Page 16 of Joven's Bride
Chapter Eight
Joven was not easily angered, and rarely allowed himself to express anger or frustration. He roared, long and loud and morphed into his big cat persona without conscious thought.
He now knew exactly who was stealing hismeomee! The pirate had been eluding Alliance Law Enforcement for years. Yet, he hadn’t been on Joven’s radar since they served in the war together until he took Carly. Joven wasn’t just angry, he was enraged and outraged; he would kill Zaif Crazell, rip him open and tear out his guts while he screamed in agony, tear off his limbs and spill out his blood…
But he could do none of that because he was grounded on Glasica until his team returned to pick him up. The only thing he could do at the moment was run his trails until he could calm his raging emotions. He charged the entrance door of his home, and it opened automatically.
He bounded out into the night, running full tilt to the opening into the forest on his property. He loved to roam the woods. Cutting the trails through his forest was the first thing he did after he bought the property, it was a must have when he was looking for a place to settle. He needed the forest to satisfy his inner cat.
Running through the forest in his panther form, unfettered brought pleasure into his life. This night he needed it to soothe his anguish because that’s what it came down to. He was terrified of losing Carly before he could ever hold her in his arms. As a feline cyborg,meomeewas his one chance at happiness, the chance to love and be loved, to make a family.
As a cyborg, suppressing emotions was second nature to him so he could focus entirely on his mission, killing the enemies of the Alliance. It was a cybernetic enhancement that Narovian feline cyborgs required to dampen their heightened humanoid emotions. Joven now controlled that dampener.
He’d turned it off the day he was notified of his match with Carly. He wanted to feel all the joy of finding his soulmate and falling in love with her, and he had felt it all. But now, now that her ship was captured by pirates, he was feeling all the fear of losing her. He teetered on the verge of panic. So, he ran through the forest in his big cat form; running, running, running as though he could outrun the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.
Joven ran through the forest most of the hours it took for theSentinel Hawkto return to Glasica.
He could reintegrate the dampener but chose not to. He embraced his fury, he would use it to hunt Crazell, and he had developed strong feelings for Carly and he did not want to lose those.
It would be difficult to open himself even to his soul mate if he restricted his emotional self that severely. He didn’t have a switch where he could turn it on and off.
Joven returned to his dwelling asSentinel Hawkwas coming in for a landing. He resumed his humanoid form and was waiting near the landing pad with his duffle as the ship descended vertically to the ground.
Kelbor didn’t even cut the engine. He just extended the ramp for Joven to board and lifted off before the ramp was fully closed. His handsome features gave no evidence of the emotional turmoil that caused him to run for hours before they arrived. But they could see he wasn’t the same as their last patrol together.
Now Joven was clearly distressed, but grimly holding it in. He nodded in greeting to his team and retreated to his quarters. He spent most of his time there connected to interstellar communications, focusing his attention to the Drayid channels known for humanoid trafficking. He heard his team talking about him, determined to do whatever it took to findStar Travelerand hismeomee.
Kelbor, a fellow cyborg had served with Joven in the Drayid war. Joven had always planned to find a mate and make a family like humans who were not sired in Petri dishes and genetically altered. He’d waited years to find his soulmate. Now the cyborg was on the hunt, for the pirate who stole her.
Thodai and Drenag served with both Kelbor and Joven in Law Enforcement after the war. They too were cyborgs. They all knew how focused he became when they were on the hunt for slavers. No one would guess that he was the same person who played practical jokes on them, and told humorous war stories.
He was completely centered on purpose when they dropped out of warp in the Se’Nar system. It took them four and a half rotation sets, about a month, to track the two ships to their destination.
Joven joined them on the bridge as they moved into the orbit of the planet itself.
Carly had lived in fear since the day Crazell had choked her. He had come back to torment her at random intervals. She was an emotional wreck, praying Joven would catch up to them before the pirate did even worse to her. A guard was posted at the lift to prevent them from moving between the two passenger floors, but Crazell was the only one of the pirates that hurt her.
The pirate captain had mentioned Se’Nar, just as Joven thought. Carly didn’t’ know if he shared with the passengers or what would happen when they got there. She was too afraid to leave her cabin to even talk to the other passengers.
It didn’t matter, because Joven warned her that they would probably be sold into slavery. He was on his way, but it had been over three weeks, by her concept of time. Carly just hoped Crazell thought her too valuable as merchandise to kill. Finally, sometime in the fourth week, something shifted that signaled they were dropping out of warp. By the end of the day, Crazell’s men rousted all the passengers out of their cabins and herded them into a cargo shuttle in the landing bay.
Wherever they were going, they were not allowed to take their belongings with them. From what Carly heard from the pirates, they were going down to a planet to be sold. She guessed it had to be Se’Nar as Joven speculated. She also hoped he would arrive before she was sold and taken off world.
When the shuttle landed, the passengers and crew from theStar Travelerwere herded into two barracks, one for males and one for females. The shelter was very basic with rows of bunks stacked four high and two small bathrooms for over a hundred occupants. Four men were stationed inside with two at each entrance to ensure none of their merchandise wandered off.
If they didn’t move fast enough, walking from the shuttle port to the barracks, one of the pirates would shove them to make them move faster. One petite female fell onto the gravel and scraped her arms and knees. Carly stopped to help her up and was whacked across the buttocks by Crazell with a strap he carried.
Carly squealed, and he hit her again, but she managed to help the other woman to her feet before he could hit her a third time. By then, he had turned his attention to someone else.
Crazell may have been a feline humanoid, but he seemed to like hurting people, especially women. He was almost as handsome as Joven, but the man had no honor. His eyes held a hardness that spoke of his cruelty, which he directed mainly at women.
Carly wondered how he could be so different from Joven who have been bred and genetically engineered to kill the enemies of the Alliance. Perhaps, Crazell was born to a mother who didn’t want him, who had only made a business arrangement to have children with a feline who never found his soul mate. He could be taking out his resentment on all women.
Would finding hismeomeechange him, teach him to love? Carly didn’t know. She just knew she really hated him, maybe enough to kill him if she ever got the chance.
It was late when they all got inside the barracks. The other residents were already in bunks, and the females were commanded to find an empty bunk and rest. Their last meal had been in the morning, and their captors offered them nothing to eat.
Carly was hungry, but she knew she could survive missing two meals. She had often worked through lunch and dinner at school. It was never an eight-hour job for her. There was always planning, extracurricular activities, and papers to grade that she couldn’t finish during regular work hours. Missing a meal was nothing new.
She walked through an aisle between two rows of bunks until she found a second level bunk available. Most of the lowest bunks were already taken. There was a bare pad rather than a mattress with one end raised like a pillow. She climbed into it and lay down. It wasn’t especially comfortable, but she was tired.
Not knowing what was going to happen to her wasn’t conducive to getting a good night’s sleep. She wanted to believe that Joven would find her before she was sold into slavery but felt guilty because her faith in that wavered.
Despite her worries, exhaustion won out, and she drifted to sleep despite the noise around her. Sometime later, Carly awoke to a sound, like a big cat roaring.
