Fenturi Fate Read online

  Her face heated as memories of those dreams intruded, and she crossed to the small waterfall they’d created for Mra, trying to lose herself in the native Kre waters pooling in the rocky well.

  The Legionnaire had seemed familiar yet strange all at once. His eyes had reminded her of the forests on Kre, and had further back into her past, of the lakes on Fentra—she refused to think of her planet as Bylar.

  As thoughts of her homeworld broke through the mental barriers she’d long ago put in place, Dare shook her head. A headache developed, as usual, so she breathed deeply and concentrated on the Kre waters to dissipate the pain.

  Memories of Fentra occasionally struck her at odd times during her growing years, but never with the frequency with which they had in the past few days. But then… She’d never been so close to a Legionnaire before. He must have stirred memories of Fentra. Relieved she wasn’t going mad, she focused on the cooling waters until the pain in her head faded.

  She left Mra and found Jace arguing with Roc and Shea in the galley.

  Dare grabbed one of Roc’s infamous Rovi biscuits and gnawed on the tasty yet tough treat while she tried to determine the nature of the argument.

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Shea, but I don’t think you’re thinking clearly,” Jace said patiently to the redheaded spitfire.

  “You got that right.” Roc glared at her, especially when she punched him in the arm.

  She flexed her hand and grimaced. “Ow. You really are a rock. Look, it’s a guaranteed bek-finder! Trust me, those idiots in the Lynaran palace have it coming to them.”

  “Can someone please tell me what you’re talking about?” Dare tossed her half-eaten biscuit to the table. But when Roc gave her a suspicious look, she picked it up again, forced a smile, and took another dry bite of it, trying not to choke as she swallowed.

  Jace coughed, no doubt to hide a laugh. “Sorry, something in my throat. So Dare, I’m sure you’ll appreciate this. Shea wants to go back to Lynar—to the royal palace. You know, the one with her picture tagged to every tree and law hut in the village. She’s got this grand idea of making off with the treasury the palace recently confiscated from Teln.”

  “Isn’t Teln the thieving colony where you grew up?” At Shea’s nod, Dare frowned. “So you want to revisit a place that banished you to a pirate ship and certain death? For what? Revenge?”

  “Don’t you see how precious that would be?” Shea grinned, her yellow eyes glowing like Lynaran gold in the bright light of the galley. “They have wanted notices all over the place for me. Yet I’d still manage to steal, not only from the palace, but from that dirty little colony where I grew up. I’d be a legend.”

  “Only if they know you did the thieving, which will surely get you caught.” Roc added, “Legend or not, being dead won’t get you the respect you seem to crave.”

  Shea huffed at him but didn’t say any more. They sat together by the counter, like two lings on a weir. Dare eyed the two with humor. Shea’s bright eyes burned with an excitement that was almost palpable, while Roc’s steady gaze watched her with something more than annoyance.

  Though Roc’s eyes showed nothing more than a white slate, Dare had gotten used to reading his subtle facial expressions. He cared for the little illusionist more than Shea knew. Or did she?

  Dare wouldn’t put it past Shea to take advantage of the Rovi’s attachment, especially because the sneaky woman obviously felt for the Rovi right back. Whatever the case, the two were inseparable. Dare had the odd sense one would literally die without the other.

  She glanced at Jace, not surprised to see his subtle agreement. Sometimes she and the Psi didn’t have to speak, they were so in tune with each other.

  Willing to play along with the idea of annoying the Lynaran royal government, Dare said, “Okay, Shea. What makes you so sure that the beks are there to be stolen?”

  Roc gaped at her. Shea rubbed her hands gleefully, then hit a button near the holovid on the wall and projected a small image of the palace, as well as a larger picture of Teln’s proximity on the countertop.

  “I keep my ears open when we travel. And when on Vembi, I ran into an old friend of mine. No Roc,” she said before he could start a familiar lecture. “He didn’t recognize me. But I did overhear what the Sonjobs on Lynaran did to Teln.”

  “Sonjob?” Dare wasn’t that familiar with Lynar. In her opinion, that miserable world mirrored Bylar far too closely.

