Assassin (14 page)

Charging at them, sub-neuron blasters drawn, were two Boaronians.

Jak’s eyes flashed. “Party time.”

In two seconds flat, he’d taken out the Boaronians, one crashing to the floor in a squealing heap, blood pissing from his nose, the other dropping like a rock when Jak shattered his kneecaps with a low turning kick.

“Holy fuck!” Someone screeched and, just as Zeric’s eyes locked on Jaienna’s, just as he not only smelt her fear and pain but tasted it on the air, alarms started wailing in the club and screaming naked guests started running in every direction.

Oh, gods. It’s Zeric
.

Jaienna clenched her fists, flicking her frenzied eyes from the man she’d left chained to a wall that seemed like a lifetime ago, to the sister she’d thought dead for over two moon cycles.

Oh, tears of Druentia
!

The Aglaian, oblivious to all the commotion, still flicked her slimy and wet and thoroughly repulsive tongue over Jaienna’s sex.

She dropped her head, giving the slurping female a look of pure disgust. “Get away from me, you fucking bitch.” A quick thrust of her hips and she knocked her backwards. The Aglaian stumbled and fell off the dais.

“Boundary Guardians!” Someone in the crowd screeched.

For a split second, Jaienna’s traumatized attention was snatched away from Zeric and Bhel by the sight of Lyso running into the crowd, broken tail flip-flopping behind him, a Xolotlan blaster in his hand and a manic look in his eyes.

“Zeric!” Jaienna yelled, struggling against her bonds. “Lyso! He’s got a blaster!”

There was a sharp ear-shattering crack, a burning white light and Lyso’s fat limp body went flying through the air, crashing to the floor with a thud.

“Gotcha, fucker,” Jak growled.

A high-pitched squeal rent the chaos. A squeal Jaienna knew well. Her sister.

“
Bhel
!
”

Crortek was on his feet, gripping a handful of Bhel’s long hair as his white eyes jumped from the motionless pile of Lyso to Zeric to herself. A soulless smile spread across his face as he withdrew of small lecto gun from beneath his armpit.

“Don’t do it, Crortek!” Jak shouted, leveling the two Boaronians’ weapons on the Ornithion, the barrel of one glowing as it recharged.

“Why not, Yrathian?” Crortek leered. “If you care to look around, you’ll see my security guards have you surrounded. All I need to do is give the word.”

Jak threw the Boaronian weapons down. “Would you care to lay a bet on that?” He slung the Sheilite-created Boaronian “Pacifier” from his shoulder and pointed it at the closest guard. His grin turned malicious. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

He squeezed the trigger.

There was no sound, but every Boaronian in the club suddenly squealed and fell to the floor.

Crortek’s face twisted in fury. “You piece of scarred, shikz-fuck—”

“
That’s enough
!” Zeric’s growl was low but it cut Crortek’s curse dead. The sound was more savage than any Jaienna had ever heard. Everyone still breathing in the room froze, staring at him. “Game’s over, Crortek.”

The leer on Crortek’s mouth stretched. Wide. “Oh no, Terran. The game’s not over at all.” He aimed the lecto gun at Zeric’s chest. “I’ve got a buyer for your blood, Boundary Guardian. But first, I want to see this beast for myself.”

Zeric’s golden eyes narrowed. “Go fuck yourself.”

Crortek chuckled, low, cold and devoid of humor. “No? What if I shoot the Raavelian?” And he turned the gun on Jaienna and fired.

For a horrible moment, everything was slow.

A curdling scream tore from Bhelais. She leapt upward, directly into the line of Crortek’s lecto-pulse, and Jaienna watched, helpless, as a splatter of blood burst from her sister’s shoulder.

Jaienna’s heart ripped apart and she thrashed about, trying like hell to get free. “
BHEL
!

Crortek began to laugh.

And then a massive grey beast, unlike any Jaienna had seen before, leapt on him.

The room was filled with screaming, fleeing beings. Everyone trying to escape. Jaienna pressed against the X-tower, her eyes fixed on Bhel.

“Come on, Jaienna.”

A deep voice to her left barely registered. She stared at her sister lying on the floor, blood seeping from the hideous wound high on her chest.

“Jaienna?”

She tore her eyes from Bhel’s body. Jak was beside her and she realized, for the first time that she was no longer bound to the tower. “Jak?”

“We’ve got to go.”

“But my sister?” Her heart ached. She felt dead inside. “Zeric?” She swung her stare to the vicious, great grey beast fighting with Crortek. “Gods, what
is
Zeric?”

Jak’s warm hands smoothed up her arms and his clear grey eyes held hers. “Zeric is Zeric, and he can take care of himself. Trust me. I’ll take care of you. And your sister.”

Jaienna turned to him, her heart pounding. “I can’t leave him.”

“Too bad,” Jak said, reaching for his translocation device. “Zeric’s orders.”

She grabbed his hands and stared hard into his face. There was no orgasm to control him, just the sheer strength of her will. “Jak, take my sister somewhere safe. Please. I’m trusting you.” And before he could say anything else, she leapt from the dais.

“Shit!” she heard Jak curse. But he didn’t come after her. She sprinted across the
Pit’s
floor, scooping up a discarded blaster as she went. She shot a look toward Bhel, watching as Jak reached her inert body and the pair of them fractured into a million pinpricks of light and vanished. Translocated away. Guilt and relief welled through her.
Thank you, Jak.

