Queen of Carnage

Chapter One

Tigress stared out of the viewport at the dazzling array of stars, her face set into the grim lines of someone contemplating the advent of a horrific event soon to occur. Tall and sleek like all members of her race, she tipped her head to one side, listening to the faint sounds coming from her bed. Quiet sounds from her sleeping lover. She heard him sigh, murmur a name that wasn’t hers.

Time is supposed to erase all wounds. Poor Jozef; he is damned to carry his for the rest of his existence. And now he’s going be forced to have contact with the creatures who created the hole in his heart, who made that burned corner in his soul.

Her lips twisted into a snarl. Hate was easy when the enemy felt no regret for their actions. Past, present, or future, the Humans felt they were justified in what they’d done, in the things they still did to their kind.

She glanced at the planet below. Dirtside on Nevanar, the rotation of the planet was moving the Imperial City closer to dawn.

The noises stopped and she was left with her own dismal thoughts.

Thoughts of a war that could break out any moment.

Her gaze passed over the stars, her mind setting names to some of them. Inhabited worlds. So innocent in appearance, those stars. Suns with balls of rock, fiery gasses, or lumps of ice dancing an endless minuet in the ballroom of space. Innocent of deliberate, deadly intent, those suns and worlds.

Not so the beings that inhabited some of those spinning balls.

And it was those beings who disturbed her sleep and made her hands clench, fingertips itching with the desire to sink claws into the flesh of anyone who wanted to hurt what was hers.

Hers.

Nevanar below, and the yellow-red star of her own homeworld, Tiara, a sister planet to Nevanar, Wolvian, and Blood -- other worlds that had become a refuge for their kind.

Hers and his.

That wasn’t exactly correct. She didn’t own or rule any of the planets, and the people on Nevanar weren’t her people, per se.

Neither was Jozef, Prince of the Blood, hers, not in the typical sense of possession, not the way the Queen of Carnage, the battle cruiser she commanded, was hers.

Tigress sighed.

“Sounds depressing,” a rich baritone voice murmured from behind her.

“What does?” she asked without turning around.

“Your thoughts,” he replied. “That sigh. I only hear you sound that way when something particularly gloomy is residing in that pretty golden head of yours.”

The sheets rustled as he moved, and she could envision the body making those sounds. Beautiful in the way of his kind, lean and muscular with a certain unnatural perfection, a too regular cast to his features that marked all his people. He would be staring at her naked body with the light of hunger burning in his gaze, and his cock would be hard and waiting for the heat of her body. The thought warmed her deep inside, sent a pulse of desire to her womb. She ignored the sensation.

“Ah, now I follow your meaning.” She turned to find him lying in bed, head propped up on his bent arm, regarding her with the red flame gaze of hunger. Just the way she’d imagined him.

Another spark of desire lit her lower body, etched a trail of lust up her body, pebbling her nipples and spreading need through her brain with the power of primal need. A growling purr rumbled in her chest, a sound she stopped because she didn’t want to encourage him.

Or herself.

“You’ve never followed anyone, Ti,” he quipped, a wry smile making her belly tense. Most Humans couldn’t meet the gaze of a Prince of the Blood like Jozef, but she wasn’t most Humans.

Or, to be honest, she wasn’t Human at all. None of her people were.

Especially not to the other side: the beings who called themselves True Humans.

On the outside, in their neutral form, her race could pass as Humans and had done so for generations before technological advances made such deceptions impossible. Genetic identity verification had revealed all of them, her kind, his kind, and every other creature of Old Earth for what they were: something other than Human.

Jozef’s kind had also passed for Humans, though it was easier for the commoners of his race than it was for the aristocracy, those of the Blood, the progenitors of a family like Jozef himself.

The lucky ones of both their kinds had fled Old Earth before the full scope of humanity’s hatred was leveled on their kind.

Those whose luck ran out before they could escape Old Earth suffered the Purge. Suffered and died. Entire races of her kind were driven to extinction, entire Families of the Blood slain, down to the last tiny infant.

Some were given a choice. A way to stay alive.

And those poor bastards who chose to live under the hand of the Humans became the pawns of Central Command, enduring a life worse than death. Chained to an existence of unending loneliness, their minds ravaged by the erasure of what they had once been, their bodies chemically altered into undying and obedient slaves.

Humans and the Supernaturals had waged war for countless years, both on Old Earth and, until recently, in space.

And it wasn’t ever going to end.

The war was, however, on hold because of a more dire problem. One that threatened Humans and Supernaturals alike.

“Come back to bed. I’ll make you forget all about the future.”

“I wish it were that easy, Jozef.”

He held out a slender hand, pale as frost. “Ti, it is. Come to me.”

She shook her head, unwilling to relent. “I can’t, Jozef. Don’t you understand? This isn’t like our past squabbles with the Humans and their Central Command. This is all of Old Earth’s races against a foe unlike anything we’ve ever fought. They’ve already murdered an entire planet of Humans. Two billion dead.”

He shrugged. “Forgive me if I fail to mourn for their loss,” he told her in a voice as dispassionate as his expression. “But I lost half of my kinblood to their Purge. I have no sympathy for a race of murderers.”

“That was a long time ago, Jozef. They aren’t all like that anymore.”

“You’re right, but most of them would gladly see us die rather than let us live our lives in peace. That’s always been the way.”

“Well, things have changed. We have to unite or we’ll all die.”

“Must we talk about this? I’m going to be meeting with representatives of Central Command later today. Isn’t that enough for me to deal with? You know I can’t abide how they smell.”

“Wear cologne.”

He shuddered. “It doesn’t help. They smell like food. Prey animals.”

“You’ll get over it,” she retorted gently.

“I’m afraid my control will slip,” he admitted, voice soft, eyes clouded with worry. “It’s been almost a century since I’ve been in the presence of any Humans.”

“You’re stronger than that, Jozef.”

He wiggled his fingers. “Come to me, Ti.”

The heat in her belly grew, and she frowned at him. “Jozef.” There was a warning growl in her tone and he let his hand fall, a rueful grin curling his sensuous mouth.

“You can’t blame me for trying, can you?”

She stared at him, angered by his effort to exert control over her mind via his vampiric power. “No, so long as you’re willing to live with the potential results. But I’d really rather not go before the Tribunal and explain to them why I tore your throat out either.”

“Oh, hell. I’d forgotten.”

“Well don’t forget again, Jozef. You know what sort of training I was given, so please, don’t try it anymore, okay?”

He bowed his head and nodded. “Okay.”

Tigress returned her gaze to the portal, watching the glittering stars. “War with the Humans was bad enough. But fighting these creatures is going to be very difficult. They outnumber the Humans according to the intelligence gathered by their Frontier Explorers.”

“Their slaves,” he muttered.

“Our kind, yours and mine. But they chose to become what they are.”

“It wasn’t much of a choice.”

“I know.” She heard him slip out of bed, listened to him approach, and felt his slender arms slip around her, the pressure of his cheek against the side of her face. Cool flesh molded to her back, a hard rod of desire slipping into the cleft between her thighs.

“Please, Ti. I need this to soothe my nerves before I have to go play diplomat.”

She carefully stepped out of his embrace, faced him. His expression was forlorn, like a child forced to attend school when he’d much rather remain at home.

Or a condemned man facing the headsman’s block.

She caressed his face. “Jozef, I know you don’t want to go, but this is important. All of Old Earth’s races against a foe that could very well put an end to us, Supernaturals and Humans both.”

He pressed close to her, and she wrapped her arms around his alabaster pale body, holding him. He seemed almost fragile compared to her; Tigress stood a full head taller than the Prince. But looks could be deceiving, especially among the Supernaturals, and Jozef was every bit as strong as she was.

But she was the better fighter. A tygon shifter that made her living as the captain of a fighting ship charged with protecting the Alliance of Worlds and the Supernatural beings who inhabited them.

And that made them “hers” in a way that mere possession couldn’t.

Just as their love affair made Jozef hers.

He wrapped his arms tightly around her and claimed her lips in a tender kiss, his fangs grazing the tender inside of her lip, but not drawing blood.

That would come later, if she permitted it.

She didn’t bother to break the kiss or try to evade his embrace. He needed this, and in a way, so did she.

“You worry too much,” he whispered, lowering his head to press his lips to her throat.

“Someone has to,” Tigress murmured as she tilted her head back to give Jozef access and permission to blood her if that was his desire.

His lips parted and she felt the dampness of his tongue against her throat, the burn of fangs as they pierced her skin. He took a taste, one gentle sip of her life, enough to tease himself before he sealed the wound with a flick of his tongue.

“But it doesn’t have to be you,” he argued, voice soft, pleading. He was asking for more of her without putting it in words.

Unspoken plea.

And she found that she didn’t want to deny him, or herself, any longer.

Growling into his ear, Tigress felt his whole body go tense. A tremor rolled through him, goose bumps rising on his skin as he reacted to the sound. She stepped back to stare into eyes that burned with an inner, unnatural flame. A glow that was perfectly normal for a Prince of the Blood aroused and wanting.

Wanting her.

She swept him into her arms and carried Jozef to her bed.

Laughing, he kissed her and she returned the kiss, nipping gently at his lower lip, drawing a bead of blood with her teeth before the tiny wound she’d made could seal closed.

He moaned, nipped her bottom lip, and lapped at the blood he’d drawn, the tiny wound healing as fast as the one she’d made in his flesh.

Lovers.

Tygon and vampire.

Long ago they might have been hated foes. But things were very different now. Changed forever. Old Earth had gone into the same long ago past.

A past neither of them cared about.

He was smiling at her, the look full of wicked mischief, hot with lust.

“Do you know what I’m thinking about?” he asked, his soft lips brushing the almost nonexistent lobe of her ear. “Do you?”

“Uhmmhummm,” she murmured in reply as she lapped at the edge of his slightly pointed ear.

“Tell me,” he said as he tilted his head so she could tease him.

Her teeth grazed the edge of his ear and Tigress felt him shudder, reacting to her subtle gift of pain as her teeth caught his skin just hard enough to draw a bead of blood. “You’re thinking how much you want to fuck me.”

“Good guess.” He chuckled, his voice a teasing purr of sound that coiled as hot need in her lower belly. He was so good at getting her hot, even when she had other things on her mind.

He’s right. I’m going to enjoy myself with him then go back to worrying. She sucked the closing wound, relishing the thick sweetness of his blood until his Supernatural vitality sealed it closed.

Vampire blood.

She loved the taste of him. But it was only Jozef’s blood she craved.

No other vampire tasted the way he did.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe we would have been Truemates if he’d never had Eleanor.

No, that wasn’t possible. Vampires only found their Truemates among their own bloodkin.

But if that was the case, how could the vampire families have formed? Until there were bloodparents there were no bloodkin.

Don’t be an idiot. A tygon can’t be a bloodparent of a vampire family.

His lips touched her shoulder and she sighed, shivered as the cool breath moving over dampened skin heated her blood. Made her want to yield to the demands of their bodies.

Why not? she asked herself.

He gave a startled gasp, eyes gone wide, mouth still smiling as she shoved him down, pinning him to the bed by the shoulders. She grinned, showing teeth slightly too pointed to be Human. Teeth that changed as her form changed, her body taking on the midway point between four-footed tygon and the seeming Human appearance her breed had used to hide their true nature from the Humans back on Old Earth.

Jozef stroked his hands along her furred flanks, hands moving to her thighs, his fingers teasing at the cleft of her crotch. “Is there something I can do for you?”

She smiled, licked her lips. “Uhmmhummm. There sure is,” she purred as she lowered herself onto the head of his erection and watched the hot lust build in his garnet flame gaze as he lay there watching her. “I might have found something.”

“Yes…” he groaned as she let him slide farther into her. “I see you have.”

He knew the rules and didn’t move, didn’t make any effort to take control of the encounter. Any effort to do so would mean punishment.

Of course she liked to punish Jozef and he enjoyed receiving her chastisement. He whimpered for mercy so beautifully she sometimes punished him just to hear him beg.

But this morning they didn’t have time for the full gamut of their shared sexual games. Not with him scheduled for a meeting between the Alliance and the Human delegation from Central Command.

They did have enough time for them to play just a bit though.

She grabbed both his wrists and yanked them roughly above his head as she rocked him deep inside her needy flesh.

Just a taste of the rough stuff, but she felt his entire body go tense, ready for more, for whatever she chose to do.

She leaned forward so that her breasts were in his face, the nipples brushing his skin, one touching his lips. He obediently took it into his mouth and suckled, the sharp point of one vampire fang coming down a little hard, drawing a taste of her life.

“None of that. You haven’t earned it,” she warned.

A disappointed whimper came from him, the sound vibrating through her nipple, sending another wave of pleasure through her to coil hot and eager deep inside.

He thrust into her, wanting more, pushing the boundaries she’d imposed by grabbing his arms and pinning him to the bed.

Breaking a rule.

Being bad.

And being bad required punishment.

She lifted herself off of the flesh impaling her and heard him groan from the loss, felt his lips clamp onto her nipple and suck, trying to regain what he’d lost.

She completely pulled away and sat straddling his hips, staring down at him and shaking her head. “You’ve been bad. You know it.”

He nodded, expression contrite, but there was a glitter of amusement amid the fire of his garnet lust gaze. Jozef averted his eyes. “Forgive your boy, Mistress Ti.”

Tigress regarded him silently for a moment, then touched his chin with one claw tipped finger. “Give me a good reason why I should.”

He was looking at her now, forced to do so by the touch of her finger, the needle-sharp tip of her claw. She’d never really hurt him, not seriously, but Jozef did have a taste for the sort of pain she inflicted during sex. The type of pain that involved teeth and nails. Biting and clawing one another the way most tygon mates did.

Love bites.

Vampires bit their lovers too.

And she was careful. He wasn’t easy to hurt, vampire as he was and fast to heal, but he felt the wounds and such play could too easily go from the spice of acceptable pain to real agony if the players weren’t careful and misjudged what they were doing.

In her neutral form she couldn’t really do him any lasting or permanent harm.

But in her tygon form, fully changed, she could tear him apart.

Even her between shape could damage him if she wasn’t careful.

Jozef just lay where he was, watching her.

He’s waiting to see what I’m going to do.

