Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Arcanthus was staring up at a fantasy made flesh, at the goddess of his desire, at everything he wanted and could ever need. Samantha’s hair was in disarray, spilling over her shoulders in thick waves to brush the tops of her small, firm breasts, and her eyes were dark with lust. Her pale skin was flushed with excitement, her lips lush and swollen from his kisses. The smile she’d gifted him was more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen. Her joy was arousing and alluring beyond reason.
He inhaled deeply, taking in her mouthwatering scent, and returned his eyes to her bared sex. Its pink, glistening petals beckoned him. He was moments away from having his mouth there , moments away from drinking her nectar straight from the source.
The tone sounded again—someone was at one of the concealed doors.
A flash of irritation joined the fires of his passion. His cock ached, and there was only one thing—one touch—that could relieve his suffering.
But, of course, someone was at the fucking door .
Forcing his voice into as neutral a tone as possible, he said, “Just a moment, Samantha.”
Arcanthus shifted his arms so his elbows rested lightly upon Sam’s thighs and his hands were over his chest. He activated his holocom to access the door intercom. “Someone had better be dying, because I said no interruptions .”
“Since when have I ever cared what you say?” Drakkal replied. “Especially since you locked me out, you bastard.”
“I’m going to castrate you,” Arcanthus muttered.
Samantha’s eyes widened.
Arcanthus wanted to focus on Samantha’s scent, her heat, her taste. He wanted to join with his mate, just like every fucking instinct inside him demanded. He clenched his jaw and said through his teeth, “I’m busy , Drakkal. What do you want?”
“We found him,” Drakkal said.
“Found who ?”
“The groalthuun from the mall. Now let me in so we can talk. I’m not talking to a door anymore.”
Samantha turned her head, her gaze averted as she hurriedly righted her dress, covering her breasts and shielding her sex from view.
Arcanthus groaned and terminated the intercom connection. His head fell back; his body was suddenly too hot and too heavy. “Do you know your way back to the bedroom, Samantha?”
“I…can find my way.”
He released a weighty sigh. “I’ll have someone bring you some food in a little while. Just make yourself comfortable until then. I’ll meet you as soon as I’ve spoken with Drakkal.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
After carefully climbing off his chest, she took a single step away, paused, and turned toward Arc to peck a kiss on his lips. She pulled back before he could catch her, smiling.
That simple little kiss struck him hard; he’d never been kissed like that before. It hadn’t been an impassioned kiss, hadn’t been a lustful kiss, but an affectionate kiss. Its warmth spread across his face, flowing directly into his heart.
Absently, he brought up the control on his holocom and opened the nearby door for Samantha—the same one through which she’d entered—keeping his eyes on her as she walked away. There was a sway to her hips now, extremely subtle but undeniable.
She’d not once walked that way in the time he’d known her.
Only after the door was closed did he sit up fully, swinging his feet onto the floor. He lowered a hand to his protruding cock and squeezed it through his loincloth, hoping in vain to alleviate its ache. He shuddered; there’d be no relief now.
The door alert sounded again.
Arcanthus’s nostrils flared with an exasperated exhalation. He flicked the command to open the hidden entry on the platform before he dismissed the holocom screen, leaned back, and stretched his arms along the sofa’s backrest. He laid his tail on the cushion beside him, unable to keep its tip from thumping up and down in irritation.
Drakkal entered the chamber on the platform, passing dozens of screens on his way to the steps. He descended and stopped in front of Arcanthus, staring down with his brows low. “Do I really need to see that?”
Arcanthus dipped his gaze to his groin, where his erect cock created a distinct, writhing bulge in his loincloth. “Yes. It’s one of the consequences for interrupting me.”
Drakkal shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I know she’s your mate, but we do have other things to take care of.”
“Taking care of her is my first priority, Drak.”
“And did you?”
“Not to my satisfaction.”
The azhera dipped his chin toward Arc’s crotch. “Clearly. You ready to be serious now?”
Arcanthus tipped his head back onto the backrest and sighed. “I’m always serious, Drakkal.” He couldn’t stay angry at the azhera for wanting to address the problems they were facing, but it would be difficult to focus on anything when his body craved Samantha so badly it hurt. “What did you find?”
Drakkal eased himself down on the couch across from Arcanthus’s. His tail lashed restlessly over the cushion. “We pulled surveillance holos from the Ventrillian Mall. Managed to get some good images of the groalthuun who was taking pictures of you. He pops up on yesterday’s feed from outside Samantha’s apartment building, too.”
Lifting his head, Arc met Drakkal’s gaze. “Show me.”
A few motions of Drakkal’s fingers in his holocom’s controls brought up a wide, projected image in the air between them—the groalthuun, standing in the crowd at the mall. The image split to show the same groalthuun from a different angle, this time in front of the entry door to Samantha’s building, with the large orange onigox beside him.
