Triumphant (Battle Born Book 14) Read online

  “As usual, your information is accurate. We happen to have a top-notch team of chemists waiting to duplicate the formula. All they need is the scientific equivalent of a recipe.”

  “Which is contained on Mintell’s datapad.” He nodded. “I wasn’t sure why you wanted it.”

  “I’m relatively certain it’s on the datapad. Mintell is known to keep meticulous records.” He glanced back at her and sighed. “If it’s not, we’ll have to convince her to give it to us, which could take some doing.”

  Torrin released a long, low whistle. “I don’t envy the male who’s assigned that task. Human females can be irrationally stubborn. Especially when they’re convinced they’re protecting others.”

  Arton nodded, knowing Torrin was right. Still, there was something about Lily that had fascinated him from the start. She was incredibly smart and exotic. He wasn’t sure he’d mind if Kage ordered him to lock Lily in his cabin and keep her there until she agreed to cooperate. There were all sorts of pleasurable games they could play together, even if she was a reluctant participant.

  Torrin’s deep chuckle drew him back from his barely formed fantasies. “That expression is downright wicked.”

  “Sorry. What were you saying?”

  “Nothing important.” He waved away the subject and motioned toward his control panel. “The coordinates you gave me are in the middle of nowhere. What’s our final destination?”

  “Home.” An odd tightness compressed Arton’s chest as he heard the word. It had been so long since he considered any place home. He could barely remember what it felt like to have one. “By the time we rendezvous with the Relentless, the entire Outcast fleet will have departed Earth-space. We’ll meet the other ships at the edge of the solar system, then start the final journey together.”

  “It’s really happening?” Torrin sounded wistful.

  Arton nodded, but his mind was still filled with images of Lily. “For better or worse, the Outcasts are going home.”

  * * * * *

  Sedrik clasped his hands behind his back, standing in front of his desk rather than sitting behind it. He was in serious trouble and he knew it. The uncomfortable position was self-imposed in order to keep him focused on the seriousness of the situation. Garin and the members of the Triad had been surprisingly civil during his explanation, but then he hadn’t gotten to the worst part yet.

  “So the Outcasts have one more human captive,” Haven Tandori said. “We have to rescue the other captives anyway. One more won’t change our strategy.”

  Actually, it was more than likely that the Outcasts had two more captives, but bringing up Thea Cline at this point only muddied already murky waters. Besides, there was a small chance that she hadn’t been taken by the Outcasts.

  “I’m not sure I agree,” said Bandar Nox. “This increases the urgency of our objectives tenfold. The Outcasts cannot be allowed to start their own transformation program.”

  Sedrik took a breath and dropped the final bomb. “I’m not sure it’s our call anymore.”

  “What in hells’ bloody rings does that mean?” Garin flared. He’d been silent and watchful through much of the conversation.

  Even in his mind, Sedrik thought of him as Apex General Nox today, not a lifelong friend. Any sort of familiarity would have been wrong in this situation. “They’re gone, sir. There is no other way to put it. The entire Outcast fleet has departed Earth-space and we have no idea where they went. They could be anywhere.”

  Silence followed as the news slowly sank in.

  The battle born weren’t technically to blame for the actions of the Outcasts. And yet they were. If not for the battle born’s determination to free their latent magic, the Outcasts never would have come to Earth. Sedrik knew he had no authority over the Outcasts, yet he couldn’t help feeling responsible for the mass kidnappings. Counting Lily and Thea, eleven hundred and thirty-six human females had been taken. And those were just the ones they knew about. There could be hundreds more without family or friends who cared enough to file a missing person’s report.

  “How do we explain this to their president?” Letos broke the silence a few minutes later. So far all the volunteers had been U.S. citizens, but other Earth nations were watching and judging the benefits and drawbacks of cooperating with the battle born. “We assured him, and his generals, that the females would be recovered. After the L.A. disaster, we can’t afford another setback.”

  “L.A. was not our fault!” Bandar’s hands fisted on his desktop and his golden phitons gleamed. “I am so tired of having that nightmare rubbed in our faces. There was not one Rodyte aboard that ship. Humans instigated the fight and humans crashed an Evonti ship into that city.”

  Letos held up both hands, palms out. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  Bandar slowly deescalated, yet his expression remained tense and defensive. “What more can we do about the current situation? Sedrik had half the fleet out searching for those females. We can’t patrol the entire planet. We don’t have the resources.”

  “I understand that,” Letos stressed, “but I’m not sure Earth’s governments will care about our limited resources.”

  “I hate to be crass, people, but it doesn’t matter what they think. There’s a much bigger danger still out there and that’s where our focus should be.” Garin’s voice snapped with authority and a hint of impatience. “The Outcasts don’t intend to murder the females they took. The same can’t be said about the Evonti. The Outcasts know that transformation can only be achieved with willing females. That alone will ensure that the captives are treated well. The Evonti, on the other hand—”

  Haven gasped. “The females aren’t going to be raped and murdered, so we just let the Outcasts go? That is unacceptable!”

  “We have no idea where they went,” Bandar pointed out. “What would you have us do? We can’t search the entire galaxy.”