So many possibilities, so little time.

She slipped out of the bed and regarded him for a moment before snapping her fingers and pointing to the floor at her feet.

The sound had barely ended before he was there, kneeling, head bowed low, knees spread, back straight.

Sex slave’s posture.

And he looked so pretty sitting that way.

Erect cock fully exposed to her view.

Head lowered.

Submissive.

Hers.

She licked her lips and contemplated what she wanted from him.

What he might want from her.

And she made a decision.

She kept an assortment of special toys in a locked drawer in the platform of her bed. While they didn't have unlimited time, they did have enough time that she could indulge them both with a bit of play.

Rough play.

“Get the key,” she ordered.

Jozef moved quickly, going to the bedside table and opening the small box which contained the magkey. He scrambled back to her feet, resuming the slave’s position, the key held up to her like an offering.

Tigress took the key and went to open the drawer.

There were restraints, sex toys in every shape and size, crops and whips of every description, and lengths of silky colored rope strong enough to bind any Supernatural. She considered her options and chose a crop, a vibrating cock ring with attached tickler, and a set of restraints not even a vampire could break.

Smiling to herself, Tigress turned and shoved the items into Jozef’s field of vision, heard his sharp intake of breath as he saw what she’d chosen. He dared to look up at her, lust burning in his gaze.

“You look like you need to be punished.”

He grinned, lowered his gaze, smirked. “Does Mistress love her boy?”

“Hm… Love? Is that what you think this is?”

“I…” He raised his eyes to regard her briefly, then lowered them and shook his head. “No, Mistress. It’s not love. You don’t love a possession.”

“That’s right.” But she was lying. She did love him. With all her heart she loved him, but it wasn’t something either of them could have. He was a vampire. Bloodfather to a family. She could feel love, want him, and need him, but there couldn’t ever be anything permanent between them. Jozef had his true love, and lost her. And he’d been very honest when they’d started their relationship that he’d have sex with her, but it wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- ever become anything deep or meaningful. He’d never be able to love her or anyone else.

And she’d accepted it.

Had no choice but to accept it now.

Vampires mated for life.

And for them life could be for eternity.

She closed her eyes and tried not to let it hurt, but it did. Worse than any physical pain she’d ever experienced. An ache, a need that Jozef could never fill. One that went all the way to her soul.

Tigress looked at the things he’d given her. They weren’t what she wanted. They weren’t of any interest. Just toys. Little games they sometimes played. She tossed them aside, reached down and grabbed Jozef, threw him to the bed.

He twisted midair to land on hands and knees facing her, his smoldering garnet gaze regarding her from beneath a fall of dark hair. She stood there, eyes regarding his lean body, the sleek form of her vampire lover as he knelt there on the bed, watching her, gaze wary.

He smiled, eyes sparkling, heated by desire. “So that’s what Mistress truly wants, is it?” His cock was hard, ready for her.

She nodded, took a step back from the bed and dropped into a fighting crouch.

Jozef launched himself at her. Vampire speed. Vampire strength.

He was good. But he wasn’t a fighter by nature. A great diplomat and a wonderful bloodsire sure, but a fighter Jozef wasn’t, and that guaranteed her a fast and decisive victory nine times out of ten.

All tygons were fighters. It was part of them, like their ability to shape-shift. And Tigress was among their very best at all types of fighting. Hand to hand, any weapon she’d ever set claws to, even ship to ship few people could match her. It had earned her the sobriquet Queen of Carnage, and when she’d become a ship’s captain, she’d proudly given her ship the nickname her friends had jokingly bestowed on her.

She caught Jozef by an arm, pivoting on the ball of one foot, redirecting his momentum so he wound up back on the bed, sprawled face down. This time she didn’t give him any chance to get up, her shape changing, blurring into her half tygon form, lithe and powerful. She pounced, pinning her vampire lover to the bed. He struggled. Fought to escape. His efforts to gain his freedom made her smile, and press him harder to the yielding mattress as she dominated him with pure strength. Leaning down, she growled softly into his ear, felt him shudder beneath her. The pink tip of her tongue darted out to brush along the nape of his neck and he trembled under her, waiting for the pain of her bite. She licked his neck again, heard him whimper, not with any fear but from the anticipation of what she might do. The kiss of her fangs sinking into flesh.

Both male and female tygons were natural dominants, used to mock fighting for supremacy in bed. No tygon male had ever beaten Tigress.

And Jozef had strong submissive tendencies to start with. His former Truemate had been the dominant partner in their relationship. And their games only reinforced those natural tendencies.

She set teeth to the nape of his neck, bit gently. Teasing, testing his willingness to be fed upon.

This time the shudder that passed through his body was accompanied by a moan, a gasp of anticipatory lust, his body arching beneath her, head turning to the side to offer her better access to his throat.

She had his lust, but she’d never have his love.

But she could enjoy Jozef’s lust for what it could give her: pleasure. Even if it was only for the release of her sexual tensions.

Her body and her love which wouldn’t be returned.

She bit harder, took the flavor of his blood into her mouth. Sweet as honey, spicy as sin itself. Bright as a million suns burning in the evernight of space.

He moaned, and she bit harder, deepening the wound, swallowing the blood that filled her mouth with his life force, tingling down her throat the way only the blood of a vampire did. He gasped as she lapped at the wound, holding him pinned to the bed, helpless as she fed. Jozef trembled beneath her, lost in the sensations her tongue created over his skin as she licked across the wound she’d made. A wound that was trying to heal.

She bit down a second time, drew blood, heard his groan of pleasure, felt the motion of his hips as he sought more sensation from the contact of his cock in the bedcovers.

She swatted his behind in a light admonishment. “If you come now, I’m going to be upset, Jozef,” she said, adding a vocal warning to the smack of her hand.

Tigress got a tormented groan in reply, but the rolling motion of his hips stopped.

“Good boy,” she murmured and licked delicately at the torn skin. Healing again, the wound closed, denying her the sweet taste of his blood.

“You’re addictive,” she whispered and nipped at his ear.

“And you aren’t?”

She laughed, the sound closer to a purr as she swept her tongue over the curve of his ear, then nipped it again. “I suppose I might be at that,” she agreed and lowered her head dip her tongue into his ear, feeling him shudder, hearing the little moan he gave. So sexy. So hot.

She turned him over, claimed his mouth in a heated kiss, her tongue sliding between yielding lips, touching and tasting the interior of his mouth. Sweet spice. The lure of a vampire meant to draw a Human into his bed, meant to lull unsuspecting prey.

She was neither Human nor prey. The taste of him serving to inflame her own needs to a feverish pitch.

Growling, she changed her controlling grip on his arms, not so much freeing him as getting ready for what came next, their bodies joined in a primeval dance old as time itself.

Tigress broke the kiss, stared down at her lover. His gaze burned with the fires of lust, his body quivering beneath her, wanting her, needing what she could give him -- his release.

“Are you mine?”

“Yes,” he replied without an instant of hesitation.

“Good.” She flipped him onto his back and dropped onto his erect cock faster than she’d have brought down a goldhorn buck on her home world.

The fast entry of his hard flesh into her pulled a purr of total contentment from Tigress. “So good,” she said as his cock struck deep, her thighs relaxing as she stopped and savored the sensation of being filled by his hardness.

Jozef groaned as she sank claws into his skin, tearing his flesh, adding the kiss of relished pain to the slip-slide pleasure of his cock inside her trembling cunt. It enfolded him, drew on his erection, demanding his surrender.

Tygon female. Vampire male. Two different species, yet they were lovers, their bodies fit together with exquisite perfection. Hard cock, slick cunt, they were made to be lovers.

He had no illusions about himself and made no effort to escape from the truth -- he was hers.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

If only we could be Truemates. If only we could truly belong to one another the way I long to truly be hers, not just my body, but my soul as well.

He rocked his hips, driving his aching flesh deeper, hearing her half growl, half purring response as he sank his teeth into her shoulder, a pitiful imitation of a tygon male’s love bite. His jaws just didn’t have the power needed, nor were his vampire canines big enough to actually do her any damage. Not that it really mattered. She reacted, rocking her hips harder and faster, taking him deeper into her incredibly hot core.

His cock felt as if it were burning. Wrapped in wet flame that sent such ecstasy through him he could barely contain himself, body ready to come. Mind heading toward the whiteout numbness of orgasm he’d experienced only with her.

“Jozef.” How she managed to purr his name he didn’t know, didn’t really care. Just hearing it from her, feeling the softness of her fur, the sleekness of muscle beneath as he thrust into the heat of her cunt brought an answering sound, a soft growl of pleasure from him.

He felt the heat building inside him. Felt the tension as his body rose on the powerful sensations, the pulse of her flesh encasing his, the wet clench of her cunt around him.

Body and mind reaching, straining for completion that erupted through every fiber of his being, blinding him in a red glow, tearing his reality asunder.

“Mistress!” The helpless scream tore from him as his flesh surrendered to his Tigress, his hips arching up with the eruption of his semen into her body. He sobbed, shuddered as she bent down to kiss him, to lick bloodsalt tears from the corners of his eyes.

Wrapping him in her arms she held him close, stroked his back while the echoes of pleasure coursed through him. Spent. Drained. Jozef lay there while his racing heart filled with a simmering heat, and leaden numbness claimed his extremities.

It had been this way with his lost Eleanor.

Total submission leading to intense pleasure.

But it wasn’t the same. Could never be the same.

Yet the warmth heating his dead heart remained.

Just as it had with Eleanor.

He had to be imagining it, there was no other explanation. Love never came twice to any vampire. Love was once, for all eternity. And he’d loved Eleanor so he couldn’t be in love with Tigress.

Could he?

He heard her sigh, felt her pull away.

“You’d better get dressed. You’ve got a meeting to attend.”

The loss of her touch made him want to crawl back into her embrace like a wounded child seeking comfort. He refrained and the warmth in his chest began to fade.

No, he didn’t love her. He didn’t know what it was exactly that he felt for Tigress, a sort of intense lust perhaps, but not love.

Love was for Eleanor.

For a vampire lover long dead.

“You’re right,” he agreed, the words tasting like bitter ash because it wasn’t Tigress he’d answered, but his own thoughts.

Jozef pulled on the severe formality of his princely garments, face twisting with the annoyance he felt over the restrictive clothing. The tight military styling of the pants and tunic were bad enough, but the gold piping and braid turned the uniform from stark functionality into gaudy idiocy.

But that was what the Humans from Central Command expected a diplomat to look like, and any attempts to dress in less ornate and annoying garments always met with such contempt that the members of the Alliance had adopted the clothing for their meetings with the Human delegates rather than listen to them bitching about talking to “peons” instead of leaders.

As far as he was concerned, he would gleefully have told the Humans to go fuck themselves and dressed as he pleased. But he’d been asked to exert restraint and show the Humans more courtesy than the Humans had ever shown their kind.

Tigress wrapped her arms around him. “What a pretty package. It makes me want to unwrap it to see what’s inside.”

“Does it?”

The hand that cupped his groin and rubbed him slowly was more than a sufficient answer. Her warm lips touched the side of his neck, the tip of her tongue sliding along the line of his jaw, tasting, teasing.

“I’m going to be late for the meeting.”

“And whose fault is that?” she asked in a soft, silken purr of sound that turned his mind to mush and left him leaning into her embrace as she teased him with a clever hand. Teeth caught skin, drew a few droplets of blood, and he groaned.

A hand smacked his ass and he was shoved toward the door. “You’re going to be late if you don’t hurry, Jozef.” He could hear the amusement in her tone, see it sparkling in her eyes.

“Bitch.”

“Me? A bitch?” She made a show of touching herself, running her hands over her breasts and belly, touching her mound, feigning shock.

“Yes, you.”

She shook her head, “Wrong species, lover. I’m a pussy, not a bitch.” She smirked, barely able to contain her laughter.

He slipped his arms around her, ran his fingers along her soft-furred flanks, gripping her sleek feline ass. “And what a pretty pussy you are too,” he murmured as she burst out into laughter and shoved him toward the door. He grinned as she changed from her half tygon back to her furless state. Furless but for the golden crown of her mane, and a crisp triangle of gold curls between her creamy thighs.

He licked his lips thinking of her taste.

“Get going or you will be late,” she admonished and made a shooing motion. “Can’t have the Humans complaining now, can we?”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care what they think, but” -- he shrugged -- “if what we’re hearing about these aliens is true, we’re going to need their help.”

She pounced on him, taking him off his feet by sweeping him into her embrace. He felt a bit like unwary prey as her mouth closed over his in a hungry, possessive kiss, her arms tightening almost painfully around him. He returned the kiss, hungry for her, his own arms tight around her.

Her eyes were blazing, hot and full of desire when the kiss ended.

“Get out of here.”

“You keep telling me to go, but your actions beg me to stay.”

“I never beg,” she retorted and shoved him toward the door again.

“Not in so many words, but,” he winked and backed toward the door, “your body gives you away.”

“I’ll give you something, if you don’t get out.”

He licked his lips. “I’m going to make you keep that promise later.”

She picked up a pillow. “Don’t make me use this,” she warned.

“Ooh, getting rough now, are you?”

She shook her head, smiling as she raised the pillow, ready to throw it at him. “You’re going to miss the dropship planetside.”

“They won’t leave without me, since it’s my crew flying it, and they don’t have a reason to leave if I’m not on board.”

“Are you going? I’m really not afraid to use this, you know,” she said and shook the pillow.

“Going.” He opened the door, spun on the ball of his foot, blew her a kiss, and darted out, the pillow she’d threatened him with smacking the door as he shut it.

Still smiling, the glow of emotion that was Tigress filling his heart, he headed for the dropship and the meeting with the representatives of Central Command.

Chapter Two

Tigress sighed and watched the main view screen of her battle cruiser as a cluster of Central Command ships -- blockish and awkward things compared to the sleek lines of her Queen of Carnage -- orbited Nevanar. The sight was odd and somewhat distressing.

A Human ship orbiting Nevanar.

If someone had suggested it to her even three days ago she would have laughed at the idea.

But she wasn’t laughing now.

“Why do they still have to be so boneheaded?” her werecougar navigator, Trey, asked.

“The Humans?” the vampire gunnery chief questioned.

