The Iriduan’s Mate by Susan Trombley
Twenty-Eight
Molly felt like a part of her had died inside, and she might just be a zombie, going about her day without any awareness of it. She couldn’t stomach eating anything, and the words of her friends and allies seemed to buzz around her ears without her comprehending them. Her eyes itched and burned, dry at the moment, but likely to drip again with her seemingly endless tears when she once again retreated to the quiet space of her room.
She hadn’t wanted to leave it at all, preferring to remain hidden away until she felt like she could breathe easily again, because right now, she felt close to hyperventilating every time she thought of the look in Shulgi’s eyes when she’d walked out on him.
It was for the best, she kept repeating to herself, but those words also buzzed around her without meaning. What was the best? Did she even know anymore? Could she continue on in this role she’d never wanted in the first place, forever lonely and heartbroken, without snapping from the strain of it? Would she have to turn to drowning her sorrows and trauma in an ocean of alcohol, like poor Jem, who had grown so agoraphobic now that they let him stay down in the lower security room, so he didn’t have to deal with people or new spaces?
She had no answers to those questions, but she knew in her heart that she’d made the wrong decision. She just couldn’t tell what the right decision would have been.
She should have tried harder to work things out with Shulgi. She should have told him the truth and trusted that he wouldn’t betray her and her allies. She should have believed in him, since she’d told him herself that she thought he was a good person at his core. If that were true—if she’d been completely genuine in that belief—she should have put her faith in him completely.
She did believe he was a good person, but his past told her that even good people could be swayed to do bad things. Sometimes, those things ended up harming the people closest to them. Her secret had not felt like hers alone, or she would have shared it without reservation, but if the people she loved ended up getting hurt because she’d trusted Shulgi with that secret, she never would have been able to forgive herself.
“Molly,” Jenice said, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Molly jumped with a startled yelp, blinking as she regained awareness of her surroundings. She glanced around, noting Briana and Jenice staring at her with concern in their eyes. “Sorry, what did you say again?”
Briana huffed, a small smile tilting her lips. “You’ve been out of it all day, Mol. Maybe you should take today off.” She patted her generous bosom with the palm of one hand. “I don’t mind taking over for you. This should be an easy day for Zaska’s mouthpiece, and it will be good practice to step into your role.”
Jenice nodded, shooting a speaking glance at Briana before turning her attention back to Molly. “We were talking about who we could bring in to take Briana’s place as second, since you’ll be joining me in the back.”
“I still think Jusa would be a good choice,” Briana said in a tone that suggested she’d already mentioned this before and had already been rejected.
Jenice sighed, slowly shaking her head. “Jusa is lovely, but she’s been through too much trauma. I don’t want her to take on this role, even though she says she’d be willing.”
“We’ve all been through trauma!” Briana held her arms out at her sides. “Jusa has training. She’s absolutely gorgeous, even to humans, and she has natural grace and charm. She’s exactly the kind of female Sha Zaska would choose for a dyed flower.”
Molly understood Jenice’s caution. Someone broken by their experiences had a higher likelihood of inadvertently giving away Sha Zaska’s secret. They couldn’t afford to make the wrong decision when it came to bringing in new flowers.
There had been only a about a dozen dyed flowers since they’d come up with the concept, and only Molly had lasted this long in the role. It could be taxing even for those with an unbroken will. For those close to the edge, it could end up pushing them over. At the very least, it would mean they’d retire and leave Za’Kluth far sooner than a more healed flower would, forcing the inner circle to make this decision all over again, and take yet another risk with their secret.
Briana was similar to Molly in that she’d gained a strong degree of pragmatism during her enslavement. She’d learned how to play the game and make the most of her miserable situation. She also had little interest in returning to Earth, claiming she’d been nothing special there—just another face in the crowd—but now she felt like she was doing something truly important, and building a legend for herself in the process.
Jusa wasn’t human. She was a hybrid nostria-onera, similar in build to a human female, though her breasts only swelled during her mating season and that happened only once in a Za’Kluth year. She also had six tentacles arrayed in two rows down her back, the lowest pair falling past her knees, writhing beneath a long fall of straight, filmy white hair. Her eyes glimmered like faceted diamonds in a delicate, almost foxlike tan furred face with a short snout and ultra-thin whiskers.
The hybrid had no attachment to a home world that would draw her away, but she had suffered dearly while enslaved to a wealthy merchant on seventh-tier. She’d been “created” for the pleasure of himself and his wife cluster, and they’d used her poorly in her short and tragic life.
