Chapter Five
“Sir. Sir. We have arrived.” A high-pitched voice spoke, inches from his ear.
Leo tried to lean away from the irritating squeak, but it droned on and on and on until Leo growled in self-defense. He cursed at the blast of light that seared his pupils.
“Sir?”
“Who the devil are you?” Leo asked.
“I am droid 765432, hired to deliver you and your shuttle to the Middlemarch Resort. We have arrived, sir.”
Leo struggled to rise.
“Sir, should I remove your harness?”
“What?” Leo sent the droid a look, felt puzzlement, the loss of time in his own mind.
“The harness, sir?”
Leo followed the droid’s gaze. “Oh.” He gave a cautious nod in deference to the ball of pain perched in his head. The careful action tormented him anyway.
“I shall help you stand, sir.”
With each squeaky syllable, Leo’s head did a samba. “Fuck,” he moaned when the harness released and his muscles needed to work to keep him upright.
A silver metallic arm wrapped around his waist and hoisted him to his feet. Leo’s legs failed and his knees folded. If not for the droid, he’d have dropped to the ground.
“Have you been drinking, sir?”
“No,” Leo gasped.
“Leo, you’re back.” Scarlett, his youngest sibling and only sister, skidded to a halt in the doorway of the shuttle. Her mouth dropped open, and Leo would have laughed if every part of him wasn’t aching as if a cantankerous cow had kicked him good.
“Are you related to him? I have a genic mini-tab for you.” The droid held him with one hand while he reached for the mini-tab with the other.
Leo dangled, unable to get his muscles to work without red-hot pain stabbing every muscle in his body. He jerked, trying to remain upright under his own steam, and moaned.
“You’re bleeding.” Scarlett tossed her black braid over her shoulder and leaned closer to survey him. She straightened abruptly, her sea-green eyes widening in alarm. “I’ll get Saber and Felix.”
“No.” But his sister had already sped away. Now his older brothers were going to ask questions he couldn’t answer.
“You are bleeding, sir,” the droid said. “I will help you outside.”
Leo felt the wetness at his stomach and glanced down to see blood seeping through his white shirt. He frowned, his brain sluggish as he tried to remember how he’d received the wound.
The droid helped him outside. Actually, no. The droid carried him outside because his messages to his legs refused to transmit.
His two brothers burst from the resort gardens with Scarlett following. Damn, it was bright out here. So bright, and he couldn’t focus. His stomach was roiling, and the scent of blood filled his nostrils.
The droid halted on their approach. “Are you this man’s family?”
“Yes,” Scarlett said.
“I have a message for you.” He handed the genic mini-tab to her and allowed Saber and Felix to take Leo’s weight.
Leo groaned, despite trying to hold the telltale sound at bay. His head throbbed, he ached everywhere…even his teeth.
“What happened?” Saber’s expression held concern.
The oldest of his brothers, and the head of the family, he’d softened after mating with Eva.
He wore his black hair shorter now, and his mate saw that it was neatly trimmed.
The biggest change though—his mouth generally curved upward in a smile rather than dipped in a stressed frown.
“Did someone jump you?” Felix, his second brother, ran a hand through his military-short black hair, his grass-green eyes radiating equal worry. He must look as bad as he felt.
“Need to sleep.” Leo got out the words with difficulty.
“Ma will want to doctor you first,” Scarlett said.
“No,” Leo barked. “Want to lie down.”
“It says here that someone paid for the droid to deliver Leo here, and that we need to return him to Dalcon.” Scarlett glanced at the droid for confirmation.
“Today or there will be additional charges,” the droid added.
“The twins were intending to go tomorrow to pick up supplies,” Saber said. “Go find them, Scarlett. Tell them to go today.”
“Should I get Ma?” Scarlett asked.
“No,” Leo said, his voice scarcely audible above the white noise in his brain.
He felt his brothers moving him, but kept drifting in and out. So tired. Needed to sleep. Yeah, he’d feel better once he’d slept for a few hours.
“Where are we taking him?” Felix asked. “To Ma or to his quarters?”
“His quarters,” Saber said. Leo was right. They didn’t want Ma to see him like this. “Damn, he’s out.”
He and Felix carried Leo, following the back trail to the family quarters rather than going through the middle of the complex where guests might see and ask questions.
“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Felix said.
“Yeah. Shifting might help, but he won’t be able to if he’s going in and out of consciousness.” What the fuck had happened to him? Saber knew there’d been something wrong, but Leo had brushed his questions aside.
Each week, he seemed to lose weight, and he’d shaved off all his hair a few days ago before taking off for Dalcon earlier this morning. His brother had become secretive, his temper uncertain.