A wild growl shattered the room, followed by an ear-piercing screech. Jaienna spun around. Crortek and Zeric were locked in a deadly struggle. Jaienna’s breath caught. The Ornithion was atop the snarling grey beast, spines flaring, white eyes ablaze with victory as he shoved the muzzle of his lecto-pulse gun hard against Zeric’s forehead. “Goodbye, Terran,” she heard Crortek say.

She raised her blaster, leveled it at the Ornithion’s ugly, angular skull. And squeezed the trigger.

Crortek went flying, the force of the blaster pulse flinging him across the arena.

“Zeric!” Jaienna screamed, running to the wild beast. Savage golden eyes turned on her. She froze. Zeric threw back his head, lifted his muzzle to the five heavens and howled. The tortured sound sent a shiver through Jaienna, but she didn’t move. “Zeric?”

The beast stared at her. A violent shudder wracked his massive frame. Another, and another... then... Zeric stood before her, naked, gasping and covered in bleeding wounds. ”Jaienna?”

She leapt forward, just in time to catch him as he collapsed. “I’ve got you, Zeric,” she whispered.

He looked up at her, face wretched with pain. A very small smile played with his mouth. “I know.”

Hefting his gasping, sweaty frame harder and higher against her body, Jaienna turned and, activating a tiny switch embedded beneath the flesh just under her ear, translocated them both from the room.

***

Slowly, his body wracked in agony, Crortek rose to his knees. Through a veil of black pain he stared around his club, at the dead and inert bodies, at the groaning Boaronians just beginning to regain consciousness. His white eyes narrowed. “This isn’t over, Terran,” he whispered, ignoring the drilling pain trying to consume him as he got to his feet. “Not by a long shot.”

Epilogue

Raq Tornada walked into the sex club like he owned the place. He pulled a long, slow breath and the musky scent of people fucking filled his nostrils. He tasted at least twenty different species in the sleazy place, all of them burning up with the intoxicatingly insidious aphrodisiac Bliss in their veins.

A silent snarl curled his lip and he tightened his grip on his pulse pistol. Twenty different species and not one of them Raavelian. Shit. Jaienna wasn't here either, curse it. He was so looking forward to tracking her down.

He had a score to settle with her. One their boss knew nothing about.

A dark chuckle rumbled up through Tornada’s chest. He doubted Kron would have sent him after Jaienna if he knew. In fact, if the Picillian knew what his two best agents had been up to—right under his large, hooked nose—they’d both be dead before either could say a word.

Black gaze skimming the room, Tornada strode deeper into the den. Whether his boss knew it or not, Kron had helped him out. Assigning him this recon mission gave him a reason to go after the redheaded Raavelian agent.

They had unfinished business, he and Jaienna Ti. Very unfinished.

Grip curling tighter on his weapon, Tornada surveyed the copulating bodies surrounding him. Jaienna may not be here, but it
was
possible someone in this pathetic excuse for a brothel knew of her. His last informant—a miserable Sheilite shit who squealed like a stuck grunt with just the tiniest provocation—had insisted she’d been sold as a sex-slave to Beltair. More than half Beltair’s slaves ended up here, which meant there was a slim chance at least one of them could tell him something about Jaienna.

Fingering his trigger, Tornada’s snarl turned into a grin. He’d finished more than one mission thanks to a “slim chance.” This one was going to be no different. He’d be damned if he was going to let Jia mess with his perfect record.

“Interested in a fuck?”

The question, practically purred in a sultry voice to his left, made Tornada turn. A half-naked Terran female, lips the color of dried blood, hair the color of old straw, tottered beside him on spiked heels. Giving her lush, over-ripe body the once-over, he turned away. The woman stank of Bliss. It oozed from her pores like a cloying death shroud, fouling up the air with its over-sweet odor. He’d get nothing from her except feverish sex. He wasn’t after sex… Well, not from her, at least.

“Hey!” The sensual purr was gone, replaced by a ravenous desperation so contemptible he almost raised his pistol. “Do you want a fuck or not?”

 “Yes,” Tornada replied over his shoulder without slowing his stride. “Just not from you.”

He heard her spit behind his back. “Fucking Jjors. All the fucking same. Think you’re too good for us here in the Outer Boundaries.”

Tornada’s finger pressed harder to his trigger, but he kept walking. He wasn’t opposed to a little racial cleansing, and of all the species found in the Outer Boundaries, the Terrans needed to be “cleaned” the most, but—like fucking—it wasn’t what he was here for.

“Hey!”

The shout behind Tornada reverberated around the dank room, making more than one copulating group raise their heads. It wasn’t the Bliss-stoned Terran. A male voice called after him this time. An angry male voice.

“Who the fuck you think you are, Jjor, just walking in here armed? You think you’re better than us?”

Tornada turned, aimed his pulse pistol at the blustering Keltarian storming toward him and squeezed the trigger. A short, sharp crack shattered the clammy air and the top half of the Keltarian’s head disintegrated. “I’m Intel-Patrol Corp Elite Agent Tornada,” Tornada growled, watching the Keltarian’s body drop to the grimy floor as he re-holstered his weapon. “And I
am
better than you.” He turned back toward the inner sanctum of the sex club, ignoring the fleeing, gibbering, naked patrons rushing past him. “All of you.”