Coletti Warlords: Vexing Voss (25 page)

A killing rage simmered in the Overlord’s eyes. “He knows.”

The sensation of overwhelming danger shot through me. Heart pounding, I whirled like a scalded cat, and brought my pistol up. I spotted the tentacle a second too late. It whipped around my ankle, jerked me off my feet, and dragged me across the blazing hot sand. “Help!”

Three hundred pounds of pure muscle landed on top of me, knocking the air out of my poor abused lungs. Everything spun dizzily around me as I fought for breath.

A bloody sword flashed across my vision, and a Gorum squalled in agony.

I croaked, “Honey bunny, you’re squishing me.”

Voss leaped to his feet, clutching me against his battered chest. “Better than being eaten, sugar tits.”

“True.” I glanced over his shoulder and gasped. A herd of Gorum was swarming toward us. “Those aren’t my Gorum. Running would be good.”

With a snort, Voss quipped, “Ya think?”

Lilkee jumped up and ran toward them, shrieking, “Eat them. Eat them. Eat them.”

A brightly tattooed Gorum grabbed Lilkee and stuffed her down his gaping maw.

“Bet she didn’t see that coming.”

Bellowing a battle cry, Zarek disappeared and reappeared on top of the tattooed Gorum, driving his sword deep into its neck.

It emitted an earsplitting squall and teleported.

“Oh my God! It took the Overlord.”

“A decision Balram will soon regret,” Voss commented with an evil smile.

“That’s Balram?”

“Yes.”

“I hope Zarek cuts his traitorous heart out. Balram needs to pay for feeding those poor babies to the Tai-Kok.”

“His death is imminent.”

“Good.” Dozens of tentacles shot toward us. Locking my arms around Voss’s neck, I squawked, “Let’s get out of here, or do you have a death wish?”

“Warlords don’t run.”

“Dead warlords certainly don’t, and we are a bit outnumbered.”

“Yep.” A scant second before we would become dinner, Voss teleported, and we appeared on a ridge of rocks.

I looked down at the swarm of Gorum and laughed. Their tentacles were hopelessly knotted together. The more they struggled, the worse it got. “Slick move, sport.”

A grim smile curved Voss’s mouth. “I am the Overlord’s Battle Commander.”

“My hero.” I placed a gentle kiss on his bruised cheek.

Covered in bloody entrails, Zarek popped in and dropped a hysterically sobbing Lilkee on the ground like yesterday’s trash. “Silence, female.”

Slimy bits of green innards slid down her face. Her wails grew louder. “He ate me. He ate me.”

My stomach roiled. Ewww! Lilkee was now completely bald, and her skin seemed to be molting off in pieces. “What did you expect? You ran right up to them. All they saw was a tasty snack.”

“I’m a princess.” Lilkee’s voice rose to a shrill shriek. “A princess! Balram’s our ally. He’s not supposed to eat me. He’s supposed to eat you filthy hybrids.”

God, what a maroon. “I guess daddy dearest didn’t tell them that.”

Like a cranky two-year-old, Lilkee collapsed to the sand and drummed her heels. “Malik’s not my father. He can’t be.”

“He is, and throwing a temper tantrum isn’t going to change that sad fact,” I retorted.

“All of you are lying.”

“We are not,” Zarek spat, pulling entrails off his shoulders.

“That means…I had sex with my father,” Lilkee cried, her expression one of total revulsion.

I watched in disgust as a chunk of her nose fell off. “You didn’t seem to mind so much when you thought he was your brother.”

“Half brother,” Lilkee cried.

“Like that makes a different? It’s still incest.”

Voss shot the Overlord a startled look. “She slept with Malik?”

“It seems there is no end to his depravities,” Zarek growled.

“He actually makes my dad seem like an upright fellow,” I commented.

The Overlord snorted incredulously.

“Or not. I bet Malik didn’t get enough hugs as a child.”

In unison both men growled, “Hugs?”

“Oh. Right. My bad. Warlords don’t do hugs.”

Lilkee’s ear rolled off her shoulder and hit the sand.

That can’t be good
. I pointed to her ear. “Is that supposed to happen?”

“My ear!” Lilkee’s eyes rolled back in head, and she slumped over in a dead faint.

Zarek surveyed the pampered princess and sighed. “We need to neutralize the digestive acids.”

