Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, probably alerted by the tension in her voice and the stress on her face.
“Is this com secure?” she parried, afraid to talk openly.
He studied her for a moment. “End the com. I’ll initiate from my end and yes, it’ll be secure.”
She did as he said and a few minutes later the new com initiated. Kyden’s holo sprang up in the garden and she wished with all her heart he was actually here, not millions of light-years away.
“Jamirr’s been kidnapped,” she said, going to the heart of the matter. “I got a ransom note of sorts—they want me to throw the first fight of the season. There—there are dangerous new players involved, backing my biggest rival and I know either he kidnapped Jamirr or they did.”
“Combine?”
“Yes. An old friend warned me two days ago. There have been a lot of strange things happening since we got home, not good things, but nothing I could prove either, not until this happened today.” She walked him through what she knew and told him about the police visit.
“But it’s obvious the cops won’t do anything. ”
“They may be on the take,” Kyden told her. “Or someone higher up in the department may be.”
“I’d do it, I’d throw the fight if I could be sure it would save Jamirr’s life,” she said, tears overflowing. “But I’m afraid it would just be the beginning and they’d never free him.”
“When the Combine gets its hooks into someone they don’t let go,” Kyden confirmed.
“The mob tried to muscle in here in the Five Systems a few years ago but we stopped them cold and they withdrew. Your planet doesn’t have the same institutional infrastructure we do.
I’ll tip off a contact of mine here though and he may be able to take action at a high level to help your government. ”
“Which won’t help Jamirr. I love him. I’d do anything for him. I can’t tell you how much I wish now we’d stayed with you in the Five Systems. Whoever took him cut off his bracelet so we can’t even track him.”
“You can’t keep a Badari from finding another Badari,” Kyden told her with a smile.
His voice turned deadly serious. “We’ll be there in two days.
Until then, keep your head down, say as little as possible and if the kidnapper contacts you again, let them think you’re leaning toward doing as they want.
Try to get proof of life if you can. But Samyra, I need you to understand something. ”
She met his gaze, noting his eyes were glowing like hot amber, the way Jamirr’s did on occasion. “Yes?”
“Neither of you are going to be safe on Porter Three when this is over. You’re going to have to journey to the Five Systems with us and Jamirr is going to be a free man.
It’s not my price for helping—I’ll always come to help one of my brothers.
It’s the cold reality. I can protect you both here and I can’t do that anywhere else.
And if he’s here, he’s going to be free. ”
Samyra glanced around her garden and at the huge house behind her.
None of it meant a thing without Jamirr.
“I should have freed him while we were there. But I was so caught up in wanting to have one more good winning season, to make my House secure for the future…and now it’s all going to be gone anyway. I understand what you’re telling me.”
“Pack a few essentials but be surreptitious. Don’t let anyone in your household know we’re coming or that you’re planning to leave.
You can’t trust anyone, understand? I don’t care how long they’ve been with you or who they are—the mob has tentacles everywhere.
When we arrive we’ll come for you first and then we’ll go get Jamirr.
Whoever is holding him has no idea what hell they’ve unleashed on themselves. ”
She panicked a little, remembering her other responsibilities. “What about my team? My animals?”
“I’ll handle things after we’re well away from the planet and safe.
My mate-wife’s family has a huge interstellar business presence with fingers in every pie.
Contacts everywhere. We can take care of transitioning your gladiators—I can backdate a sales contract to me and we can ship them to a farm team in the Five Systems and free them.
Staff can be paid severance. Elara will figure out something for the animals.
Your creditors will probably seize the estate once it becomes known you’ve fled.
You must accept the fact there’s no going back for you once you board my flyer.
The House of the Beast Lady is closing down and it’ll get messy. ”
Her mind was reeling at all the aspects of her decision to ask him for help but Samyra knew this was the only way to save Jamirr.
Truthfully, once he was safe it would be a huge relief not to have the worries and obligations of the House on her shoulders.
Embarrassing to lose it all in this fashion but she’d never counted on finding a man like Jamirr or falling in love.
She should feel guilty about the end of her father’s dream but didn’t.
Had it ever truly been her dream too or had she merely gone along with what a beloved father wanted?
She’d literally given it her all and she wasn’t prepared to sacrifice Jamirr too.
“Retire gracefully, you said. This is hardly what I had in mind.”
“You had a good run,” Kyden assured her. “There’ll be opportunities here for you and Jamirr that don’t involve battle in the arena.”
“Once we have Jamirr safe.”
“Right. And we will get him back. My brothers and I are experienced in conducting difficult extractions. I’ll call you on this channel when we’re in position and ready to pick you up. Stay close to the house and don’t take any risks.”
“Got it. Thank you—I didn’t know what to do other than to call you.”
“That was the right thing and I’m glad you did. May the Great Mother keep you and Jamirr safe until we arrive.” Kyden signed off.
Samyra slumped, sliding off the bench to sit on the grass, trying to take in the harsh reality that in two days or thereabouts she’d be literally walking away from everything. But if the sacrifice saves Jamirr’s life, it will all be worth it.
Hours earlier….
The tantoreans had alerted him to the presence of a stealth flyer, raising their trunks and trumpeting a challenge before they bolted for the far end of the enclosure leaving a cloud of dust in the air.
