The Melier (Women of Dor Nye Book 1) (16 page)

“Beautiful isn’t it?”

Lucia jerked out of her skin and turned around in a rush. Her hand flew to her chest where her poor heart beat hard enough to bloody itself. She
knew
that voice and the calm she’d attained had suddenly vanished. “What are you doing here, Quinton?” Her eyes darted around, noticing she really was alone.

“I was at a shop across the road and noticed you walk into this garden,” he answered. His eyes looked all around them, as if he too was admiring the beauty of it. “I’m here with my family, like you.” Of course he was, he came every year.

“I have to go.” She began to walk around him.

“Lucia, I want to apologize,” he said and looked at the ground. His expression made Lucia stop short, because he actually looked
pained
. She’d never seen him look that way before. He was always smug and smiling or dazzling the skirts off
someone
. “My behavior has been atrocious. There are no words that can express how truly sorry I am.”

Lucia’s alarm bells were going off in her head, screaming
danger, danger
. But she’d never heard him apologize about anything to anyone. Quinton was
always
right, even when he wasn’t. “I accept. Now, I have to go.”

“Please Lucia,” he half smiled. “At least let me buy you a
loyran
as a sign of possible renewed friendship? You know you can only get them here at the capital and if I remember, you once said you’d sell your Grams if it meant you’d get a lifetime supply.” Quinton’s smile was
dazzling
.

Lucia chewed the inside of her lip to stifle a moan of longing at the mention of
loyran
. It was a sweet confection, slightly gummy and it played tricks on your tongue. One second it was cool, the next it was warm. The more you chewed the more flavors it flooded. It was strange and Lucia
loved
it.

“I shouldn’t,” she hedged, really not trusting Quinton despite his apology and she really wanted to be there when Soren woke up. Lu checked her comm for the time and saw she had a half hour before she’d need to be back. From where she was, the shop that made
loyran
was only a couple minutes ride in a transport.

“For old times’ sake,” he coaxed. “My transport will get us there in no time.”

She rubbed her throat as she contemplated. If she was going to go, she’d need to make up her mind quick. “Alright,” Lu said slowly. “But I can’t be long.”

“We’ll be quick then,” he grinned and gestured toward the gardens entrance. Lucia hesitated for a moment longer, something not sitting right with her. Maybe she was being too paranoid. That’s all it was. She shook her head and gave him a small smile before heading toward his transport.

****

Soren slowly opened his eyes, the blur of blinding light shining down upon him. He blinked multiple times, allowing his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room around him. His nose twitched as the smell of chemicals seared his sensitive nasal passages.

Where am I?

Soren’s throat worked as he swallowed and turned his head to one side, and then the other, taking in his surroundings.

The facility. Procedure. Memories. I am Soren.

No. I am Val’Ja.

I am Val’Ja, son of Val’Qa, son of Gi’Moy, prince of Melierun.

I remember.

“Soren, do you know who I am?”

Soren focused on a gray haired man with black eyes. “You are Dr. Nimka.” Dr. Nimka nodded, pleased.

“Do you know what your name is?”

“I am known here as Soren,” he sat up slowly and groaned, regretting it. His mind was splitting, it felt. Sharp pains shot through every nerve-ending and it hurt to even try thinking any further. For a minute Soren lay back, eyes closed while he focused on breathing. Memories surfaced and sunk back into the recesses of his mind. It was painful, yet he couldn’t stop it. Soren’s eyes rolled around under their closed lids while his life as Val’Ja fired pieces and shards at him,
making
him recall.

“I remember,” he whispered. “Loo-Sha.”

****

“Quinton, the shop is in the other direction,” Lucia frowned, a trickle of fear slinking down her spine. Maybe the shop had moved since last year. That happened sometimes. Shops expanded or moved locations.

Don’t be stupid. You shouldn’t have gotten in the transport!

“Quinton?”

“Oh, I changed my mind,” he grinned and his face was no longer friendly. “I’m delivering you to a friend of mine. He’s been searching for you, you know? But as a thief, I’m sure that’s nothing new. I can’t believe I lost my seat at the Assembly because of trash like
you
.”

