Fenturi Fate (Spacestalker Saga Book 1) (7 page)

“Good thing I’ve got some friends I can
talk to
later, eh?” Embarrassing the girl felt good. By the Dark World, he was only a man. Though she’d never seemed to need physical stimulation, he sometimes thought he’d go mad without it.

He left her and Mra staring after him and walked through the ship to his chamber.

He loved Dare like a sister, and so he reminded himself daily.
But he could only take so much. The Fenturi were sensual beings, and being around her day in and day out took a toll on his prime body. Though he knew they weren’t meant to connect in that way, he at times had trouble remembering that.

He stripped down and settled into his bed then mentally visited a female friend on Vembi.
The untold powers of the Psi were such that physical release could be attained through mental contact alone.
Definitely not as satisfying as touching a warm female, but by the Goddess, he needed some ease.

Jace had an odd realization that Dare’s sensual aura had gotten stronger since her visit to Vembi.
He wondered if he ought to talk to Mra about it.
Dare had so little awareness for her femininity at times that it worried him.

Before he could finish that thought, Raia answered his mental call, and he lost himself in her erotic spell.

He’s right you know.
Mra purred and rubbed her head against Dare’s questing hand.
You aren’t thinking straight. Use your head, not your wounded heart
.
 

Dare lost herself in Mra’s silky fur.
She sometimes felt so relaxed in Mra’s presence that it was all she could do not to fall asleep.
A bit disgruntled that Mra had joined Jace’s line of reasoning, Dare frowned and looked down into blue eyes as bright as her own.

“I know it,” she admitted on a groan.
“But Mra, sometimes I feel an anger so intense, and I don’t know what to do with it.”
She looked away from the feline’s clear gaze, toward the dark of space visible through the large front portal.
“I fear if I don’t release it, I’ll hurt someone.”

Dare didn’t like to talk about her abilities.
Her telling violet eyes had morphed into a bright blue shortly after she’d escaped Bylar, so physically she resembled any number of human species. Jace knew who she was. Roc and Shea had
recognized her uncanny agility, speed and strength early on but attributed her resilience to Dare’s bloodline, whatever that might be.
She had never mentioned it, and they’d never pried.

Both Roc and Shea came from worlds where being different had gotten them outcast, and they accepted Dare without question.
But to show them the true force of her power might turn them against her, as the Bylarans had turned against her own people long ago.

Yet sometimes she wanted nothing more than to scream her existence, to remind one and all the Fenturi yet lived.

Mra stared at her with concern.
Have you need now to unleash this now?

“No, but it’s building.” Del sighed. “Ever since I fought next to that dark Legionnaire on Vembi it’s been growing in me.
I wonder if the Shorhu poison did something more to me than I’d thought.”

She didn’t notice Mra’s shuttered stare, nor the sharply extended claws that left a mark at the base of her chair.

***

In a small clearing of the Fentra Forest on Bylar, Zebram stood calmly with his half-brother while the giant warrior paced in front of him like a caged guidecat.

“Ren, relax,” Zebram said for the tenth time that morning.
Since his discussion with Myla several days earlier, he’d asked Garen to find and talk to him, to no avail. No one had been able to find Garen until today.

Sad that he had to rely on royal bullying to get his brother’s whereabouts.

He studied his brother, noting Garen’s controlled violence.
He should have talked with his brother sooner, to ease what had to be festering pain at their father’s death.
But Zebram had been unable to find the man, and the Stalkers’ silence hadn’t helped matters.
He regretted having to use his position to gain Castor’s cooperation, but he’d had no other choice.

He felt ambivalent about Garen’s men.
On the one hand he admired both their battle voracity and strict loyalty to his brother
—
a loyalty, he thought, that came before protecting the Vinopol House.
Y
et he felt sorry that Garen felt closer to those men than his own family.

Zebram sighed.
He couldn’t blame his brother.
From an early age Garen had been taunted and cruelly mistreated, all under Zedrax’s pretense of hardening the fragile young boy.

No one had been fooled.
As a youth, Garen had already been tougher and stronger than his peers, as well as many of those in age and rank above him.
Zedrax had always punished Garen as if punishing himself.
He’d considered his liaison with Garen’s mother a weakness, and every glance at his eldest son had only emphasized that.

With no chance to take the throne, Garen had been left little choice but to assume a protective role.
And so the young boy had been toughened and hardened to the point where even now he could not and would not grieve for the unjust man who’d fathered him.

Zebram felt no remorse for calling his father unjust.
Though he’d been given love and kindness from the man, he’d never understood why the king could not share that love with Garen.
And Zebram felt both angry and ashamed that Zedrax’s love further strained his relationship with his only brother.

He watched Garen pace and wondered how best to confront this seeming stranger.

Garen froze and stared over Zebram’s shoulder. Zebram turned to see Myla walking toward them with a slim young woman in tow.
When they drew closer, Zebram noticed the lighter color of Myla’s changing eyes, as well as the violet eyes of the young woman with her. Another Fenturi.

Amazed and pleased to see another Fenturi, it took Zebram a moment to remember his brother would not feel the same. Garen’s
face darkened as he recognized enemy Fenturi blood, and Zebram could almost feel the seething rage building in him.

Zebram put himself between Garen and the women to protect them.

