Chapter 12

Chapter 11

"Yeah… tell me about it." Beth snorted in amusement as she dug deeper into Banic's file. She was sure she'd read something somewhere about when he'd arrived on Parac'Norr. A smile spread over her face as she found the reference she was looking for. It was a note from the medical officer who had performed the genetic testing on Banic and his brother. An image was attached, which looked like it had been scanned in from a readout from another system. Fortunately, the system had rendered the contents into Terran so she could read it.

Both warriors tested positive for Izaean mutation strain TZCGXGZTXA. Given the severity of the mutation identification and their level of training, recommend immediate removal to Parac'Norr.

Her eyes narrowed. There was no name. The system hadn't scanned that through correctly. All it said was corrupted, but she didn't recognize the odd code after it.

[Corrupted] 42.75, 33.89, 149.59

She leaned back and tapped her lips with her pen as she looked at it. What did it mean? It wasn't a DNA sequence. Even accounting for the Latharian nucleotides, X and Y, it didn't fit. It almost looked like coordinate?—

Her eyes widened. What if they were coordinates but not planetary ones—intergalactic ones instead. An address to mark a planet's location?

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she queried the mainframe again.

Where is 42.75, 33.89, 149.59? Give me all pertinent information about this location.

The screen in front of her went blank for a moment, and then a second later, information began to fill it.

Planet Taaken, home of the V'Taak clan since the year 210,000 pk. The V'Taak established a farming and arable colony and are the major exporters of lovaanis meat throughout the Latharian empire.

The family is currently led by Tex V'Taak, who holds war-commander status within the empire. Tex has no direct heirs, so control of the family will pass to his nephew Reenak on his death.

She looked at the date on the note and then at the genetic code listed. She still didn't completely understand how the Lathar and Izaean used dates, but she did recognize that code from Isan's notes. It was the one most frequently associated with late presentation of the mutation. Looking at Banic again, she frowned.

"Were you and your brother both adult presentations of the Izaean mutation?"

He didn't lift his eyes from the page. Just nodded.

She blinked. Okay, she'd thought they were both registered and brought here as children. Shit, that explained the doctor's note and why Banic was so dangerous. He'd actually been trained as a warrior and had a life in the empire before being brought here. No wonder he was pissed.

Looking at the screen again, her gaze focused on one word. One name.

V'Taak.

She ground her teeth as she looked at it. Those were the assholes who had cut Jaax and Banic off like they were so much rubbish. Before she could think better of it, she tapped the "contact" button on the screen. They might have been able to forget about members of their own family, but they would have to deal with her.

The beauty of an alien communications system appeared to be near instantaneous contact and, more importantly, not having to deal with telecom officers. In fact, there was only a pause of a couple of seconds before the image on her screen changed from the one she saw every day cut into the stone walls of the corridors to another one she recognized from the file.

The symbol of the V'Taak clan.

It cleared, and she found herself face to face with a bored-looking Latharian man with his boots up on the desk. Like pretty much every other Lathar she'd seen, he was tall and broad-shouldered and was wearing leather like it was a second skin. His long, green-tinged hair flowed over his shoulders, two braids woven into the front, one either side of his face.

"This is V'Taak. State your business," he said with a wide yawn.

"Hey. I'm Dr. Godwin, with the Izaean Research Program," she said, as sweetly as she could. Sheer and utter niceness was her first tactic in any situation. A little bit of sugar often got things done without the need for any unpleasantness.

His head shot up as he registered her voice and his eyes widened.

"What the draanth?" he breathed, yanking his feet off the desk and leaning forward to study her through the screen. "Who are you? What are you? You're female."

She inclined her head. "I am indeed."

"I didn't know the Izaeans had females?" His jaw tightened, and he looked ready to go to war.

"Oh no, I'm not Izaean," she said quickly. Shit, she should have remembered that the Lathar had no women. She was sure she'd read somewhere that in the latter days of the plague, the empire had nearly destroyed itself as clans accused each other of hiding women for themselves. The last thing she wanted was to start a war between the Lathar and the Izaean.