“That’s the one.”
“It took a lot of digging, but we found numerous aliases for him. Most common one is Straek.”
Arcanthus tipped his chin toward the onigox’s image. “The orange bastard said that name at one point. That he was going to have Straek take Samantha after I was dead.”
Drakkal dismissed the image and lowered his arms, resting them over his thighs as he leaned forward. His expression was grim. “He’s part of the Inner Reach Syndicate.”
Something icy slithered into Arcanthus’s gut, and his eyes flared. He pushed off the backrest and leaned forward himself, subconsciously mimicking his friend’s position. “The Inner Reach? You’re sure, Drakkal?”
The azhera nodded once. “Obviously, there’s not much information beyond that, not without you looking into it yourself. They keep their activities under tight wraps.”
“Understandably so.” Arcanthus dropped his gaze to the floor. His cock finally retracted into his slit, its ache subsiding as numbness spread through him. If Drakkal interrupting hadn’t been enough to dampen the mood, this was overkill.
“This can’t be a coincidence, Arc.”
“But why? Why after all this time? This…this was probably just because of Samantha. He was scouting her because she’s a terran, and the Syndicate traffics in slaves. They just saw me as a potential threat—”
“You said they went to her apartment and asked her about you ,” Drakkal said firmly, calling Arc’s eyes back to him. “You were recognized.”
Arcanthus’s heart pounded. Memories threatened to flood to the surface—memories of suffering, betrayal, terror—and he barely held them back. “But I’ve never seen this Straek before a few days ago. Have you? There’s no way he could’ve known who I am.”
“But someone who does know you must’ve seen those pictures.”
“There’s no way to say that with any certainty.”
Drakkal’s nostrils flared, and he lifted a hand to scratch his cheek. “Arcanthus, you asked me a long time ago to tell you when I thought you weren’t thinking straight, and—”
“Caldorius is millions of light years away, and it was ten years ago. I’m dead as far as they’re concerned. Dead . Now I’m supposed to believe they’ve found me here, in a city of billions? This doesn’t—”
“ Arc ,” Drakkal growled, his fur bristling, “shut the fuck up! Kraasz ka’val , I don’t want it to be true anymore than you do, but I can’t sit here while you delude yourself. It doesn’t matter who or why, we have to assume they know who you are, and that they’re willing to finish what they started. I can excuse some of your stupidity—you needed to have your mate, whether you understood it or not—but it has to stop now. You’re the smartest person I know. Start fucking acting like it.”
Arcanthus snapped his mouth shut. A torrent of emotions roiled inside him, swelling from his gut to constrict his chest and throat. He struggled to hold his friend’s gaze, but he couldn’t.
“They know you’re in the Infinite City, Arc. They devoted a lot of resources to take you out at Samantha’s, and compared to us, their resources are essentially infinite—this is the damned Syndicate. The time for fooling around is over.” Drakkal pushed himself to his feet and walked up to Arcanthus, crouching in front of him. He put his large hand on the back of Arc’s head and forced the sedhi to look him in the eye. “I fought in those pits for years. I saw horrible things more times than I can count. But nothing was worse than the day I found you—the day I found what was left of you.”
Arcanthus clenched his jaw. His breath was ragged, his throat on fire.
Drakkal’s eyes were intent and unwavering. “If they come again, I will fight until the end. I will lay down my life for you. I would’ve died in those pits if you hadn’t pulled me out. If you hadn’t trusted me. But if they find you, Arc, they’re not going to stop until there’s nothing left for me to bring to a medic.
“From now on, you’re not dealing with any customers face-to-face, and you’re not leaving this compound. I’m not going to tolerate any arguments. You’re going to listen to me for once.”
Arcanthus shook his head and extended an arm, cupping the back of Drakkal’s thick neck. Though he didn’t feel humor inside—there was too much turmoil, too much worry—he forced a smile to his lips. “If I never listened to you, I’d have died a long time ago…and, consequently, your life would’ve been a lot less stressful.”
Drakkal snorted, his mouth tilting in a smirk. “You can’t even give a compliment without being an asshole.”
“I’m always sure to utilize my strengths.”
They lowered their arms, and Drakkal moved back onto the other couch.
Arcanthus raked his fingers through his hair, sweeping it back out of his face and behind his horns. “Is this Straek still alive?”
“As far as I know.”
“I want to have a chat with him.”
“You know what that means. They find out, and it’s war.”
“You were at the apartment complex, Drak. It already is.”
The azhera frowned, and his mane stood up, but he offered no argument.
“Get some people on it,” Arcanthus said. “We need to move as quickly—and discreetly—as possible.”