  “Sonjob is the royal house on Lynar, and they recently revoked a lucrative trade route with the Teln province,” Jace explained. “I don’t know, Shea. It does sound like the perfect opportunity to make some good currency. But it sounds almost too easy. If we get caught there, you’re definitely getting phased, not to mention the rest of us will face death for aiding and abetting the most wanted thief on the planet.”

  Shea frowned. “You’re wrong, Jace. Honestly, it’s a wonder you all haven’t gotten picked up and fleeced by the Legion in your years without me. I was sentenced and banished, remember? They can’t touch me now.”

  “Yes, they can,” Roc said forcefully, causing Shea to stare up at him in surprise. “The Lynarans have no limit on sentencing. You mess with the royal house, you’re asking for instant death. Banishment at least gave you a chance.” He glared with disapproval, including Dare in his displeasure.

  Royal house had her dander up. Dare hated anything royal, her thoughts always returning to Bylar and the murderers who’d killed her family. “Now hold on, Roc. Shea just might be onto something here. With her knowledge of Lynar and her ability to cloak our presence, we might be able to pull this off.” Dare thought about it, excitement building. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a little payback, is there, Shea?”

  Jace narrowed his eyes, and she felt his question…and his disapproval. But reminders royals, of the Legionnaire and all he stood for, clouded her mind to anything but retribution. She might not be able to storm the Bylaran royal house, but they just might be able to get Shea the payback she needed.

  It would have to do. For now.

  ***

  Later that evening, after tentative plans had been made to storm the Lynaran palace, Jace joined Dare in the library. He glanced down at Mra and shook his head. Even the Fentra-Kre cat agreed with him, her disdainful eyes narrowed on her mistress.

  “You’re letting your personal demons interfere with good sense.” Jace sank into the chair opposite Dare and stared at her until she looked up from her journal.

  “Not you too.” She groaned.

  “Yes, me too,” he said with irritation. “Darel, you’re usually more level-headed than this. Can’t you see the foolishness of using Shea’s plan to fulfill your own desire for revenge?”

  He used her full name for effect and wasn’t disappointed when she glared at him. Unfortunately, mention of her past caused her mental walls to strengthen, and Jace feared she wouldn’t listen now if the universe depended on it.

  “By the Dark World, Dare, you—”

  “I know what we’re doing doesn’t make much sense to you or Roc. But don’t you ever feel the need to get even? To try to make sense and gain some measure of rightness against the injustices in your life?” Her eyes grew neon violet, ablaze with righteous anger.

  Jace felt his own temper stir. “You think I don’t know anger and injustice? I’ve lived through my own hell with my own personal demons. One day I’ll free my world of the evil rotting it from within.” He felt the familiar hatred fill him and worked to tamp it back down, back to the pit of his soul where it dwelled, waiting to be set free. “But I’ll do it when I’ve gained enough power to defeat my enemies, not to toy with them. I won’t run off half-cocked like a Fenturi refugee trying to get even with a half-brained plot to relieve a royal treasury.”

  Dare apparently refused to take the bait. She laughed at him. He hated that, and she knew it. “You do it your way, and I’ll do it mine.” Then her face softened, and she gave him a mental caress, sister to brother
. “If you don’t want to go, Jace, we can drop you off and pick you up after we’re done.”

  He scowled. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’ll let you go by yourselves. Roc will need help bailing Shea out of trouble. And the Goddess knows you’ll need me.”

  Crossing to her, he leaned down and fastened his mouth over hers, startling her with the intensity of his kiss. She might have thought of them as platonic siblings, but he’d always been aware of her as a woman. He broke the kiss and straightened, amused at her flush of shock.

  “Good thing I’ve got some friends I can talk to later, eh?” Embarrassing the girl felt good. By the Dark World, he was only a man. Though she’d never seemed to need physical stimulation, he sometimes thought he’d go mad without it.

  He left her and Mra staring after him and walked through the ship to his chamber.

  He loved Dare like a sister, and so he reminded himself daily. But he could only take so much. The Fenturi were sensual beings, and being around her day in and day out took a toll on his prime body. Though he knew they weren’t meant to connect in that way, he at times had trouble remembering that.

