Page 17 of Silent Lucidity

The ilthurii’s feet caught on the vorgal’s corpse. He twisted and fell, raking his claws across the belly of Tenthil’s armor as he passed. Relying upon speed and reflexes, the ilthurii angled his shoulder downward, throwing himself into a roll.

Tenthil fired three plasma bolts into the ilthurii before it completed its somersault. The scaled warrior tumbled into the wall and went still.

The smells of freshly-spilled blood and sizzling flesh filled the air, but the odors were not enough to mask the terran’s scent, which was only more pronounced to Tenthil now that combat had amplified his senses into a state of heightened awareness.

Raising his blaster, he checked the room from which the guards had emerged. It was full of screens and holographic projections displaying surveillance feeds from all around the manor and its grounds. Each feed was designated by source location. Tenthil swept his gaze over all of them, pausing only when he sawher. Second floor, zoo chamber one. She wasn’t alone—three females of other species were also in her room.

More guards moved through the other feeds; at least four were coming up the rear staircase with rifles at the ready. It would be difficult to avoid their fire in these narrow halls. Several more were entering what appeared to be Cullion’s study, where the ertraxxan—looking even more agitated than usual—was seated behind a large wooden desk.

Tenthil leaned forward and manipulated the control console, changing the nearest holo to a three-dimensional map of the manor. A flashing yellow beacon pulsed in the third-floor hallway just outside the surveillance room, where he’d killed the guards. The security alert warnedINTRUDER, SHOTS FIRED, but it seemed no external alarm had been sounded—the Starforge guards intended to deal with the problem themselves.

Within a few moments, Tenthil had committed his course to memory. He had only one goal here. All this was pointless if he didn’t find the terran.

He fired his blaster into the control consoles; the equipment sparked and smoked as it shorted out, and all the screens and holograms flickered off. Without wasting another second, he darted into the hallway and hurried toward the front staircase, well away from the ascending guards.

Several male voices sounded from somewhere behind him, muted too much for it to have merely been the result of distance—there were likely sound dampeners positioned throughout the manor to maintain what Cullion likely thought of asdignified silence.

It was only a matter of moments before the bodies in the hallway were discovered.

Tenthil opened the stairwell door and slipped inside, keeping his blaster up as he walked down the stairs. When he reached the next landing, he opened the second-floor door, checked his angles in both directions along the hallway beyond, and stepped through. He moved cautiously despite his impatience; the sound dampeners would mask the sounds of his enemies’ movements as much as they would his own.

He inhaled. The female’s scent was stronger here than it had been upstairs.

She was close.

Summoning the manor’s layout in his mind’s eye, Tenthil hurried through the corridors, heading back toward the rear of the building. Somehow, he’d encountered no one by the time he turned into a wide hallway with plush carpeting and colorful cloths and tapestries on the walls. Sculptures of naked females from half a dozen species stood along the walls. Each statue was somehow majestic and meek at the same time, simultaneously powerful and subservient. Perhaps it was the commonality in their stances—though each exhibited a certain confidence in their body postures, all had their chins downturned and eyes averted.

They reminded Tenthil of the way his terran had carried herself at Twisted Nethers.

The terran’s scent strengthened with each of Tenthil’s steps, drawing him along steadily faster. The hallway ended in a large, circular antechamber ringed by wooden doors decorated with elaborate carvings and with several long, low couches standing at its center. The zoo—where Cullion kept his pets.

Striding forward, Tenthil approached the central door. It was larger than the rest, its gold-accented white in sharp contrast to the blacks, browns and dark reds of the other doors. This was the chamber housing Cullion’s favorite pet. Too bad for Cullion that his claim of ownership was invalid; Tenthil had the only legitimate claim on the terran.

He glanced behind him; there was no movement down the hallway, no muffled voices. Whatever time remained before the guards discovered his current location needed to be used as efficiently as possible.

Settling his hand on the door handle, he opened her door. Her intoxicating scent enveloped him. For a few seconds, all he could do was close his eyes and breathe, relishing the dizzying power of her fragrance. The brief delay was nearly too much to bear; his cock strained within the confines of his pants, and a ravenous, maddened growl threatened to rise from his chest.

Clenching his jaw, he shook off the spell. He could lose himself in it later.

He opened the door wider and slipped into her room.

Tenthil studied the room as he eased the door shut behind him. Given the décor in the antechamber, the furnishings here weren’t a surprise. Gauzy, shimmering panels of colored cloth hung from ceiling to floor, warping the perceived shape and size of the room. Several sets of holographic orbs provided the room’s light, revolving and twirling overhead in a ceaseless dance that made the metallic accents and billowing cloths all around sparkle.

Several couches and seats, covered with pillows of varying colors, sat in the open space between Tenthil and the far wall, upon which stood two doors. A glance was all it took to tell this was a place of luxury, a place for a pampered pet.

The females were seated on one of the couches—three of them gathered around the terran, whose back was turned toward Tenthil. His female was fully clothed now, baring little of her pale skin. The females chatted quietly as they tended to the terran—her cosmetics, nails, and hair—but her voice did not join the conversation.

One of the females—a volturian—glanced toward him, and her eyes widened. She released a high-pitched shriek, yanking the brush through the terran’s hair as she scrambled up and over the back of the couch upon which she’d been seated.

“Ouch! What the hell?” The terran’s—histerran’s—hands flew up to grasp her scalp.

The other two females turned their heads toward him and reacted the same as the first. Fear shone in their eyes as they retreated to the farthest wall, huddling together.

The terran stiffened. She slowly slid her hand down her hair until her fingers touched the brush tangled in the strands. Curling her fingers around the handle, she tugged the brush out of her hair and spun to face him, brandishing the object as though it were a deadly weapon. The gesture, though futile, was oddly endearing to him—she had a brave heart. He admired her courage.

Despite her body being covered by her clothing, he immediately recognized the difference in her—she was thinner than before, her skin paler.

Returning his knife to its sheath, Tenthil stepped farther into the room, his boots silent on the soft carpet.

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