“Yes, the Humans.”

“Centuries of fear and their ingrained hatred of anything different is hard to overcome,” the gunnery chief replied.

“They sort of give me the creeps,” the slender werefox who was the assistant navigator remarked. “And I sort of feel sorry for them, too, stuck in one form their whole lives. It must be awful.”

The gunnery chief grinned, showing the single slender canines of a made rather than a born vampire. “It’s not so bad, really, Mariel.”

“Better you than me,” Trey remarked, his green-gold eyes glittering in good humor.

Done reading her daily ship’s status report, Tigress tucked her datacomp back into its holder in the arm of her seat and joined the conversation. “They don’t all hate us, but their government is so controlling, the Humans who want things to change are too scared to speak up, much less take action,” Tigress informed them. While she’d never met any of the Humans involved in the efforts to overthrow the totalitarian government in charge of their species, she’d met a few vampires who had.

“There was that one group of Humans who defected with that cargo ship a couple of years ago. I think they’re living on Blood now,” a voice said from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and found her second in command, a burly werebear. He rested his large hands on the back of her chair.

“Morning, Garret.”

“Morning, Tigress. I see the topic of conversation up here is the same as it is all over the ship.”

“That’s to be expected, don’t you think?” she asked. “I mean how often do we deliberately let the Humans come into Alliance space?”

“Deliberately? This is the second time I’m aware of, but that first time was just so they could tow some damaged ships home after the Blood Border Conflict ten years ago.”

“Very different circumstance, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“So what do you think of this alien threat, Garret?”

“It’s hard to say, Captain. It could be real, but it might also be a ruse to get us to let our guard down.”

“Oh, it’s real enough,” the gunnery chief said. “We’ve gotten confirmation of unknown types of ships out there, but they haven’t engaged in any hostilities. Not with us anyway.”

“Really?” Garret frowned. “When did this happen?”

Tigress removed the datacomp from her chair and passed it to him. “Time relative, it was yesterday not too far from Darkside.”

“Darkside? That’s in our space.”

“It is,” she agreed as he looked at the datacomp.

“And they made no attack on our ship?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Odd, since the Humans have said these Murraah have attacked every one of their ships they’ve come across.”

“Which leaves me to wonder why,” Tigress added as she turned her head to look at him.

“My thoughts exactly,” Garret said in agreement. “If they didn’t fire on our ships, why shoot at the Humans?”

Tigress snorted. “Do we really need to guess why?’

“No, probably not, considering Humans are a very phobic race, and they tend to overreact to anything they perceive might be a ‘threat’ to them whether it is or not.”

“Very true, and that even extends to their own people,” Tigress stated.

“I heard that a group of Humans tried to oppose their government a few months ago,” the communications specialist remarked. “But I also heard they were executed as traitors to the species.”

“Probably just rumors,” Trey countered. “You know we hear stuff like that all the time but there’s never any proof.”

“Actually,” Tigress began, “there have been rebellions and executions. Central Command doesn’t allow any dissent to their policies, especially from their own people. When it’s us they can just say, ‘Well what do you expect of animals and such unholy things?’ but with their own people it’s different. They have to make an example of them.”

“They’re still ruling their own people by the steel talons of fear. How barbaric. And they call themselves civilized and name us beasts,” her tygon tech chief remarked.

“That’s very true, Blackmane,” she agreed.

“If they hate us so much, why come here and ask for our help against these Murraah?” the comm specialist asked.

“I’d guess it’s because their fear of the aliens is greater than their hatred of us,” Tigress replied.

“So they’re willing to call a truce in order to get our help to kill a new enemy?” the navigator asked.

“That’s right,” Tigress agreed. A small boxy dropship detached itself from one of the Human ships and headed for the surface of the planet.

Those will be the delegates from Central Command. Poor Jozef. He’s going to be stuck talking to those idiots for the rest of the day. She really did feel sorry for her lover. Having gotten into an argument with the captain of a Central Command mining ship over the Human’s right to be in Alliance space, she felt his pain. Talking to that man had been one of the most frustrating things she’d ever done. He’d clearly been out of his sector and well inside Alliance space, but he’d continued to insist that no animal was capable of actually understanding the complexities of navigation much less pinpoint their location within space.

The argument had gone on for three hours and ended with her firing several warning shots -- one of which had burned off a section of hull -- before he relented and headed for the nearest mutual border with the Queen of Carnage escorting him out of Alliance space.

For Jozef’s sake, she hoped the meeting didn’t disintegrate into a conflict.

But the one thing she’d learned in her decade of commanding the Queen of Carnage was that Humans loved arguments. They also loved conflict.

She sighed. Some things just never changed.

* * * * *

The meeting had gone about as badly as Jozef had expected, with the Human diplomats from their despised Central Command and the representatives of the worlds in the Supernatural Alliance ending in a shouting match.

The Alliance members had departed the Hall angrily, going their separate ways. Jozef and three of his bloodkin acting as his bodyguards -- not that he felt he really needed such protection -- were making their way to the dropship from the Queen of Carnage.

“Why did they bother to come here anyway?” Jeoff, the taller of the three, asked. “It’s not as if they made any real effort to gain our help.”

“Who knows? Humans don’t make any sense,” Lyllee replied in disgust.

“You’re right. Why come all this way just to pick a fight?” Ezander asked. The smallest of the three, he was also Jozef’s feeder, the one he took sustenance from when he needed it. But with Tigress and her potent tygon blood feeding him, he seldom required Ezander anymore. A fact that the young bloodkin seemed to regret, and if the looks he gave Jozef were any indication, it might just be better in the long run. He didn’t need the complication of a feeder falling in love with him. Not when a certain tygon captain was so intent on having him to herself at every opportunity.

Now if I could just convince her to play nice…

But there wasn’t much chance of that.

Jozef led them down a side passage that he usually took to the landing pad where the dropship waited for him. It wasn’t used by most people as it traversed a storage bay, but it cut considerable distance from the walk and meant less chance of encountering the despised Humans.

The four of them were just reaching the middle of the storage area when Jozef threw out his arms and stopped his bloodkin. Head lifted, he drew the air in through his nose, lips parted, tasting an odd, familiar scent.

Cologne.

But not one any vampire would wear. Sickly sweet. Cloying.

His nose wrinkled at the smell.

“What is it?” Jeoff asked.

Motion from the corner of his eye.

Fast as vampire thought, Jozef shoved all three of his bloodkin toward the cover of some crates as a wash of bright light, loud sound, and a hail of bullets -- silver, the metal stinging his flesh but incapable of doing him much more than passing harm -- struck him.

Bullets of any kind could be lethal to bloodkin.

And the light that washed across his back burned like fire.

Sunguns. Dark Lady preserve us! They’ve brought sunguns down here.

Sunguns. Vampire killers. The Humans had them on a low setting. It hurt the way a sunburn hurt a Human. But set higher they were lethal.

And a horrible way to die.

The sunguns were outlawed weapons on both Nevanar and Blood, but Humans never followed the rules.

Lyllee cried out, staggering as Jozef bodily threw her behind the nearest crate. He spun to face the humans as Jeoff and Ezander, still vulnerable and out in the open, drew their sidearms and opened fire. Jozef moved into the line of fire, feeling more bullets rip into his body, tasting the pain of the sungun’s ultraviolet rays as it washed over his back a second time. The light seeping through the bullet holes made his flesh smoke and sizzle.

Gritting his teeth against the cry of agony tightening his throat, he shoved at the pair of bloodkin. “Move, damn it!”

More bullets hit him, and Jozef snarled, using his greater than mortal strength to push his bodyguards behind cover, the three of them gaining shelter behind the cargo crate where Lyllee sat bleeding from a chest wound.

She smiled at Jozef. “Some bodyguard,” she whispered, blood staining her teeth.

He crouched as Jeoff and Ezander fired another volley of bullets at the Humans.

“Is it mortal?” he asked her.

She nodded, face sad, eyes full of hope. “Yeah.”

“Shit,” he muttered and put his mouth over the wound. Her blood tasted bitter with the flavor of pain, adrenaline, and fear. It choked him, but he swallowed, taking the fading life, accepting her death. Preparing to give her another kind of life. Life eternal. Everlasting. She wrapped an arm around him, and he felt her caressing his hair as a barrage of noise -- shouting and more gunfire -- erupted around them.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to make this the pleasant experience it should be for you, Lyllee,” he apologized.

“It’s enough that I’ll be changed by you, our bloodsire, Jozef.”

He took the blood, sucked hard enough to pull the bullet out, and spit.

Her face was deathly white, eyes glazing.

“We can’t hold them, Jozef,” Ezander informed him, handsome face set in a grim line that brought Jozef’s anger up several notches. Attacking them was inexcusable. Forcing him to take Lyllee’s mortal life was unforgivable.

And they were going to pay dearly for both. The Supernatural Alliance would never give them assistance after something like this.

“Call Nevanar security for help.”

“They’re jamming the signal,” Jeoff told him.

Lyllee’s heartbeat had slowed to the point where even he had trouble detecting it. Jozef snarled and bit into his wrist, pressing it to Lyllee’s lips, trying to save her.

“Try again,” he ordered as her lips clamped to the wound he’d made in his own flesh.

“You’re surrounded. You might as well give up or we will kill all of you,” a Human shouted.

“Go to hell,” Jeoff shouted back.

“Have you ever seen what happens when one of your precious demons burns?”

“He’s not a demon! He’s our Bloodfather,” Ezander yelled.

“Fool. Your kind will never learn!” one of the Humans bellowed in response.

“Neither will yours!” Jeoff countered as he reloaded his pistol.

Jozef closed his eyes as Lyllee fed, the power of the Changing flowing from him to her. Vampire magic. He could smell her death, a sharp odor like burned spices pouring from her skin, and the beginning of the physical transformation that turned mortal to vampire, or in this case, Bloodkin to vampire. He shuddered.

How many times had he done this? How many times had he performed the Changing to save someone from dying at the hands of Humans?

He didn’t even know anymore.

“They’re coming in!” Ezander told him, voice strident with fear. “And they’ve got sunguns.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve already been hit.”

Ezander’s deep green eyes regarded him with horror. He gently touched Jozef’s shoulder. “How bad?”

“They were set to cause pain, not kill. I’m all right. My clothing protected me to some degree.”

“They don’t want to kill you, Jozef,” Jeoff warned him in a quiet, sorrowful voice. “They want to take you alive for some reason. Why I don’t know.”

Jeoff put into words what Jozef had already suspected. This wasn’t some random attack. It was planned, arranged, carefully set up to capture him, because none of the other Princes of the Blood would come this way. The Humans couldn’t have known what route they would take to the dropship, yet here they were, the jaws of the well-laid trap closing around them.

And that implied a traitor among their own people.

Or among his.

He turned sorrowful eyes on Ezander and Jeoff.

Could it be one of them? Would they betray me like this?

He closed his eyes, knowing that Ezander would sooner die than betray him. Ezander loved him too much to turn traitor.

And Jeoff’s loyalty was unquestionable. He’d sworn the Great Oath, partaken of Jozef’s blood, and was just a few steps away from being vampire himself.

“Stupid, stupid fools,” Jozef muttered, looking from the pair of them to the fragile vampire becoming in his arms. Even he didn’t know if he meant himself and his guards or the Humans coming for them.

Jozef bowed his head. Held Lyllee. She was changing, but she was so vulnerable.

And sunguns were an agonizing way to die.

He knew. He’d felt their full power once, long ago.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to Lyllee. “This shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t have been like this. I shouldn’t have to do this.” Tears filled his eyes.

Her dark eyes opened, the faint tinge of red around the iris showing that she had started to change. “I’m…sorry too.” She managed to force the words out, despite the lassitude that the Changing brought about.

He touched her face, caressed her soft cheek. “You’ve left me no choice, Lyllee. We have few sins among our kind, but you broke one of the greatest ones. Thou shalt not betray your own kind.”

She gave him a wan smile. She closed her eyes and lay her head back, baring her throat. “I confess my sin.” She sighed and reached for him.

He bent and set his teeth into her, drinking her fading mortal life, draining the magic that would have turned her from mortal to vampire.

Traitors were never allowed to live, not even if they regretted their actions. She’d betrayed him, betrayed her own kind, and been killed by the ones who’d gained her loyalty.

Another betrayal.

He rose from the corpse of one of his family, his bloodkin who’d turned on him, with rage blazing in his soul.

“Murderous bastards! This is why you’ll never have our help! Never!” he roared. “The aliens can have you; you’ll never get our help. Never.”

“And when the aliens come to kill you, what then?” a Human retorted.

“We’ll stand and fight, but you won’t be around to see it.”

He heard laughter, cold and cruel.

“What do we do?” Ezander questioned in a whisper.

“Get our Prince out of here is what we do,” Jeoff replied just as quietly.

“No. I won’t leave either of you to die for me.”

“That’s what we’re here for.”

He clenched his fists, closed his eyes. “No. We’ll stand and fight together.”

“And die together, my Prince?” Ezander asked. “You know we can’t allow that. You’re the father of our blood. We’ve already lost our mother.”

He put an arm around both of them, leaned into the contact. “I won’t run. Not this time.”

They didn’t respond.

The Humans were moving. Closing in.

There were a dozen of them. More than enough to kill his bloodkin. And with the sunguns, there were more than enough to burn him to ash.

So be it.

But he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Surrender and no one will be hurt,” A Human shouted

Jozef laughed, the sound bitter. Even if he couldn’t scent the lie in the air, he knew what liars Humans were. They’d come talking about peace, begging help to fight aliens with their mouths full of promises and their hearts full of deception.

“Liars!” Jeoff told them angrily.

“No one hurt? You’ve murdered my Lyllee,” Jozef shot back in reply.

“An unfortunate error only. We promise --”

“You promise and every promise you give is a lie!” Jozef snarled. “Make no promises. Tell us no more lies.”

“We came seeking help against the Murraah and instead of help we got --”

“What you deserve! We aren’t your subjects, and we won’t be treated like second-rate citizens of your government. And we aren’t your slaves nor will we ever be!”

The Humans were getting closer.

Soldiers. Men who hadn’t been at the meeting.