“All right. I’ll get it rolling.” Drakkal rubbed the back of his neck, moved his hand to his face, and sniffed. “ Kraasz ka’val , Arcanthus. You couldn’t clean your hands before you let me in? It’s enough that the air smells of her, but I don’t need to smell like her, too.”
Arcanthus lifted his hand and sniffed his fingers; they smelled of Samantha’s nectar. He closed his eyes and extended his tongue, licking her faint, lingering taste from his fingertip.
“If you start touching yourself, I’m going to kick you,” Drakkal said.
Arcanthus threw back his head and laughed. “If I start touching myself, you’ll be in the blast zone.” When his laughter faded, he glared at Drakkal. “Now go wash your mane. I’ll kick you if you still bear her scent the next time I see you.”
Drakkal shoved himself to his feet. “Don’t try it unless you want to lose a leg, little sedhi.”
As the azhera walked away, Arcanthus called, “Use soap! If you just lick your hand and wipe it off, that doesn’t count as cleaning.” He paused for a moment before leaping to his feet. “You’d better not lick that at all , do you hear me?”
Drakkal eyed him from atop the platform. “Open the door before I wring your neck.”
Arcanthus didn’t look away from the azhera as he brought up the door controls and opened the concealed door near Drakkal, who walked through without another word. Once Drakkal’s tail was clear of the opening, Arcanthus shut it again.
He’d barely taken a step toward his desk when the door alert tone sounded. Arcanthus’s tail flicked in irritation.
Switching on the intercom, Arcanthus growled, “If I have to come out there, Drakkal, you’re going to regret it.”
Drakkal triggered the tone again and snorted.
Arcanthus mounted the platform and sat in his chair, leaning back to peruse the many displays he’d already had active before Samantha arrived. There was work to be done—there was always work to be done—but how could he focus on any of it now? Though his arousal had faded, his body still ached, and what he’d hoped would prove a passing threat was far more dangerous than he could’ve imagined.
The fucking Syndicate .
The Inner Reach Syndicate was a conglomeration of numerous powerful crime organizations; though it existed in Arthos as a singular entity, one of many such groups, it was in contention for being the wealthiest and most influential of them all. Arcanthus’s work as a forger had often necessitated accepting jobs from such organizations, but he’d never once met with any of their representatives directly, had never once let any of them see his face—because many of those organizations also had a presence on Caldorius.
The Inner Reach Syndicate kept its headquarters on Caldorius. It had been the Syndicate that moved against a pesky young sedhi fighter who’d had the audacity to cut into the profits they made from the gladiatorial arenas of that world. It had been the Inner Reach Syndicate that took Arcanthus’s ambitions personally, and they’d demonstrated through yesterday’s events at Samantha’s apartment building that they were willing to do whatever it took to finish the job they’d started so long ago.
They’d used Samantha to lure him out.
Arthos had already been cruel to her, had already attempted to crush her on its own. She certainly didn’t deserve to have the Syndicate after her, too.
The fear Drakkal’s revelation had sparked in Arcanthus burned to ash in a blaze of fury. Samantha was Arc’s terran, his female, his mate .
There’d only been a brief time when he’d entertained the possibility of finding a mate. Those dreams, indistinct as they were, had faded when he’d left home to become part of the Crimson Raiders, a wing of the Sedhi Defense Coalition. A life of combat and bloodshed had been the only future he’d truly been able to envision for himself.
A lonely life.
And even during that brief window during which he’d dreamed, he’d never once considered his mate could be from another species. There were stories of sedhi finding their mates amongst volturians, even a few—often relayed with some horror—whispering of tretin mates, but he’d never imagined any other possibility.
Certainly not a terran. He’d not even known of their existence until recently. Samantha’s people had only entered his awareness when they began migrating to the city two short years ago, about a year after Syntrell Vantricar Caltraxion, a volturian ambassador from the Entris Dominion, had sponsored the terrans’ formal request for admittance to Arthos. The Consortium had issued the invitation with surprising speed—they’d taken over a decade to approve the requests of some other species.
Then I’ll let Straek take your terran ji’tas . Maybe we’ll sample her before we sell her .
This went beyond them utilizing Samantha as bait to draw him out. The Syndicate didn’t use someone and then let them move on with their lives; once a person’s usefulness to the Syndicate had expired, they were silenced forever. Silencing just as often meant a trip to the slave markets of Caldorius as it did a plasma bolt to the brain. She was involved now, and that meant the bastards would come for her, too.
Arcanthus leaned forward and set his hands to work, issuing commands on the console to begin locating the sorts of near-invisible plexus access points organizations like the Inner Reach Syndicate often used for communication.
“I don’t care how many resources you sewer skrudges have,” he muttered, “you threaten my mate, and it’s a fucking war.”