going to let her snit get away.

“What about her?” LaJay flung one loose arm in Breen’s direction.

“I am her Hunter for now. She owns me until she tires of putting up with my attitude. Then I belong to the Wicca, our government. They decide who owns me next.”

“You accept that? But...”

“Enough for now, help me to the wall. I must be standing when they return.”

He was not much help, in fact, he was all but dead weight as she helped, carried, dragged, pushed him to the wall and somehow wedged him tight against the cool surface.

When he caught his breath, he asked the question that had jumped into his fuddled brain as she returned to check Breen.

“How old are you, LaJay?”

“This winter will be my fifteenth year.”

For Breen, lying on the floor near them, waiting and listening to them talk was silent death. Laying still and waiting. Eyes closed waiting, trying to peak from cracked eyelids while cataloging every word they spoke—more than brutal. Helped with the pain, but it was back again, muted and dull since her ordeal.

Everything about her ordeal remained hidden in the fog, rising to obscure the true details of what came before the bubbles and their more than welcome visit.

There were only snippets of action forcing in and out of memory. A deck of playing cards flashing its pictures as a backroom gambler feigned counting each card.

Reaching the landing and checking that the door was secured.

Brody-1 followed by her trusted Troopers as she led them up the stairs.

Mousetrap—the stairwell’s heavy metal door smashing them—her.

Flights of angry bees stinging her Troopers down one by one, stingers quivering in flesh like spears—Brody-1 down on the stairs—more it seemed.

Stumbling from a blow to the head, more pain everywhere.

Out of the battle’s chaos, painfully bent double over a bouncing shoulder as a runner carried her away from the carnage.

What remained had washed in a heavy coating of sticky black, as Bradley’s old body trapped her on her back—a young boy talking to no one and quickly running away. That was all. There was no memory of a knife in her hand—she could not hold one. There was no bouncing card picture of her attacking him—she had no strength.

Then she remembered the quick shimmering of a female warrior, checking them where they lay...quickly gone.

Then a quick flash of bubbles in the thousands led by an Ergot blob or two, like a froth of receding surf disposing of the body beside her and healing her wounds...nothing else.

She would accept for now what she had overheard from Kimraig’s interrogation of that Crossers garbage, Marta. Had she almost spoken? No, she realized—only expelled air.

Breen sneaked one more look and found child woman LaJay wrapping new bindings around “my” Hunters damaged chest. She probably just missed the good stuff.

Did Crosser females mate at this young age, like the Builder’s Mating Ritual? That did not make a difference, as soon as her armies were large enough the adults would die quickly. She would mold their children to Builder ways. Those who fought her control would be food for the bubbles.

Pain drove her out of delirium as one son lifted her in his arms—which one.

“Easy Mistress, I have you.”

Good, he was being formal. She would use her cloak of pain to transfer her plans.