And a few delegates who had. Major Orl, stocky and dark with an ugly burn scar covering one side of his face, pulling his mouth down in a perpetual frown. A woman he thought was a military aide of some type, and Adjunct Commander Devemark, who stayed toward the back of the advancing men and women. Tall and gaunt, with sharp face that reminded Jozef of an old battleaxe he’d once seen, Devemark was the senior officer of Central Command present.

He motioned his bloodkin to move behind him, trying to protect them, knowing they stood little chance of escape even if he sacrificed his own existence to save them.

“Go back to your worlds and fight these Murraah as you will; you’ll get no help from us now. You’ve made sure of that.”

“Wait, perhaps we were hasty,” the tall, very gaunt Adjunct Commander Devemark said.

“Yes, we’ve been hasty,” Major Orl added.

“Run. Find help,” he murmured to his bloodkin.

“Jozef,” Ezander murmured in protest, “we can’t do --”

“You can and you will!” he growled at them. “Find help. Get to a comm. Go!”

“But --” Ezander started to say, but Jeoff grabbed his arm and the pair ran.

Howling darkness burst from Jozef’s hands, sweeping over the Humans who were in the open. Amid the darkness, dim shapes flitted. The Dark Lady’s Children.

The Humans shrieked, bullets tore at the crate that Jozef stood behind, and the searing blaze of the sungun washed the area in light, making Jozef gasp from the pain. Indirect contact, but his skin blistered across his cheeks and forehead.

Humans screamed in terror as the Children claimed lives through the fear they instilled.

But they wouldn’t last long. Not under the lash of the sunguns.

Farther down the bay, the pair of bloodkin reached the exit and went out, the doors starting to close behind them, leaving Jozef alone with the remaining Humans.

The roar of gunfire, and a cry of pain burned deep into Jozef’s heart, more painful than the kiss of the sungun’s rays where their indirect light had touched his flesh.

There wouldn’t be any help coming. He knew that because the last shout had been Ezander saying, “I love you.”

Tears blurred his vision, and dread turned his blood to ice.

He would die here.

He’d told them to go, and now they were dead.

And in a few moments he would die too.

“Tigress,” he whispered his lover’s name. Wished he could see her once more. Hold her one more time. Kiss her. Love her.

He dared a glance from behind the protection of the crate and found the Humans exchanging a pleased look.

A sharp chill, like icy fangs brushing his soul, ran down Jozef’s spine.

“Your sort never learn, do they?” the adjunct commander asked.

“Meaning?”

“We never beg for what we need. We take it.”

They were closing in on him. He scrambled for another place to hide.

“Surrender,” Orl demanded. Close. Too close.

“Yes,” the adjunct commander added, “it will all go so much easier for you if you just come peacefully. If not, well, we can always burn a leg off.”

“Bastards!” he snarled and got to his feet. There were three sunguns leveled on him. One could be fatal. Three were instant death.

Impotent fury filled Jozef as he backed away from the men closing in on him.

“So this was nothing but a trick to get at me?”

“Oh, no, the threat of the Muurrah is real. But we’ve chosen to take this opportunity to do what we can to ensure our survival,” Adjunct Commander Devemark informed as he brushed imaginary lint from his sleeve.

Jozef’s mouth twisted in a snarl as his spine touched a stack of shipping containers. There was nowhere left to run. He snarled, one hand closing into a fist, the other curving into a claw shape, the nails growing slightly as he prepared to fight for his freedom.

“If you fight, you’ll die,” a Human warned.

“What a pity that would be,” Major Orl added with a mocking smile to match his tone.

“What can you possibly hope to gain?” Jozef demanded, stalling, praying to the Dark Lady to either send him help or let him die now. If Central Command took him, he knew what his fate would be.

Chemically altered. Mentally brainwashed into being nothing but a mindless automaton obedient to their will.

And the Dark Lady alone knew what heinous things they’d do, or have him do to further whatever scheme they were trying to set into motion.

“Why, we’ll gain a hoard of virtually unstoppable killing machines. Willing combatants who will kill our mutual enemy for taking you.”

“Kidnapping me won’t give you a key to my people.”

The adjunct commander laughed. “Perhaps not. But at the very least it will gain us a ship full of beasts ready to take on the aliens for revenge, won’t it?”

He glared at them. They were after Tigress and her crew. But one ship against so many aliens wouldn’t stand a chance.

And they were making a serious mistake if they thought she’d go running blindly off after the aliens without making sure of the situation first. She might be hot tempered, but she was far from a fool.

He tensed, ready to fight, to make an effort to escape the Humans closing in on him. The odds were bad. Seven to one even if the one was a vampire wasn’t good. And the sunguns more than leveled the playing field. He wasn’t much of a fighter and he regretted not letting Tigress teach him. If he could break free, there wasn’t a Human alive who could catch him.

But the sunguns’ deadly light could cut him apart and turn what remained to ash.

“Bring him!” snapped out Adjunct Commander Devemark.

Better to fight and die.

He lunged for them. “I won’t be your pawn!” Jozef snarled, going for the nearest Human.

Major Orl was fumbling for something in his pocket as Jozef slammed his fist into the man’s chest. Blood bubbled from the man’s mouth as he went to his knees, the Prince of the Blood striking him a second time. The Human went down in a wash of blood. Jozef didn’t even pause in his effort to break free of the group of Humans. He wanted free of their trap, nothing more -- not yet anyway. He took three steps, gaining speed with each one. Seeing the closed doors and safety beckoning to him at the far end of the bay, he focused, summoning up vampiric abilities he seldom used these days, safe among his own kind.

Burning pain lanced through his side, back, and right thigh. He spun, ready to confront the Humans, to find that three of them were carrying small devices, guns of some sort. They hadn’t used the sunguns, which meant that they wanted him alive. A pair of tiny darts sank into his flesh, but not before he’d reached the adjunct commander. His fingers dug into the man’s throat, ready to tear it out with the talons that sprang from the tips of his fingers.

He snarled, tried to rip flesh. Failed, his mind no longer able to force his hand to obey.

The vampire felt the powerful drug wrapping around his mind, taking control of him. He tried to kill Devemark, but his motions were clumsy, his body not responding. Snarling at the Human, Jozef felt Devemark shove him aside, a look of contempt on his face.

At the last instant, Jozef tried to reach out to his beloved Tigress, tried to touch her mind, to beg for her help.

Stupid, stupid, he told himself, ruing his failure to think of his lover before the drug had gained such a hold on him.

Too late.

If he’d thought of crying out to her mentally before the drug had a chance to work or if he’d called her when the trap had been sprung, she might have arrived in time to save Jeoff and Ezander. Might have arrived to save him from his own foolishness and the deceitfulness of the Humans.

But the drug had wound around his mind, smothering his vampiric abilities the way it was designed to do, leaving him vulnerable, helpless, and unable to call for help, much less defend himself. He couldn’t even reach his Tigress and say a final farewell.

Jozef went to his knees as the powerful drug took away his ability to move and then pulled him into velvet darkness.

Chapter Three

“He’s gone! We can’t find him anywhere!”

“Gone!” Tigress roared the word, glaring at the woman who was bloodkin to Jozef’s vampire family. “What do you mean, he’s gone! Gone where? How?”

The woman visibly flinched, taking a step away, her face paling as the sharp tang of fear rose from her skin.

Tigress took a deep breath, let it out in a whoosh, and inhaled a second time, trying to calm down. Her tygon side was rising to the surface, the base of her spine aching where a tail was threatening to erupt and lash in pent up rage. Her hands tingled, golden fur ripping over their backs, and sharp claws appeared where fingernails had been not a moment before.

She’d nearly scared the piss out of the female bloodkin; the woman was trembling. She probably thinks she’s about to be eviscerated at the very least. She’s probably not used to hearing a tygon’s roar, but then few vampire bloodkin are.

Be calm, and don’t take this out on her.

But it was hard to be calm when she’d just lost the one person she loved -- somehow.

Tigress cleared her throat and lowered her voice to a quieter volume, though her worried tone remained. “What do you mean Jozef is missing?”

“Just what I said. He’s not in the Hall, or anywhere in the building. He never arrived at the dropship for the Queen, either.” The woman frowned. “And they found that Human, Major Orl, dead in a cargo container. There were also other dead Humans found in another cargo container. They’ve been shot.”

“The way you say that tells me Major Orl didn’t die of a gunshot wound.”

Jozef’s bloodkin shook her head. “No, he was killed by Jozef. I’m sure of that.”

She caught her breath at that particular bit of information. It might hold a clue to where Jozef had gone.

Gone? He wouldn’t just leave. Not without telling me where he was going. No, there’s something not right going on here. Something underhanded and sneaky. Dead humans, one killed by Jozef, can only mean he was attacked.

“What about his bodyguards?”

“We found Lyllee dead. She was stuffed inside a packing crate.”

“Jeoff and Ezander?”

“No trace of them, but we’ve found blood in an adjacent cargo bay. We’re pretty sure they’re dead; we just can’t find their bodies.”

And everything was adding up to something Tigress didn’t want to believe was true. If the Humans had Jozef…

“The Humans told us that they saw some of the aliens. Do you think the aliens took him?” Jozef’s bloodkin asked.

Tigress frowned. “The aliens? How? They’d have to get a ship close enough, and we would have noticed them.”

“The Humans were pretty convincing. They mentioned that the aliens might have some way to hide their ships from detection by scanners.”

“They did?” Her suspicions were roused by the information on many levels. It was too convenient. And it also made no coherent sense. Why would the aliens take Jozef? Yes, he was a Prince of the Blood, but he was hardly the most influential member of the Alliance Council.

And if they couldn’t find the alien ships, how would the Humans have done so? Their scanning equipment was purely mechanical and electronic in nature. Their ships didn’t include any telempaths able to sense the presence of other life forms.

A soft growl rumbled in her chest, and she had to fight the urge to shift to her tygon form. It wouldn’t help the situation, since she couldn’t articulate proper speech in that shape. Not any speech this female bloodkin of Jozef’s could understand.

“Show me this dead Major Orl.”

The bloodkin led her to where the Human’s body had been hidden. There were several bloodkin of differing families gathered around. A pair of actual vampires were examining the corpse. Both of the male vampires were familiar, but in her upset state she couldn’t remember either of their names.

She peered into the storage closet. “Any idea how he died?”

“His heart was stopped by a powerful blow to the chest that shattered his sternum,” the younger of the pair replied.

“Someone went to the trouble of trying to conceal that fact,” the older vampire told her in a thickly accented voice. Old Earth blood. She could tell by his accent. None of the newer vampires had ever spoken anything but the lingua franca of the Alliance: a melding of several older languages spoken by the vampire clans who’d founded Blood and Nevanar several centuries ago, before the Humans even made it into this quadrant of space.

“Heinrick is right,” the younger vampire agreed. “He was killed by one of our kind, probably Jozef, and someone else went to a lot of trouble to cover up that fact.”

“Why in hell would they do that?” Tigress wanted to know.

“Indeed, why?” Heinrick remarked as he rose gracefully to regard Tigress. He was sharper featured than any Human, the mark of old aristocracy among those of the Blood.

She frowned. “Only one reason. To cover up who actually kidnapped Jozef.”

“Humans.” The old vampire spat it out like a curse, which, to an old one like him, it likely was.

She remembered seeing the Central Command dropship lift off and return to their starcruiser. Her eyes narrowed, and she snarled. Their abrupt departure after the conclusion of the meeting made sense now.

“Those bastards took him when they left!”

“Do you think so?” one of the bloodkin asked, eyes widening with shock. “I mean they came here to discuss the alien threat. Why take him?”

Rage enfolded her, bringing her other side to the surface. Claws erupted from the ends of her fingers, fur bristling along her shoulders as she slipped into her mid-form, part tygon, part human in appearance. She crouched down beside the dead man and studied the gunshot that the humans had used to try to hide the evidence of her lover’s killing blow.

“They wanted an assurance we’d help them,” she snarled in reply. “They wanted to make sure we’d cooperate.”

Heinrick frowned. “Ah, yes, typical Human tactic. Grab a hostage and leverage your enemies with threats to murder the hostage. I’d thought they’d grown out of such childishness.” He sighed. “Sadly, my hope for their evolving racial maturity has been proven groundless.”

“We never learn, do we?” the younger vampire remarked.

“Apparently not. We were willing to give them another chance, and yet again they’ve betrayed our trust.”

Tigress stood there listening to the others talk while the anger and pain of losing Jozef, of having him taken right out from under her proverbial nose burned through her, the acid of fury eating away at her mind and heart.

“They must have done something to him or there would be more dead,” the female bloodkin remarked.

“Drugs. There are drugs they have that can bring even one of us down,” the younger vampire stated with a shudder, horror in his eyes.

They all knew about the drugs. It was how the Humans had changed their kind -- hers and theirs -- into mindless slaves.

“I don’t know what they think they’re doing, but they’re going to pay for this. No one takes what’s mine!” Tigress snarled.

Heinrick’s eyes blazed like captive hellfire, an unseen wind whipping his clothing as his own anger rose. “Ja. She’s right. Go and get our Jozef back, Tigress. As First of the Council, you have my permission to use whatever means you deem necessary.”

Their gazes locked.

“Whatever means,” Heinrick repeated.

“If they don’t give him back, I’ll leave smoking ruins where Central Command used to stand,” she said, and coming from Tigress, it was a promise.

“Whatever it takes, Tigress. I’ll give orders for the fleet to follow your lead.”

“Thank you, First Councilor.”

“See that you bring him home.”

She nodded curtly. “I will.”

Spinning on her toes, she stalked off, her mind tapping into the thoughtcomm -- commonly called a t-comm -- that gave her an instantaneous link to her comm specialist aboard the Queen of Carnage. “Jozef has been taken by the Humans. I want the ship ready and waiting to leave system the instant I step aboard.”

“Yes, Captain. I’ll send the message.”

Tigress reached her dropship; the rest of her crew who’d come planetside were already aboard. They lifted to the Queen, and Tigress headed directly for the command center of her ship. She’d barely sat her behind into her seat when the navigator announced they were ready to leave the system, and her comm specialist stated that he had an incoming transmission showing the Humans loading an unresisting Jozef aboard their dropship.

Rage reignited in her heart, burning all the way to her soul.

