Chapter 5

Chapter 4

He wasn't dead. Why wasn't he dead?

Banic fought his way back to consciousness, a soft whisper of a deep voice following him. The voice that had been with him since his first bloodlust and seemed to be a part of his very soul whispered in the dark recesses of his mind.

"Why do you cling to life? Raalt'sssss clawsss should have cleaved you from the living."

He lay there, the rough bedding scraping against his skin. It was wrong. He should be in agony, but the pain he expected wasn't there. His body felt wrong, like it had been altered somehow while he was unconscious. Again. He knew the feeling. Nothing felt right, not since he'd arrived in this cursed place all those years ago.

The voice in his head showed him an image from his fever-racked dreams—the angel he'd reached out to for mercy. He tried to dismiss it as nothing more than a trick of his fractured mind being used to torture him.

"She'sss here… an angel," the voice whispered. "Our angel. We mussst find her and claim her."

He gritted his teeth as he stared up at the ceiling. The female was nothing more than a phantom, an expression of his deepest longing. Parac'Norr was home to outcasts and aberrations. An angel had no place here.

With a groan, Banic rolled onto his side, his throat raw as he coughed roughly. Healing had been done. He could feel it. It was wrong. Like something inside him had been turned inside out and put back in a different order.

Where was he? Raalt would never let him or any like him off this forsaken rock, so he had to still be on the planet. It was their prison and had been since they had been dragged here years ago.

"Are you okay?"

His eyes snapped open wide at the voice. It was the same soft, female voice he'd heard before. The one from his dreams. And he whirled around, almost falling off the bed in surprise as he saw her. She stood on the other side of the bars. The angel from his dreams.

"You're real," he breathed as he closed the distance between them in a heartbeat. She stepped back, her eyes wide and her scent sharp with fear.

Draanth. The last thing he wanted was to scare her. Relaxing a bit, he tried to make himself look less threatening. The bars didn't help, but he did his best.

"I won't hurt you," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I promise."

He stared at her, taking in every detail. She was unlike any female he'd seen before. Taller yet somehow more delicate than the females from the crashed human ship, her skin was a warm brown, a few shades darker than the desert sands, and dark curls tumbled down around her shoulders to frame her face.

She wore odd garments as well, not the utilitarian jumpsuit like the other humans wore. But they hadn't fascinated him the way she did. The clothing clung to every curve and hollow, hinting at the softness underneath, and she had her hands shoved into the pockets of the white coat she wore over the top of everything. He looked down. Her shoes were impractical things, soft and flat with no protection for the soft skin of her delicate feet. Everything about her seemed designed to highlight her fragility and femininity.

Leaning slightly forward, he inhaled deeply to catch her scent. It was clean with a hint of something floral and exotic. No stench of fear now or anger. Just curiosity and caution.

"Who are you?" The demand was little more than a growl. He winced, remembering how the females from the crashed ship had shrunk from him in fear when he'd growled.

But his little female just blinked, surprise washing over her beautiful face. "I'm Dr. Godwin. I'm here to study the Blood Rage mutation."

A frown creased his brow. "Doctor? What is a doctor?"

"Oh, um… Well, there are different sorts. My type means I'm a scientist," she explained. "I research diseases and try to find cures for them."

"Cure the Blood Rage?" His eyes narrowed. Was she an assassin sent by Raalt? She was far too small and vulnerable for that… and why would Raalt have had him healed only to send an assassin after him?

"I want to understand it. To learn what causes it and why."

Taking a small step forward, she looked up at him. The urge to reach through the bars, capture her, and haul her up against him to discover for himself if her skin was as soft as it looked almost overwhelmed him.

"Yesssss," the voice hissed. "Female, our female. Prettttttyyyy…"

"I've been warned about you," she said softly.

"Oh?" he asked, leaning against the bars. All he had on were a pair of the thin yateen pants given to patients, and he noted the way her gaze dropped down to his bare chest and abs. He flexed, hiding his smile as her tiny pink tongue wet her lips. The little female was definitely interested in him as a male. "What have you been told about me?"

"That you're dangerous," she whispered, and despite the wideness of her eyes and the spike of fear in her scent, she took another little half-step forward.

He tilted his head slightly. She liked to flirt with danger then.

"Oh, I'm dangerous. But don't let tall tales frighten you, little one," he rumbled, giving her a smile that hid his teeth. "I would never harm something so precious."

A faint blush stained her cheeks. All he wanted to do was nuzzle into that warmth. Make her his so no one would ever dare to threaten or scare her again. She would be safe and cherished… and his.

"I'm here to study you," she said firmly, meeting his gaze directly. "To understand why you and your people suffer from these Rages. I want to help if I can."

He watched her, amused by her boldness as she stared him down without flinching. He liked that. Liked that she knew of his reputation, knew he was dangerous, and still sought him out.

"You wish to know of the Blood Rage?" he purred. "Then you will study me, little doctor."

And as she did, he would study her.

?

Banic should be dead. Pure and simple. No way could anyone alive take the amount of damage he had and still be in the land of the living.

