Читать книгу Ascension Saga: 2 - Grace Goodwin - Страница 9

Captain Leoron Turaya of Alera, Mate to Princess Trinity, Cleric Building, Interrogation Room, Sub-Level Three

The punches and kicks that rained down had ceased to hurt hours ago. I was numb. I felt no pain, could only hear the sound of flesh on flesh, a hard boot against my already broken ribs, the hiss of air as I struggled to breathe through what had to be a punctured lung.

“Where are the females? Where are the queen’s daughters?” The voice did not belong to my tormentor, but to one of Alera’s highest-ranking clerics. “Three females entered. None of them exited the building. Where are they?”

“Still inside, I guess.” I had no idea where they were, was still reeling with the revelation that the female whose Ardor I soothed, The One, my mate, was the future queen.

“The citadel is empty. The sanctum was searched by the royal family.”

“There is no royal family on Alera.” That was the truth as far as I was concerned. Or, at least it had been until Trinity and her sisters arrived. Queen Celene’s cousins, those deemed unworthy by the citadel and unable to light a spire, had not earned the right to call themselves royal. Most people on the planet agreed. If they did not, we would have had a new queen years ago.

“The royal family searched the citadel. It was empty. Where did the females go? How did they escape?”

Trinity and her sisters weren’t found inside the citadel? Where were they?

The large male doing the dirty work was a man I’d never seen before, but the inked markings covering his body indicated he belonged to the clerics’ private army.

An army they had systematically denied creating the past few years as they jostled for power after the queen’s disappearance. No one had claimed the throne in the twenty-seven long years since. And now, no other would, except my mate. Three decades of plotting and scheming brought to an abrupt end by the light of a few spires.

I tried to laugh, but the sound came out as a wheeze. “Worried that your evil… plans to take over Alera… are ruined?”

The cleric was not amused and he nodded at the brute beating me to continue. Still smiling when the first blow landed over my already broken ribs, I clenched my teeth and endured, focused on the hem of the long, elaborate cape wrapped around the body of the cleric sitting a few steps away. The cell was cold, but I knew the soft, black shell and even softer silver lining would keep him warm in much worse conditions.

Beneath, he was dressed as all the clerics were, in a fighter’s uniform with a ceremonial dagger at his hip. I knew he had been trained to wield the blade better than any standard Coalition fighter. The uniform cloth was an array of sharp angles in silver and black while an expanse of white crossed his chest and shimmering silver graced his arms. The silver was tradition, a token of their eternal service to and respect for the royal bloodline.

And apparently, a complete lie. At least where this male was concerned. He was a master-level cleric, an expert in hand-to-hand combat—yet he refused to get his hands dirty with me—and I’d seen the links of silver chain around his neck proclaiming his status to the world.

Despite his youthful frame, I estimated he was near sixty years old with deep lines around his eyes and mouth, not from laughing, but scowling… as he was doing now.

More of me was broken than whole. The taste of blood filled my mouth and I had to wonder if I were spitting it up due to internal bleeding, or if my mouth filled with the dark liquid because my lips and cheeks were flayed open.

I didn’t focus on any of that, nor the questions they asked. All that filled my mind was her voice. Her scent. Her taste. The feel of her pussy as it had clenched and milked my cock. The soft feel of her hair as it brushed over my chest when she’d kissed her way up from pleasuring my cock with her mouth. That had been an experience I’d been waiting a lifetime to have fulfilled.

I thought only of Trinity. My mate. The One.

There was no fucking way I was going to die now at the hands of the clerics. They might be brutal and vicious, but I would survive. For her. My cock had only just awakened and there would be nothing that kept me from returning to Trinity, to sinking between her parted thighs again. To ease her Ardor, which had yet to be resolved.

She would be suffering, aching with a need that returned with a vengeance. I knew she wouldn’t seek out a consort. She would need me—my cock—to soothe her.

I would get out of these chains, out of this barren, cold, evil room and satisfy her in any way she needed.

I was no longer a servant to the Coalition. I was a servant to my mate.

The fact that she was an Aleran royal only doubled my loyalty.

Tied to a chair, my ankles bound to the front legs, my arms pulled behind me and cinched behind my back, the punches rained down. There was no way to protect against them.

Another strike had my head flying back.

I didn’t bother to lift it. I knew what was next, the indescribable pain of the neurostim devices. The technology was designed to heal, but had been modified to stimulate pain receptors in the body… and nothing else. No bruises. No physical damage. Hours of torture. The practice had been outlawed decades ago for driving people mad.

The cleric cleared his throat and the brute paused his strikes, which was almost worse than the continued assault. It gave me time to feel everything he’d already done to me.

“Princess Trinity announced herself to one and all. But who were the other two? Her sisters? I need their names and descriptions from you, Leoron. One way or another, I will get them.”

