Flame of the Alpha (14 page)

He opened his mouth to reply, but she stopped him by pressing her index finger to his lips. “Whatever you need to say to me, it can wait. The children can’t. We have to get them out of here. We have to get
everyone
out of here.”

He nodded his assent and together they ran down the way they’d come, toward the children’s quarters.

“Where will we go?” Dante asked as they came to a halt in front of the double doors and Sophia began the security scan to unlock the seal.

“Faye’s house.
For now.
She’ll shelter us for a while, but then we’ll need to find a way off-world.”

“All of us?” Dante raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical.

Sophia swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Can you think of a better plan?”

“My plan involves keeping us alive for as long as possible. Beyond that, I don’t tend to plan too far ahead.”

She shook her head as a smile made its way to her lips. Why didn’t that surprise her? Worse yet, why didn’t it frighten her half to death? She’d lived her entire life always knowing what the next day would bring. For the past forty-eight hours, nothing had gone the way she’d intended.

Most of the kids were down for their afternoon nap. Sophia filled in the priestess assigned to the ward for the afternoon on what had happened, leaving out the gory details of the acts that had transpired in the
Sanglant
. The woman’s face drained of color and she ran out to tell the others, while Sophia and Dante began scooping children out of their beds.

“Where are we going?”
Charmaine
, a little black-eyed, blonde-haired girl clung to Sophia’s neck, her soft baby smell permeating the air.

“Somewhere safe,” Sophia whispered.
I hope
.

The
vid
-screen blinked to life as Dante lifted
Benji
, one of two little boys in the room, on his shoulders. He winced at the pain from the wound, but didn’t let it deter him from hoisting the kid up and letting him hold tight to his curly hair.

“You can’t come here,” Faye said, her voice booming through the room.

Sophia spun on her heel to face the wall-length screen.
“Why not?”

Faye’s face looked drawn, worried. She’d aged a decade in the last day. “You’ll never make it. Officers are storming the Temple as we speak.”

Sophia’s breath halted in her throat. Around her, children began to cry.
First one, then another, then all of them.

“Where do we go?” she whispered. “There’s nowhere else.”

“A friend of mine lives in the mansion across from the outer Temple courtyard. You know the one I mean?”

Sophia nodded.

“Good. He has a craft. It’s small.
A private, T23 model.
The two of you and the children will all fit, but it’ll be cramped.” Faye narrowed her eyes and stared beyond Sophia, her limpid blue gaze focusing on Dante. “You’ll need a damn good pilot to get off this planet. Luckily, you have one.”

Sophia spun on her heel. Dante could pilot? He hadn’t told her. Then again, he hadn’t had much time. There were probably thousands of things she didn’t know about him.

“I --” His face had gone as ashen as that of the priestess who’d scurried out of the room. “No.”

“You don’t know how to pilot?” Sophia asked, feeling the last vestiges of hope begin to flitter away.

“No -- yes.” He shook his head. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “No.”

“That’s not what Vance told Quinn,” Faye said.
“Moment of truth, Dante.
Will you save them? Or will you let them die, like the others?”

Chapter Eight

Dante was never, ever --
ever
 -- sitting in a pilot seat again.

He’d promised himself.
Vowed.
Sworn to every Saint he didn’t believe
in,
and a few he did. And yet here he was, running through the thick foliage of the outer garden, scrambling for the back wall he’d climbed to get into the Academy property in the first place, all with the intent to make his way to the T23 model and get Sophia and the six frightened children off the ground.

He had to be insane. No, worse than insane. He’d had to have lost every marble that had ever rattled around in his thick skull.

He knew what happened when he got behind the steering device of a craft. People died. Horrible, flaming deaths filled with the stench of smoke and burnt flesh.

Images flashed behind his eyes as he ran. The boy gripping his hair threatened to pull the strands out by the roots, but the pain in his scalp and shoulder were preferable to the sheer terror that made his knees buckle every time he allowed himself to think of the past.

He’d been young, then. Not that he was old now, at the age of thirty, but he
felt
old. Killing twenty-four pleasure servants did that to a man.

As a fighter pilot -- a captain, no less -- in the Mars General Alliance Space Squadron, he’d been sent on dozens of missions, each more dangerous than the last. He was used to things getting a little out of control. He just hadn’t imagined how quickly events could take a turn for the worst.

The mission had been simple enough: fly a military general into foreign territory. Set him down safely on unfriendly soil and accompany him to meet with the dignitary who owned every living thing on that planet. He even remembered the dignitary’s name.
Lacrombie
.
Darsus
Lacrombie
.