If they killed him…but, no, she wouldn’t think about that possibility. She would rescue him.

She had to, because without him her life would be empty. Devoid of joy.

Devoid of love.

“I want this ship in sliptime, and I want it there now!”

“Yes, Captain. Preparing for sliptime,” her navigator replied.

They would hurry, but the Humans had a lead on them. However, even an hour’s difference could translate to several days once a ship reached full sliptime speed.

“Ship prepared. What course should I set?”

“All forward, chart to the Human world of Central Command.”

“All forward and target destination locked. Sliptime entry in five, four, three, two…”

The last word didn’t reach her ears as the ship started to distort, the entire thing melting from her sight as they left normal space and time behind.

Part Two

Chapter Four

Reality twisted, time parting for the ship as they passed into sliptime, no longer part of the here and now, moving between what if and never, wrapped in a rainbow of twisting sound, shattered light, nothingness, and everything.

Queen of Carnage rushed toward Human space, Central Command, and Jozef.

Please let us get there in time.

Time…

Consciousness faded, then resurfaced amid a roiling scream of returning solidity as Queen of Carnage returned to normal space. Reality healed, restored.

“All right,” Tigress snarled. “Let’s find those bastards that took my boy.”

“All systems clear,” her navigator stated.

“Prep for battle. All hands to battle stations,” she ordered.

The comm specialist keyed up the alert that flashed an infrared light through every part of the ship in a silent visual clue for the Supernatural crew. They didn’t need blaring alarms that might disorient some and deafen others, not when visual clues were enough.

“Ship’s guns at the ready.”

The gunnery chief touched the pad before him and brought all ship’s weapons systems online. “Guns arming. Ready to fire in five, four, three, two, one. Ready to fire at will.”

“Time until we’re in range?”

“Forty seconds.”

“Any sign that the ship that left Nevanar has come here?”

“Yes, we have a clear ionization trail. It matches the Human ship that departed from Nevanar.”

“How old?”

“One day relative time to Nevanar departure.”

One day. She fought the urge to snarl.

“Incoming message.”

“Let’s hear it. Audio only, please.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“…turn back or be fired upon. Supernatural Alliance ship, this is the Human vessel Goliath, repeating our warning. We request that you turn back or be fired upon.”

“Message to Goliath.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Goliath, this is the Supernatural Alliance cruiser, Queen of Carnage. Request that you stand down and permit us to trace kidnapped Prince of the Blood, Jozef. Failure to permit us to retrieve our kidnapped Prince will result in hostilities.”

“Supernatural Alliance cruiser Queen of Carnage, I must ask you to power your weapons down and surrender. Adjunct Commander Devemark has requested a meeting with you regarding the disposition of Jozef, Prince of the Blood.”

“The only discussion that will occur between us will be done by military force unless Jozef, Prince of the Blood is returned to us immediately.”

“Unfortunately, Queen of Carnage, that’s not a possibility. You will stand down and allow us to board, or we will be forced to destroy you, your ship, and everyone aboard her.”

“Gunnery?”

“Captain.”

“Show them why our ship has its name, if you will.”

“It will be my pleasure, Captain.”

“Firing upon us will be an outright act of war.”

“Taking Jozef from us was your declaration of intent,” she countered.

A split second later the viewscreen that had displayed nothing but a small gas planet showed a bright point of not too distant light that blotted out the surrounding stars. For a brief moment, the viewscreen dimmed as the atmosphere from inside the Goliath ignited. Burned and winked out as the last bit of oxygen was consumed.

“Hostile target eliminated, Captain.”

“Thank you, Gunnery. Remain ready to fire.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Comm, any further communication from the Humans?”

“Not yet, Captain.”

“Captain, we are now in range of their defensive installations above the planet,” the gunnery chief informed her.

“Incoming message from planetside.”

“Fire one barrage and take out their defensive array, Gunnery.”

“Firing as ordered, Captain.”

The viewscreen blanked out to protect the vision of the crew in the command center. When it came back, it showed a glittering array of light streaking toward the planet they couldn’t see yet.

“Let’s hear their message.”

“…cease hostilities or we will have --” The person speaking went silent, but they could hear the soft buzz of an open comm signal.

“Dear God, that can’t be right. It’s one ship, isn’t it?” they heard the same voice ask.

Another voice responded, “The readings are correct, sir.”

“This is Queen of Carnage, and we’re giving you exactly thirty seconds to surrender Jozef, Prince of the Blood, or we will be forced to level every structure on the planet.”

“The signal is gone, captain,” the comm specialist stated.

“Give them five to reestablish comm. If they don’t contact us, Gunnery, fire a second barrage, this time aimed at something vital that’s in our reach planetside. Choice of target is yours.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Incoming signal.”

“I’ll hear it.”

“You are to cease all hostile actions or we will consider it a declaration of war!” Adjunct Commander Devemark’s voice raged through the comm.

“How odd,” Tigress drawled. Voice dripping with sarcasm, she added, “Since you were the ones who kidnapped Prince of the Blood Jozef, which is a blatant act of war.”

“We did nothing of the sort.”

“Liar!” she snarled. “We’ve traced him here, and you’re the one that took him. Don’t you fools think we have at least the same sort of technology at our disposal that you have? Morons! We traced him here, on your ship!”

“We don’t have him!”

“We have a vid of you and your people carrying him into your dropship! Don’t lie!”

“That’s not at issue! What we want --!”

“What you want and don’t want are of no concern to me. What I want is! And I want Jozef back. Immediately and in good condition, or I swear by the Dark Lady herself I’ll level your planet!”

“With one ship? Surrender now and we’ll be lenient!”

“You mean you’ll try to double-cross us the way you just did on Nevanar!”

“Surrender or what you’ll get back from us is an envelope full of ash!”

Anger boiled into fury that coiled around her like preternatural mist as her form shifted from that of her neutral state to that of her half form, rich golden fur erupting from her body, a tail sprouting, face going from the almost humanlike flatness to half the muzzled face of a tygon. Black stripes ran through her hair and along her arms, the fur of her chest and belly the color of fine cream.

“Gunnery, show them why they don’t want to threaten anyone from the Supernatural Alliance anymore,” she ordered.

“With pleasure, Captain.”

The screen blanked, came back to life to reveal a swarm of lights and small black objects heading for the planet. Energy weapons and good old fashioned missiles carrying high intensity warheads, the dual attack designed to knock out any shielding that might be over Central Command’s capital building.

* * * * *

The pain was intense, mind shattering. He fought it. Fought the desire to surrender, to tell them what they wanted to know. To tell them lies just to make them stop.

He was contained in a cagelike device that restrained him, held him motionless.

Around the cage was a small hovering device in which a sungun was affixed. The device moved, following the direction sent to it via a control in the hands of one of his tormentors.

The stench of his own body burning under the narrow beam of the sungun nauseated him almost as much as the horrible sensation of his flesh charring under the touch of the light. Light made to mimic the sun of Old Earth. Any sunlight was dangerous to vampire kind, but the sun of their home world was the most painful and lethal.

How long had they been at this now? Minutes? Hours? Days? Small fragments of eternity wrapped in such torment, he was willing to let go. To die.

But thoughts of his Tigress kept him from giving into the desire for the Dark Lady’s embrace.

It was a close thing though. The agony so great the temptation to let his soul and flesh part ways was almost stronger than his will to live or to hope against all logic that Tigress would find him and save him from the finality of death.

The pain had taught him one thing that he’d almost forgotten in the long, lonely centuries without Eleanor: love was stronger than the mere desire to survive. And he loved Tigress, loved her with every bit of his undying heart and his eternal soul. His love for Tigress wouldn’t let him fade away into the nothingness of death.

Not yet.

But if the torture continued much longer, if the pain ripping his mind apart grew any more intense, he might not have enough sanity left to cling to what he felt for his tygon lover.

For the only female he’d been capable of loving since he’d left Old Earth and the ashes of his Eleanor behind.

“It would be so much easier if you’d just tell us what we want. Then we’ll stop and the pain will end.”

“Fuck…you!” he gasped, throat tight from stopping the screams that wanted to break free.

“Come on, what we want isn’t so bad, is it? Just a way we can get the animals to help us against the Murraah.” one of his tormenters urged.

“Yes, they aren’t your kind. Why should it matter?” another voice questioned. How many Humans had come to watch or join in on the torment? He didn’t know, and, in the end it hardly mattered. He would die whether by the hand of one Human or a dozen.

He shook his head, denying them their answer. Humans would never understand the way Supernaturals thought in a post-Purge universe. Humans had taught them the ultimate lesson that thousands of years as rivals never did: work together or die.

Nothing they said would ever erase the memories of the Purge from Jozef's mind or the minds of any vampire living during those times. And the few immortal shifters among their kind wouldn't let their own kind forget.

No Supernatural would betray another on the basis of racial hatred. Those days were gone, lost with the world that gave them birth. A world so polluted and ruined that Humans could no longer live there.

And vampires would never return to the ruins of their once beautiful home planet. It held too many bitter memories for their kind.

The light seared his thigh, his skin charring, smoking.

Shuddering in agony, he clenched his teeth, breath locked in his chest until the searing of his flesh stopped. His breath came out in a whoosh that ended in a sound like the cry of a mortally wounded animal. Agony worse than he'd imagined possible clouded his mind, the pain of burned flesh leaving him weak, barely conscious.

This had happened to him before, once, long ago. Right after the Humans created the sungun.

During the Purge when he'd lost his beloved Eleanor.

He remembered how they'd burned her to ash, and he’d been unable to look away, unable to do anything but weep as she cried out to him. Begged him to help her, save her.

And he'd been helpless to answer her cries, bound by chains he couldn't break. Held in the grip of a drug that dampened his vampiric powers to the point where he couldn't do anything but cry as she died.

Tears filled Jozef's vision, blurring the here and now, his mind in the past, lost in the terrible moment when Eleanor ceased to exist.

Don’t give in. Don’t follow me into death, Eleanor’s voice whispered to him from the past. Jozef, hold on. She’ll come for you. Your Tigress will come for you.

Hallucination. His dead mate's voice speaking words to him. Whispering in his mind. Making a promise that couldn’t be real.

She was dead.

And he was dying. He could feel the stealthy approach of the Dark Lady. Feel her hands reaching for him the way an inferno-wrapped Eleanor had reached for him as the flames consumed her flesh.

Killed her.

“Eleanor…” he murmured.

“We’re losing him.”

“He won’t die. It takes a lot more to kill one of these things than we’ve done so far.”

“Well, he’s not responding.”

He could hear their voices, but he didn’t care about anything except the pain and the ghost whispering promises in his mind.

“We’ll have to revive him. Get the stuff and dump it over him.”

“Why me?”

“Because I told you to.”

There was a sigh, and the sound of footsteps. A moment later something cold splashed over him, sliding over his skin.

It eased the pain wherever it touched his tormented flesh and took away the agony, reviving him. He opened his eyes and looked to find that he’d been doused in something thick and red. Something cold with a coppery tang his senses recognized as refrigerated blood.

He blinked as congealing goo dripped into his eyes. The pain was fading quickly. Much too quickly for it to be animal blood, and it wasn’t Human blood either.

He lapped a droplet from his lip, tasted the metal and spice tang of Supernatural blood, shifter blood to be precise.

But not from a tygon, the flavor different than the blood he knew best. This had come from a werewolf, and there was a lot of it.

More to the point, it didn’t have the flat taste of blood that had been frozen or the dull taste of refrigeration. That could only mean they had a shifter here. Whether it was one of the helpless, chemically controlled creatures they’d created during the Purge or a newly captured werewolf he didn’t know.

But of course the were had to be one of the victims of the Purge. They probably had dozens of weres and vamps searching the galaxy for planets they could colonize. Fed vampire blood, weres could live almost as long as vampires. And vampires lived until something destroyed them, ensuring the Humans an untiring army of immortal frontier explorers. Immortal slaves.

And he would die before he’d become another vampire bent to their will by the threat of pain and death.

He hurt.

He might die, but he wouldn’t surrender to them, wouldn’t become a nearly mindless drone in the Human hive of Central Command.

He lapped at the blood a second time, feeling his tissues healing, starting to itch. This time he detected another, underlying flavor. Sharp. Musky. Unfamiliar.

And not part of the blood itself.

A chemical. A drug was slipping into his body through the contact of the blood on his wounds, the burns soaking up the healing fluid and the drug at the same time.

An effort to control him. To get their mind-warping chemicals into his flesh in secret so he wouldn’t notice his own reluctance to assist them eroding.

He wasn’t going to give in that easily.

Not if he could help it.

He wouldn’t give them a way to control anyone else. Wouldn’t yield to their demands.

“I think he’s ready, so we can try again.”

“Yes, I think so too.”

The sungun’s thin beam drew a blazing line of agony across his thighs. A little higher and his balls would have been scorched.

He gritted his teeth and refused to cry out or beg for mercy.

There wasn’t any point in it. They had no mercy for his kind. Humans never had and never would.

A second ray of deadly light brushed over his torso, flame licking at his skin, eating into the muscle beneath, nibbling away at a rib. He shuddered from the pain, eyes shut tight, body tense, struggling to get free of the restraints. Helpless.

More flesh burned and his body arched, writhed, a whimper of sound pulled from him despite his resolve as acrid smoke filled his nostrils.

His own flesh.

Burning.

“Do you think we should douse him again?”

“Let him burn for a while.”

“He’s old. He might combust if we let him burn too long.”

“True. Yes, put it out. We can’t afford to lose this one.”

Cool relief splashed across him. Another basin of were blood. The insidious drug slipping into his damaged flesh as his body used the blood to heal the burns. The agony fading a second time.

He needed a distraction. Something else to think about.

Tigress. Think of her.

He focused his mind on the feel of her body as he moved inside her, the sound of her voice as she cried out in pleasure. Light seared his flesh, the gun painting a line of blackened flesh across his lower belly. He closed his eyes, called up a vision of his Tigress naked and wanting, holding him, her embrace promising safety, protection. The mental picture kept him from surrendering to the embrace of the Dark Lady.

But as the torment grew it was harder for him to keep that picture in his mind.