“Jusa wants to do this!” Briana said earnestly. “Besides, since we bought her openly instead of secretly aiding her escape, there wouldn’t be any awkward questions about why she’s down here serving Zaska. It’s what those bastards who sold her would expect Zaska to do with her!”
Jenice shook her head, but Molly spoke aloud before she could deny the request again. “I suppose Jusa has nowhere else to go,” she said sadly, thinking about her own situation. “Perhaps it isn’t such a bad idea after all. She knows enough about the truth that we wouldn’t be telling her anything much more dangerous than we already have.”
“Plus,” Briana said with a sly grin, “I think Mogie has the hots for her. He’d be sad if you sent her away, Jen. Aren’t you already on his bad side? Do you really want to make him angrier at you?”
Molly raised her eyebrows at the devastated expression on Jenice’s face. “You know, I haven’t seen either of them today,” she said aloud, realizing that they’d failed to greet her when she’d crawled painfully out of bed that morning, and she hadn’t seen them since.
In her sadness, she’d failed to notice their absence until now. Even when she didn’t have somewhere to go where she needed their escort, they usually made a point to stop in and chat with her every day.
Jenice ran a hand through her hair, wincing as her fingers encountered tangles. “I sent them to Column 210 for that task we’ve been talking about. They should be back by tomorrow with a bunch of credit tokens in hand.”
Molly’s lips tightened in anger. “You didn’t even discuss this with me first.”
“They aren’t in any danger, Mol.” Jenice looked repentant, but her tone sounded firm. “You can take other bodyguards today, if you need to go anywhere.”
Guards who wouldn’t help Molly sneak away to see Shulgi was what Jenice meant. Guards who were loyal to the inner circle first, rather than to Molly personally. They would see Jenice’s orders as better for the gang as a whole than Molly’s selfish desire to see her lover again.
“If anything happens to Mog and Grun—”
Jenice lifted a hand to cut her off. “C’mon, Molly! I love them both too. You know I’d never put them in danger without reason! The dealer they’re going to see is totally legit. They’ll be fine!”
Molly looked away from Jenice’s expression, which appeared torn between pleading and frustrated. She met Briana’s eyes, and the other woman shrugged, clearly unsure what to say to reduce the growing tension between Molly and Jenice.
Jenice opened her mouth to say more when an alarm pealed, filling the inner sanctum with a klaxon of sound and a flashing of bright red lights.
“Sonofabitch!” Jenice leapt up from the sofa as Briana vaulted over it, landing lithely on her feet.
They all turned towards the door leading to the office as they heard the whooshing sound of the blast-proof shutter sliding down on the other side of it.
“What’s going on?” Briana said even as she rushed to the hidden panel that hid their cache of weapons.
Jenice and Molly joined her, each grabbing a pistol.
Jenice tapped her wrist com, then spoke into it. They all read the reply that scrolled over the skin of her wrist.
“Iriduans invading?” Molly felt as stricken as if she’d taken a physical blow. “Why? No! It can’t be Shulgi. He would never do this to me!”
Jenice managed to get more information from the guards beyond their sealed sanctum, her voice shaking as she spoke into her com.
“We’re losing ground fast!” she said as the text scrolled. “They brought a whole damned army! It mostly looks like hired mercs, but the dock guards are saying they see Ma’Nah’s symbol on some of the armor.”
“Shulgi wouldn’t do this!” Molly insisted even as Jenice rushed towards the door leading to the inner security office. “He loves me! He would never put me at risk!”
“They’re taking over,” Jenice hissed as she spun around to face Molly, even while pressing her palm to the security door access panel, “we can’t hold them off for long, Molly! Not without activating ‘Hail Mary’.”
Molly’s heart thudded with dread as she thought about what would happen if Shulgi was out there when that happened. “No! We- we must be sure about why they’re here before we purge the docks! A lot of innocent people will die if we use our last resort!”
“Don’t act like you give a fuck about our people, Molly,” Jenice sneered. “All you care about is whether Shulgi is out there.”
Molly jerked back, stung by Jenice’s tone and vicious words. “What the hell has gotten into you, Jenice!”
Jenice’s expression suddenly crumpled as she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Molly! This is all my fault! I just wanted to keep him away, and I thought his people would stop him from seeing you if they thought he compromised their position with Zaska.”
A deep and horrible foreboding filled Molly, just as the security door slid open.
Jem flew out of the room, slamming bodily into Jenice, followed by Shulgi, moving so fast he was a blur. Within the blink of an eye, he had a hold of the pistol Jenice had dropped, not to mention a fistful of her hair.
