Page 31 of Seduction

The first day they spent together, Haldor had told her to look into her heart and decide for herself what was right and what was wrong.

I know now. Love. Love is right, Haldor, she murmured, as though he could hear her. And denying love is wrong. Locking your heart away, refusing to express love for fear of being hurt – that only creates another kind of pain. The pain of living a life alone, never sharing its joys and sorrows, both big and small, with another. Making the joys greater and the sorrows easier to bear. I love you, Haldor. I had to lose you to discover that.

* * *

Selena stood on tiptoe, peering through the narrow slit. It overlooked a wide plaza. Over the last few hours, she’d seen and heard a flurry of activity going on. Teams of Tabun men dragged vicious beasts with ropes around their necks through the plaza. The animals snorted and bellowed as they were crammed into makeshift pens along one side of the large clearing. Other workers, mostly women, went back and forth in an endless line, piling logs and branches in the center of the plaza. Now, twilight had fallen, and a crowd was gathering.

The door opened behind her. Selena whirled around.

Balam strode in, followed by two of his guards. He gave her a cold smile. “You’ve been observing the preparations for tonight’s ceremony. Good. I wanted you to see. That’s why I had you put in this cell. After all, you’ll be playing a starring role.”

His smiles unnerved her far more than his fits of temper. She stared back at him coolly, trying not to show it. “Do I need to study my lines?”

He snapped his fingers, and two guards advanced. They seized her, holding her easily as she struggled and fought. Dragging her to Balam, they forced her to her knees in front of him.

“So stubborn and proud. You think you can defy me?” He grabbed the neck of the blue dress uniform she’d been wearing since they kidnapped her and ripped it down the front.

As always, she was naked underneath. Selena lifted her chin, refusing to let him see her shame as he ran his hands over her bare breasts. He twisted a nipple roughly, watching her face the whole time. His smile returned when she flinched in pain.

One of the guards tore the rest of the uniform off her, taking the opportunity to slide a hand between her thighs. Balam’s arm shot out. Delivered a backhanded blow that knocked the guard to the ground.

“No one touches the sorceress…but me.” Pulling his loincloth aside, he uncovered his stubby penis, wrapped a fist around it, and pumped up and down. As it swelled and grew, he moved closer to Selena until the head was inches from her face.

“Tonight, I will send a message to the gods who took my son from me. You may have chosen to obey their wishes, sorceress, and refused to restore his life. But tonight you will be mine to command. To use. And then to punish.”

* * *

Haldor and his men made their way through the deserted streets of Daan33 to the portal, where they were met with salutes from the guards. Then, just as the little man had promised, the guards turned their backs to be immobilized.

He remembered nothing of his previous journey through a portal, but David had explained what would happen. The Earther had been in simulators many times to prepare for transport to Gadolinium.

At first, it was just as David had described. Like being sucked into the depths by a powerful undertow, tossed and turned in total darkness, unable to breathe. Haldor felt his body being stretched apart then a horrible pain.

He must have lost consciousness for a moment because when he came to his senses, he found himself on a stone floor, covered in blood, staring into the lifeless eyes of a Tabun warrior lying beside him. David knelt by his side.

“Thank the gods you finally decide to wake up,” David said. “I thought I’d have to fight the Tabun one-handed, carrying you over my shoulder the whole time like some swooning maiden.”

Hearing the kind of taunt one of his fellow warriors would have greeted him with did more for Haldor than any sincerely expressed concern would have done. He struggled to a sitting position.

“Easy, brother,” David warned. “All that blood isn’t from the throat of the Tabun. The wound in your side tore open as you passed through the vortex. I staunched the bleeding as best I could with my shirt, but now that you’re awake, we can bandage it.

“Will, we’ll have to make do the way they did in the old days,” he called out over his shoulder. “Tear your shirt into strips and we’ll bind them around him.”

Will stood on the other side of the small stone chamber with the bodies of two more Tabun at his feet. He ripped his shirt into pieces and tossed them to David then went to the open doorway, peering out into the darkness.

David filled Haldor in as he bandaged him up. “Rob’s gone out on a reconnaissance mission to see if there are any other guards around. As for these, I broke the neck of the first guard the minute I stepped out of the portal, before he even knew what was happening. The second man came at me, but, by then, Rob had arrived. He subdued him and then I went to work. I was trying to convince him to tell me where Doctor Reston is being held when your body arrived. The Tabun recognized you as a Gadolinian warrior. He let out a bloodcurdling shriek and lunged at you. I had to slit his throat.”

His voice was matter of fact, but Haldor could see the Earther’s hands shaking as he wadded up a strip of the cloth and placed it directly over Haldor’s wound.

David fell silent for a moment. Then, with a visible effort, he went on. “The Tabun’s scream drew in another from the street who staggered in, right into Will’s arms. He was drunk enough to babble on quite a bit before we silenced him. I’m not very proficient in their language yet, but, as near as I could tell, they’re having some sort of ceremony tonight. Everyone’s gathered at the palace of their lord. Balam?”

“No. No. Balam is dead. I saw his body, run through with a spear.”

David shrugged. “As I recall, you were supposed to be dead, too.”

Haldor had never been to Skhul, the Tabun world, but he’d heard tales from a handful of merchants who came to his planet and boasted of trading with the Tabun and attending their slave auctions. They soon learned they were not welcome to return to Gadolinium.

Like his home, Skhul was covered by ice and snow most of the year. Days were short and the nights long and dark. Tabun thrived there because it resembled their place of origin on Earth thousands of years ago. Haldor had warned the Earthers that they wouldn’t be prepared for the frigid temperatures. So, before they left, David sent a messenger to the delegation from Ceres Major. He brought back long gray hooded robes for all four men. They hoped once they arrived on Skhul they could pass as holy monks from Ceres Major, known for their mission to preach a message of peace to the savage inhabitants of every distant outpost they could find in the universe.

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