Blood Legacy Origin of Species (29 page)

CHAPTER 21

“IS THERE ANY WORD FROM VICTOR?” Ryan asked somewhat unnecessarily.

Edward examined the wealth of transmissions. Most were garbage and electronic chaff, purposeful misdirection to disguise the one true message. The only problem was that the one true message was not there.

“Let me go through the series again to ensure I have not missed anything.”

Ryan’s tension spiked dramatically. Edward missed nothing. There was no transmission. Still, she sat as patiently as possible while Edward reviewed his work.

“There is nothing,” he said at last.

“Just so I understand,” Ryan said, “the agreement was for us to make asynchronous contact, Victor first, after two weeks.”

“Yes,” Edward said, “that was the arrangement.”

“They have taken my father.”

There were so many things Edward wanted to say. That there were other possibilities, that it was not certain that Victor had been captured, that perhaps he had simply gone silent out of necessity. But he did not say any of these because he believed none of them.

“Which means they have my son,” Ryan said.

Edward glanced at Susan who sat pale-faced and stricken against the wall. It meant that they had her son as well, if he was even still alive. Ryan seemed to suddenly become aware of this possibility.

“I’m sorry, Susan. I know that Jason is also at risk.” Something suddenly occurred to her, and she shared the insight. “But he is more valuable to them alive than dead.” She followed this train of thought. “As are Victor and Drake.”

She thought through the potential outcomes, trying to utilize the alien cognition that had been thrust upon her from exposure to Madelyn’s blood and even more so from Ravlen’s. “If I’m the ultimate target, which is what I suspect, then they will all be used as leverage against me.”

Edward had to say the hard thing. “Then you must resist the obvious course of action, which is to bolt from here in an attempt to rescue them.”

“Ah, wonderful,” Ryan said bitterly, “so I am to continue cowering in the bowels of the earth while everyone else pays the price for my inaction.”

Edward was brutal. “We don’t know what these creatures want, although it seems obvious they want you. If you give them what they want, what will stop them at that point from destroying everything else?”

Ryan was silent. She hated Edward at that moment. Hated him for his judgment. Hated him for his perfect logic. Hated him because she knew that he was right.

CHAPTER 22

“WELL,” THE MAN WITH THE SCAR SAID, “we’re going to have to do something. She seems quite content to wait us out.”

“We have two of this planet’s decades,” Tra’e’ela reminded him, “I do not see a need to rush this.”

The man was almost livid. Although he was forced to respect his superior officer, he greatly chafed under her slow, methodical approach. He did not see how someone so meek and cautious had risen to such heights in the military.

Tra’e’ela, although not possessing the telepathic abilities of her captives knew full well what he was thinking and briefly considered twisting his head from his shoulders. This was the second mission she had been forced to serve with him, and if possible, he was more annoying this time around. She looked forward to killing him at the end of it. In their tightly-ranked caste society, his insubordination was already sufficient cause for her to take his life, but at the moment she did not have a replacement for him.

Which was another odd thing about her mission, Tra’e’ela thought. She had been sent with minimal troops, most very low-level. Even the two higher-ranking males that had accompanied her both times had no idea of her real name or place within their society. They would have been shocked to learn that, not only were they unworthy to serve with her, she so outranked them that technically they were not even allowed to make eye contact. They would have been astonished to learn she was a member of the Stealth, an elite cadre of spies and assassins responsible for conducting the Queen’s most deadly business, silently and unnoticed. Tra’e’ela might have been uncertain why she had been tasked with this planet, but as always, she would do her duty without question.

An alarm sounded off in the depths of the fortress, one that sounded as if it was coming from the prisoner ward.

“Let me guess what that is,” Tra’e’ela said. She drew a small, quick triangle in the air, and a holographic image appeared as before. “I see that there has been a breach in security,” she raised her eyes and gave the man a look that froze his internal organs, “and it is within your sector.”

Ryan sat before the chessboard, fingering her pieces. Edward sat across from her, contemplating his options. His master was a most difficult opponent and he could count on the fingers of one hand the times he had defeated her. She seemed very distracted at the moment, but he would not underestimate her.

As Edward pondered his strategy, she got to her feet, suddenly restless. He glanced up at her, then over at Susan who also watched Ryan’s actions. Ryan seemed a little agitated and both were looking for signs that she might transition to another phase. Susan was particularly watching the color of Ryan’s eyes.

Ryan sat back down abruptly. She tapped her forefinger on her queen, almost as if trying to wake the piece from its slumber. She then moved her hand to the king, rubbing her forefinger lightly along its smooth surface. She stared at the piece, her expression very distant. Her focus returned to the piece and she picked it up, squeezing it tightly in her hand. She then opened her hand and sat looking at the beautifully carved wooden piece.

Edward and Susan observed her actions with great concern.

Aeron ducked into an alcove. He had no idea what kind of technology he was facing so he just assumed his captors could track his every move and knew where he was right now. That did not mean, however, that he was going to just stand out in the open and wait for them. The alarm echoed throughout the corridors so loudly it hurt his ears.

He had no real plan. He had simply seen an opportunity and taken advantage of it. The fact that he had cracked the skull of one of his jailers had simply been a fringe benefit. If he could kill one or two more, then however this venture ended, it would be worth it.

His son was somewhere in front of him, he knew that much, and that was the direction he was heading.

The two boys huddled together as Tra’e’ela entered the cell. Interestingly, the larger of the two stood protectively in front of his friend even though the smaller boy was far stronger. She looked to Drake.