Lucia’s stomach twisted into one large knot and her muscles felt like they were going to break and crumble with tension. “What?” she breathed.

“Surprised? They’re giving the seat to my brother instead. Their excuse, I was bringing the
wrong
attention to the Assembly. All because of that
one
incident when you couldn’t handle the truth.” Quinton seethed next to her. Lucia could
taste
the hate rolling off of him. “My brother is
weak
. He will never guide the people in the right direction.”

Get out, get out, get out! Get out of the transport!

Lucia lurched over her seat and nearly hit the doors sensor, but Quinton hooked a lean arm around her middle. He wasn’t nearly as huge as Soren, though he was bigger than her and it didn’t take much effort for him to deposit her roughly back in her seat. She immediately began to get back up and Quinton backhanded her
hard
across her jaw. Lucia swayed and slumped against her chair. Black spots and sparks of light clouded her vision and for a time, she thought she wouldn’t be able to stay conscious. When the fog cleared partially, her hand flew to the spot he’d abused. Already a lump was forming and she could taste the metallic warmth of blood where her teeth cut into her cheek from the force.

“Doesn’t feel so nice, does it?” he huffed, confiscating her comm and sitting back down. “Now, what was I saying before you rudely interrupted? Ah, yes, the Assembly.” Quinton’s fingers uncurled through the air as he swatted away a thought like a fly. “Piss on them. Ta’Ra’Enn is filling my account with more credits than I’ll spend in a lifetime. I’ll sit back, fuck Penna whenever I want, and watch the Assembly continue to screw Dor Nye.” Quinton’s eyes leered over at Lucia and she fought her need to vomit. “Penna isn’t
you
though,” he mused. “Maybe I’ll just stop the transport for one last taste-”

Lucia couldn’t hold back anymore. She leaned over the aisle between them and heaved until her throat felt like it was going to bleed. The sound of Quinton’s disgust made her smile before she heaved one last time. When she sat back against her seat, Lu’s body trembled and felt weak from the mixture of fear and strain from vomiting. She swiped the back of her hand over her lips and focused on breathing. Protectively, her arm wrapped around her middle.

Soren will come for us. He will
, she reassured herself.

He may not even remember who you are.

He will not come.

Lucia squeezed her eyes shut. Why had she asked him to get the procedure done? Why did she have to be so
selfish
? Why couldn’t she have accepted things as they were and lived her life in peace with the person she’d fallen in love with? She blinked back the stinging she felt in her eyes.

I will not cry.

Quinton thinks he’s already won.

I will not cry.

The transport slowed to a stop and the trembling in Lucia’s body turned into full on shaking. Quinton dragged her from her seat, his long fingers cutting into her arm. She winced, but it quickly died when the transport door opened and there stood Ta’Ra’Enn, flanked by four of his men. Their long green scaled snouts were lined with thin, sharp teeth in jagged rows. Their tear shaped nostrils opened and closed as they panted with excitement. The shaking made Lucia’s vision jitter, but she didn’t miss the fresh ooze of drool that slid between Ta’Ra’Enn’s needle teeth and strung down to the ground as he salivated while watching her.

“The credits will be transferred to your account, as agreed upon,” Ta’Ra’Enn snorted. “And a bonus, since you did not mention she was breeding. This is much better.” His long, tapered tongue slid along his snout. Lucia’s knees gave out and Quinton hauled her up by the arm.

“You won’t get away with this!” Lucia grabbed onto Quinton’s arm. “My family will find out and you will
pay
!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,
darling
,” he sneered. “No one saw us together and Commander Ta’Ra’Enn doesn’t plan to leave any
piece
of you to be discovered once he’s through, from what he’s told me.”

Lucia shook with abhorrence and fury, momentarily forgetting her fear. She yanked herself free of Quinton and then lunged at him, scratching at his eyes like she’d wanted to do so badly for weeks now. His voice rose as he shrieked at her and caught her wrists in a painful vice. Green eyes that could look so kind were lasers of hatred. Tiny scratches marred up his brow and cheekbones, some of the small welts beading blood. Quinton pushed her away forcefully and she fell right into Ta’Ra’Enn’s open arms. Immediately she was assaulted with the foul stench of molded cheese and unwashed, flaking scales.