He jerked her head back, pressing the pistol to her temple as he dragged her up onto her feet. “Lower your weapons,” he growled, his eyes cold as they shifted from Briana to Molly.
She and Briana both did as he ordered. Molly blinked back tears as she looked away from Shulgi’s remote, chilling gaze. She spotted Jem lying unconscious on the floor, blood seeping from multiple cuts on his body.
“What did you do to him?” she demanded, shock and devastation in her voice, turning her gaze back to Shulgi. “Why would you do this? I thought you—”
“Do not pretend any emotion for me at this point, Molly,” he said with a snarl, jerking Jenice’s head further back until her body arched in his hold. “I know now that you are Sha Zaska—not a hapless slave. I understand everything now. The blackmail attempt wasn’t from a monster dwelling below the vents, but from a greedy female who couldn’t be content with the lucrative deal Ma’Nah had already made with you.” His bitter chuckle held no mirth. “You played me well, little Molly. I almost fell for your innocent act. Ninhursag would have been in awe of your deviousness.”
Despite the rage so evident in his expression as his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, his brows lowered so much they cast a dark shadow over his cold eyes, and his jaw ticked, she still heard the hurt behind the deep bitterness in his voice.
Molly slowly shook her head. “Shulgi, please, I would never do anything to hurt you! You don’t underst—”
Jenice gasped in pain as Shulgi pressed the pistol harder against her temple. “Do you think I won’t kill a female, Molly?” His brutally cold eyes shifted to Briana. “Toss your weapon aside, or you will be the next to die.”
Briana, trembling visibly, her face gone pale even with the dyes on her skin, threw her pistol onto the sofa, then held up both hands quickly to show she was unarmed.
Molly’s fingers felt nerveless around the grip of her own pistol. Unlike Briana, she hadn’t even tried to bring it up in a subtle way in the hopes of catching Shulgi off guard long enough to get a shot in on him before he could kill Jenice. Even if she thought she could get away with it—and she knew that was impossible—she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him, at least not when she still hoped she could reason with him.
“Shulgi, I know you’re upset that I hid the truth about Sha Zaska,” she said slowly, her voice trembling as she set the pistol on the seat back of the sofa, then raised her own hands, “but please don’t be hasty. I can explain everything.”
“Where are the slaves?” Shulgi demanded, his voice hard and relentless. “Did you sell them off world instead of killing them? Claiming they died is an excellent way to escape paying excessive export fees, isn’t it? Not to mention avoiding angry owners coming after you for the theft of their property.”
“We freed them!” Molly said, realizing that Jem must not have made that known to Shulgi. No doubt he’d revealed as little as possible during his torture, likely unaware of the kind of person Shulgi was.
Molly wasn’t even sure of the kind of person Shulgi was at this point, though it hurt to acknowledge that she might have been wrong about him.
Still, some hint of the goodness she’d seen in him flickered behind his eyes at her words. “You freed them?”
Jenice’s body relaxed a little and Molly suspected Shulgi’s hard grip had loosened in his surprise at her words.
She nodded, clasping her hands in front of her in a pleading gesture. “Shulgi, we are all escaped slaves. We created Sha Zaska to be our ‘master’ to keep other predators away from us. Then we realized we could use his myth to help others escape this world and find their freedom—maybe even return to their home worlds.”
Though his expression remained hard and remote, she saw his brows lift, just enough to spot the uncertainty that softened his eyes. “If this is true, why didn’t you tell me this when I said I wanted to free you.”
She despaired as the suspicion in his gaze returned, hardening it again. “I… I wasn’t sure I could trust you to keep our secret. It wasn’t only my own life at stake. Please, Shulgi, believe me when I say I wanted nothing more than to tell you the truth!”
His snarl only deepened, and Jenice yelped as his grip tightened. “The truth? You mean the one where you threatened to expose the footage of me fucking you to the entire dreg, knowing that such an act would destroy Ma’Nah and put me on the execution list of every Iriduan in the galaxy?”
Molly gasped, her mouth gaping open with her shock and horror. She shook her head so hard that her bound hair broke loose from its bun. “I would never do such a thing! Who told you this lie?”
“I saw the footage that was sent to my kin,” he growled, his voice shaking with rage.
Molly shook her head again, not wanting to believe what he was saying. “No, you couldn’t have. There’s no way someone could have gotten ahold of that footage. We keep it in a data vault that isn’t connected to any other servers. We—”
“I did it,” Jenice said dully. “I sent the footage to Ma’Nah, Molly.”