He fought, struggled to keep that picture of a wanton and wanting Tigress in his mind, but it faded, changed, became another aspect of his tygon lover. The warrior. The fighter. His protector.

Something impinged on his thoughts through the blur of agony.

Something as familiar and comforting as the warm embrace of a mother’s love.

Or the warmth of a lover’s smile.

It was rage, pure in its focus, total in its intensity. Almost palpable, like the beating of his own heart, it pulsed through him.

His goddess of war. His Queen of Carnage.

A Fury incarnate swooping toward her enemies.

His captors.

He raised his head, staring at the ceiling as if it were a vidscreen and he would see her ship imaged there if he just looked hard enough. Or as if he could see through stone and intervening rock, through the building overhead, and into the sky above and the darkness of space.

As if he could see the ship dropping into the solar system of Central Command, silent as the wings of the Angel of Destruction. Soundless as the Dark Lady herself.

Tigress would save him. He knew she would.

Or she’d destroy the whole planet trying.

That thought brought a slight smile to his lips despite the pain of the burns crisscrossing his body.

Their biggest mistake was thinking that any of their people could be fooled into believing he’d been taken by the unknown aliens. Aliens who couldn’t reach the planet without someone noticing.

They also hadn’t taken his lover into account.

And Tigress, his fierce tygon lover, wasn’t someone they could afford to ignore.

“Why is he smiling?” one of his tormenters asked of her companion.

“Who knows? Does it matter?”

“It’s like he knows something we don’t.”

A rumble of sound, a low rolling boom, echoed through the walls and made the floor vibrate beneath their feet.

“What the hell was that?” the woman asked.

“The end of your world,” Jozef told them.

He was still smiling when the barrage of explosions roared around them, bringing down a shower of dust and shattered bits of plascrete.

Chapter Five

“This is a clear act of war!”

“Of course it is,” she agreed. “But remember who started it. You took Jozef, and I -- we want him back.”

“Stupid bitch! How dare you presume to dictate to me!”

“Gunnery, fire another round please,” she requested, letting the adjunct commander hear her order.

“You wouldn’t!”

Tigress cut him off. “But I would, and I will.” She made the universal gesture of a hand across her throat to tell the comm specialist to kill the signal.

“Second round fired, Captain. Incoming ships and missiles from our galactic relative north and southeast,” her gunnery chief stated calmly.

“Incoming signal,” the comm specialist said.

“Gunnery, deal with the incoming threat. Comm, I’ll hear the message.”

Their answers were immediate, the gunnery chief launching a strike to deal with the incoming threat, her comm specialist bringing up the audio message.

“All hostilities are to cease, or we’ll be forced to use drastic measures!” the adjunct commander’s voice roared from the comm.

“Really? Drastic, is it? If that means you intend to harm or kill Jozef --”

“That’s precisely what I mean.”

“And that was the wrong answer.” She gave a nod to her gunnery chief, and he launched a second series of strikes against the planet itself.

“Didn’t you understand me, you stupid animal? I said if you don’t --”

She made the hand gesture to kill the signal again, and the comm specialist complied.

“Gunnery chief, tell the rest of the gunners to begin firing at targets of choice per standard guidelines in times of war.”

“Yes, Captain!” he replied. “All fire at targets of choice beginning now.”

The screens darkened as the ship vibrated under the full assault that Queen of Carnage was capable of generating. The Queen was the first of her kind, built by the Supernatural Alliance to actually be used as part of their fleet. The prototype, Blood’s Defender, was in orbit around Blood where it served as the planet’s primary defense.

“Captain, the Human ships are attempting to flee.”

“Let them go, if they can outrun the missiles.” Tigress wasn’t here to exterminate the Human species; she just wanted to show them that their act of war wasn’t going to be tolerated. Not by her, and certainly not by the Supernatural Alliance as a whole.

“Incoming signal.”

“Let them message as much as they like. Until they’re signaling unconditional surrender and a willingness to return Jozef, I have nothing more to say to them.”

“Yes, Captain,” the comm specialist replied, unable to hide his smirk. “You should hear the signals from the ships we’ve hit. They’re trying to figure out how many of us are out here.”

“How many?”

“Yes, Captain. They’re unwilling to believe that Queen of Carnage is alone.”

Her lips curled into a sneer. “Oh, yes, silly me. I forgot, we’re just animals. In their minds we’re not capable of building anything superior to their own technology.”

“That way of thinking will be their downfall someday,” her navigator remarked.

“Maybe not for the Human race itself,” Tigress countered. “But they’ve been ruled by these autocratic boneheads for far too long. Maybe this mess will serve as the proverbial straw that broke the cargo beast’s spine.”

“We can only hope,” her comm specialist sighed. The male grinned. “Incoming signal, Captain.”

“Are they surrendering?”

“No, it’s not the Humans; it’s Admiral von Waldenkampf.”

Tigress couldn’t hide her own surprise. “Admiral von Waldenkampf? The Admiral von Waldenkampf, Prince of the Blood?”

“Yes, Captain,” the comm specialist agreed.

The admiral was commander of a small fleet of fast moving battleships that included several cruisers and a carrier loaded with short-range fighters. For him to have arrived here so soon meant the admiral and his command had left Nevanar within seconds of the Queen’s departure.

“Put him through, audio and visual.”

A holographic image of a very slender man appeared on the deck a few feet from where she stood. He was dressed in black from the high, rather dramatic, collar of his stiffly formal military tunic to the neat knee-high boots encasing his lower legs and feet. “Greetings, Captain Tigress.”

She bowed her head in deference to his higher rank. “Greetings to you, Admiral. To what do I owe the honor of your presence?”

“I believe there’s the matter of a kidnapped Prince of the Blood.”

“Very true, Admiral.”

“We’re here to offer you and your Queen of Carnage any assistance needed to bring the Humans to their knees and return Jozef.”

“I thank you, Admiral von Waldenkampf, but I think we can handle this ourselves.”

The vampire smiled. “Well, we’re here at system’s rim. If you need us, just call; we’ll be on standby.”

“You have my thanks, Admiral. I’ll call if your fleet is needed.”

He smiled at her. “Kick their asses, Captain.”

“Is that an order?”

“I’d say yes, but I’m sure it would just serve as icing on a kick-ass cake.”

She grinned. “It would at that, sir.”

The signal ended and she glanced at her gunnery chief. “Gunnery, continue firing until I give the call for you to stop.” She rose from her chair and smiled at Garret. “You have command.”

He frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Planetside with a search and rescue squad. I’ve got a prince to save.”

“Search and rescue? Don’t you mean seek and destroy?”

She met his gaze and couldn’t help but smile slightly at the amusement on his face. “Yeah, I guess that is what I mean.”

“Be careful.”

“Of course.”

She started for the exit.

“Oh, Captain?”

She paused, turned to face her second in command. “Garret?”

“Try to destabilize those autocratic morons in charge down there. Maybe you can shake them up enough so that their opponents have a chance. I think it’s about time the Humans had a change in their policies, don’t you?”

She nodded. “No problem on that score. No problem at all,” she stated, then cast a ferine grin in Garret’s direction. “One slice of iced whoop-ass cake coming up.” Tigress waved at Garret and the rest of her command crew, then stepped into the transport. It carried her to the deck where the heavily armed and armored dirtside combat units stood in their ranks, ready and willing to do whatever their Captain Tigress requested.

Her gaze swept over them. Shifters, every one of them. Her elite squad of tygon warriors backed up by tiger, lion, and wolf teams, all of them changed to their mid-form between their neutral Human appearances and the fully animal forms of which they were capable. Every one of them was encased in customized body armor that made each of them a living, moving weapon of mass destruction.

“Who wants to go kick some Human ass?” she questioned as she stepped into the room.

“We do!”

Their shouted reply vibrated through the deck under her feet.

“Then let’s get to it! Move out!” she ordered and headed for the command assault carriers. Her own armor stood beside it, waiting for her to climb inside. She stripped off her uniform and slipped in through the back of the armor, the change from her neutral form to mid-form triggering the automatic closing of the armor.

She triggered the t-comm that let her communicate directly to the minds of her troops. “I hope everyone peed already, ’cause we aren’t stopping.”

Laughter came back to her over the t-comm.

“Avoid injuring civilians at all costs; they aren’t our targets. Anything that shoots at you is fair game. Anything that looks like a Central Command politician or officer take alive if possible, to stand trial as war criminals. Our goal is to take out their government and make sure that these boneheads who hate us can never gain control of the Human Worlds again. Understood?”

Acknowledgement of her orders was instantaneous, fully in agreement.

They were loaded and moving by the time she finished her orders. The assault carriers ripped through incoming defensive fire and headed for the planet’s atmosphere, hurtling toward their mission against the Human government in control of Central Command’s Headquarters.

* * * * *

The structure above them must have taken a direct hit, the ceiling cracking, pieces crumbling to fall into the torture room. The lights dimmed, flickered, and then went out. Emergency lights came on, but those too were dim, veiling the room in shadows and Night’s eternal kiss.

Screaming and terrified, the two torturers fled, leaving Jozef strapped into the framework that held him captive, while the sungun -- running on its own internal power source -- continued to burn into his flesh. No longer under their direction, it hovered where it was, the beam aimed at one of his legs. Light ate away at his skin, biting into his flesh, charring the muscle, gnawing toward the bone. He struggled, fighting the drug and the restraints. Fighting to survive as the sungun ate into his body.

Pointless on both counts. He couldn’t get free.

The acrid stench of charring flesh clotted every breath he took. The pain threatening to steal consciousness away.

Shouts from outside the room reached him. Fearful. Confused.

A roar of anger, the sound similar to the cries of a big cat -- tiger, lion, or tygon he didn’t know which -- reached him.

Screams of terror, of pain reached him. So did the sound of gunfire. The shriek of an energy weapon discharging. A bellow of agony. More screaming filling his ears, seeping into his mind through the agony of his burning leg.

Not a cat as it turned out.

But close.

A big male shifter stumbled into the room, his gold fur streaked with blood, claws a sanguine story that told of recent killing. His mane had been clipped short, a pair of small black holes in his forehead -- electrical probes of some type -- showed he’d been a test subject. He was in his half form, bipedal but leonine in appearance. Coughing, he collapsed just inside the door. Blood flowed from a smoking wound in his chest. Bright arterial blood. A stream of it dripped from his fanged mouth.

“So close,” he murmured and regarded Jozef from eyes as green as the evening sky of Nevanar. “Almost made it. Damn shame, I was…so close…”

“Close to what?”

The lion-shifter’s lips lifted in a smile that exposed his fangs. “Freedom…blessed freedom…but the only freedom I’ll see will be in the embrace of the Dark Lady.”

“Don’t give up yet. That’s my Tigress coming to save me,” he told the lion who was crawling slowly toward him.

“Tigress? She must…love you.” One large paw-hand closed on the cage holding Jozef.

“I guess she does.”

“Vamps have all the…luck…” The lion shifter pulled himself upright, clawed at the sungun eating away at Jozef, knocked it spinning.

The ray of light zigzagged across Jozef’s helpless form, leaving a crooked line of charred skin up his torso. The lion hit the gun again, and it spun away to collide with a wall hard enough that the beam went out and the entire thing dropped to the floor with a thud.

“Can you get me free of this thing? I can help you,” he told the big shifter.

“I’ll…try…”

The lion pawed at the controls, the framework tightening, biting into Jozef’s flesh. He gasped, body arching from the pain as he was squeezed by the unyielding metal.

“Sorry…” the shifter got out through the bloody foam dripping from his mouth. He struggled with the controls, shuddered, and sank to his haunches, a weak cough coming from him.

Jozef recognized the symptoms of a punctured lung. The lion was drowning as the blood filled his lungs. Dying. He could smell the sharp odor of death under the blood scent.

“Try again,” Jozef got out between gritted teeth.

A gory hand reached up, the shifter reverting to his neutral form as death’s hand closed tighter around him, stealing his magic and nibbling at his soul.

“Don’t die. Bite me. Drink my blood. It might heal you.”

The green eyes, now in a face that looked almost Human, rose to Jozef’s as the shifter gave him a wan smile. “It’s…okay…” The eyes closed and the lion-shifter sighed, breath and life leaving him.

Jozef struggled, fought the restraints. If he could reach the lion shifter, he might be able to save him, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t free himself from the device holding him.

Dust sifted down over him as more explosions rocked the ground, shaking the framework, and raining chips of plascrete down on him the jagged chunks cutting his skin.

“Better to be trapped under a collapsed building than face the sun,” he muttered to himself.

Movement near the door drew his attention, and he looked up in time to see a pair of Humans come into the room. Two males in dull grey coveralls. They were carrying old style guns that used bullets. Neither of them appeared to be lab technicians -- also known as torturers of Supernatural creatures -- as were the last two Humans who’d been in the room with him. These Humans moved cautiously, not with the confident manner of people who expected to find nothing but helpless prey waiting for them.

One motioned to the other and they split up, edging around the perimeter of the room, hugging the walls as if they expected to find resistance.

He had to twist his body painfully to see them meet at the back of the room.

Neither of them had said a single word out loud, which told him they were using thoughtcomms rather than audible speech to communicate.

He closed his eyes, tried to focus on them, to intercept their silent conversation, but the drug burning through him assured his failure. He couldn’t hear them, nor could he so much as sense their presence with his normally keen preternatural senses.

Their perimeter sweep done, the pair moved into the room itself, creeping through the darkness, guns ready.

Jozef closed his eyes and prayed to the Dark Lady that they weren’t there to finish the job the two torturers had left undone: namely his destruction.

They reached him, peered at him, he stared back. One of them crouched down to examine the dead lion shifter, checking for a pulse. That one frowned; the other was equally grim faced.

“Prince Jozef of the Blood?”

“Yes,” he replied, voice tight, the pain and drugs making it difficult for him to speak.

“We’re with Cry Freedom.” The man grinned up at him where he hung in the restraining device. “Otherwise known as the rebels.”

The other man was pulling at some part of the device holding him. “We’re here to rescue you.”

The restraints let go and he fell, the pair of Humans catching him, easing his body to the floor, their hands gentle on his scorched body.