In Leo’s quarters, they stripped off his clothes and surveyed his wounds. There were scrapes and bites over a large portion of his body, a big wound on his belly and hip, and his dick looked an unnatural bright red.
“Fuck,” Felix whispered. “What the hell happened to him?”
“I’ve never seen wounds like this before.” Saber checked Leo’s pockets, hoping to discover some sort of clue as to where his brother had been, and came up with a thick wad of cash. He held it up, and Felix whistled.
“That’s a lot of money. Cage fighting?”
“The authorities shut them down. I haven’t heard anything about an underground club opening. Besides that doesn’t explain that.” He pointed at Leo’s groin and winced.
“I’ll get Casey. She might have seen something similar,” Felix said.
Saber nodded, concern for his brother a tight weight on his chest. He’d tried to get Leo to talk, and now he wished he’d persisted with his efforts.
Maybe Casey would be able to help. Casey Seonaid, Felix’s mate, had once been in the Dalcon military and had traveled the galaxy while undertaking her duties.
Felix hurried away, and Saber inspected Leo’s wounds more closely.
Although his brother appeared to be out, irregular spasms shook his frame.
Saber’s nostrils flared, and he caught a medicinal scent.
Frowning, he straightened. Someone had cleaned Leo up and attempted to doctor his wounds.
Someone had cared enough to try to get him home. But who?
“Hell.” He hated to think of Leo’s appearance before the mystery party had treated his injuries.
Felix returned with Casey, and Saber stood aside to let his brother’s mate examine Leo.
“Scurvy sky pirates,” Casey whispered, her brown eyes widening beneath the fringe of her brown hair.
Her narrow face held intelligence and a fierce frown.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were Spiderus bites.
I’ve seen it once on the planet Voracious.
The female of the Spiderus race kills her lovers.
It usually takes more than one session, but she gets nourishment from their essence. ”
“Essence?” Felix asked.
“She drinks their semen and their blood. One of my men got entangled with a female. We found him dead, and the Spiderus woman had vanished.”
“A Spiderus? So like a spider?” Saber asked. “How does that work? I sure as fuck wouldn’t roll naked with a spider woman.”
“From what I understand, they take on a humanoid form and are very attractive. It’s only if they have a buildup of essence that they are able to revert to their other form and mate.
At least that’s what I’ve heard. There are a lot of rumors floating around, and it’s difficult to discern between truth and fabrication. ”
“Christ in a campervan,” Felix said. “What do we do?”
Casey moved closer and examined the largest wound. Leo moaned but never woke. “I don’t like the look of this one. Is that bone I can see?”
“We need to wake him. Get him to shift to feline,” Saber decided.
Casey picked up one of Leo’s arms and took his pulse. “It’s fast. Too fast. In this condition, I doubt he’ll be able to shift.”
“We could treat his wounds and let him sleep for a bit,” Felix suggested. “Monitor him. He shouldn’t attempt a shift when he’s this weak anyway. The last thing we want is for him to get stuck in between.”
Casey gawked at him and Felix. “You can get stuck? Why didn’t someone tell me this?”
Felix went to his mate and pulled her against his chest. He tipped up her face and skimmed his fingers over Casey’s cheek, his expression one of reassurance.
“It’s rare and only happens to very old or sick shifters.
Occasionally inexperienced shifters too.
None of us are in danger of getting stuck. ”
“Apart from Leo,” she said. “You should tell Anna.”
Saber scowled, exchanged a glance with Felix. “I doubt Leo will want Ma to see him like this.”
“That’s too bad,” Anna Mitchell, the matriarch of the Mitchell family, said from the doorway. A tall woman with dark hair like her children, she vibrated with determination and mother-bear protectiveness. “Scarlett told me.”
Saber stepped in front of her, held his mother in place when she attempted to duck around him. “It doesn’t look good, Ma. He’s too weak to shift.”
Her gray eyes narrowed as she met his resolve with a glare. Her chin lifted a fraction. “I’m your mother. I’ve seen the best and the worst of all of you.”
Saber sighed in defeat and guided his mother to the sleep-bed. She sucked in a harsh breath on seeing Leo’s battered body clench in the midst of a spasm. He shuddered for long moments before slumping in a boneless heap.
“Did he say what happened?”
“He didn’t say much.” Saber’s grim visage shouted his disapproval.
“Okay.” Ma lifted her chin and gathered determination around her like a cloak.
“We’ll clean him up and let him rest. We’ll need to take turns and watch him around the clock.
The moment he gains consciousness, we’ll encourage him to shift—if he seems strong enough to complete the transformation.
Other than that, I don’t see that there’s much we can do apart from pray. ”