Beth leaned over her microscope, the sample of Banic's black scar tissue taken during his surgery in view. The dim glow from the scope illuminated her face in the lab's darkness, and deep shadows obscured the worktables and equipment around her. She preferred to work with the lights down low. It helped her to think and focus on what she was looking at.Focus on Banic and whatever the hell was happening in his body.

She felt his eyes on her, boring into her back from the cage at the rear of the lab. Without looking, she knew exactly where he was, his red gaze fixed on her as he tracked her every movement. The weight of his stare made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle and stand on end.

Straightening up with a sigh, she rubbed her tired eyes and turned to squint into the murky recesses of the cage. She could just make out the hulking silhouette, his long dark hair spilling over broad, scarred shoulders as he crouched motionless in the shadows. It should be as scary as fuck. She'd seen the way the others were around him, how wary they were. Considering each Izaean was an insane berserker in their own right, the fact that they were all scared of Banic should have given her pause and made her not want to be in the same room as him.

But somehow, she knew he wouldn't hurt her. She didn't know how she knew that, just that she did.

He hadn't uttered a word since their exchange earlier when he'd come out with his announcement that he would allow her to study him. No sooner had the words left his mouth than Zeke had strode into the lab, his jaw tight and yellow eyes flashing when he'd seen her close to the cage talking to Banic. The atmosphere had shifted in an instant, a crackle of tension sparking between the two alien males that even now led to random growls and warning snarls being exchanged between them like some weird background music threat display.

Rubbing her neck, she turned back to the glowing screen displaying Banic's medical file. Even with her limited clinical knowledge, the extent of his injuries took her breath away. Shattered bones, ruptured organs, massive blood loss and trauma… yeah, no way should he have survived surgery, let alone be walking and talking already. She'd seen medical files like this before, for the deceased victims of huge disasters.

No one could survive that much damage. But Banic had.

And it had something to do with this black stuff. She knew it.

Leaning closer to the screen, she studied the scans, trying to separate the images of the battered body with the alien man growling in the cage behind her. Everything she'd seen—the accelerated healing, the regeneration as muscles and tissues had knit themselves back together at an unnatural speed—amazed her. She zoomed in on an image of the strange black marks mottling his skin and frowned. Isan's notes from the surgery said this stuff had aided him during the healing. Apparently, it had stopped Banic bleeding out and, at one point, had created a pulsating mesh to keep his heart beating while Isan healed the damage around it.

"What are you?" she murmured in fascination.

Touching a button on the console, she began dictating notes in a low voice. "The unknown black substance appears to be some form of scar tissue, not inconsistent with keloid scarring. However, the patient's healing factor far exceeds anything previously documented, and I can't find evidence of anything similar in the Latharian medical archives. This points to the possibility that it's a unique artifact in the Izaean genome of unknown origin…"

A low snarl behind her made her jump, her heart leaping into her throat. She whirled to see Banic standing at the bars, his lips curled back from gleaming fangs and blood-red eyes fixed on Zeke. The other male responded with a growl of his own, squaring his shoulders as he glared back at Banic.

"Oh, for god's sake," she snapped, anger sharpening her voice. "You made me jump. Will you two bloody well knock it off? Banic… he's not hurting me. We're trying to help you, you great lummox! Zeke, stop taunting him. He's in a damn cage, for heaven's sake. He's no threat."

Banic turned that burning gaze on her, and she glared right back. If he thought he was going to bully her into backing down, he had another think coming. She was made of far sterner stuff. He stared at her for long moments, unreadable emotions flickering in the red depths of his eyes, and then he huffed and turned his back on her, retreating into the shadows of the cage.

Hiding her smile, she turned back to her screen and pulled up the next scan. Bloody Izaean males and their hyperaggressive posturing. She could well do without it.

The hiss of the lab doors made her glance up as Isan strode in, a couple of heavy buckets in each of his hands. Clamping a hand over her nose, she recoiled at the eye-watering stench that rolled in with him, her stomach doing a slow queasy flip as her lunch threatened to make a reappearance.

"What is that awful smell?" she gasped.

Isan grimaced as he set the gore-spattered buckets on a worktable with a clang. "This is Jaldon. Or what remains of him, anyway."

She swallowed hard, trying not to gag as she looked into the bucket. Shards of bone and clumps of ragged black flesh swam amid the congealing blood. She looked up at him, baffled.

"What exactly do you expect me to do with it… err, him?"

The tall Izaean healer pointed a long finger at the oozing black lumps. "His skin shows the same characteristics as the mutations on Banic and my father. I need you to analyze it. See if you can determine how it forms and what properties it has."

"Right," Beth said faintly, trying to quell the surge of squeamish horror churning in her gut. Looking at the black stuff on a live subject was one thing, but this was entirely another. "I'll just...get on that then. Shall I?"

As Isan stalked out, she blew out a shaky breath, looking from the grisly buckets to the red glow of Banic's eyes in the shadows. What had she gotten herself into coming here? Dealing with these prickly, violent Izaean males, their incomprehensible biology, this brutal, unforgiving planet...

?