“Come.” Ta’Ra’Enn hauled her up around the waist, carrying her dangling at his side like a ragdoll. She heaved again at the movement and the smells, but nothing came up. Lucia struggled and one of Ta’Ra’Enn’s men backhanded her ass as she hung there. She screamed and kicked, but to no avail. The ground below her moved in a blur and her curls obstructed her vision as her hair tie fell out, and then they were walking the ramp to a small awaiting craft. When Lucia heard the door
whoosh
closed, she shut down into a shivering, limp piece of flesh.

Chapter 15

“Do you remember your adolescence?” Dr. Nimka asked, continuing with his routine questions. Immediately shards of moments in his younger life pulled forward. He saw things from his youngling point of view. Fights with his… brothers? Lessons with a scholar, the first female he pursued, training.

“Yes, some.”

“Do you remember your true name?”

“Yes. Val’Ja.”

“Do you remember the names of your mother and father?”

Soren hesitated. “My father is Val’Qa, king of Melierun. My mother is Gi’Moy, queen of Melierun.” Dr. Nimka looked oddly at Soren then. “Where is Loo-Sha?” His heart felt light that when he thought of her and their youngling, he did not feel shame nor did he feel revulsion as he feared. Soren
wanted
Lucia near him, as she’d promised.

“A few more questions and then I will get her.”

Dr. Nimka asked Soren how he was captured and enslaved, if he had siblings, if he remembered the names of the Herana family members and small things like what day it was, math equations and colors. When the doctor was pleased enough, he smiled and left to go get Lucia.

Soren scrubbed a pair of hands over his face, chunks of his life still flying at him from every angle. Pieces were missing here and there and he wondered if he’d ever get them back or if they truly were locked away forever. He felt a mix of awe and frustration that the mind could be so complex.

Soren felt
anger
about the war with the Trepnils. He wondered if that was still going on and if his family was still alive.
Did my brothers survive?
Many unanswered questions in his own mind plagued him, but he also felt immense joy that he remembered anything at all.

Dr. Nimka came back through the door and Soren sat up. Grams and Gramps came through and he smiled. They returned the gesture, Grams hugging him and he was careful to be gentle. Her eyes were a little watery as she pulled away.

“I’m so happy everything turned out for the best,” Grams wiped her eyes. “I don’t know why Lu isn’t here. She went down to get water a while ago and she said she’d be back. I’m starting to worry, Soren.”

Soren’s brow wrinkled as he frowned. It wasn’t like Lucia. She promised she’d be there when he woke and it didn’t seem likely she would willingly stay away. He staggered to his feet, laying a hand over his forehead while the lingering sting of his migraine continued to ebb away. “Let us look for her then.”

After an hour went by and there was no sign of Lucia in the facility, or back at the hotel, the authorities were called. Security vids showed Lucia leaving the facility, but that was it. She never came back. Her face was plastered across
League One
when it leaked that a seat holder’s daughter had gone missing. Soren’s patience was wearing thin and his anger was rising.
Who
had her? Why had she wondered off? Was she hurt? The more questions he asked himself, the more his control slipped past his fingers.

“I’m going to make a call,” he told the Herana family. Soren swiped a comm from the table and left the rooms. Once he was down in a quiet corner of the lobby, he turned the glass comm on, typing in the code that had surfaced in his memory. It was an alert and he wasn’t sure where it was going or who was going to respond.

Soren paced while he waited and when he started drawing attention, he lowered himself into a cushioned chair. More memories flowed in with each passing minute, altering his perception on life and mingling with who he
now
was. Soren and Val’Ja, twining together, figuring out a way to coexist and which personality was more dominant. Val’Ja was a prince and that part of him was haughty, aggressive and demanding. Soren was a former slave, and he
loved
a human who knew him as caring, meek and patient. Lucia might not have liked Val’Ja, and that pained him. His people would not like Soren, and he had a duty to them. He didn’t know how he was going to be two people at once.

The comm buzzed.

