Alien Redemption [Clans of Kalquor 06] Read online

  ALIEN REDEMPTION

  Clans of Kalquor Book 6

  By

  Tracy St. John

  © copyright October 2012, Tracy St. John

  Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill, © copyright September 2012

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  To Bruce, who always makes sure I get it right TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Coming Soon

  Prologue

  The Kalquorian Empire was and still is a civilization of great importance to the Galactic Council of Planets. The fierce but intelligent species has been at the forefront of technological, medical, and scientific breakthroughs for millennia. Their military might has never been in question; even their ancient enemy, the opportunistic race of Tragooms, hesitates to attack a Kalquorian force half its size.

  However, Kalquor’s survival is in jeopardy. The force that threatened this mighty race was not one that wielded weaponry. It could not even be seen with the naked eye. It was a virus.

  Centuries ago, this virus struck the home world of Kalquor. It wiped out a substantial number of its people, particularly the females. Symptoms included massive bleeding of the body’s major organs, along with those of the female reproductive tract. Damaging the x-chromosome of the Kalquorians, the virus’ effects went beyond death. The majority of women not killed outright were rendered infertile. Daughters born to those who could bear children were not guaranteed the ability to do the same. The virus altered the very DNA of the entire race.

  In an effort to keep their race from going extinct and prevent fighting amongst the men, family groups called clans were formed. Each clan was made up of one female known as the Matara (childbearer) and representatives of each of the three breeds of male: the Dramok (leader), Imdiko (caregiver), and Nobek (protector).

  Despite their efforts, the population continued to decline. So few children were born that extinction was thought by many to be inevitable. Despite all their medical expertise and attempts to find compatible species to mate with, the Kalquorian culture seemed destined to disappear.

  A little over a decade ago, a scout ship from a small, isolated planet no one knew of flew into the Galactic Council of Planets’ space. These newcomers were searching for a new planet to house the overflow of their ever-growing population. They called their home planet Earth. It was immediately remarked upon how incredibly similar they were to Kalquorians. The doomed race took note at once, and hope was restored. It was theorized that perhaps the Earthers were the fabled Lost Tribe of Kalquor’s ancient ancestors.

  Earth, however, was not as enthralled with their potential distant cousins. Ruled by a government based on fanatical religious beliefs, Earthers were taught they were God’s Chosen, made in his wondrous image. They looked upon Kalquor with hostility and outrage when the beleaguered inhabitants of that empire suggested compatibility testing for purposes of interbreeding.

  The leaders of the Kalquorian Empire, feeling they had no other recourse, decided the time had come to seduce Earther females and convince them to come to Kalquor. Women on Earth were treated as lesser creatures and second-class citizens by their government and religion.

  Kalquorians, with their near-worship of women, hoped they could entice these lifebringers to join their clans. And if the women would not be seduced, Kalquor was no longer above the distasteful necessity of abducting them outright.

  Almost 2000 Earther women went to Kalquor, putting the Empire and Earth at each others’

  throats. Then the unthinkable happened: an Earther woman joined the aliens’ ruling clan, making her Kalquor’s empress. Earth immediately declared war.

  The fighting was horrific, with Earth’s greater numbers slowly overwhelming Kalquor’s more advanced technology. With their already dwindling numbers reaching crisis stage, the Empire was desperate to find a way to win the war and secure their future. They staged an invasion of Earth itself. Earth’s answer was to set off nuclear explosions beneath its own major cities, devastating the population and dooming the planet.

  Most of the survivors have been rescued by Kalquor. The Earth females have been given the option of living on colonies with their own kind, hopefully to salvage their species; or they can live on Kalquor and join clans in order to continue the alien culture. Many, still terrified of their recent enemy, opt to remain with their native species. Others, traumatized by their experiences under Earth’s tyranny, have dared to start anew with the Kalquorians. There are still too few Mataras to guarantee Kalquor’s survival, and they are held by most of the alien men in the highest regard.

  But not all Kalquorians are happy to have the Earthers among them. Some are determined to see Kalquor go extinct rather than mix the species. And still others nurse emotional wounds from the war, wounds that still bleed and demand that their former enemy bleed in return.