  Haven still looked as if she’d argue, but she just shook her head and slumped back in her chair.

  “I don’t condone what the Outcasts did,” Garin stressed, “but Bandar’s right. There is nothing more for us to do right now. We must refocus our efforts on the real enemy.”

  More than ready to move on, Sedrik nodded. “As you know, Rebecca’s information finally led us to Big Jim.”

  “I don’t believe this!” Haven stood so fast her chair topped backward. “Just like that,” she snapped her fingers, “You’re ready to ignore the fact that Rodytes just made off with over a thousand human females. This is a big deal too!”

  “No one is inferring otherwise,” Garin insisted. “Why do you think Sedrik worked so hard trying to find them?”

  “For all the good it did those poor women!”

  Her words made Sedrik cringe. He knew he’d failed. He didn’t need Haven to remind him. “I will be happy to send more trackers after the Outcasts, but I have to have some idea of where to send them.”

  “There has to be someone who knows where they went, or someone who can find out,” she persisted. “It’s obvious none of you give a damn, so I’ll find them myself.” She stormed from the room and her holo-image blinked out, leaving Sedrik with the two Nox brothers, and Letos.

  “Haven spent her childhood on Earth,” Garin reminded. “She has great empathy for humans.”

  “I’ll pursue every lead, as I always have,” Sedrik insisted, “but at present I don’t have any. They could literally be anywhere in the known universe.”

  “Which brings us back to the Evonti,” Bandar said with some reluctance.

  Letos sighed then nodded. “Has Jim’s interrogation yielded any new information?”

  “I sent you an update this morning.” Garin looked annoyed. “James Dayton didn’t survive the Evonti’s remote attack.”

  Letos had the decency to look embarrassed. “My morning was unusually busy. What remote attack?”

  Garin was still glaring, so Sedrik explained, “The Evonti had implanted a sort of control mechanism in
Jim’s brain. When he was captured, they triggered a series of seizures that was so damaging it couldn’t be regenerated.”

  “Were you able to learn anything? I was told you scanned his memory.” The possibility of another dead end darkened Garin’s scowl.

  “I collected the memory fragments, but I’m not sure if any of it will turn out to be helpful. Rebecca and I are working through the images together.”

  Garin nodded, his expression finally beginning to relax. “Report immediately if you learn anything.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “And Sedrik.” Garin’s tone changed, losing its autocratic edge until he was Sedrik’s friend again. “This wasn’t your fault. None of us could have done better.”

  “I appreciate that, but this happened on my watch. That makes it my responsibility.”

  Garin didn’t argue. Instead he looked at the others and asked, “Anyone else have questions, or can we let Sedrik get back to work?”

  “I’m good,” Letos said.

  “Hang in there,” Bandar suggested.

  Then one by one the images blinked off and Sedrik was alone with his recriminations.

  * * * * *

  Rebecca promised herself she wouldn’t start a fight the moment Sedrik walked through the door. She wasn’t sure what happened after Arton teleported out of the guest cabin. Her ability to follow the action ended when Sedrik rushed out into the corridor. Still, she’d felt his disbelief and fury, his dread and humiliation. Whatever transpired had been ongoing and horrible. She’d tried to reach him, wanted to support him in any way she could, but he’d shut her out without even bothering with an explanation. Dealing with an irate female was probably the last thing he needed. But an hour passed and then another and his inconsideration gradually eroded her determination not to add to his stress.

  Rebecca activated the nutri-gen and printed a turkey and Swiss sandwich. However, eating alone in a locked room brought back an avalanche of unpleasant memories. The cage might be nicer and the captor adoring rather than abusive, but she was still a prisoner.

  By the time Sedrik finally appeared many hours later, she’d cycled through depression and worry and landed on simmering anger. He claimed to love her, swore he wanted to spend forever with her. Well, sharing his life with a mate meant sharing the bad as well as the good. She would be an active participant in the life they built together or she would return to Earth.

  She was lounging sideways on the sofa, legs stretched out in front of her when he stepped through the doorway. She’d been playing letrexta on the datapad, but set the device aside as Sedrik entered the room. “How’d your meeting go?” It was as close to a civil greeting as she could come at the moment.

  “As well as could be expected.” He walked to one of the chairs facing the sofa and sat so he could pull off his boots.

  “What happened after Arton telepor—”

  “He didn’t teleport. He was bio-streamed onto the shuttle by his partner.”

  “What partner?” She fought to keep her voice calm as irritation bubbled up inside her. “I thought Arton arrived alone.”

  He sighed and rested his head against the back of the chair. “While Arton and I were expressing our brotherly love, Arton’s partner kidnapped Lily and stole a datapad containing the formula.”

  Stunned into silence, she just stared at him. The Outcasts had Lily? No wonder Sedrik was so upset. Lily was a vital part of the transformation project, and she was human. The battle born’s relationship with Earth was already strained because of L.A. This latest development would test the alliance even more.

  “Do you know where they took her?” Sedrik better have people out looking for her or this conversation was going to get hostile fast.

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. “That’s the really fun part. We dispatched trackers to the Outcast headquarters in Telluride. It was the logical place for them to have taken Lily. When the trackers arrived, the entire place was deserted.”

