Chapter Eight #2
“Yes, sir.”
“If the Captain asks you about the portal, refer him to me or Ben,” Uncle Saul added in English.
“Yes, sir.”
Qa’a quietly watched Nix eat. “Where were the Tai-Kok keeping him?”
I sent him mental pictures of the lab and the scientist. “I think the little creep was experimenting on him.”
“Blipblat is the head scientist for the Tai-Kok. I have hunted him for a hundred years.” The menace in Qa’a’s voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Captain Zan spun around. “You know where Blipblat is?”
I gave him my Debbie Sunshine smile. “I do.”
“Where is he?” Captain Zan demanded.
“He’s dead.”
The captain was suddenly in my personal space. “You saw him die?”
“I killed him.”
“How?”
I held up the Tai-Kok laser pistol. “With this.”
“You took a laser pistol from a soldier and shot him? Impossible,” Captain Zan sneered.
Was he calling me a liar?
“Onkel need help,” Gita cried.
“Shit!” I bolted for the door. “What’s wrong Uncle Ben?”
The image of a diamondback rattlesnake formed in my head. “He got me on the ankle.”
“Me protect Onkel.”
“Stay away from the snake, Gita.”
“Him mad.”
In my mind’s eye, I could see her drawing the snake’s attention away from Uncle Ben. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“Come back here. I am not done interrogating you,” Captain Zan yelled.
Qa’a wrapped a tentacle around him. “Yes, you are.”
“What’s wrong?” Dad demanded, chasing after me.
“A rattlesnake bit Uncle Ben.”
Dad frowned. “Where?”
“He’s in the garden with Gita.”
“Gita?” Dad frowned. “Who the hell is Gita?”
“Can we stop with the twenty questions?” I punched in the code for the elevator.
The door slid open. Uncle Saul, Dad, Kaelen and Xyler squeezed in with me.
Squeaking loudly, Nix ran up my leg and settled on my left shoulder. His tentacles intertwined with Jaxor’s. Aw, they liked each other.
I felt Kaelen rummaging through my mind before he exclaimed, “You rescued a baby Tabor too?
“I did.”
“Unbelievable.”
The elevator door opened and I ran for the four-acre garden we had planted two years ago.
To my horror, Gita was dodging the rattlesnake’s strikes.
Xyler zipped by me, grabbed the rattlesnake and hurled it away.
“ Onkel hurt. You fix? ” Gita peered up at me.
“Yes, me fix.” Kneeling beside Uncle Ben, I clamped my hand over the bite and channeled every ounce of healing power I had into him.
My kids watched in fascination.
“Who him?” Jaxor asked.
Gita crawled up my leg. “Him Onkel.”
“Lexi, let us heal him. You haven’t fully recovered from that beating you took,” Dad said gently.
He was right. The dizziness was back and I had the headache from hell. “Okay.”
Kaelen picked up me and the kids. “You need some blood.”
“Blood! Ugh.”
Dad interjected, “You’ll heal faster and we need you in fighting shape, Lexi.”
Dammit. He was right.
“We like blood.” Nix and Jaxor climbed on Kaelen’s shoulders and opened their mouths like little birds.
Xyler grabbed them. “No. Only Momma Lexi. What you need is meat.” He walked off.
Flies began buzzing around me.
Gita’s little tongue quickly snapped them up.
“Thanks sweetie.”
A vulture circled overhead.
“What dat?”
“That is a vulture who eats dead things.”
Gita scrambled under my chin. “Me no dead.”
“No, Blipblat’s lab was full of rotting corpses, so we just smell like we’re dead.”
Kaelen sat me on a crate. “It is good I have become accustomed to the stench of death while fighting the Tai-Kok.”
“Love you too.” I sniffed my shirt. Holy hell, I smelled as bad as that mortuary the monsters had bombed last July.
Kaelen bit into his wrist and pushed it against my mouth. “Drink.”
With a grimace of distaste, I sucked down some of his warm, coppery blood. Ewww. Gross. Chocolate it wasn’t.
“More.”
Ick. Ick. Ick. Fighting back the urge to puke, I kept on sucking. All of a sudden I noticed his blood was starting to taste pretty darn good. What was up with that? Was it another facet of the mate bond?