"What the…"

Beth grumbled, shaking her head as she looked at the grisly remains spread out on the gleaming lab table. The shattered bones, oozing blood, and bits of ragged blackened flesh made her stomach churn. Jaldon's remains weren't pretty.

She blew out a breath, her fingers tightening on the edge of the table. It wasn't much to work with, but she'd have to make do.

"Hey, Beth?" Zeke's deep voice pulled her from her thoughts and she turned. He stood in the doorway, his yellow eyes filled with concern. "I hate to leave you alone with all this, but Isan needs an extra pair of hands in the med bay. Some of the new bloods got a little too enthusiastic during training."

Waving off his apology, she forced a smile. "It's fine, Zeke. Go help Isan. I can handle things here."

His gaze flicked to the cage. "You sure you're okay with..." He jerked his chin toward the brooding feral male.

She followed his gaze, her pulse kicking up a notch as she met Banic's unnerving red stare. He watched her, unblinking, his expression unreadable. Swallowing hard, she turned back to Zeke.

"It'll be fine," she said with a smile she didn't entirely feel. "The cage is secure, and I've got plenty of work to keep me busy."

Zeke didn't look convinced but nodded. "All right. But if you need anything, if he gives you any trouble, you just give a shout. Okay? I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Absolutely," she promised. "Now go on, before Isan sends out a search party."

With a last look, Zeke turned and strode out of the lab, the doors hissing shut behind him. And just like that, she was alone. Well, alone except for the deadly, unpredictable feral warrior watching her from the cage.

Banic's gaze bored into her back, and she knew without looking that he was tracking her every move. Why had he announced that she would be the only one to study him? What did he hope to gain from that?

Shoving the thought aside, she focused on the gruesome puzzle pieces in front of her. Picking up a bone fragment with tweezers, she examined it closely, and frowned at the odd scarring along the break. It didn't match anything she was familiar with. The damage was extensive, the level of violence staggering.

"What on earth happened to you?"

The mangled remains painted a chilling picture of a brutal death. A shudder hit her, and she tried not to imagine Jaldon's final moments. They must have been agony. She glanced over at the initial scans of the skin. The hormone levels present in the skin and blood suggested that Jaldon was in excruciating pain when he died.

"I killed him," a deep voice rumbled behind her.

She froze, not sure she'd heard that correctly. Slowly, she turned to face the cage, meeting Banic's banked-fire gaze head on. "I'm sorry, did you say you did this?"

He shrugged, the movement rippling through the muscles of his broad shoulders. "Yes."

Her heart lurched. She'd known the Izaeans were brutal and violent, but this went well beyond brutality. It was savagery, sheer and inhumane savagery.

"Why?" The question burst from her lips. "My god, how could you do something like this to someone?"

His eyes narrowed, glittering dangerously in the dim light. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn they glowed slightly. But they couldn't. The feral were Izaean, who were Latharian, which meant they were similar to humanity, and there was no mechanism in the eye for it to actually glow… was there?

"He planned to hurt a female. To do unspeakable things to her." Banic's jaw clenched as he bit the words out. "I stopped him."

She stared at him.

"How did you know what he was going to do?" she asked, her confusion warring with the sick feeling in her gut. She'd been feeling safe with him, but if he could do something like this… she didn't think she could ever look at him the same way again.

He hesitated, and for a moment she thought he wouldn't answer. Then he sighed in resignation. "The voice in my head," he said quietly. "It told me what his voice was thinking."

She barked out a laugh. She'd been expecting him to say that Jaldon had told him, but his expression didn't alter.

"Wait, what? You expect me to believe that the voices in your head told you he was going to hurt a woman? So you brutally murdered him to stop him?"

"Voice. Singular." He met her gaze steadily. "We only have one voice in our heads. They… our voices, let us communicate. I can sometimes hear the thoughts of other ferals."

Her mind reeled. Telepathy? Among the feral Izaeans? It seemed impossible, like something out of a science fiction novel. But then again, so did accelerated healing and the myriad other effects of the mutation she'd seen so far.

"Are you telling me you're telepathic? And you read Jaldon's mind and saw what he was going to do?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not like that. Not exactly. Usually, it's more like...impressions. Feelings. Strong thoughts or intentions. Not actual words most of the time. This time was different. The voice in Jaldon's head told the one in mine what it planned to do." He looked away, his expression shuttering. "It gave us what it wanted to do to that woman, the sick pleasure it took in her fear. I couldn't let that happen."

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "So, the voice in your head didn't agree with what the one in Jaldon's was doing and…"

"We killed them. That was the only way to stop them."

She swallowed hard. When he'd said "voices," she'd assumed something like fractured personality disorder, but this went way beyond that. He seemed to be saying whole different consciousnesses were interacting. If what he was saying was true, and she could track the reason, the source… Shit, it had immense implications for her research. For the very understanding of the feral mutation.

"Who else knows about this?" she asked quietly, stepping closer. "About the telepathy… the voices?"

"It's not something we share with outsiders. Ever." His expression twisted wryly. He looked down at her intently, his red eyes seeming to bore into her soul. "The only beings that know are ferals. And now you."