“Come here,” she ordered.

Drake chewed his lip. He could feel his father near, and he did not at all want to go with this woman. But he knew by the way she looked at Jason that his friend would suffer if he disobeyed. He slid off the slab and onto the floor.

“Drake, no,” Jason said.

“It’ll be alright,” Drake said, taking the outstretched hand of the woman. She lifted him into her arms and strolled from the cell as Jason watched the massive door shut behind them.

“Ryan, is something wrong?”

The chess piece was still in her hand and she slowly set it down on the square it had previously occupied. She looked at the other pieces, their relative positions, their potential movements, as if trying to glean far more than the chess board could offer.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Aeron was having remarkable success eluding his pursuers, but when he rounded the corner he suddenly understood why. His pursuers weren’t actually trying to capture him, they were just trying to herd him into position.

The silver-haired man was there, and the brutal looking one with the scar. They were accompanied by at least a dozen soldiers, all who looked as if they wanted to tear him limb-from-limb. The worst, however, was when the doorway slid open and the woman with the long blonde hair entered. This was terrible, not only because she was more powerful than everyone else in the room combined, but also because she was holding his son.

Aeron froze, his eyes on Drake, clearly understanding the implied threat. He would have gladly fought everyone in this room, but he was not going to move if his son was in danger. Two of the soldiers approached and took him roughly by the arms. Tra’e’ela smiled. This species was so predictable. She handed the boy off to the silver-haired man and turned to deactivate the alarm, an action which required her security clearance.

Drake saw his opportunity and squirmed from the man’s grasp. He ran toward Aeron, who saw his son’s actions. With an amazing burst of strength he flung one of his captors into the other, their skulls striking with a large crack. He started toward his son, only to be tackled by three more soldiers.

The boy was halfway across the platform when the scar-faced man’s anger boiled over and he had enough from this inferior species. He took two steps and kicked the running child in the ribs, sending him sprawling to the ground. Aeron’s reaction was immediate as he roared in rage and battered his attackers to the ground. He fought through four more attackers before he lunged at the man with the scar, only to be stopped short, seemingly almost in mid-air. He wore an expression of stunned surprise.

Ryan uttered a muffled cry and collapsed forward as if she had been stabbed. She clutched her midsection, holding an imaginary mortal wound.

“Ryan!” Susan and Edward said simultaneously, the latter leaping forward to catch his master. Susan held her arm, trying to support her. Ryan leaned back, her features twisted in pain and surprise as her companions returned her to her chair. Her eyes were unfocused but filled with despair and disbelief.

“Aeron,” she whispered.

Aeron looked down at the appendage that had impaled him. It was some sort of claw that had appeared out of the torso of the scar-faced man. It was pumping a liquid into him, some poison that burned and spread throughout his system. Aeron felt his immune system attempt to fight, then slowly collapse under the injected onslaught.

With a clacking sound, the man brutally retracted the claw from Aeron’s midsection and Aeron fell to the ground. With a derisive look, he turned away as Drake crawled over to his father’s side. Tra’e’ela watched expressionless, greatly displeased at this turn of events.

Aeron stared into his young son’s deep blue eyes. They had never been icy like his, always warm like his mother’s. And now, they burned with a steady inferno that only Ryan in her fury possessed. The blue flame brought Aeron more pleasure than any glacier ever could. He stared intently into Drake’s eyes, giving him a three-part message for Ryan, and Drake reached out to touch his mother.

“I have always loved you,” Aeron began.

A world away, Ryan groaned in anguish. Tears filled her eyes at the unrelenting pain. She could hear the words in her head, hear Aeron’s voice as if he was speaking directly to her. She could even see his face and the light dying in his ice blue eyes.

“I cannot keep my part of the bargain, so you must protect our son.”

Ryan doubled up in pain, her grief and torment immense. Edward and Susan were both intensely distressed, unable to sense or see what was affecting Ryan, knowing only that it was awful. Ryan was clearly locked in communication with someone.

“And the last?” she said, barely able to articulate the words through the anguish constricting her throat.

“Avenge my death,” he said simply. Then the blue-eyed man touched his son’s cheek and died.

“No!” Ryan’s agonized cry reverberated across the compound. She stood upward with such strength and fury that she lifted both Susan and Edward from their feet as they sought to hold onto her. Her breath came in furious gasps, a throw-back to that most primitive part of her limbic system, the full flight-or-fight response. She brushed Edward and Susan from her like blades of grass and turned on her heel, but there was no place to go, nowhere she could escape the torment that was burning a hole in her.

“Ryan, what’s happened?” Susan asked. She could sense nothing and Edward appeared confused as well.

Ryan stopped, the magnitude of her words sinking in.

“Aeron is dead.”

“That—, that does not seem possible,” Edward said.

“He is dead,” Ryan repeated, “and my son watched him die.”

“Why?” Susan asked, her own grief taking hold. “Why would they do that?”

Ryan turned in fury. “Because they want me!” she said, her fists clenched so tight blood ran from her palms, “and I am hiding like a coward! I should be protecting our Kind; instead everyone I love is paying for my inaction!”

Edward knew that he could not dissuade Ryan from action; he could only hope to temper her fury into a controlled response.

“Then let’s leave here,” he said, “but not without a plan.”

Ryan wanted to smash him, wanted to run from the bunker and keep running until she caught every one of those blue-skinned bastards on this planet. She wanted to tear them apart, limb-by-limb, then pick her teeth with their bones. She wanted to crush them one-by-one until they were each nothing more than a pile of blue dust.