Shulgi hissed, then thrust Jenice away from him like he couldn’t stand being in contact with her, though he kept his pistol pointed at her head, his aim rock steady on her as she stumbled into Molly.
“God damn it, Jenice!” Briana shouted, turning her full focus on Jenice as if the lethally enraged male wasn’t still pointing a pistol in their direction. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Blackmail footage is supposed to be a last resort! Always! How could you do this? We had a great deal with Ma’Nah!”
Jenice covered her face with both hands, her body shaking. “I wanted him gone,” she said between ugly sobs. “I feared that Molly would only end up hurt again, and this time, the heartbreak would destroy her! I didn’t think he really cared about her. I thought he was just toying with her.”
“So you pissed off the entire company enough for them to send an army of mercs our way just to get rid of one guy?” Briana’s voice had risen to a shriek. “Haven’t you ever heard of buying someone off? People do it all the time! Hell, we could have made Molly ‘disappear’ to keep the guy away! Why would you do something so stupid and reckless as this?”
Molly met Shulgi’s eyes, still seeing no sign of softening in them as he shifted his gaze from Briana to her, to Jenice.
“She didn’t just want him gone. She wanted to hurt him.” Molly turned her focus to Jenice, betrayal gouging claws deep into her heart. “To destroy him.”
Jenice lowered her hands, still sniffling, her eyes red and swollen as they fixed on Molly. “Kuro’s lies nearly broke you, Molly. I’ve seen these males toy with all of you with no regard for what it does to you emotionally. I was tired of watching you get hurt and being helpless to retaliate. This time, I wanted to make one of them feel as crushed as you would be when it ended.”
Molly shook her head, her own eyes dripping with tears. “My heart is certainly hurt right now, Jen. My sense of betrayal is far stronger than the one Kuro left me with.” She shook her head sharply, holding up a hand to stop Jenice from moving closer to her in supplication. “No, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you for this.”
As much as it felt like they were being wrenched out of her, the words came out dully and without heat.
“Molly,” Jenice wept, “I did it for your own good! I knew you wouldn’t have the strength to stop seeing him until he’d finished playing with you and discarded you. I knew I had to do something drastic to keep him away from you.”
“Yeah, you dumb bitch,” Briana snapped, flinging a hand towards the outer door, “that ‘something drastic’ has led to an army knocking at our front door. Or should I say beating it down!”
Molly turned away from Jenice, who still stared at her with a wordless plea.
She met Shulgi’s remote glare again. “Shulgi, please explain the misunderstanding to your people. We will pay any damages and turn over all copies of the footage, as well as a generous tribute, along with our sincerest apologies.”
“It’s too late for that, Molly,” Shulgi said in the coldest tone she’d ever heard from him. “Ma’Nah has the manpower to take these docks, and we will, regardless of what resistance your minions put up. I went into the under-vents to eliminate Sha Zaska for that reason. If you want to end this without more bloodshed, tell your own minions to surrender now, and their lives will be spared. We will even guarantee the jobs of those who sign a contract with us.”
“You can’t take over our organization!” Jenice shouted, suddenly charging at Shulgi.
The sound of a pistol discharging caused Molly to scream in horror as Jenice collapsed to the floor in front of Shulgi.
She rushed towards Jenice, her heart pounding. Briana’s shouts of alarm barely registered in her ears as Jenice’s moans of pain blotted them out.
“Jen!” She hugged the other woman to her chest. “Don’t you die on me!”
“She will have trouble walking until she’s healed, but I have enough skill not to kill her unless I choose to,” Shulgi said in an emotionless tone. “I recommend none of you force me to make that choice.”
Molly looked up into his eyes, seeing no trace of the loving male she’d once believed him to be. “You came here to destroy Sha Zaska and take over, didn’t you?” She huffed in mirthless laughter. “I was the fool being played all along. You seduced me because you saw me as a way to get closer to Sha Zaska. Close enough to strike him down.”
Shulgi gestured to Briana with his empty hand. “Call off your minions and unlock that door. You’ve already lost this fight.”
Then he returned his attention to Molly as Briana slowly made her way towards the door, speaking into her wrist com. “Believe what you will, mouthpiece. It doesn’t change the fact that Sha Zaska is ‘dead’, and his reign of terror is over on these docks.”
“And what new reign of terror takes his place?” Molly asked bitterly, her heart shattering until she felt certain that shards of it pierced her lungs, making it nearly impossible to draw another breath.