  He stripped down and settled into his bed then mentally visited a female friend on Vembi. The untold powers of the Psi were such that physical release could be attained through mental contact alone. Definitely not as satisfying as touching a warm female, but by the Goddess, he needed some ease.

  Jace had an odd realization that Dare’s sensual aura had gotten stronger since her visit to Vembi. He wondered if he ought to talk to Mra about it. Dare had so little awareness for her femininity at times that it worried him.

  Before he could finish that thought, Raia answered his mental call, and he lost himself in her erotic spell.

  He’s right you know. Mra purred and rubbed her head against Dare’s questing hand. You aren’t thinking straight. Use your head, not your wounded heart.

  Dare lost herself in Mra’s silky fur. She sometimes felt so relaxed in Mra’s presence that it was all she could do not to fall asleep. A bit disgruntled that Mra had joined Jace’s line of reasoning, Dare frowned and looked down into blue eyes as bright as her own.

  “I know it,” she admitted on a groan. “But Mra, sometimes I feel an anger so intense, and I don’t know what to do with it.” She looked away from the feline’s clear gaze, toward the dark of space visible through the large front portal. “I fear if I don’t release it, I’ll hurt someone.”

  Dare didn’t like to talk about her abilities. Her telling violet eyes had morphed into a bright blue shortly after she’d escaped Bylar, so physically she resembled any number of human species. Jace knew who she was. Roc and Shea had recognized her uncanny agility, speed and strength early on but attributed her resilience to Dare’s bloodline, whatever that might be. She had never mentioned it, and they’d never pried.

  Both Roc and Shea came from worlds where being different had gotten them outcast, and they accepted Dare without question. But to show them the true force of her power might turn them against her, as the Bylarans had turned against her own people long ago.

  Yet sometimes she wanted nothing more than to scream her existence, to remind one and all the Fenturi yet lived.

  Mra stared at her with concern. Have you need now to unleash this now?

  “No, but it’s building.” Del sighed. “Ever since I fought next to that dark Legionnaire on Vembi it’s been growing in me. I wonder if the Shorhu poison did something more to me than I’d thought.”

  She didn’t notice Mra’s shuttered stare, nor the sharply extended claws that left a mark at the base of her chair.

  ***

  In a small clearing of the Fentra Forest on Bylar, Zebram stood calmly with his half-brother while the giant warrior paced in front of him like a caged guidecat.

  “Ren, relax,” Zebram said for the tenth time that morning. Since his discussion with Myla several days earlier, he’d asked Garen to find and talk to him, to no avail. No one had been able to find Garen until today.

  Sad that he had to rely on royal bullying to get his brother’s whereabouts.

  He studied his brother, noting Garen’s controlled violence. He should have talked with his brother sooner, to ease what had to be festering pain at their father’s death. But Zebram had been unable to find the man, and the Stalkers’ silence hadn’t helped matters. He regretted having to use his position to gain Castor’s cooperation, but he’d had no other choice.

  He felt ambivalent about Garen’s men. On the one hand he admired both their battle voracity and strict loyalty to his brother—a loyalty, he thought, that came before protecting the Vinopol House. Yet he felt sorry that Garen felt closer to those men than his own family.

  Zebram sighed. He couldn’t blame his brother. From an early age Garen had been taunted and cruelly mistreated, all under Zedrax’s pretense of hardening the fragile young boy.

  No one had been fooled. As a youth, Garen had already been tougher and stronger than his peers, as well as many of those in age and rank above him. Zedrax had always punished Garen as if punishing himself. He’d considered his liaison with Garen’s mother a weakness, and every glance at his eldest son had only emphasized that.

  With no chance to take the throne, Garen had been left little choice but to assume a protective role. And so the young boy had been toughened and hardened to the point where even now he could not and would not grieve for the unjust man who’d fathered him.

  Zebram felt no remorse for calling his father unjust. Though he’d been given love and kindness from the man, he’d never understood why the king could not share that love with Garen. And Zebram felt both angry and ashamed that Zedrax’s love further strained his relationship with his only brother.

