PrimalHunger (29 page)

Unshed tears burned her eyes. “I can’t. My cousin will never
be safe with them out there.” She looked back toward the door, and the dead
assassin she’d taken out. A woman she’d once called friend. A loyal servant to
the Sheon cause. One more casualty in the perversions her mother had wrought on
her people.

“Stay here. You can be part of the security staff. You know
she’ll want you with her.”

Shyla shook her head. “There is too much bad blood between
us. Too many years I have to redeem. I have a mission to fulfill.”

“You’re the one who saved her life all those years ago,
aren’t you?” Destiny’s voice was melodious. “The little girl who dropped a
single dagger on the ground, in spite of her mother’s orders. Just a little
thing.” Destiny touched the barrel and gently pushed it down and away from her
body. The man called Jackson stepped from the shadows.

Shyla holstered the weapon, ignoring Destiny’s assumption.
“This one was mostly human, so the body will remain the same. Only the face
will smooth over.” She watched as Jackson stepped into the room. So many years
wasted. So many times she skirted death at her mother’s hands. She gave a rough
laugh. Skreeta may yet get the chance.

“My mother will kill me for this.”

“She won’t be able touch you.”

“She had to have a rendezvous set up.” Jackson’s voice was
quiet, unobtrusive as always. Shyla wished for that kind of stealth.

“If the assassin had succeeded, what was it supposed to do?”

Shyla sighed. She was bone weary of her mother’s tricks and
traps. “It was supposed to bring her proof of their deaths. She would have
rendezvoused with the ship my mother had escaped in. I was lucky to find the
kill orders in the
Calypso
database. It’ll take me years to comb through
the information Skreeta had compiled.”

“Can we get the information from the assassin?” Destiny’s
gaze grew hard, and Shyla wondered just how far Destiny was willing to go.
Would it be enough?

“Yes. Since I have no idea how much information she could
gather from the assassin, I was careful to keep the module intact. I just
disabled its optics and motor function nodes.”

“Good.” Her smile was not a pretty one. “Here’s what we’re
going to do. You’re going to give her different coordinates…”

* * * * *

“This is the very spot you left your own princess, isn’t
it?” It was the way she said it, the ice-cold nothingness in Destiny’s eyes.
Skreeta knew her life was at an end. And it pissed her off.

“I was obviously too merciful.” She wiped the back of her
hand across her mouth, unsurprised to see the crimson stain of blood smeared
across the skin. “She sent you to do her dirty work, did she? One whore is the
same as any other, I suppose.” It was a joke how easily they’d overtaken her
crew. Humiliating to have fallen into the whore’s trap.

Destiny’s gaze burned and Skreeta laughed. She eyed the
ground support team and gauged her chances. Slim. Slim was better than none.
She’d survived the blood wars. She was Skreeta, future queen of the Sheon
Empire. Fuck this backwater rock and its wastes.

“All those loyal to your princess heir have one chance.
Board the ship now.”

Several moved. Rage launched in Skreeta’s gut and she let
loose a cry, making a cutting motion in the air. All but Destiny froze. “I will
not have a
whore
undermine the strength of our empire.”

Skreeta watched sudden fury leap into the bodyguard’s eyes.
A light touch by Destiny relaxed his muscles, but it was enough. Skreeta
smiled, showing sharpened canines. Even the whore had a weakness.

“Hold her.”

Two guards grabbed her, locking her arm joints before she
could blink. Pain flared across her shoulders and down her back. She sucked a
breath through clenched teeth.

Destiny strode down the path. “You should really expand your
vocabulary. Better a whore than a warmonger and child killer.” The bitch jerked
the Sheon royal emblem from her cloak. Shadows moved in her peripheral vision.
They were abandoning her!

“What I did, I did for the empire!” She launched at Destiny
but the blue-skinned bastard twisted her arm until she dropped. Pain raced
along her arm before it went numb. Any further pressure would break the limb.
Skreeta was pissed, but she wasn’t stupid.

The touch of Destiny’s fingers on her chin made her skin
crawl. “What you did, you did for greed. Now you’ll have the same chance you
gave Kendra so long ago.”

Skreeta spat blood on her perfect face. “I made her who she
is today. It was my choices that made her the strong warrior she has become.”

