Page 71 of Taken to Lemora
I manage to make it to the passage unscathed — anymorescathed — but I keep my blaster close as I barrel into the tunnel. Darkness descends, lights mounted in the walls keeping the space an abysmal orange. Everything smells like piss and vomit and whatever slime some of the creatures of Kor leak behind them when they walk. Miserable place. Nothing like Lemora.I need to get her home.
A scream up ahead propels me farther, faster. The tunnel has doors lining it and I hate that I hesitate over every threshold, not wanting to miss her inside… A thud and then a grunt. Murmured words I can’t quite make out. I start to panic. My three hearts beat out of sync with one another. If anything happens to her, so help me…Ohr! There!
I catch myself on the frame of an open door before my feet threaten to sprint straight past it. One of the private gambling rooms, there’s a gaming table in the center of the space. Standing behind it, Tyto has my mate pinned against the wall.
He holds his lethal tail behind him in a sultry wave, a not-so-subtle threat to keep her docile. He has one hand around her throat and the other around her wrist.
Her blaster is gone and her eyes are so wide, I can see white all around the silken brown color at their centers. Her fear radiates from her and she doesn’t even look at me, terrified as she is of this male who I should have taken a greater interest in from the beginning.
I don’t get involved in the affairs of other quadrants. I never wanted to. I knew that Igmora’s flesh peddling was a monstrous affair. I’d heard of the tortures inflicted by Tyto. I should have ended them the moment I set foot into Quadrant One. I should never have paid a price that should never have been suggested because she is a living, sentient being, andmine. She was never for sale.
And I’m the fool who’s only now realizing it.
Tyto spears Essmira with his tail, swiping it across her stomach hard enough to shred her dress and draw bright red blood from her skin. It stains the spikes on the tip of his tail. I roar and it’s a monumental sound, one that tears through the foundations of the room surrounding us.
Sculptures mounted onto small shelves around the room tumble from their perches and break into pieces on the ugly carpeted floor. The room’s only light source flickers wildly and continues to flicker as I charge forward, grab one edge of the stone table and rip it free of its foundations. It smashes through the bar against the right wall as I continue to charge.
I am not a violent male. Nob, I’m not a violent male.
I lower my head and I spear up, catching Tyto beneath his shoulder blades before rapidly lifting so that I’m sure I don’t catch or cut Essmira. His feet leave the floor and his tail swings but I manage to catch it just below the spikes as it charges for Essmira’s face. I block its path a breath from the tip of her nose and she drops to the ground before I can catch her.
I fling Tyto off of my horns and he hits the wall before crumpling against the floor. Such a small male, he seems. Perhaps, he was always small without Igmora.
“She belongs to me, you stupid Lemoran,” he sneers, as if I’d ever consider it an insult. I’ve been called far worse by the female he tried to cow, but couldn’t.
He struggles to rise. He’s been impaled. He barely makes it onto his knees before I’m on him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him off of his feet. I look at Essmira and she holds my gaze. Fear ruins her perfect face, but I plan to remove it forever.
I whisper into the slit of Tyto’s ear, “Nob. She cannot be owned.” And with a single quick jerk, I twist his head around his shoulders. He releases a mutilated scream, but a moment later, there’s a crack and then a pop. He dies in my arms.
I drop his body, plant one foot at the base of his neck and grab either side of his face. I pull. My arms strain for a moment, especially my right arm. Pain tries to break through my subconscious, but my conscious mind fights against it and it obeys, receding quickly.
I’m sweating even though this should be an easy task and I know that it’s only difficult because of the damned assassin outside with the fantastic ohring aim. It’s a miracle he didn’t kill me. My right side hurts, but I don’t stop until I hear the first tear and feel the first splash of hot yellow blood hit my legs with a squish and a light slap. I pull Tyto’s head completely free of the rest of his body and toss it against the far wall.
My head drops back on my neck and my shoulders roll. I hold my arms out to the sides, forming blocky fists with my hands and I roar and rage at the world. Feeling calm, feeling better, I open my eyes. I’m wavering on my feet. Movement in the doorway makes me pivot savagely, ready to take on the next threat to my mate.
But it’s only an Eshmiri. The craziest one in the cosmos.
“Ho…ly…shrov. That’s an angry Lemoran,” Ashmara says. She looks down at the stocky Eshmiri beside her. “Tintin, have you ever seen an angry Lemoran before?”
A trilling Eshmiri answers her, but I don’t given an ohr about his answer. My chest is heaving as I say, “Her contract…”
“Ontte. That thing’s signed with a biosig. I think, given the state Tyto’s found himself in, that contract’s as good as gone.”
“Good.” I stagger over the floor and drop down to my knees in front of Essmira. I cling to reality and reach out to touch her, but before I can, she flings herself into my arms.
“I’m so sorry, Raingar. I…I had an opportunity to shoot, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I thought I could — that I was stronger than that, but I…”
“Shh,” I whisper, stroking her curls down to her waist. I drag her fully onto my lap and hold her firmly against my chest. Consciousness fades in and out, but I cling to the weight of her breath and the pounding of her heart. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“But he hurt you. Raingar, you need a healer…”
“Nob. Just…for now, let me hold you,” I exhale a breath that tastes like blood.
She squeezes my neck too hard. Spurts of pain shoot down my back to my big rocky butt, making my left leg twitch all the way down to the heel of my foot. I hold her firmly, not violently, but not delicately, either.
“I heard what you told him.”
“Hmhhh.”