  Deserted? What the hell did that mean? “They moved their headquarters?”

  His eyes opened, but he stared at the ceiling, expression blank. “They’re gone, all of them. Every ship, every last Outcast is gone.”

  “Gone?” She felt like a parrot, but everything he said was too horrible to accept. “They can’t just vanish. They must have moved to another location.”

  He looked at her, impatience clear in his weary stare. “Of course they relocated, but to where? It was hard enough to keep track of them on Earth. Now they could be anywhere.”

  “They left this star system with a ship or ships full of human females?” She had to spell it out before her sluggish mind would comprehend the details. This was terrible! “And they have Lily, and probably Thea with them. What in the world are we going to do?”

  “No love, the question is, what can we do? My investigators will question anyone who had any contact with the Outcasts, but I’m not optimistic. Those bastards are incredibly secretive.” He paused, exhaling slowly. “Now do you understand my shitty mood?” He stood and headed for the bedroom. In the doorway he looked back and asked, “Are you coming? I’m exhausted.”

  She started to say she was too angry to sleep, but decided to postpone the argument. He was in no frame of mind for a rational discussion. She had no intention of letting it go, but it made more sense to wait until morning. “I’m not sleepy yet.”

  “Suit yourself,” he muttered. He took another step then paused and turned to face her. “Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?”

  His expression finally revealed concern, but she could sense nothing from their link. He’d shut her out, closed her off, then forgotten she existed. “Nice of you to remember you have a guest.” He took three quick strides toward the nutri-gen, but she stopped him. “I made myself a sandwich a few hours ago, which doesn’t change the fact that you left me locked in this room all day.”

  “I’m sorry.” His hands folded into fists and the tension in his voice made her wonder if he was clenching his teeth. “I have no excuse for my carelessness.”

  She didn’t hear sarcasm in his tone, but the absurdity of the statement brought her anger rushing back. “You had a legitimate excuse for losing track of things today, but not for shutting me out.” So much for not starting a fight. She’d honestly intended to leave this alone until morning, but now that the can of worms was open, she would not back down.

  His gaze locked with hers and his lips twitched as if he couldn’t decide whether to apologize again or snarl. “I shielded the link to protect you, not to shut you out.”

  “To protect me from what?” Her voice grew louder and she advanced without consciously taking the steps. “I can handle you, so who were you protecting me from?”

  His brows arched as he matched her steps. They soon stood toe to toe, her head tilted back so she could glare up at him. “You can ‘handle’ me?” He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve held back, how patient and gentle I’ve been with you?”

  That was part of the problem. He saw her as a victim, a poor abused wife who needed to be locked away for her own protection. She wasn’t helpless or defeated. She’d fought her own battles for years! Jim hadn’t broken her, no matter how hard he tried, and she would not let Sedrik patronize her. He would treat her as an equal or she’d walk away.

  She shoved him as hard as she could. All the force did was rock him backward. He needed an emotional release and so did she. They could go find the training cage he’d mentioned in the cave or fight this out in bed, and she wasn’t in the mood to spar. “So show me, big shot! Stop holding back and let me have it. I am not afraid of you.”

  “Maybe you should be.” He bent and draped her over his shoulder, easily lifting her off her feet. His arm banded her thighs, holding her steady as he rushed across the room and tossed her onto the bed. By the time she stopped bouncing and scrambled to her hands and knees, he’d stripped off the top half of his uniform and unfasten
ed the pants. “I will not hold back tonight. If you don’t want all of me, you need to tell me now.”

  She looked into his eyes as excitement tingled down her spine. They had much left to discuss, but now was the time for action. She pushed off the mattress so she knelt in the center of the bed and beckoned him with her fingers. “Bring it on.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  With chest heaving and desire pounding through his veins, Sedrik glared at his mate. She’d never looked more beautiful, more alive than she did in this moment. Defiance blazed in her bright green eyes, her lips were parted waiting for his kiss, and curly brown hair framed her lovely face. Her legs were spread, helping maintain her balance, and her nipples formed distinct peaks beneath her top. He didn’t want to take out his frustration on her, but she invited his aggression, challenged him until his dominant nature insisted he accept the invitation.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  Her whispered dare snapped what little remained of his control. He leaned forward and grabbed her upper arms, dragging her across the bed. She tugged against his hold, twisting and hitting his chest with her little fists. Not wanting her to hurt herself, he pulled her arms behind her back and restrained her wrists with one hand. His other moved freely over her squirming torso, cupping her breasts and collaring her slender throat. He was careful not to hurt her, but she’d demanded a show of strength and he was happy to provide one.

  Her resistance excited him, stirring primal urges he’d fought his entire life to control. This game was dangerous. It would be so easy to unleash the beast inside him and let it devour her. She wanted him. Her aroused scent assured him this fight was calculated. They each needed to release the frustration that had churned inside them all day. So she challenged him, dared him to control not only her, but the darkest parts of his own nature. But was he strong enough to do both?

  He grabbed the back of her hair and carefully tilted her head until she looked into his eyes. “Offer me your mouth.”

  “No.” She tried to turn her face away.