Garen moved to the side, his movements graceful and too quiet for a Bylaran Legionnaire. He withdrew his Rovi-metal sword, which gleamed in the pale sunlight streaming through the canopy of leaves above them.
When Zebram looked into his eyes, he froze.
All feeling, all sign of reason, looked to have fled from Garen’s green eyes now so dark they looked black.

Zebram felt a moment’s panic.
“Garen, no.”

“Rest easy, child.” Myla drew abreast of Zebram and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“He will not harm us.”

“Don’t be so sure of that old woman,” Garen said coldly, his voice as sharp as his blade.
“You trespass on Vinopol grounds.”

Myla laughed, though Zebram could see a shimmer of fear in her companion’s eyes.

“Come boy, place your sword in its sheath.
We have much to discuss and no time for theatrics.”
Myla’s eyes blazed when Garen did no such thing. “
Now.
” Her voice cracked like a whip toward the formidable warrior.
She uttered foreign words in rapid staccato—a Fenturi dialect—which made Garen pause in confusion before he gradually resheathed his weapon.

He answered the woman in kind, and Zebram stared at him in shock.
“I didn’t know you could speak Fenturi.” He once again felt like the small boy he’d once been, taken with hero-worship for his older sibling.

“I don’t.” Garen scowled. “Or at least, I didn’t.”
He gripped the hilt of his sword.
“Best you speak quickly,” he ordered Myla in a silky voice that had her laughing again.

The brothers and younger woman only stared at Myla in puzzlement.

“Think you I should be scared of your threats?” she asked.
“Bah.
I’ve seen far worse than you, and worse than the Ragil Horde.” Her eyes remained on Garen’s face as her lips quirked. “Though I must say I’m quite taken aback to see such a fine Fenturi warrior in his prime.”

Garen flinched as if struck, his body stilling as he stared with hate-filled eyes at the Fenturi witch.

“Don’t like what you are, eh boy?”
Myla gave Garen a toothy smile, though Zebram thought her expression gentle, despite the sharp teeth.
“Well, we are as we’re made, as the Goddess wills it.
Now is not the time for petty hatreds. The Horde will kill everyone and everything, regardless of being.
Forget about bloodshed while I tell you where to look, and what to look for, if we are to save ourselves.”

Garen nodded stiffly to Myla to continue.

“Well now, Captain of the Stalkers, as I was telling His Highness the other day, the only hope the System has of surviving the Ragil Horde is a weapon known as the Thrax.
But to power the Thrax, you need the Mari.”

“What is that?” Garen asked.

“The Mari is a Fenturi born under the Mari moonlight.
There is but one born every generation, and if he or she still exists, which my senses tell me is true, you’ll need to find the Mari and soon.
The Horde haven’t forgotten the last battle, and it’s more than just hunger that will have them here this time.
It’s revenge as well.”
Her lavender eyes glowed as she studied him. “You know all about wanting revenge, don’t you?”
 

Zebram hadn’t thought Garen would respond to the woman, too angry at her lack of fear to speak.

“Yes,” he answered in a low voice.

“I can see that,” Myla murmured.
“But we’ve more at stake. Save your rages for after, is there is an after.” She sighed, and the woman by her side patted her arm. “Thank you, dear. Garen, the Mari can be identified by a mark on the shoulder, a blue image showing two crossed moons above two small circles, each symbolizing the power of the Mari lakes.
You’ll sense the Mari,” she spoke directly to Garen.
“Your blood, that which you try to deny, is growing in you.
And you can’t stop it no matter how much you may long to.

“It’s that blood which makes you the perfect tracker to find our lost Mari.
Now, since I know you won’t trust what your ‘alien’ senses tell you,” she said wryly, “I’ll be giving you this.”
She handed him a pouch.

“In it is the Fen root and a few other native herbs.
Combined, this pouch will weaken and enslave the Mari when placed in close proximity to him or her.
But be very careful when you use it, and tell no one about it.
This bag is your weakness as well, though in diluted effect due to your Bylaran blood.

“If others know that the Fenturi have this weakness, it will be used against you as well.
This I have foreseen.” She seemed not at all disturbed that she’d just given one of her people’s most powerful enemies leverage against them.

Garen’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
Then he opened the pouch and peered into it. He took a small sniff and blinked several times before closing the bag tightly.

“You see?”

He nodded.

“May I?” Zebram wanted to see it. Garen reluctantly gave him the bag. He sniffed at the contents and went so far as to touch the herbs in the pouch, but he suffered no ill effects and returned it to Garen. “So it only works on the Fenturi?”

He noted the young woman stiffen at his words and took a longer look at her. He hadn’t given her much notice before, in his concern for Garen’s state of mind with Myla, but now that he truly saw her, his eyes widened.
By Bylar, the woman was beautiful.

Obviously Fenturi, with long brown hair, golden skin, and glowing lavender eyes. She stood at Zebram’s height but could never be mistaken for a man.
She had subtle curves and a vitality about her that made him entertain sudden fantasies long dormant in his duty-burdened body.

“M—” He coughed, embarrassed that he needed to clear his throat.
“Myla, who is your lovely companion?”

Myla looked slyly back at her charge.
“She’s my new help. My healing apprentice.
Her name’s Thela Fenwi, and she has a part to play in all of this as well. I have seen it so.”