The man was a pompous jackass. Dante thought that from the moment he’d met the guy, and his initial impression had only intensified the longer he stayed on the scumbag’s planet. While the general
schmoozed
Lacrombie
, Dante had a chance to wander the grounds and see
Lacrombie’s
“collection” of sex slaves. Each created on Earth, all subservient and demure, one more battered and beaten than the next.

He’d never come across such cruel conditions for sex servants anywhere. They lived in squalor, getting a ration of half a loaf of bread and some watered-down broth each day. When they were unlucky enough to be chosen to grace
Lacrombie’s
bed, they returned with joints popped out of their sockets, eyes bruised, teeth knocked out.

When Dante reported what he’d seen to the general, the man had agreed not to allow
Lacrombie’s
tiny planet into the General Alliance. They didn’t have the authority to pull the servants from
Lacrombie’s
home, but they could teach him a lesson by denying him the economic and security benefits that came with being a part of the Alliance.

It would have ended there, Dante supposed, had
Lacrombie
not decided to fire upon Dante’s ship. Despite Dante’s best attempts, the craft had come crashing down. Dante and the general had evacuated, but the ship had collided with the outer quarters, killing most of the sex slaves in the explosion that ensued. Those who survived were injured badly enough to no longer be of use to
Lacrombie
, who had them killed by his own men.

“We have to climb that wall,” Sophia said, jerking Dante out of flame-filled thoughts of the past.

He nodded and lunged at the wall, his claws leading the way. The boy on his shoulders gasped with surprise as they soared through the air. At the top, Dante crouched down and scanned the street. It was empty, but he could hear the buzz of a craft nearby, as well as the clatter of armored men in the distance.

He reached down as Sophia handed him one child at a time. She came up last,
then
helped the kids climb down to the other side.

“You’re sure you can fly?” Sophia asked him, skepticism slipping into her tone.

“No.” He winced against the pain as the boy kicked his tiny foot against the raw wound in Dante’s shoulder. “But I’m sure I know how to fly.”

The T23 model craft was still there, exactly where Faye had said it would be. The same place Dante had last seen it when the Central Command officer had warned him away.

Saints, that
seemed like a lifetime ago.

They kept to the side of the street as they ran then swerved around the back of the gleaming black craft. Dante punched in the security code Faye had given him and the far door slid open, revealing a sleek two-seat interior cab and a bench in the back.

The children, perhaps too stunned to protest, climbed into the back. Sophia buckled them in, two to a safety-strap.

“Hop in. We’re leaving,” Dante said, hoping he’d imbued his tone with more confidence than he felt.

Sophia hesitated. He turned to face her, wondering if she’d heard him.

“I’m not coming.”

He stared at her, propped his right hand against the side of the craft, and leaned in close. He couldn’t have heard her right. “Say that again.”

She blew out a breath that caused her bangs to ripple over her eyes. “I said I’m not coming with you. I belong with them.” She pointed in the direction of the Academy walls, where the rattle of armor had turned into frenzied screams. “I should be there.
Fighting.”

“Dying, you mean.”

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug and smoothed her face into a mask of indifference. He wondered if she practiced that look, or if it came naturally. Like that stubborn streak and this newfound death wish.

Saints above, he didn’t have time for this.

Lunging for her, he lifted her off her feet in a smooth glide and hoisted her over his right shoulder -- the one he could still feel. She writhed and pummeled his back with closed fists, but what was a little more pain added to the agony that had been flaring in his body for the past twenty minutes?

“Hey! Put me down!”

He did.
Right in the passenger seat.

Before slamming the door closed, locking it with the security code and enforcing his own added override, he also pushed the small blue button that would strap her in.

She was struggling with the keypad on the inside of the door when he climbed into the pilot seat beside her. “I changed it. The door won’t open.”

She craned her neck to look at him, her eyes dark and unreadable. “You’re an ass, you know.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

In the back, one of the toddlers started to cry. Sophia stared at him for another long moment, then sighed and turned to reach behind her and calm the bawling tot.

“They need me, you know. The priestesses, the guards, even the gardening staff. I’m responsible for all of them.”

Dante keyed in the new code and felt the motor beneath him rumble to life. Memories flooded his thoughts as adrenaline turned his blood to ice. He could do this. He had to do this.

“What do you think the former High Priestesses would say about that? They’re back there, fighting to give their offspring a chance to escape. Right now, these children and their mothers are depending on you. They need you more.” He licked his suddenly dry lips. “And so do
I
.”