The hairs rising on the back of her neck made her look up to find Banic watching her, his face unreadable. A shiver stole down her spine. If she didn't know him, she would have run the other way at that look.

"What are you then?" the alien guy on the other side of the screen demanded. The predatory interest in his eyes made her glad a screen lay between them.

She plastered a smile on her lips. "I'm human. Assigned to the genetics project here on Parac'Norr. I wanted to contact you because we have two gentlemen here from your family, and I'd like to get their medical records from you to help in my research."

The V'Taak warrior frowned. "You've got the wrong place. We don't have any of the filth… the mutation in our bloodline. At all."

"Are you sure?" She made a show of looking down at her notes, resisting the urge to arch her eyebrow. "I have a Jaax and Banic on my list here, down as members of the V'Taak family."

"Who is that?" Another, harder, voice demanded from somewhere off screen. The warrior looked up, his expression filled with confusion a second before the screen was snatched away from him. She got an upside-down view of an arched ceiling and then found herself looking at an older and far more grizzled man with grey hair and bushy eyebrows.

"Hey, I?—"

She started but was cut off when he growled, "Ain't no one of those names in this clan. Don't call again."

And then the screen went blank.

She blinked at it, stunned into speechlessness for a second.

"Well, that went better than expected," she managed a small chuckle as she looked up at Banic.

"Not sure what else you expected," he grunted, picking up the pad he was reading off and heading back into his cell.

The door clanged shut, making her jump and leaving her alone in the lab with her blank screen, any attempt at family reconciliation in the dust.

?

Beth sighed, pushing her stool back from the workstation and standing. It was clear from Banic's turned back as he sat on the bed in the cage that he wasn't in the mood to talk. Given that he couldn't exactly walk away from her, she figured the least she could do was give him some space. With a last, lingering glance at his broad shoulders and the dark fall of his hair, she left the lab.

As soon as she stepped through the doors, the guards outside straightened up, their spines going rigid as if someone had shoved steel rods down the backs of their uniforms. She paused, her brow furrowing as she took in their stiff postures and the closed-off look in their eyes.

She'd been meaning to ask Isan for the last couple of days if the lab needed guarding anymore. Unless there was some enemy she didn't know about, all the Izaeans she'd met so far had been more than pleasant and willing to help her. And Banic... well, he'd agreed to behave himself. Hadn't he? She couldn't see any of them trying to hurt her or sabotage the project, so there was no need for these men to waste their time standing in a corridor when they could be doing something more productive.

But before she could even open her mouth to voice her thoughts, she noticed the stiffness in the way the guard on the left held himself and the way his breath caught slightly in his throat with every inhale. And the other one... her eyes widened. Vicious bruising mottled his jaw, angry red and purple hues standing out in stark contrast to his sun-bronzed skin.

Okay… so they weren't here to guard her at all. If she didn't miss her guess, they were here to recover. Her heart clenched as a wave of sympathy washed through her. The Izaean were fierce and proud. She couldn't see any of them willingly staying in bed, even though they desperately needed rest and healing. This, guarding a lab in a corridor no one was going to attack, was obviously the least amount of work they could be given and still feel like they were doing something.

Her estimation of Isan and, by extension his father Raalt, the leader of the Izaean, rose considerably. They truly cared about their people, even if, to her, they had a funny way of showing it. But her very presence here and their backing of her research to find a cure for the Blood Rage that plagued them was all proof of that—proof they were willing to do whatever it took to save their people and give them a chance at a better life.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she offered the guards a smile. "I don't suppose either of you know where I can find Sy. Do you? I need to speak with him about Tor."

The male on the right, the one with the bruised jaw, grunted. "Down the hall, turn left, next right, then third door on the left. But I wouldn't bother him if I were you, Doc. He's not in the best of moods."

Her lips quirked up at the corner. "Is he ever?"