  He watched Garen pace and wondered how best to confront this seeming stranger.

  Garen froze and stared over Zebram’s shoulder. Zebram turned to see Myla walking toward them with a slim young woman in tow. When they drew closer, Zebram noticed the lighter color of Myla’s changing eyes, as well as the violet eyes of the young woman with her. Another Fenturi.

  Amazed and pleased to see another Fenturi, it took Zebram a moment to remember his brother would not feel the same. Garen’s face darkened as he recognized enemy Fenturi blood, and Zebram could almost feel the seething rage building in him.

  Zebram put himself between Garen and the women to protect them.

  Garen moved to the side, his movements graceful and too quiet for a Bylaran Legionnaire. He withdrew his Rovi-metal sword, which gleamed in the pale sunlight streaming through the canopy of leaves above them. When Zebram looked into his eyes, he froze. All feeling, all sign of reason, looked to have fled from Garen’s green eyes now so dark they looked black.

  Zebram felt a moment’s panic. “Garen, no.”

  “Rest easy, child.” Myla drew abreast of Zebram and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “He will not harm us.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that old woman,” Garen said coldly, his voice as sharp as his blade. “You trespass on Vinopol grounds.”

  Myla laughed, though Zebram could see a shimmer of fear in her companion’s eyes.

  “Come boy, place your sword in its sheath. We have much to discuss and no time for theatrics.” Myla’s eyes blazed when Garen did no such thing. “Now.” Her voice cracked like a whip toward the formidable warrior. She uttered foreign words in rapid staccato—a Fenturi dialect—which made Garen pause in confusion before he gradually resheathed his weapon.

  He answered the woman in kind, and Zebram stared at him in shock. “I didn’t know you could speak Fenturi.” He once again felt like the small boy he’d once been, taken with hero-worship for his older sibling.

  “I don’t.” Garen scowled. “Or at least, I didn’t.” He gripped the hilt of his sword. “Best you speak quickly,” he ordered Myla in a silky voice that had her laughing again.

  The brothers and younger woman only stared at Myla in puzzlement.

  “Think you I should be scare
d of your threats?” she asked. “Bah. I’ve seen far worse than you, and worse than the Ragil Horde.” Her eyes remained on Garen’s face as her lips quirked. “Though I must say I’m quite taken aback to see such a fine Fenturi warrior in his prime.”

  Garen flinched as if struck, his body stilling as he stared with hate-filled eyes at the Fenturi witch.

  “Don’t like what you are, eh boy?” Myla gave Garen a toothy smile, though Zebram thought her expression gentle, despite the sharp teeth. “Well, we are as we’re made, as the Goddess wills it. Now is not the time for petty hatreds. The Horde will kill everyone and everything, regardless of being. Forget about bloodshed while I tell you where to look, and what to look for, if we are to save ourselves.”

  Garen nodded stiffly to Myla to continue.

  “Well now, Captain of the Stalkers, as I was telling His Highness the other day, the only hope the System has of surviving the Ragil Horde is a weapon known as the Thrax. But to power the Thrax, you need the Mari.”

  “What is that?” Garen asked.

  “The Mari is a Fenturi born under the Mari moonlight. There is but one born every generation, and if he or she still exists, which my senses tell me is true, you’ll need to find the Mari and soon. The Horde haven’t forgotten the last battle, and it’s more than just hunger that will have them here this time. It’s revenge as well.” Her lavender eyes glowed as she studied him. “You know all about wanting revenge, don’t you?”

  Zebram hadn’t thought Garen would respond to the woman, too angry at her lack of fear to speak.

  “Yes,” he answered in a low voice.

  “I can see that,” Myla murmured. “But we’ve more at stake. Save your rages for after, is there is an after.” She sighed, and the woman by her side patted her arm. “Thank you, dear. Garen, the Mari can be identified by a mark on the shoulder, a blue image showing two crossed moons above two small circles, each symbolizing the power of the Mari lakes. You’ll sense the Mari,” she spoke directly to Garen. “Your blood, that which you try to deny, is growing in you. And you can’t stop it no matter how much you may long to.