Voss squatted down next to her and tapped a button on his bracelet. “Her battle suit isn’t functional.”

A startled yip broke from me as something fell on my shoulder. Scorm! I swatted frantically at it.

Little tentacles wrapped tightly around my hand, and Bedan cried,
“It’s me. It’s me. They need help.”

Frowning, I stroked his head.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. Who needs help, honey?”

“Desh has them trapped.”

“Raj and Kunwar?”

“My father too.”

“Bebo’s here? Where are they?”

“I take you.”
The air around me began to glow a brilliant yellow.

“No! Wait!”

A swirling vortex formed abruptly and sucked us inside.

Chapter Twenty

The vortex from hell spat us out, and suddenly I was falling. “Oh shittttt!”

Plummeting toward the unforgiving sand, the wind whistling in my ears and Voss’s roar of fury echoing in my head, I screamed at Bedan,
“Do something.”

“Me try.”
A starburst of incandescent yellow flared around us. His second attempt to teleport us failed as badly as the first. The tornado of death spun us around and threw us out.

“Oh my God!” Down I went, arms and legs flailing wildly and screaming blue bloody murder.

Yipping in fear, Bedan clung to my hair.

The ground rose up and smacked me. “Ooof.”

Bedan scrambled away from me.
“Me sorry. Me sorry. Me missed.”

Missed what? Spitting out a mouthful of sand, I raised my head and froze. Oh dear God. He had missed all right. I was surrounded by a bunch of strange Gorum. Fear clenched my stomach. Bet I was on the dinner menu.
“Help!”

Voss snapped,
“You allowed a child to teleport you?”

“Allowed? I was hijacked, and get me out of here!”

“Me try again,”
Bedan cried, and burrowed under my braid.

“
No!”
Voss and I yelled in unison.

“Me go for help.”
A burning sensation flared on my neck, and an instant later Bedan was gone.

I grabbed for my pistol. Fuck. The holster was empty.

A gaudily tattooed Gorum slithered over to me.
“Remove your clothing.”

“Never on a first date.”
I shot to my feet, flinching as a tentacle wrapped around my waist and dragged me forward.

“Desh,”
Voss growled on our private link.

I eyed the slimy green tattoos that crawled across his hide with a creepy life of their own.
“Are those things alive?”

“Do not touch them,”
Voss warned.

“Not gonna be a problem, boss.”

“He says you carry the king’s mark,”
Desh commented as tentacles plucked the knives from my boots. Another one tugged at the neck of my battle suit.

Yanking wildly at the goopy tentacle wrapped around me, I struggled to get free.
“Who says?”

“Raj.”
The tentacle oozed under the neck of my battle suit.

“Really?”
I looked around, trying not to freak out as Desh’s slimy tentacle caressed the tattoo.
“Where is he?”
I wanted a word with the blabbermouth.

“He fled like the coward he is.”

Relief flowed through me. Raj and the guys were safe.
“If you’re smart, you’ll let me go before the Battle Commander arrives. He’s got a really nasty temper.”

“The Battle Commander and the Overlord have been neutralized.”

“Who told you that? Malik?”

“Yes. He now rules the Coletti clans,”
Desh stated smugly.

“Like hell he does.”
I gestured at the smoke billowing high into the sky.
“That was Malik’s base, and he’s the only one that has been neutralized. Betcha he didn’t tell you that your pal Balram was killed either.”

“You lie.”

I winced as the tentacle tightened painfully around my ribs.
“Try to contact him.”

There was a long silence, and Desh’s bellow of pain and fury echoed across the desert.

Not good.
“Honey bunny, I’m still waiting to be rescued here.”

“There have been some developments,”
Voss growled.

“What kind of developments?”

Malik snarled behind me.
“She is mine to kill.”

The breath froze in my lungs. Oh hell. That kind of development.

His anger rolling across my mind, Voss commanded,
“Do not provoke him.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

A low rumble of warning sounded in my head.
“Zoey.”

“Yes’um, boss man. No playing with the nasty warlord.”

“Disobey me, and no chocolate for a month.”

“That’s just mean.”

“Two months.”

“My lips are zipped.”

“Give me the female,”
Malik demanded.

Desh’s wormy tentacles waved madly.
“She is my captive to do with as I wish.”

“I am the Supreme Commander, and you will obey me,”
Malik bellowed.