The guard huffed out a laugh and then winced slightly. "Fair point. Just... be careful, yeah? Sy's a good male, but he's got a lot on his mind right now."

She tilted her head slightly. Was something going on that she didn't know about? "What do you mean?"

The guard blinked at her. "You don't know?"

She shook her head slightly. "Don't know what?"

"Tor, the youngling?" The other guard broke in. "That's Sy's cousin."

Her stomach clenched. They were related. Of course, she didn't know why she hadn't seen it before. Something about the way they both moved should have tipped her off. And Tor was struggling to manage his Rages…

She nodded, offering them a grateful smile. "Thank you for telling me. I'll be careful with him. With them both."

"We know, Doc," the original guard said with a respectful nod and stepped back to take his place by the door.

With a last, grateful look at the pair of them, she set off down the corridor. Her footsteps echoed off the rough-hewn stone walls. How many others had walked these halls before her? How many generations of Izaean had lived here, ripped from their homes, knowing the descent into madness was inescapable? It was enough to make someone insane, without any genetic help.

She turned as instructed and found herself in a smaller corridor lit with torches instead of the automated lighting of the bigger tunnels. Just how old was this place? It was like a rabbit warren, a twisting maze of tunnels and chambers that seemed to go on forever. As she walked, her mind wandered to Tor. He was so young and the thought of him succumbing to the Blood Rage was just horrific. He was way too young to lose himself to the madness and the violence...

Her heart ached for him, and she wanted to hold him close, tell him it would all be okay like his mother should be here to do. But he was too young for his mother to have been a Latharian, which meant that his birth had been contracted via one of the surrogacy methods the Lathar used. She knew enough of the method to know he had no mother who would claim him.

Her jaw tightened, her lips compressing into a thin line. She had to help him. She had to find a way to stop whatever genetic change was going on inside him before it consumed him and the Rage took over. Before it turned him feral.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost didn't notice the way the males she passed in the corridors looked at her. Their eyes lingered on her and the white lab coat that marked her as a stranger among them. Who was she kidding? The white coat had nothing to do with it. She knew that. It was the fact that she was a woman, and they hadn't seen a female who looked like them in decades. Probably longer as she still couldn't work out how the Latharian calendar worked compared to the human one.

Despite the fact she was the sole woman in a sea of men starved for female company, she didn't feel afraid. It wasn't lust or worse she saw in their gazes. It was something else, something that made her breath catch and her heart stutter in her chest.

Hope. Fragile, desperate hope shone from eyes that had endured more than most could have handled without shattering completely. Eyes that belonged to men who'd been told all their lives that they were monsters, that they were doomed to a fate worse than death, and they could do nothing about it. Men who'd been told as children they were broken, and that no one cared enough to try and fix them.

Men who looked at her like she was their last chance… their only hope of salvation.

And it utterly humbled her. That trust, that faith in her abilities, her knowledge, her compassion. These men knew nothing about her, but they trusted her.

Because she was the only one who'd cared enough to try… and that was enough.

She straightened her shoulders and nodded to them as she passed, offering what she hoped was a calming smile. Because these men deserved someone in their corner to fight for them, and a chance to live, to know they were something more than the beasts they'd been told they were.

And maybe she could help Banic as well. Before whatever darkness inside him, the darkness she suspected was a being in its own right, claimed him. From what she'd read in the files, she suspected the darkness eventually won and took over its host, wiping the Izaean personality completely.

She could lose him. The thought made her heart clench and her breathing catch in her throat. She couldn't lose him. Couldn't bear the thought of watching him slip away, consumed by the darkness that lurked within him. She had to find a way to save him. To bring him back from the brink so he could coexist with whatever was inside him. It had been done already.

Raalt had done it.

She just had to figure out how.

Replicate the method.

Within minutes she found herself outside the third nondescript door in the corridor. Her heart raced as she raised her hand to knock. She heard movement inside, the sound of feet on stone, and for a moment, panic gripped her. Shit. Did she even have the right door, or had she woken up some poor unsuspecting Izaean who probably needed his rest.