Soren pressed the sensor and when the vid lit up with a familiar face, his smile grew.

“Val’Ja?” his brother, Gi’Ren, looked closer to the screen. They shared similar features, except Gi’Ren had a broader nose, green eyes and a pale blue scar that started at his right temple and curved to his jaw. “A’Drast’s mane! It
is
you! Where have you been?”

“We can discuss that later, I have a more pressing matter,” Soren’s smile disappeared. “How far from Dor Nye are you?”

“The
human
planet?” Gi’Ren scowled. Soren’s ire rose that his people thought humans were lesser, unintelligent creatures. That was also plaguing his mind. “We are in Botru galaxy, maybe an hour away.”

Soren’s eyes closed as he thanked A’Drast for his luck. “We?”

“Yes, Val’Zun and I were here for trade negotiations,” Gi’Ren answered, referring to one of Soren’s other brothers.

“Set coordinates for Dor Nye. I need your help.”

****

Lucia bit into her bottom lip as she refused to scream. Once Ta’Ra’Enn’s craft met up with the main ship, he had hauled her to a large, white, bright room. It was strange, since the rest of the Trepnils ship was dark and dank.

One of Ta’Ra’Enn’s men was stringing her up with lightweight chains. The links looked like they could be easily smashed, but Lucia knew better. They were made of
requal
, an opaque mineral that could withstand pressure far beyond her capability. A long chain of it hung from the ceiling and he wrapped it around her joined wrists, adding a lock. She hung there, her toes barely holding her up.

They shredded her
teyo
and skirt with their black talons and she swayed there, bared to every Trep in the room. Fury lit her eyes and her chest rose and fell with each shuttered breath. Lu tried her best to turn her head every which way to count how many were there, circling her; more than ten, less than twenty.

“I have so many plans for you, human,” Ta’Ra’Enn spat and snorted with satisfaction. He stood in front of Lucia, a few feet away, appraising her flesh. “I will not kill you just yet. I will take pleasure in many things before that time comes. First,” he began and his long, purple tongue slid over her right breast, coating it in thick, foul saliva. Lu stuck her nose into her arm, trying not to breathe it in. “We will take our pleasure of your body.”

Lucia’s heart slammed itself against her chest so badly it hurt. She knew Ta’Ra’Enn was trying to psych her out, but she couldn’t tell her brain to ignore it. She was
afraid
. No one knew where she was. Quinton had won. Lu would suffer defilement at the hands of these Treps that sought revenge.

One of the Treps was leering closer to her and that’s when she noticed his cock was jutting out, hard and dripping with yellow, thick mucus. Her eyes flitted about the room, seeing more Treps in the same state of arousal. Her throat convulsed with her urge to gag until her stomach crawled from her lips.

“Then, when we have sated ourselves,” Ta’Ra’Enn continued. “We will sate ourselves again, and again. We will keep you alive, cared for just enough to continue to take our flesh. When I grow tired of you,” his tongue slaked across her other breast and over the small swell of her stomach. At that, she did cry out. “I will cut your young from your body and you will watch as I devour every last morsel.”

Lucia screamed and screamed until the taste of blood coated her mouth, and still she couldn’t stop screaming as Ta’Ra’Enn and his men roared with laughter.

****

When a tip came in about Lucia being seen in a deserted part of the capitals port, Soren’s gut twisted with a fear so sharp it felt like a cut from a poisoned blade. There were so many reasons she would’ve been at port, and none of them were thoughts he wanted to entertain.

“I feel like I am sitting on my fucking hands,” Soren growled, stalking back and forth. His brothers, who had been glad to see him but miffed about being on the
human
trade planet, watched him from their peripherals as they worked their comms. Val’Zun worked over the control tower team with the authorities help to go through records of who had entered and left Dor Nye in the past five hours. It was harder than it seemed, since they had to filter through
hundreds
of names. Gi’Ren worked his less savory contacts. Soren was thankful to both his brothers for putting aside their prejudice and helping him because he’d asked. That he’d been gone eight years may have had something to do with it too.

