Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (154 page)

Lucifer felt his own spirit stretching now alongside Jamin’s as the young man's spirit tried to escape the pain of his injured body. For the first time in his 240 years, Lucifer had found love, and now he was about to lose it.

"Innana!" he screamed at the deity who had dumped him off at the Eternal Emperor's, daring to blaspheme her by using her given name. "Please! Tell me what to do?"

No god answered his prayers, for he had forsaken them all, and they would have no pity on him, not for his life, and certainly not the life of his same-sex lover. He, and who his spirit had bonded to, were an abomination under Alliance law. Even if he
hadn't
rebelled against his father, the mere fact he had chosen to love another
man
would have been reason enough to turn the Emperor against him. His lover grew paler, until his breaths were so faint that he feared each breath would be his last.

“Don’t go,
mo ghrá
,” Lucifer pleaded with Jamin, kissing his lips and caressing his hair. “Please. Stay with me? I need you to stay with me. Okay?”

The street was too narrow for Eligor to land the shuttle, and he was too weak to fly Jamin over the walls. If he couldn’t fly his dying lover to safety, then he would carry him. Wrapping his wings around his body to protect him, Jamin’s lifeblood seeped down his clothes and covered his white wings in blood.

"I thought I saw a second gate over here," Lucifer said as he staggered under the weight. "It wasn't far."

A high-pitched, feminine voice screamed, “Look!!! It’s the Evil One!”

“Shoot him!!!” a second voice shouted.

A barrage first of rocks, then darts and arrows, hit him in the backs of his wings, making him grunt in pain. Had he carried anyone else, he simply would have dropped the man and flown out of there, but the angry little chieftain, he realized, was more than a lover. Somehow, during their brief lovemaking, they had bonded, and while his DNA had become diluted enough that he
could
survive without his lifemate, he did not
wish
to, and for the first time in his life, he understood the compulsion which had driven his mother to abandon him for a father he had never met. So he kept his wings wrapped around his dying lover to protect him from the volley of arrows, and continued to carry him, taking arrows, and more arrows, in his retreating wings which, thankfully, protected his back from a fatal shot.

It was with enormous relief he heard the devil cruiser coast in on one engine to retrieve him. With a roar, it hovered between him and the crowd of retreating villagers armed atlatls, bows and rocks, and rotated the pulse cannon to aim at the wooden gate which blocked his exit down the alley.

Eligor gave the human guards enough time to run before he blasted open the gate in a fiery inferno. Lucifer tried to run, but the best he could do was hurry as his devil cruiser landed and opened up the hatch. Bits and snippets of memory warned him that while he could trust Eligor, the last person he could trust was Zepar.

All his life he had played at politics, so he understood the nature of sharks devouring a wounded ally. It was not a weeping Lucifer his adversaries must see now, nor even the jaded politician, but the leader who'd stood up in front of a rebellious Parliament and declared his adoptive father a mere ceremonial god.

He staggered in and sat down, his lover cradled on his lap.

"Back to the ship, now!”

“But, Sire,” Zepar protested. In his hand, he carried a syringe.

“I said NOW!!!” Lucifer shouted. “And if you come near me with that thing, I swear I shall make you eat it."

He turned to Eligor.

"Eligor … call ahead to Doctor Halpas. Tell him we’ve got incoming wounded.”

Eligor had always been a man who played his emotions close to his vest, but he could swear he saw the man smirk.

"Right away, Sir," Eligor said. He jerked forward the throttle, getting them airborne again and knocking Zepar into his seat because the idiot had been so busy trying to jab him with the needle that he'd been standing instead of buckling himself in.

“Doctor Halpas will fix your wings in no time, Sire,” Zepar crooned in a soothing voice. "And then we shall calm you down."

“The doctor is not for
me
, idiot,” Lucifer went on the attack. “It's for
him
.
He
goes first.”

The ship shuddered as it breached the atmosphere. Thankfully the inertial dampeners were still operational despite the loss of one of their engines. He clutched Jamin closer to his chest.

"Stay with me," he pleaded. "Stay with me, lover, and I shall lay this world at your feet as my gift."

"I have Doctor Halpas on the radio, Sir," Eligor said. "He asked what kind of injuries he should prep for?"

Lucifer felt nauseous as he poked at his lover's entrails.

"I'm no medic," Lucifer said. "But he was stabbed in the abdomen with something large. Probably a spear."

Eligor relayed the information.

"Sir," Eligor said. "He wants to know if his intestines have been ruptured?"

Lucifer grimaced as he poked at Jamin's belly.

"I can see his intestine," Lucifer said. He stared at the gaping wound which no longer seemed to ooze much blood. Even
he
knew that was a bad sign. "Yes. I am certain he's got a ruptured bowel. He's almost bled out, and I have no idea what kind of blood he even needs."

Eligor relayed the information, and then added the fact that Lucifer had seven or eight objects embedded into his wings. Lucifer tilted one white wing forward and was surprised to see it was true. He'd been so focused on saving his lover that he'd perceived the weapons to be little more than bee stings.

Hope flamed in his chest as the
Prince of Tyre
came into. He bent to whisper in Jamin's ear.

"We're almost there,
mo ghrá
," Lucifer whispered in his ear. "See? We're almost there, and then my doctor will save you."

Jamin murmured something, but his words were so faint he couldn't even hear him. It didn't matter, for he could
feel
what his lover felt, and he knew his lover only lingered here for him.