Destiny smiled. It was not a lovely smile. “She is the heir,
and you are the slag waste.” Destiny grabbed a corner of the fallen cloak and
wiped her face. Blood smeared across the skin. “Dawn is coming.” She gestured
toward the rock formation in the distance. “I’ll even make it easy. No ropes on
your limbs. Make it to the rock, and you’ll live.”

Skreeta sneered at the hope that leapt in her heart. “How
long do I have?”

Destiny dropped the cloak to the mucky ground in a whisper
of fabric. “As long as it takes.”

The bitch walked back to the ramp and gazed around. Skreeta
took stock. Three of her team remained loyal enough to stay. “No weapons?” A
sixth sense had kept her alive, one that told her when someone was lying, when
danger was close. Her skin crawled. Something was coming.

Destiny gave an unladylike snort. “A seven-year-old child
raced across this very land without boots. Be thankful I allow you to keep
yours.” Her guard handed over a wet towel and Destiny wiped down her face. She
paused, as though considering. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she could beat you
even then.”

She turned her back and Skreeta raged, fighting against the
hold of her armed guards. When Destiny reached the top of the platform, she
turned and stared down at Skreeta with eyes as cold as deepest space. “You will
never hurt another soul.”

The guards dropped her arms and danced out of her reach when
she tried to take their weapons. The dark-blue one grinned. “I’d run if I were
you, your highness. Dawn brings some interesting critters around here.” He
laughed and walked backward until they reached the safety of the ship.

“Highness.” One of her loyalists touched her arm. “We must
run for your survival.”

Skreeta didn’t speak, she just turned and sprinted. The buzz
of danger surrounded her, tapped deep into her reserves. Years of training,
preparation for a throne war coalesced on this one point in time.

She’d show them. The sound of her ship’s launch set her
teeth on edge and she used the rage to push her body further.

The fight with Kendra replayed in her mind. Every move.
Every calculated maneuver. A tinge of red pierced the sky and Skreeta winced
away from the light’s glare. How had that bitch survived the poison? A sickly
sweet stench rose around her. The reports had given no indication of carnivore
activity in this area, so why was she running?

A scream pierced the morning and Skreeta turned. A red slime
had engulfed a soldier, trapping her, devouring her. Skreeta swallowed back the
bile rising in her throat.

“Run. Highness!” A shove on her arm had her running. “Run!”

Another scream fell behind her but she dug deeper, running
harder. Slime oozed out of the cracks in the ground, sliding over the muck.

“Don’t let it touch you!” the woman screeched in her ear,
rattling her eardrums.

“I have no intention, I assure you.”

The dark shadows of trees drew her gaze and she raced in
that direction, ready to climb the haggard branches for safety. She heard the
dogged steps of her companion. Crimson slime oozed around them, coming up
through the cracks. She wished for a gun, any kind of weapon. The trees grew
closer and the twisted branches offered a small shimmer of hope. Her lungs
burned and her breaths came in ragged gasps. A slime sprang at her and she
rolled, desperate to escape its touch. She reached the tree and launched at it.

“Highness, no!” Her companion’s cry came too late.

A tar-like substance held her fast against the trunk. She
jerked her hands away from the black muck and her skin ripped. A scream tore
from her lips. The black substance oozed down her arm. The scream of her
companion tore through the silent woods. An overwhelming sickeningly sweet odor
permeated the air and Skreeta dragged in a breath. Yellow slime oozed around
the trunk, sliding toward her.

A rugged laugh tore from deep within. “I hate this fucking
planet,” she screamed.

* * * * *

So that’s the story of how I got the Valorian Prince and
the Sheon heir to the throne on my staff. They found each other. I got an
extra-hunky body and efficient fighter on my security staff. The would-be queen
never made it to the rock, and not a sign of her was ever found.

We made quite a profit on the arena fight and have
consolidated our gain with the Abject Mining Corporation to make the pit fights
a regular event. Apparently, the grunts like to watch scantily clad women
wrestle.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

Of course we’ve sexed it up a little. Gotta give those
deprived men and women a little heat to offset the frigid cold of deep space.
Incidentally, our business is booming.

Every day is an adventure at Destiny’s Palace. Thank you
for your patronage and it will be our
pleasure
to serve you again.

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