Soren’s gaze slipped to the Herana’s who sat together in the lobby. Angus and Grams spoke to officers as they gave them any and all information on Lucia’s job, places she would frequent in the capital, people she may be in contact with, on and on.

Where are you Loo-Sha?

****

Another cough erupted through Lucia’s esophagus, creeping pain the entire way. Blood spattered over her lips and chin, dripping to her chest where Ta’Ra’Enn licked it up. It hurt to
breathe
; her throat was so raw from the screams. She was dizzy from it all, swaying even more heavily on her toes and rubbing her wrists painfully. She swallowed a mouthful of blood, only to gag it back up, much to the Treps delight. The blood spurred them into higher arousal.

A Trep licked over her stomach, her hips and further as Ta’Ra’Enn watched on, stroking himself. She could barely register the smell of anything over her own panic and sweat and the saliva that coated her body.

When the Trep’s tongue slipped between her thighs, her legs jerked and she kicked at him. She screamed in spite of the pain, but all that came out was hissing and rasping because her vocal cords just wouldn’t
work
anymore. This made Ta’Ra’Enn chuckle. Another Trep joined in from behind, grasping her ankles so she couldn’t move. The tongue found its way to her pussy again and swiped, tasting her. She flailed in the chains, but her movements were stunted due to her hobbled state. The extremely long, tapered tongue slipped into her channel, its goopy saliva easing its way in.

At that moment, Lucia could only think of one thing to do. She bit down on her bottom lip as she willed her body to
listen
to her. A small heat trickled from her and then her body let go in a gush, her bladder losing itself all over the Treps tongue and snout. The sounds of surprised disgust and his talons hitting the floor as he scurried away from her had Lucia rasping with hysterical laughter. She didn’t care about the pain or the blood that splattered past her lips and over her face as she let her head dangle back on her neck. On and on she rasped until her body was weak, but she kept on.

“Enough!” Ta’Ra’Enn roared and the singing whip of a beam lash lit up her back like a firework. She screamed a hiss and then laughed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as another beam lashed her skin. She laughed through the fire until she couldn’t breathe.

****

“The Trepnils have her,” Gi’Ren said to Soren, his face grim. The Herana’s overheard this and Nova’s sob of disbelief rung his ears. “One of my contacts said they were here to trade today, but they would not say for what, only that the
‘piece of flesh’
was going to cost a small fortune. It was Commander Ta’Ra’Enn.”

Blind rage clouded Soren’s vision as he picked up the chair he’d been sitting in earlier and hurled it into the wall with a roar. The wood shattered and pieces skittered across the floor in jagged shards. His chest heaved with each breath and still he could not get enough oxygen. “
Where
?” he yelled.

Gi’Ren shared a look with Val’Zun. “We do not know where, just a general direction. It is very unlikely we will find them. At least not before-”

“Say another word and I will rip out your throat,” Soren growled with such menace Gi’Ren stepped back. Rage vibrated through every thread of muscle and Soren
shook
with the sheer force of it. When he moved toward the entrance, officers stepped far out of his way. “We leave,
now
.”

****

Lucia sagged against the chains as another tidal wave of yellow mucus splashed across her chest and another across her back as two Treps ejaculated their seed over her body, their guttural mating calls loud and jarring. As those two stepped away, two more came up, repeating the action. They didn’t penetrate her, yet, but she felt violated nonetheless. The rancid mucus slathered over her in waves that burned her skin and she turned her head this way and that to avoid getting hit in the face with it. Lucia’s empty stomach tried
so
hard to work its way up her throat, but it just wouldn’t come up. Dry heave upon dry heave sapped up most of her energy and burst blood vessels in the whites of her eyes. It put a cramp in her sides that burned with every sway of her body.

Round and round the Treps took turns until her body was dripping with yellow ejaculate and her toes were slipping in seed and her own urine on the floor beneath her. Lucia wasn’t able to get any traction and more weight pulled on her wrists, rubbing them bloody. The ache that started in her arms what felt like hours ago was now a numbness that worried her. She held hope that within a day or two, without the
seetkut
fruit, her body would begin to reject her youngling and she might bleed out, dying with it and ending their misery.