Strong. He needed to be strong or Zepar and his men would devour him alive. But Eligor? He stared up towards the cockpit, and Eligor's eyes met his in the reflection of the windshield.

“Sir,” Eligor spoke low enough so only Lucifer could hear him. “You may want to ask the wife of the Angelic you tried to kill to help you. She’s an Earth healer, and from I've seen, a very good one.”

"An Angelic … I tried … to kill?" Lucifer asked. A sense of vertigo made the situation seem all the more unreal.

"Colonel Mannuki'ili's wife, Sir," Eligor said. "You took her hostage. After he … I'm not sure what he did wrong, Sir. You never told me."

"Mikhail … has … a wife?" He wondered if perhaps he had slipped back into his delusionary state. "But he's … Seraphim."

"His wife is from the same village as your … friend," Eligor said. "It's one of the reasons, I suspect, you supported the lizards to recapture it for him. Your, uh, friend is, um … he's in tight with the lizards."

So now he was a crazy … gay … rebellious … Shay'tan-supporting traitor?

Jamin stirred. He opened his dark eyes, and whatever doubts Lucifer might have had were gone.

"I don't care if she does a rain dance," Lucifer said. "If it will increase his chances, I want her in that operating room the moment we step foot upon my ship."

“But Sire,” Zepar said, his voice pliant and helpful, “you tried to kill her husband. She will kill him, not heal him.”

"Ninsianna's husband is still alive," Eligor said. "If you bring her that news and promise to free her, she will do whatever it takes to earn her freedom."

"Ninsianna?" Jamin whispered. His hand shook, and then he moved to touch Lucifer's temple. Words were not necessary. Whoever this woman was, Jamin felt she could help them.

“She will be no help!!!” Zepar shook with anger. “This … toy … is nothing to you. Why do you insist on this ridiculous course of action??? You are putting all of our plans in jeopardy!”

“What plans?”

Zepar stumbled over his own words. “N-nothing, Sire.”

Lucifer glanced back at the two stone-eyed goons, the ones he didn't trust any more than he trusted Zepar. They were three against just him and Eligor, but thankfully Eligor was the only one who knew how to pilot a ship
with such a badly damaged engine.

He remembered a lesson which Abaddon had forced him to learn as a little boy.

"Eligor," he spoke low. "I want guards at the door the moment this shuttle sets down. Pop the hatch before you even land. Don't arrest them, for I'm not certain what's going on, but make sure there are people loyal to me there just in case we run into any sort of trouble."

Eligor nodded, and then began tapping a message silently into his broadcast system. That done, Lucifer turned his attention back to the man who, even now, inspired him to fight back against the crushing migraine which threatened to plunge him back into oblivion.

“Lucifer,” Jamin murmured. “How did you find me?”

"I felt your death-wound," Lucifer said. "I could not leave you there to die."

"You can feel me?"

"Yes," Lucifer said. "A Seraphim can always feel his mate."

Jamin gave him a weak smile, although what amused him, Lucifer had no idea.

“I can feel you too,” Jamin said.

“Hang on,
mo ghrá
. We shall get you fixed up in no time.”

For the first time since the day his mother had willed herself to die, Lucifer prayed. He prayed to She-who-is to spare the life of his lover.

~ * ~ * ~

February: 3,389 BC

Earth Orbit: Prince of Tyre

Ninsianna

Inside Lucifer's harem, twenty women sat around a table and contentedly ate breakfast as though it was perfectly normal to eat fruit and bread with a Sata'anic lizard. Lerajie burst into the room. The Angelic with the pink-speckled wings glanced wildly around the room, and then strode straight towards her, his expression anxious.

"Ninsianna! Come quick! Doctor Halpas needs you!”

The other nineteen women screamed and scurried back into the cracks and crevasses of their bunks like naughty little mice who’d just been caught stealing emmer from the temple granary.

"Lerajie," Ninsianna scolded him. "What did I tell you? Tuck your wings against your back so they don't think you are
him
!"

She glanced over at the ebony-skinned female, Lucifer's first wife, and the only woman who'd refused to come out of her shell. This morning, for the first time, she'd coaxed the woman to come sit with them at the table, and now she was back in her bunk, rocking and making finger-gestures over her head.

"There's no time for this!" Lerajie said. He grabbed her elbow and tugged her upwards to get her out of her seat. "We've got incoming wounded and we need your help."

Ninsianna heaved her swollen abdomen up out of her chair and splayed her hand protectively over her womb. She met Lieutenant Apausha’s gold-green gaze. The lizard’s long, pink tongue snaked out of his mouth, tasting for the tiny magical message-carriers he called pheromones which enabled his species to spy on other people’s emotions.

"Wounded?" Ninsianna said. "Why would your healer want to see me? I've never even met the man."

She had, however, met his medical supplies, which Lerajie and the other crewmen had begun pilfering so she could build up a respectable healer's basket. Was he angry at her? Had one of the men been caught? And if he had, would he turn her over to the Evil One for punishment?

"Lucifer asked for you specifically," Lerajie said.

Ninsianna swooned. Oblivious to her distress, Lerajie strode over to her bunk and lifted up the blanket she used to hide her basket full of pilfered medical supplies. He turned around, his eyes eager, and gave Ninsianna a disapproving look when he saw that she had sat back down.