“Fuck you.” I was proud of the sisters, of my mate. They’d thought ahead, Destiny and Faith covering themselves, remaining hidden from the cameras as they’d bolted into the citadel. I’d thought it odd, at the time. But then, I’d assumed they’d come out the way they went in. Through the front door.

Instead, all three of them had vanished into thin air.

Just like their mother had, twenty-seven years ago.

The cleric sighed. “Use the stim.”

I cringed before the small device touched my flesh. The moment it did, I bellowed in rage and in pain. The device was impossible to defeat, sending a burst of power through every nerve receptor in my body.

My body arched off the chair as if I were having a seizure and I had no control of the movement. When it was pulled away, I slumped over like a bag filled with sand. Dead weight. My limbs, my head too heavy to hold up for another moment.

Silence. Cool, cold silence.

“He’s no longer responding.” The big brute said, his voice bland. It was as if he’d done this before, as if I were just a single person in a long line of many who’d been tortured in this room. And died. As if he were bored.

“Stop then. I want him to suffer. He’s no good to me dead.” The cleric’s order was soft, but annoyance was clearly audible in his tone.

“He hasn’t given up anything. Not one word about the spires. Who the other two royals are who entered the citadel. He hasn’t even said why they were with him.” The deep, gravely voice of the one who had beaten me filled my head. “I’ve seen his kind before. He’ll let us kill him, but he won’t break.”

“He will.” My hair was gripped, my head lifted by the cleric. While my eyes were open, I could barely see the male before me beneath the swollen eyelids. “He will. But not today. Tomorrow morning is soon enough. Cut him loose. Water. No food.”

The cleric released his hold on me, and I felt my head fall forward. I tried to lift it, but it was as if the stupid thing suddenly weighed a hundred pounds. Perhaps I was in worse shape than I’d realized.

With a grunt, the giant released my restraints. The bindings fell away from my arms and legs, and he kicked the chair out from beneath me. It tipped and I fell with a hard thud to the stone floor.

The cold felt good against my swollen face.

“Do we give him a ReGen wand this time?”

The question made me wince. For several hours now, they’d beaten me to the brink of death before healing me with a ReGen wand just enough to start again. I knew this could go on for days. Weeks.

I didn’t care. I would survive. For her. Trinity. My mate.

The cleric’s laugh was pure evil and I shuddered, faced with the evidence of my stupidity. For years I’d believed the clerical order when they’d claimed their soldiers were just for protecting the citadel and the queen’s future. I’d believed their stated purpose of serving the people and having no ambition to rule Alera themselves.

I’d been wrong. Three families were powerful enough to fight for the throne. Just three. But the clerical order had its own army, spies, a network so vast I wasn’t sure they could be beaten if they decided to take the throne. And if they had allied themselves with one of the other power-hungry families?

War. We were on the brink of war. And I was falling hopelessly in love with the female who would be at its epicenter.

The cleric stepped on my hand as he walked away, crushing the already aching digits into the cold, hard floor of the cell. “Let him suffer. Perhaps in the morning he’ll be ready to talk.”

They were hoping I’d do just that. But I wouldn’t. The only other Alerans alive who knew about Trinity, Faith and Destiny were the Jax guard who’d been injured—and, with Faith’s help, hopefully recovered—and the assassin who escaped. Everyone else was dead. No consort, no other guards. I doubted these men knew of the injured one. Perhaps were aware of Lord Thordis Jax’s involvement, but doubtful. Definitely not of Prime Nial’s request for my help.

As for the assassin? I’d recognized him from my time in the Coalition Fleet. He’d worked in their Intelligence Core. He’d killed Hive, mowing them down without remorse. Among other things.

He was very good at killing.

I never knew his name. Had never asked. But I’d been happy to have him at my back or watching over an op through a sniper’s scope. And now? Was he working for the clerics? One of the royal cousins? Lord Jax?

If he’d been sent by the asshole leaving me here to rot, I doubted they’d be torturing me for information. They would already know who the sisters were. Where they were from. When they’d arrived.

They appeared to know nothing, only became aware of them once the spires lit. Which meant my mate had more enemies than I knew about. And the assassin was still out there.

The cleric had shown me vids of my EMV, of the females as they exited the vehicle, their faces intentionally hidden. They’d even captured the look of disbelief on my face the moment Destiny stunned me before pushing me out. Luckily, the door of the EMV had obscured the camera’s view, the females’ faces remaining hidden. But I couldn’t lie and tell the cleric I knew nothing. The citadel guards hadn’t seen Faith’s or Destiny’s faces, but they were eyewitnesses to my stunned ass landing on the ground, the door closing, and the females driving through the energy field that surrounded the citadel. Their dash inside. The way the spires illuminated after they entered the sacred building. And worst of all, Trinity, standing proudly facing all of us, giving us her name. Her true name.