“You do not rule us,”
Desh snapped.

I looked over my shoulder. Whoa! The Supreme Commander was a bloody mess. I wiggled my fingers at him and smiled brightly. In perfect High Coletti, I chirped, “Hi there. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Zoey, your worst nightmare.”

A vein popped in Malik’s forehead. “You dare mock me?”

“Moi? Heavens no, but I am gonna kill you.”

“Shut up, Zoey,”
Voss snarled.

“You? Kill me?” Maniacal laughter burst from Malik.

I edged a little closer to Desh as Malik kept on laughing and laughing and laughing. The dude was seriously losing it.

His laughter stopped abruptly, and madness burned in his eyes. “The only one dying is you. Slowly. Painfully. Your screams will fill the night, and I will bathe in your blood.”

“Okeydokey, then.” I turned to Desh.
“Are you sure you want to ally yourself with this guy? I mean, this is the third base he’s lost in a week. Not to mention three battle cruisers and a shitload of fighters. Plus, if you haven’t noticed, the Supreme Commander is fucking nuts.”

Desh’s eyestalks surveyed Malik carefully.
“The female has a valid point. You have suffered many defeats.”

“They are merely setbacks.”

I snorted.
“Says the guy who just had his ass handed to him.”

Pulling his sword, Malik spat,
“I will cut out your lying tongue.”

“Aw c’mon. All they have to do is scan the planet. Your bases have been blown to smithereens, and there are Coletti, Askole, and Alliance battle cruisers parked overhead. Oh, and if you think Lilkee is gonna save your ass, think again.”

“She speaks the truth. It is time we reassessed our alliance.”

“It is my destiny to rule this galaxy. Any who stand in my way will be destroyed,”
Malik howled in fury.

“Dude, you’re kinda outnumbered.”

Another maniacal laugh broke from Malik.
“The Gorum cannot defeat me. I am indestructible.”

“Yet you bleed,”
Desh stated as dozens of tentacles crawled toward the raving lunatic.

A shitload of heavily armed Coletti warriors appeared around us.

“Do you think me a fool? I’ve planned for every contingency. Nothing escapes my notice, and you no longer serve my purpose.”

My radar went to Defcon 1, and I quickly scanned the area. Holy smoke. We were smack-dab in the middle of a sand shark breeding ground. “I hate to rain on your parade, but you made a teensy little mistake in your contingency plan.”

A spine sliced through the sand behind Malik.
“What are you babbling about?”

“You forgot about them.”
I pointed.

Malik turned just as horrific jaws erupted from the sand.
Chomp!
The sand shark swallowed him whole.

That was one way to escape the Kalafat. I yanked at the tentacle wrapped around my waist. If I didn’t get him to let go, I was a goner.

Desh squalled in agony as another shark ripped into him.

“Being eaten alive hurts like a mother, doesn’t it? Did you think of that when you were feeding Bebo’s children to the Tai-Kok?”

“They had to die.”

“So do you.”

His tentacle jerked me around and thrust me forward like some sacrificial offering.
“You first.”

The hungry shark opened its gaping maw, giving me an up-close-and-personal view of its awesome fangs. Ewww. Rotting skulls were jammed on its back teeth.

“Destroy its mind,”
Voss roared in my head.

“Yes, sir,”
I cried, yanking my legs back as yet another shark burst from the sand. Holy Mary, mother of God, they were everywhere.

More sand sharks erupted around us in a feeding frenzy. The Gorum’s and Coletti warriors’ horrific screams seemed to echo in my head. Their cries stopped as they were dragged under the sand.

Voss bellowed,
“Now!”

Drawing on every ounce of power I had, I blasted the sharks surrounding us, and to my utter relief, they crashed to the ground deader than doornails.

“Impressive for a human female,”
Desh wheezed painfully. His tentacle slipped off me.

“Gosh, you’re gonna make me blush.”
I hastily moved away from him, noticing that his body was a mutilated mess. He wasn’t long for this world. What a shame.

A dead shark began to shimmy and shake.

“What the heck?”

A knife protruded from the belly, slicing through the skin. An instant later, out poured bloody intestines and a goop-covered Malik.

I was kind of surprised he hadn’t just teleported to safety. Were his powers on the fritz?

Malik climbed to his feet, wiped the crap out of his eyes, and shouted, “I cannot die!”