Jamirr dropped his equipment and turned to fight but the flyer had stunned him from the air.
The blast was set for a human opponent, however, and by the time the craft landed and two men advanced onto the property to collect him, he was already recovering.
Getting to his feet, his balance was unsteady but he unsheathed his claws and bared his fangs and lashed out, ripping the first man to approach him nearly in half.
The second man recoiled, swearing and fired a second stun shot, which knocked Jamirr on his heels for an instant before he lunged at the assailant.
More men came from the flyer, hitting him with stun rays, but he managed to wound a few before he finally fell, overwhelmed.
He prayed to the Great Mother someone would hear all the noise and come investigate.
The tantoreans were still issuing their challenges.
In his peripheral vision he saw Darryl turn the corner and for an instant he felt hope but then the overseer moved to the side to chat with the man in charge of the gang.
As Jamirr was being restrained, he listened in on the discussion.
“You should have warned us how dangerous he was,” the kidnapper was saying.
Darryl shrugged. “You watched him in the arena, you should have known.”
“Well how the seven hells were we supposed to know he could shake off multiple stun blasts. What kind of man is he?”
“No idea. Not human obviously. You’d better get going. Samyra’s busy in her office at this hour but she could take it into her head to come tryst with her lover here and you don’t want her to know what’s happening.”
“Not yet anyway,” the kidnapper agreed easily. “The credits are in your account. Good work today, even if I did lose a man.”
Jamirr was in shock that Darryl, who’d seemed so loyal to Samyra, was allied with the crooks.
The two men who’d bound him hand and foot amused themselves by giving him a few well placed kicks and punches, which infuriated Jamirr but his Badari physiology would soon repair any damage.
These people had no idea what they’d done, attacking him.
Not being able to warn Samyra about the snake in her own house was making him frantic as he was lifted on an antigrav litter and carried to the waiting flyer.
“Don’t you dare hurt her,” he shouted at Darryl.
“That depends on her,” the man replied dismissively. “She’ll have choices to make, including whether to save your life.”
The messy corpse of the man he’d killed was loaded onto the flyer, wrapped in a tarp from the zoo, which Darryl had given the kidnappers and Jamirr was placed on the floor nearby.
They lifted off and he tried to track the direction they were heading, while at the same time he was subtly testing the restraints.
Again, the cuffs and shackles were constructed to immobilize a human, which he was decidedly not.
With a roar he broke the hinges and rose to his feet, talons and fangs deployed.
He struck at the nearest man, probably killing him instantly although Jamirr didn’t pause to check.
He rushed down the aisle, heading for the cockpit, throwing aside the men he encountered.
The cockpit was locked and he battered the door, bending the frame after a few blows. He was being hit with stun rays from the back and slowly he slumped to the deck, energy draining away under the influence of multiple blasts.
When he regained consciousness, he was lying naked on a table, a massive number of chains restraining him.
“Awake now, are you? Don’t worry, you’ll be in dreamland soon enough,” said a mocking voice he recognized.
Tirion came into view and Jamirr roared his defiance, straining against the bonds.
He got one arm free and the gladiator leaped out of range with a yelp.
“Damn, this guy Samyra found is strong,” he said to a couple of men standing by.
Straightening his clothes, he added, “Think we can turn him to good use eventually?”
“In the death pits on the outer rim certainly,” said one of the others in an ice cold voice. “He’ll kill or be killed there. The bets will be astronomical.”
“Maybe we could use him as leverage to get Samyra to run her House as another front for the Combine,” Tirion said. “I’m told she fucks him, maybe even loves him.”
“I thought you wanted her dead in the first match?” his companion said with a laugh.
“She has to lose absolutely,” Tirion agreed. “But maybe it’d be more entertaining in the long run to keep pulling her strings. I’ll think about it—we have two weeks until the season begins.”
“It’ll be up to the boss ultimately,” the other told him, which Tirion plainly didn’t like as frown lines distorted his face.
If these idiots were counting on keeping him a prisoner for two weeks, they were sadly mistaken, Jamirr thought with satisfaction. The kidnappers had no idea what a Badari could do.
His confidence was undone the next minute when a doctor approached, holding a medinject he recognized with a sinking heart.
“You must stun him again before I can start the cryosleep process,” the doctor complained.
Snarling, Jamirr made a supreme effort to get his other arm free or to snag one of the guards with the claws on his right hand but the stun blasts came from too far away in the room and he slumped, arm falling uselessly to his side.
The mob’s physician stepped to the table and the icy cold of the cryosleep prep meds spread through his veins and arteries.
He was getting sleepy on top of being paralyzed and Jamirr’s heart rate skyrocketed at the idea of being put under cryosleep again.
He now knew his reaction to the tech was a genetic weakness in his alien predator DNA and there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive or he might emerge a badly damaged man again, as he’d been when Samyra found him.
Even if he could explain any of that to these people they wouldn’t care.
He’d shown them too much of what he could do already and they were taking the ultimate precaution to literally keep him on ice until their extortion of Samyra was complete.
And there was nothing Jamirr could do about it.
As he drifted off into the mists of cryosleep he asked the Great Mother to watch over his Samyra.