Trinity Herakles, royal heir, daughter of Queen Celene. And she was my mate.

I was the only one who could give these brutes answers. Yet, I had none. Or only a few. I realized now that was intentional. Trinity had kept secrets. For my own good? Was the stubborn female trying to protect me?

They were from Earth. Trinity had the Aleran Ardor, which meant she was at least part Aleran.

But the spires? The lights? The females were royalty. Their ages were right for them to be Queen Celene’s daughters… but could that be true? Was my Trinity actually Princess Trinity, as she had claimed? She was the eldest, and I’d seen the other two defer to her on more than one occasion. But a princess? The royal heir?

Heavy footfalls reverberated through my cheek and ear where I had them pressed to the floor as the giant followed his master out of the room. The cell door slid shut behind them. I was alone.

Earlier in my captivity, I’d checked out the small space for any means of escape. There was nothing of use. No cameras, no knobs. Smooth walls and floor, fortified door. There was nothing but the stark, white light that shined brightly to prevent me from truly resting. How long had I been trapped here? How long had Trinity been alone? I had no idea what day it was, how much time had passed since I’d been captured.

I used my feet to push myself across the floor to the thin mattress in the corner. It wasn’t soft, but it would keep the cold from seeping into my bones—my broken bones. I would spend the hours until dawn thinking of Trinity.

Reaching between my thighs, I gripped my cock through my pants, stroked it. It was hard… it would remain that way even beaten and bloody. For her. The slight hint of pleasure, of heat that sparked through me at my shifting grip, was my only sense of relief in all the misery.

“You just can’t stop playing with that big cock, can you?”

That voice. So sweet, so sassy. So mine.

“Trinity,” I whispered, stroked harder.

“Yeah, if I had that beast between my legs, I’d probably touch it, too.”

I blinked, tried to see, but the vision before me was blurry and my eyelids were still swollen. I saw the outline of a female, pale hair. I took a deep breath, even with the pain in my lungs. Flowers. She smelled like flowers.

“Trinity,” I repeated. I was dreaming of her now. Was I that close to death? Was the Goddess granting me a dying wish to see my mate before me once again?

“What did they do to you?” she asked, and I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder, down my cheek. I leaned into the heat of it, the softness.

Such a good dream.

“I won’t tell them. I promise, mate.”

“Oh, Leo. You’re so strong. So brave. You can stop now.”

I pushed to sit up, winced. “Never! I won’t stop until you are safe.”

I couldn’t see, couldn’t do anything but fight back. I would not die.

“Shhh,” she crooned to me. “That’s it. Lie back down. Yes, Leo, listen to me, your mate’s voice. Good. I’m going to put this little transport button on you and we’ll be out of here. You might have saved me back at that penthouse, but it’s my turn to save you right back.”

“Trinity?” I croaked.

“That’s it. Time to get out of here.”

I felt a hard press on my shoulder, then a soft, small hand in mine.

The familiar sizzle and pull of a transport tugged at me, but I wouldn’t believe it. I’d looked for an escape and knew there was none.

I was dreaming. I was dying. Yet my mate was here. My dream had come true.

When the ice-cold twisting of transport came to an end, I was awake. In agony, but more aware. Of her. “Trinity.” I reached for her, blindly. Found softness. Held tight.

“He needs help… now!” my mate shouted.

It was no longer cold, but I was still on a hard floor. I could hear the quick footfall of many people, the immediate ease of pain in my face, my leg. Blinking, I could see out of one eye now. The blue glow of a ReGen wand was my first sight, but as it passed back and forth, I saw Trinity. Really saw her.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes dark with worry. Pink lips. So kissable. Her clothes were different than I remembered. She wore a warrior’s uniform. Coalition Fleet issue. Armored. An ion blaster in her hand. And she looked beautiful. Perfect. Unharmed.

Fragile. Small. Weak. How dare she risk breaking into the cleric’s building?

“What have you done, mate? Why are you dressed as a warrior?”

“Shhh. Don’t worry about me. You’re the one in trouble here.”

“You,” I said. My throat was so dry, I was hoarse. “No. Get away from me. You’re in danger.”

She leaned down and kissed me on the lips, the touch like a sacred blessing. “It’s okay, Leo. I got you. We’re not on Alera. You’re on Battleship Karter, you’re safe. I’m safe. Jessica—Lady Deston—helped me get you out of there. She used your NPU to track you.”

Just like Prime Nial had used the forgotten technology buried in my skull to make contact with me, request my assistance in protecting Trinity and her sisters. I owed Nial a life debt, but he hadn’t needed to call in that favor. He was my friend. Protecting innocents was what I did. I would have helped them regardless. But thank fuck, he’d called on me. I never would have met my mate otherwise.