Chapter Six

Explosions still rocked the planet as the twin assault carriers landed amid frenetic counter fire that failed to prevent them from landing. Several of the emplacements firing on troop carriers exploded, hit from orbit, proving how vain such efforts were against the power of the Queen of Carnage and her heavily shielded dropships. Doors opened on two sides of the carrier, disgorging Tigress and an elite team of battle suited killers. Tygon warriors. Forty-one of them raged out of the dropship, cutting through the shattered defenses around Central Command the way a monosword sliced paper, leaving death, destruction and terror in their wake.

With the battle done, they’d separated into pairs, all but Tigress who’d struck out on her own to search.

She had to keep telling herself that the Humans had brought all this grief down on themselves, and while to some extent it was true, the real guilty parties were probably safely hunkered down in a bunker that even the Queen of Carnage had yet to reach with even their most devastating ship to surface weapons.

She had to be satisfied that, given time, the rebels intent on bringing down the government of Central Command would mop up the real criminals behind Jozef’s kidnapping.

But for now getting him back had to suffice.

“Any sign of Prince Jozef?” she asked her forward scouts as they prowled the corridors of the all but empty Central Command headquarters. Parts of the walls had collapsed, and windows lay broken in glittering shards around her feet as she moved forward. Dazzling sunlight filled every room, the perfect prison for a Prince of the Blood. Jozef wouldn’t dare try to escape, if he even could get out of wherever the Humans had him imprisoned.

“No trace of him, Captain. We’re heading up a drop shaft to see if he’s being held on one of the upper floors.”

“Good enough. I’ll head down and see if they have him in the underground area our scans detected. Be ready. I don’t think we’re going to be able to rescue him without meeting with resistance.”

“Agreed and acknowledged, Captain.”

Tigress stalked through the building until she found a drop shaft. She kicked a hunk of plascrete into the shaft and watched as it floated slowly downward. Assured that the device was working, she stepped into the shaft, floating slowly down toward the bowels of the structure.

No signs of life were evident on any of the floors she passed, though she’d be the first to admit the limited view of each floor didn’t mean there weren’t dozens of people in hiding.

She reached the bottom floor and stepped out of the shaft to find herself in a dimly lit area where four corridors came together. There were lights down one of the hallways, but they were flickering. Two of the other halls were lit by emergency lighting only while the fourth was dark. No one was visible anywhere nor could she hear any traces of people.

Not too surprising really. Not when she could see evidence of structural damage all around her. Hunks of plascrete littered the cracked floor. Larger cracks gaped in the walls and there were cracks and gaps in the ceiling above her that let light in from the level above. But, thankfully, none of it was sunlight.

With no idea where Jozef might be -- or if he was even down there -- Tigress stalked down the hallway directly in front of her. Doors lined the walls and she shoved a few open to find abandoned offices and labs, but no trace of Jozef.

He can’t be dead. I won’t accept that they’ve killed him. I…

Tears distorted her vision and she blinked them away, refusing to give in to the sorrow of loss when there was no evidence he’d died.

And no evidence he’s alive, her subconscious added.

She came to the end of that corridor with no trace of the vampire anywhere.

Moving faster she backtracked, bypassing the rooms she’d looked into, entering the corridor directly opposite the one she’d searched.

It contained a series of labs full of shattered glass and chemical smoke which made her grateful that her helmet protected her from inhaling any toxins. The last of the rooms revealed a gruesome find. A were that had undergone some sort of horrific experiments, most of his skin and a good portion of his flesh stripped away.

He’d been alive through the torture the humans had inflicted on him.

Alive until they’d put a dozen bullets into his head.

She peered at the remains and saw the glint of silver.

It was a horrible and very permanent way to murder a werewolf, a terrible way for any Supernatural to die. Silver was the kiss of true death, one from which a werewolf couldn’t heal, couldn’t survive. Normal bullets could stun them, make them appear as if they’d died, but only silver had the power to end their lives. The werewolf had been tortured and slain with less regard than her kind would give a prey animal.

A low growl rumbled in her chest.

Jozef could have suffered a similar fate by now.

Murdered.

Dead.

Forever dead.

She turned from the werewolf and left the room.

She had to find Jozef. He had to be alive.

Tigress reached the junction of the four corridors and stared down the last hallway. There were no lights, and she hadn’t gone far before she reached a place where part of the wall and ceiling had collapsed, leaving a gap too narrow for her to get through in her combat gear. She didn’t hesitate. She hit the seal and slipped out of the back of her suit. Changing from her midshift form to her neutral one, she easily moved through the gap then shifted back to mid-form and headed through the darkness down the corridor.

Empty cells gaped along the left wall, the right one empty for a good distance. Quiet reigned here. An echoing silence in which her own cautious footfalls reached her ears magnified to the point of sounding far too loud.

She reached a turn in the corridor and froze at the sounds coming from ahead.

Footfalls. Voices.

“Take it easy,” she heard.

“He’s just about dead weight,” a second voice.

Both voices were male.

“Well, don’t drop him, whatever you do. We’re trying to help him, not fuck him up more than he is.”

“Maybe he needs blood or something.”

That told her that whomever was ahead of her had to be moving a vampire.

“He’s drugged. Bastards must have been trying to change him into one of their puppets.”

“And that’s a surprise?”

“No.”

They were getting closer. Tigress stepped around the corner, crouched and ready to fight.

Two Humans faced her, a limp and unmoving Jozef between them.

“What are you doing with him!” she demanded.

“Trying to get him out of here,” the taller man replied.

The first thing she noticed was their reaction. They weren’t afraid of her. And there wasn’t any trace of hate stink oozing from them as they spoke to her.

“You two are part of Cry Freedom, aren’t you?”

“Good call,” the smaller man agreed with a smile.

“I’ll take him from here,” she told them and reached for Jozef. They surrendered him to her. The sharp odor of pain and fear reached her from her lover and she enfolded him in a gentle embrace.

“Jozef, can you hear me?”

His eyes opened at the sound of her voice, the feel of her arms around him. “Eleanor told me you’d come.” Jozef sighed and offered her a wan smile.

She didn’t question his statement. Pain could make people see and hear odd things, and even a vampire wasn’t immune to hallucinations. “I’m here. You’re safe now.”

“Safe,” he repeated.

“That’s right, safe.” She held Jozef tighter, felt the flood of tears trying to win free of her eyes and blinked them away. This was no time to start crying. Crying wouldn’t help Jozef. Wouldn’t heal the horrible wounds, the charred flesh crisscrossing his body, marring his beauty. Causing him immense pain.

She looked at the pair of Humans. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the taller man responded.

“You’d better get him somewhere safe,” the other Human said.

She put got a better grip on him, heard his gasp of agony as she touched his burned flesh. They were right; she needed to get Jozef to safety. But to get there they’d have to pass through sunlight, and as burned as he already was, it would be a risk. Weak and wounded, he might suffer fatal burns or ignite.

She wouldn’t risk killing him.

One of the men held out a small packet. “Take this. We brought it with us in case we needed it.”

She took the packet in her clawed hand. “What is it?”

“Wrap it around him as tight as you can. It’s meant to protect a vampire from sunlight, but it won’t protect him from long exposure. A few minutes is all he’ll have before he starts to burn.”

“If he weren’t so old and if he wasn’t already hurt he’d have longer,” the other man explained.

She nodded, got a better grip on Jozef, and headed for her armor with the pair of Humans following her. They helped get Jozef through the collapsed passage. With their assistance, they got Jozef wrapped in the light blocking material, and Tigress stepped into her armor, changing to her mid-form, as she’d had to shift to her neutral from once again to get through the blockage in the hallway.

“Thank you,” she said as she lifted Jozef. Carrying him was made even easier with the power of the armor to magnify her own strength.

“It’s us who owe you. We have a chance to take those bastards out of power once and for all,” the taller of the pair told her.

“I hope you’re successful. They’ve been in charge so long it might be difficult for your side to retain control.”

“Well nothing worth doing is easy, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed, thinking of her own dilemma with Jozef.

“Good luck to you both,” the smaller man said and turned to go back through the blockage in the passageway.

“Luck to both of you too,” she told them as they climbed through.

Tigress carried her lover toward the surface and safety, mentally keying up the t-comm. “Tigress to assault carrier one, I need a pick up. I’ve got Jozef but he’s been burned. I need a med team dropped dirtside ASAP.”

“Assault carrier one to Tigress, med-team en route from Queen of Carnage. ETA in four minutes.”

“Track my signal. Rendezvous them my location.”

“Rendezvous your position acknowledged, Captain,” was the instant reply from the incoming medical team.

She reached the surface and the sunlight at the same time the med team arrived in their own assault carrier. Jozef whimpered inside the cocoon of protective cloth, a thin wisp of smoke rising through the material as she raced toward the ship.

Once they were inside the med team claimed Jozef from her, examining him with quick efficiency.

“How is he?”

“Drugged and badly burned, but he’ll be fine with sufficient blood intake and a few hours to let the drug leave his system.”

“Good,” Tigress replied, then brought up the t-comm, focusing on her elite team’s leader. “I want that bastard Devemark found. Consider it a priority.”

“We’re on it” was the immediate reply.

Tigress refocused the t-comm. “Take us back to the Queen,” she instructed the pilot of the med team’s assault carrier. Switching to audio, she turned to the head of the med team and said, “I’ll take care of Jozef once we get aboard the Queen.”

“Of course, Captain.”

She looked down at her burned and unconscious lover, touched a waxen cheek, bent down to kiss cold, blue-tinged lips.

She had him back, but there was going to be hell to pay.

Devemark and his whole government would cease to be even if she personally had to carry the war to every Human world that was under the control of Central Command.

They reached the Queen of Carnage, and Tigress hurried to get her bed ready to receive her lover.

Chapter Seven

Jozef was already stabilized when the med team floated him into her bedroom on the hovgurney they’d used to transport him off the assault carrier.

They eased him onto the bed.

“He’ll be perfectly fine once the burns heal and the drugs are out of his system.”

She nodded and the med team left.

For a moment she just stood there, looking at him lying in her bed. So different than the last time he’d been there. The last time they’d made love.

And it almost had been the very last time they’d made love.

The thought put an ache of sorrow through her that quickly changed to anger.

Anger at the Humans who’d taken him.

Anger at Devemark.

She wouldn’t rest until she found him and made him pay for his deceit.

Her hands knotted into fists, claws erupting from the tips of her fingers, digging into her hands, drawing blood.

Jozef’s eyes opened, their fire so dulled they looked almost black rather than the garnet flame she knew so well.

She sat down beside him, held her hand to his mouth.

There was no recognition in his gaze. No sign of intelligence on his face. Nothing but dull-eyed hunger. He lapped eagerly at the offering, taking the few drops of her blood with quick darts of his tongue.

Her belly clenched, heat burning through her. Lust for him roused by the touch of his tongue.

Jozef tried to bite her hand and she smiled, murmured, “That’s so like you, trying to bite the hand that’s feeding you.”

She moved farther into the bed, pulled him into her lap, and cradled him close, pressing his mouth to her throat.

Teeth sank into her neck, the bite painful, clumsy. Like a child that had known hunger for too long, he fed, clinging to her, whimpering as the pain eased. As the drugs in his system were diluted with her blood. Her life, her strength flowing into him, restoring him.

Tigress held him close as he fed, his weakened body taking in the shifter blood, transforming it into the healing his body needed to survive. Magic to restore him, to make his charred body whole, strong.

The pain was easing, dying away to something bearable, his mind beginning to function, though his thoughts were sluggish as frozen honey.

Honey.

His mouth full of sweetness. Rich. Thick. Warm.

Fur tickled his nose.

Not fur. Golden hair.

Arms held him against a body layered with firm muscle.

Against a pair of soft breasts.

A female shifter, one he knew.

His Tigress.

Tears flooded his eyes. It hadn’t been a dream. She was real, and he was safe. Safe in her arms, in her bed, on her ship.

A hand stroked along his shoulder, reassuring him, soothing his fear, and he started to cry, embarrassed but unable to stop, the relief that the pain was over, that he wasn’t dreaming overcoming him with a tidal wave of emotion too strong for him to contain.

“Shhhh, Jozef. I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Never again.”

And that only made the tears flow harder, faster.

She started to rock him and he clung to her. His lover. His savior.

His Tigress.

“I’m here, Jozef. I’m not going to let you be hurt anymore.”

He raised a tear wet face to her and opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t. Tigress’s mouth closed over his in a kiss that he felt all the way to the blackened core of his soul. Like a beam of moonlight, it drove away the fear, soothed the terror. Banished the darkness of Eleanor’s death.

His eyes went wide with the truth, with the shock of sensation that drove through the ceaseless pall of sorrow he’d carried for his dead Truemate, his Eleanor.

He held tighter, clinging to his tygon lover as the revelation burned through him, the sadness of his lonely existence burning the way his flesh had burned under the touch of the sungun. But it caused no pain as the light entered his soul for the first time in well over a century. The light of love. Of hope.

Tigress’s tongue slid into his mouth, stroking along his, making him ache for more than her kiss.

He wanted her.

All of her.

Impossible, whispered through his head. She won’t want you to sire any cubs. Tigress won’t want to bear you any breed cubs. Half tygon, half vampire and in the end neither one or the other.

She doesn’t want to create a new family line with you. You’re just her sexual release. Someone she can dominate and do what she likes with. A lover, but not her love@.

More tears filled his eyes.

Worse for a vampire than a lost love was a love unrequited.

Passion not returned could burn as fatal as sunlight.

Love could consume a vampire as easily as real fire.

He whimpered. Wanting something he’d never have.

Wanting her love.

If he couldn’t have that, he could at least extend to her a longer life through his blood.

He drew her head down to his shoulder, felt her teeth nip along the curve of shoulder muscle, her tongue sliding over his skin, raising goose bumps, sending a thrill-chill through his entire body.

His cock twitched as she shifted to her mid-form. Stiffened as her mouth opened wider, tongue laving over the spot she would bite. Tygon fangs broke skin, sending a wave of ecstasy through him that made his erection ache with need. Need of her.

Furred arms closed around him as she fed, his Tigress laying him down, her weight pressing him to the bed. Inescapable. And him with no desire to escape. No will but a desire to please her, to be held and loved by her.

Love.

Love the one thing she would never give him.