Kaelen stroked my mind soothingly. “Blood exchanges are a necessary part of our mating, and you will come to crave them.”
“We’ll see.” Warmth seeped into my stomach and began to spread throughout my body, easing my aches and pains. I relaxed against Kaelen. I loved the way his body felt against mine. “Would Zarek get terribly upset if I vaporized Captain Zan?”
He kissed my battered cheek. “Yes. He wants that pleasure for himself.”
“Rats.”
Gita skittered to the top of my head. “Me bite angry one. Him die.”
“No biting Captain Zan,” Kaelen growled.
She hid behind my ear. “Him mean.”
“Him very mean,” I said, trying not to laugh at the expression on Kaelen’s face.
Kaelen licked the puncture wounds on his wrist. “Your color is coming back.”
“How can you tell with all the dried blood on her face?” Dad handed me a wet wipe.
I carefully ran the wipe over my face.
“You missed a spot.” Dad took the wipe and scrubbed my neck.
“Ouch! Ease up, Dad.”
“Don’t be such a baby.”
A blue butterfly fluttered around Gita. “What dat?”
“That’s a butterfly. Don’t eat it.”
“Kay.” She leaped off my shoulder and chased after a grasshopper.
“Your scans are coming up negative for rattlesnake venom, Ben,” Uncle Saul announced.
“Good.” Uncle Ben got to his feet, plucked Gita off the ground and gave her a big kiss. “This little girl saved my life.” He gave her another smooch. “So brave.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “And we had nothing to do with it?”
“You should have seen her fighting that snake. Amazing.”
Gita’s fur puffed out. “Me. Brave.”
My stomach rumbled. God, I was starving. “Please tell me you still have some elk or deer meat left. I mean, is there anything other than those nasty MREs to eat?” I interrupted.
“I actually have twenty pounds of buffalo steaks and another ten pounds of ground hamburger. I’ll get the grill going and barbecue us some steaks and burgers,” Uncle Ben replied.
“Do we have enough potatoes for fries?”
Uncle Ben nodded. “We do and we have plenty of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and carrots.”
My stomach rumbled hungrily. “Yum. I’ll go clean up.”
“You do look like one of those victims in a slasher movie, and you smell like you’ve been dead for a month,” Dad groused.
“Har. Har. If Captain Zan tries to interrogate me again, I will shoot him.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Uncle Saul said.
A horde of flies swarmed me. “Gita, help!”
Uncle Ben placed Gita on my right shoulder and backed away.
My little Tabor made short work of the flies.
“For God’s sake, go take a shower and the kids need one too. You all stink,” Dad ordered.
I saluted him. “Yes, sir.” I looked around for Nix. Where the heck had he gone? My gaze froze on a rather large scorpion and before I could stomp on it Gita jumped on top of it.
“No kill Nix. No kill Nix.”
Nix? Shit. It was Nix. The question was: Why had Nix transformed himself into a big, scary scorpion? I scanned him. The little guy was scared to death.
I knelt. “You’re safe now, Nix. The monsters that hurt you are dead.”
“They ate his momma. Him watch. Me watch,” Gita cried.
My stomach roiled and I fought down the urge to puke.
Those bastards. I was surprised the kids weren’t catatonic.
Carefully picking them up, I cuddled them against my chest, smiling when Nix morphed into a Tabor.
“Your mother will be avenged. I promise you they will pay. You now belong to my family, and you’ll never be alone again. ”
Dad added, “And we’ll teach you how become a fierce warrior like Qa’a.”
Little tentacles sprouted from Nix and wrapped around my fingers. “Promise?”
“We promise,” Dad, Kaelen, Uncle Saul and Xyler said in unison.
“I am going to teleport all of you to the shower,” Kaelen said, giving them a mental picture of what teleporting felt like.
Jaxor reached for me. “Me go. Me go.”
“Okay. Okay.” I took him from Xyler. “This shower is nothing like the last one you took. This one has real water and soap.”
Xyler cocked his head. “You waste water on bathing?”
“Yes, we do.”
“This I must see.”
“But…”