I turned my head slowly, reluctant to look away from her, half afraid she would vanish into thin air. A frowning Prillon warrior dressed in medical green was looming over her. The blue glow came from a ReGen wand in his hand, as well as that of a young assistant in a lighter green uniform, who was trying to heal the broken bones in my hand.

The doctor spoke. “Your majesty, he needs a ReGen pod immediately.”

“Yes, of course.” I felt the squeeze of her hand as I was lifted onto a gurney, wheeled down a hallway. I held onto her. She was here. She was safe. For now, that was enough.

“Were you really in that cell with me?” I was half convinced I’d been hallucinating. Was still hallucinating.

She walked quickly beside me, along with others who were still waving ReGen wands as we moved. The familiar walls of a Coalition battleship zoomed past, the colors changing from blue to cream to green as we neared the medical station. Others talked around us, but their voices blurred. Nothing was clear. Nothing but Trinity.

“Yes. Jessica gave me a miniature transport beacon and had her team send me directly into that prison cell to rescue you.”

I tried to sit up then, but big hands held me down. The doctor. Make that Prillon warrior. Huge Prillon warrior. “Lie down. Rest. Or you’ll cause additional injury.”

“You were transported into the cell to rescue me?” I asked.

“Yes, can you believe it?” A booming voice cut through everyone else’s as we continued down the hallway.

“Prime Nial,” I replied. The hands were still on me. I couldn’t sit up to bow or offer him deference of any kind.

“I’m glad to see you alive, friend. Your injuries are grave but will heal with a few hours in a ReGen pod.”

“Trinity,” I replied, squeezing her hand.

Prime Nial understood my request. “She will be under my personal protection while you are healing,” he vowed.

“As if I’m going to leave his side,” Trinity countered.

“You are well. Not injured?” I asked her.

“I’m fine. And I’m so sorry, Leo. If I’d known what they were going to do to you, I never would have—” Her voice cracked and I couldn’t bear to see her in pain.

“You were right to leave me,” I reassured. “I would never have allowed you to enter the citadel if you had told me your plan. It was reckless. Dangerous. There are better ways. Safer ways. You should have told me the truth.”

“I’m sorry. We had a plan, and I tried to keep you out of it. I didn’t think they would hurt you.”

“You are mine. My mate. When I get out of the ReGen pod, I am going to take you over my knee and spank your ass for lying to me. And for the risk you took to free me. You should have let me be, Trinity. Never risk yourself. Never.”

“I agree.” Prime Nial sighed. “Jessica has already felt the sting of my palm for her complicity in the rescue operation.”

“You were in a meeting! Ander was off killing things,” Lady Deston countered. “Like Trinity was going to wait for you big guys to get your butts in gear.”

“And your butt has paid the price,” Nial rejoined.

Trinity’s lips thinned, clearly not pleased with the direction the conversation was going. “I don’t need a man to save me. Jessica and I handled things.”

“You should have come to me,” Prime Nial said, gently pulling Lady Deston to his side and wrapping a protective arm around her. “I would have sent in a team of warriors to free him. Not one, small female.”

“Small, but mighty,” Lady Deston added, winking at my mate, despite Prime Nial’s discussion of her recent punishment.

Apparently, Earth females were very difficult to tame.

I might be headed into a ReGen pod, but my mate clearly needed a reminder of who was in charge of her safety. A reminder I would be happy to supply once I could get up off my back.

The medical team pushed the gurney into the medical station, and I took in the long row of ReGen pods, a few currently in use.

I was carefully lifted and settled into one at the Prillon doctor’s direction, but I held my hand up to keep the lid from lowering.

“Mate,” I said.

Trinity leaned down and her pale eyes met mine. Clear, honest, open. Yes, she was a dream I’d never dared even hope for.

“Yes, Leo?”

“When I wake, I will spank your ass, then I’m going to fuck you from behind until you scream my name.” I kept my voice low so none of the technicians could hear. “If you’re not in line by then, I’ll spank you again as I fuck that tight, perfect pussy of yours over and over until you know who you belong to.”

She stared at me, her mouth open, her cheeks flaming pink, a color I’d learned to love. She was mine.

“You are mine, Trinity. I will die to protect you. But no more secrets.”

She bit her lip and stood, backing away as the technicians closed the ReGen pod’s clear covering over me as if I were dead. But she didn’t agree to my demand.

We’d been open and crude in our sex talk with each other, especially when it came to pleasure. But I’d never vowed to punish her before. Never demanded her secrets. Her complete trust and total surrender.

But she wasn’t an assignment any longer. A job. A mission.

She was mine. My mate. Mine to love. Mine to protect. Mine to fuck and pleasure and care for.

I grinned then, the first time since we’d been separated.

Prime Nial would keep her safe while the ReGen pod took care of my injuries. Which was good. Because when I was healed, I wanted my mate rested and prepared to scream my name.