Tears spilled from his eyes, a soft whimper of sadness, the loss of something he never truly had, could never claim, creating an ache, a dark spot in the brightness that filled his soul.

Vain hope rose as she settled over him, her teeth withdrawing, tongue lapping at the small wounds she’d laid open with her fangs.

She nuzzled the point of his jaw directly under his ear, soft fur, warm breath and the sweep of a tongue wrenching another cry from him.

His Tigress. His salvation. His entire being cried out for her. Soul reaching out to his Truemate. Had she been bloodkin or a Human, she could have felt it, might have answered with a merging of soul with soul if she were his Truemate.

But she wasn’t either, she was a tygon. She couldn’t feel the touch of his soul, the desire of a vampire for his mate.

Tygons didn’t mate for life.

Vampires did.

Green eyes regarded him from a half form muzzled face that he found as beautiful as her neutral form. Beautiful as her full tygon form.

He reached up, touched a softly furred cheek, listened to her answering purr with an ache of bittersweet joy-pain.

“Jozef,” she purred his name, turned her head to lick gently at his fingers, set a kiss to his palm.

He groaned at the touch of her velvet tongue, moaned when her hand-paw closed around his erection, stroking it, teasing.

“Can you?” she asked, worry furrowing her brow.

He ran a hand along her black striped arm, feeling the power, the inherent strength of her breed in the muscle and bone under the silky fur.

“For you, I always can.”

She bent down, rested her forehead against his, and stared into his eyes. “I’ll be gentle.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. I want you the way you are, no holding back.”

“You’re sure?” Tigress questioned.

“Yes.”

If he couldn’t have her love, he could at least have the pleasure. She could give him what he craved. The kiss of the Sweet Sisters Pleasure and Pain. Yin and Yang.

“Jozef, you’re still drugged and weak. I’m not sure --”

He gripped her hands, brought them to his shoulders. “I am.”

“All right,” she agreed, sounding reluctant, unsure.

And that wasn’t his Tigress.

She was a fierce predator, captain of a ship of warriors, his Mistress.

His love.

“It will help me forget what they did,” he murmured as he kissed one of her hand-paws, pressed the end of a stubby finger and wrapped his tongue around the tip of the deadly sharp claw he’d exposed.

A bead of blood filled the tiny cut he’d made and she kissed him, tasted his immortality on the tip of his tongue.

Jozef pressed his tongue to one of her teeth, cutting himself deeper, sharing his blood with her, sharing his life for the second time, each drop singing his gift in her veins.

He broke the kiss and stared at her.

He could hear the immortal song, the touch of his vampiric magic in her blood.

But that couldn’t be. He’d never heard it before, not once in all the times they’d shared blood.

It must be the drug. I’m imagining things. That’s all. A hallucination from the crap they gave me, nothing more.

“Well, if you’re certain.” She left the bed, her tail giving an arrogant, totally self possessed flick. Reaching under the bed, she pulled out a set of restraints that made his mouth go dry as a flash of the helplessness he’d felt under the tormenting hands of the Humans drifted through his mind, an errant wisp of memory that wasn’t part of this, had nothing to do with his Tigress or their private games, the rough sexual encounters they both craved. Hers to give. His to receive.

“Are you sure you want to play rough, Jozef?”

“Yes.” He watched her as she sauntered to the far side of the room.

She turned to regard him with a cool, contemplative gaze.

“Flee or submit?” she asked, offering him two choices, the restraints held in her hands.

Fight or kneel at her feet?

His two choices.

He could try to run, attack her, or submit.

Submission would mean possibly being bound. Restrained.

He didn’t want to submit, didn’t want to be helpless that way. Not so soon. He’d just been drugged, subdued, and tortured.

A flicker of something passed through her eyes and she let the restraints fall to the floor.

She came for him.

He evaded, leaving the bed in a flash of vampire speed that he found he wasn’t able to sustain, the drug retaining enough of its effectiveness to slow him.

Tigress made a grab for him. He dodged, staggered, dizzy and off balance, unable to keep his footing, her hand on his arm kept him from falling.

Cat and mouse with him as the mouse. Smiling, she let him go and he stumbled away like a good little wounded mouse.

He righted himself, shaking his head, fighting the effect of the drugs in his system. He paused, panting for breath, watching her, awaiting her next move.

Arousal, his and hers, scented the air.

She lunged, her claws drawing fine lines of blood over his skin, the shallow wounds closing, the blood instantly reabsorbed by his hungry flesh.

And he was hungry.

For her. For the sweet flavor of her blood and her sex.

A growl rumbled in his throat. She smiled and wiggled her fingers, daring him to come closer.

He leapt for her and felt the powerful hands of his tygon close on him, momentum his enemy as she turned. His back collided with the wall just hard enough to knock some of the breath from him, but not hard enough to hurt him even in his weakened state.

He gasped from the impact. Her mouth claimed his in a kiss that took away what breath he had, leaving his mind reeling, lost in passion, in an inferno that ignited in his heart and burned all the way to his flesh as tingling warmth. The heat dispersed the last vestiges of the drug, searing him deeper than any sungun ever could. The bond of his Truemate blazed across his soul.

Tigress kissed his jaw, working her way down his throat, nipping, kissing, licking. He groaned, all the fight gone out of him, submitting to her, submitting to his tygon Mistress.

He wasn’t a warrior and didn’t want to be.

Didn’t need to be, not as long as she was there to save him.

Jozef closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and let her do what she pleased.

She held him to the cool wall, her breath hot on his throat as she bent her head and nipped. “Bad boy. Where did you think you were going?”

“I don’t want Mistress to punish me.”

“Well, running is only going to make me want to punish you.”

“Please, Mistress, don’t punish your boy. He’ll --”

She nipped him, breaking his concentration, stealing his ability to speak, to think.

“You’ve been so very bad, Jozef. Making your Mistress worry about you.”

“S-sorry… M-Mistress.”

She licked his throat, then moved down, the tip of her tongue lapping delicately over a nipple, making him shudder and groan. His hands gripped her shoulders, clinging in a way that made her heart fill with a protective fierceness, a need to possess, to claim what was hers.

Hers.

She wrapped her arms around Jozef, picked him up, and carried him to the bed. She tossed him into the middle and stood there watching him while something warm and wonderful grew from a tiny spark to a raging fire in her heart.

Tigress knew her mate. The one she’d sought since she was old enough to think of cubs and a family.

One way or another she would have what she wanted. Jozef. Cubs. Maybe she could get him to give her what she ached to have, a family of her own, even if he could never love her.

She ran her gaze down his body, watched his cock twitch under her scrutiny.

“Does this boy please his Mistress?”

“You’re pretty enough to look at, but it remains to be demonstrated if you can please me.”

He rose onto his knees, bowed his head, and offered his wrists to her for restraints, if that was what she chose.

Tail lashing, she hopped onto the bed, got a grip in his hair, and made him look up at her. “Are you mine?”

Garnet flame eyes burned, the inner fire bright, lust-hot. “Yes, Mistress, this boy is yours.”

She pounced on him, shoving him down, her cunt taking in his cock, enveloping it in her wet heat and wrenching a cry of intense pleasure from him. She started to move, rising and falling on his hardness with a hunger, a need, fueled by what she’d almost lost.

Her love.

The mate she knew she couldn’t live without.

She gripped his shoulders and dug her claws in as he gripped her hips, their bodies moving together, two halves of a single creature.

She bent down, felt his fangs sink deep into her flesh, groaned with the added pleasure of a vampire’s blood kiss. Her hips moved faster, tail lashing, a yowl of pleasure rising in her throat to burst free as she reached her first orgasm.

Jozef cried out, eyes like a raging inferno as his vampire nature drew closer to the surface, stripping away his nearly Human appearance, letting her see the beauty beneath. Too perfect. Skin like purest alabaster, she dug her claws into the perfection of his skin, watched blood flow, bent to lap it up.

“Tigress, my wonderful tygon. I’m yours. I’m yours!” he gasped out.

Wishful thinking. He doesn’t love me. He can’t love me.

Gasping, dizzy with the release of pent up emotions she didn’t know she’d held restrained, Tigress felt tears trying to flow from her mid-form’s eyes.

Jozef was safe. He was safe and well, in her bed where he belonged, and she wasn’t about to ever let him go.

“Yes, Ti, more!” he cried as she rolled him on top, powerful thighs wrapped around his hips.

“Fuck me! Fuck me now!” she commanded.

Jozef’s hips thrust, driving his hard rod of flesh into her inferno core, stoking the fires raging inside her until she felt ready to ignite.

Her claws extended, tearing skin, blood dripping onto her chest, into her face, his head bent to her throat, teeth rending, her own mouth closing on silken skin.

Motes of light danced in her blood as the magic of his immortality sang in her ears for the first time, the song sweeter than the taste of his eternal life. Her soul felt light, her body almost weightless as she rode his cock mercilessly, taking them up on the spiral of passion, rising on a gold and red column of glittering brilliance that seemed to fill the room.

Tigress dropped over the edge, screaming her pleasure, arms and legs tightening around Jozef as she screamed out, “Mine!”

Exhausted, Jozef collapsed on her, whispering, “Yours. Always yours.”

Tigress held him close, rolling onto her side and taking him with her, cradling the trembling vampire in her embrace. “Nobody takes what’s mine,” she whispered fiercely into his ear. “Nobody and no one.”

He chuckled and snuggled into her embrace. “Ti, I don’t think anyone is man, woman, or creature enough to try. Not against you and your crew. Not after what you’ve just done on the Human homeworld.”

She kissed him, looked into his garnet flame gaze, and smiled. “Better not. I’m tired of blowing shit up to protect you.”

“What? Hey, that’s only happened once.”

“And that’s one time too many!” she countered as she trailed her hand down his chest. There were still faint pinkish marks on his skin everywhere the light had burned him.

“Well, maybe you should find a better way to protect me.”

She grinned. “I’ve got just the thing.”

Now or never, she thought, fighting the urge to leave things as they were between them. But she wanted more, wanted to at least know that if he couldn’t love her, he did want her at his side.

She pulled him to a sitting position and reached under the pillow before she slipped out of the bed and went to her knees on the floor and opened the small box. Inside the velvet lined box a platinum ring set with small stones that caught the light and refracted it into star patterns sparkled brighter than diamonds. Bloodstars. Rarer than the emeralds of Old Earth. Harder than diamonds. Even a small one cost a fortune. And the ring held three perfectly matched stones.

She’d gone down to the surface of Nevanar to buy the ring, pouring her entire savings into the purchase -- had probably been in the process of buying it when the Humans made their move and took him -- but that didn’t matter.

What mattered most was that she’d almost lost him.

And she didn’t want to risk losing him again.

Her hand shook as she held the ring out to him, her mouth gone dry, heart pounding, making an offering that could very well be the thing that drove them apart.

“I know you said you could never feel for me the way you felt for your Eleanor, and I don’t expect you to sire any cubs.” She felt a heaviness in her heart as she said that, but she had to accept the facts; he couldn’t love her the way she loved him. He’d never start a family with her. If that was how it had to be, then she’d accept it just to be with him. The bitterness of never being a mother to any cubs rose to silence her for an instant.

She found her voice again and said, “Jozef of Nevanar, Prince of the Blood, will you marry me?”

His eyes went wide with shock, mouth falling open as he stared at her.

“W-what? Me? M-marry you?” he stammered.

Her brows drew down, lips twisting into an unhappy scowl. “Yeah, stupid of me to ask,” she replied, bitter and hurt by his rejection. She really hadn’t expected anything else, but, foolish to the end, she’d held out a small spark of hope that he’d agree. But his past, his Eleanor, wouldn’t be forgotten. “I can tell from your reaction you aren’t going to go for it, so we can just forget I brought it up.” She started to close the box over the bright loop of metal.

He started to laugh, throwing his arms around Tigress’s neck, his lips seeking hers in a passionate kiss. “Of course I’ll marry you! I love you.”

“You…?” She stared at him as the words sank in.

“Yes, Tigress. I didn’t realize it until I thought I was going to die, but I do love you.”

She stared at him silently, eyes wide and dazed.

“Did you hear me?”

She nodded, still in shock, not believing what she’d heard. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

She kissed him, their hearts and minds reaching out, touching as their tongues met in a dance of passion. The kiss broke, and the pair stared into one another’s eyes. Love shone in their gazes.

“Tigress, I love you.”

She purred as he took the ring from the box and slipped it onto his finger. “I love you too, but don’t think I’m going to go easy on you, Jozef. Now, get on your knees and show your Mistress some proper respect.”

Grinning, his eyes sparkling bright as the bloodstars, he went to his knees on the floor. “Oh yes, my Mistress!”

“You’re just impossible, do you know that?”

“Me? What about you? You’re the one that blew up a planet.”

“It wasn’t the whole planet, Jozef.”

“Now you’re arguing semantics.”

“Well, who was it that let himself get kidnapped?

“Let? Let!”

She bent down and kissed him to silence his protest. “Don’t argue with me,” she murmured. “Mistress is always right.”

“Ha!”

Tigress’s eyes glittered with amusement. She placed on hand on his shoulder and squeezed, her hand shifting to mid-form as the rest of her body flowed into it. She dug the tips of her claws onto his skin, grinning at him. “You were saying?”

“Umm…right. Yes, you’re correct. It wasn’t the whole planet, just a significant portion that contained their government headquarters.”

“Well, they shouldn’t have taken you from me.”

Laughing, Tigress swept him up in her arms and tossed him onto the bed. “You owe me for that rescue, Jozef, and I intend to claim my reward.”

He grunted when the full weight of his tygon lover landed on him, hands braced on his shoulders, her parted thighs straddling his hips, teasing the head of his erect cock.

“I thought you already had!” he protested through a slight smile.

“No, that was just a down payment.”

“Down payment?”

She nodded and lowered herself onto his awaiting flesh.

“Well, I’m not going to argue. Not with the Queen of Carnage herself.”

She bent down toward him and murmured, “Very wise,” then claimed his mouth in a kiss that left him dazed.

Jozef, Prince of the Blood, had found love once more. Found it the arms of his Mistress Ti, his very own Queen of Carnage, and no man, woman, or creature would ever come between them again.

Not if they knew what was good for them.