She looked like she was about to argue. Dante sighed and yanked on the steering column. The feel of the craft leaving the ground jolted a shuddering thrill through his limbs. Saints, he’d forgotten how much he’d loved to fly. Being in control of a ship, having it obey his every command as it soared through space…there was nothing like it.

The only time he’d even come close to capturing the euphoria of flight had been with Sophia, having her strapped down, completely at his command as he made her tremble with a mere flick of his wrist.

His growl echoed through the cabin. The craft soared, higher and higher, toward the powder-blue sky. He didn’t know where they were going. It didn’t really matter, as long as they left Earth and all its archaic beliefs behind.

The craft could get them as far as Mars. They’d find shelter there, at least for a little while.

The sudden jolt that shook the craft was so unexpected it took Dante a full ten seconds to recognize it for what it was. “We’ve been hit! Hang on!”

He focused on the blinking lights across the dashboard, pin-pointing the Central Command military ships assembling in formation to give chase.
Fuck!
He should have seen them sooner. He was out of practice. He’d needed to keep an eye on the enemy in order to avoid them before they landed a solid shot.

None of the controls were flashing red, indicating nothing critical had been hit, but it was only a matter of time. Agony slid through him, sharp and intense. It speared his chest, knocking the oxygen from his lungs.

He swerved to the right, letting the craft’s momentum carry it higher. If he could break through Earth’s atmosphere, he knew of an asteroid field nearby where the tiny craft would feel right at home. He just needed to evade the pursuit for a little while longer.

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering column. He refused to look at Sophia. The tension rolling from her was almost palpable as it filled the ship.

The second shot to hit them wasn’t as benign as the first. It pierced the outer hull and jolted the inner-left engine, knocking it out. Thick black smoke filled the cabin.

As he fought to keep control of the craft, the sudden soaring climb came to a grinding halt. In the blink of an eye, they were swirling downward, descending at an alarming rate.

Earth’s landscape filled the view screen. He yanked hard on the steering column, to no avail. Trees flickered in his field of vision, growing larger alongside aged whitewashed buildings and metallic structures that spoke of newer designs.

One of the Central Command ships flashed past them. The T23 had no weapons of its own. It was a private craft, not a military machine. Not that Dante could aim a laser weapon in the craft’s rapidly descending condition, but it would make him feel better to have his finger on the trigger anyway.

Smoke clouded the view screen, blurring the image. Children’s coughs filled the air, high-pitched and terrifying. Through the dark haze, Dante could make out the angled archways and pointed roof of a structure he recognized well.

“Saints, the Academy,” he whispered hoarsely as his fingers flew over the controls. “We’re going to crash into the Academy.”

As though in mocking response, the craft began to plummet faster, taking a sudden nose-dive toward the inner cloister. The servants’ quarters were located there.

It was happening again. He’d kill the very people he’d wanted to protect and take even more innocent lives in the process.

Blood roared in his ears, drowning out everything but his own inner fury. This time, the beast remained leashed in its cage as the man took over.

He called upon every moment of training he’d had in the Squadron and his fingers tapped out a series of commands across the flaring lights of the dashboard. He wasn’t familiar with this type of ship, but right now, that was the least of his concerns.

The mechanical whirr of the remaining engine rolling over caused his seat to vibrate. He worked fast -- faster than he’d thought himself capable. Going on instinct alone, he transferred a small percentage of power lodged in other areas of the ship -- life support, lights, audible alarms -- into the working engine.

The ground rushed up to meet them. Central Command officers dove out of the way as pleasure servants darted wildly between chambers, looking for a safe place to hide.

There are no safe places on Earth. Not anymore
.

The thought flashed through his head for the second time in as many days. He darted his right hand out to grab Sophia’s while his left remained clamped on the steering column. He’d done all he could. It hadn’t worked.

Sophia wrapped her smaller fingers around his palm and clung on for dear life. Behind them, the children’s coughs and whimpers had given way to a sudden, all-encompassing silence as everyone braced for impact.

The engine turned over.
Again.
A third time.

On impulse, Dante jerked the steering column toward him. When the craft stopped its sinking plummet and ground to a halt, he thought his heart might stand still right along with the ship.

And then, two feet above the tiled roof, the craft’s nose filled the view screen. The ship sputtered and groaned, but held. The energy Dante had transferred from auxiliary sections propelled them swiftly upward, toward the sky.

A moment later, another shot took out the remaining engine.