  Bleed and die…

  Chapter 1

  Rachel’s vision was filled with the pleasing image of Dr. Conyod as he leaned close to her.

  He was a complicated man and the number of expressions his face held at once bore that out: confidence, pleading, hopefulness, patience, and determination.

  His words, spoken in her language of English, were accented but pronounced perfectly.

  “You can do it, Ray-Ray. Just one word. Say ‘hello.’”

  How she wanted to say that one simple yet impossible word for Conyod. If she could get past the clot of terror in her throat, just enough to squeak out that damnable ‘hello’, his blue-purple, cat-slitted eyes would light up. She’d be rewarded with a rare smile that made his rugged, chiseled features go from merely attractive to heart-stopping handsome. The tension in his jaw would ease. He might even laugh; a great prize for accomplishing the long-awaited goal.

  Boy, she had it bad for her psychologist. What had started as a comical schoolgirl crush on the Kalquorian Imdiko had erupted into an almost obsessive love. Rachel Hicks was in her early thirties, too old to swoon over her heroes, too battered by experience to believe in fairy tale romance. Yet hearing his step as he entered her hospital room never failed to make her pulse quicken. As unrequited love went, this was grade-A passion.

  That Rachel couldn’t give Conyod what they both wanted so much tore her up inside. And not just because she’d fallen for the man coaxing her to speak. Not being able to talk when a physical disability no longer existed was a source of shame. Once upon a time, she’d been a strong, confident woman. A force to be reckoned with. Hell, she’d dared to take on Earth’s fanatical regime. Okay, maybe not the whole regime, but she
had fought her way into a women’s prison with the group she’d led. They'd been determined to make the tyrannized general population see the atrocities that were going on there. To make them get up off their frightened, complacent asses and rise up against a government that employed torture and execution to keep its citizens in line.

  To the bunch of idealistic twenty-somethings she led, it had seemed like a good plan at the time. But Rachel had only been a courier in real life, with no military training. Heck, she hadn’t even been a Girl Scout. Though her group had taken over the prison and held it for almost a whole day, in the end she’d been the only one left alive.

  The broadcasts they’d sent out had shown vids of the infected wounds never treated on those still living, of the endless scars and bent limbs of badly healed breaks, and of bodies stacked like cordwood in the morgue. Most horrific of all, they’d shown the endless lines of graves marked only by the prisoners’ numbers and not their names. Those vids had never gone out. All transmissions and communications had been blocked by a government well versed in utter control. The revolution Rachel had dreamed of since she was a child did not come to pass.

  The whole thing had been pointless.

  Even if she’d known in advance her strike against the prison would fail, Rachel might have gone for it anyway. To her warrior soul, raising a fist against an insurmountable obstacle was better than slinking through life like a beaten dog. In hindsight, she would have changed just one thing. She wouldn’t have chanced the lives of so many others. Like her Marcus.

  She swallowed hard, trying to get the lump clogging her throat down so she could give Conyod that stupid word that wouldn’t come. Her fists twisted in her lap, wrinkling the soft white hospital gown that showed so brilliantly against her mahogany skin. None of her remaining scars showed when she wore the simple, sleeveless sheath. Almost all the marks of her torture were gone, thanks to a brilliant team of surgeons who’d erased them. It was too bad Conyod couldn’t wield a scalpel that would excise the scars from her soul as easily.

  Rachel looked into his grape-hued eyes, trying to soak in the strength he projected towards her. His wavy, black hair tumbled forward as he leaned in, close enough that she could have stolen a kiss if she’d wanted.

  Well, she wanted, all right. But it would hardly be proper, and Conyod would no doubt be horrified if she dared. That he had oceans of compassion, she did not doubt. But sympathy and a drive to heal the wounded didn’t translate into lust for a broken down Earther who couldn’t even say ‘hello’.

  He tossed his waist-length waves back with a quick jerk of his head. “Relax, Ray-Ray,” he coached her. “The more tense you get, the harder it is. Calm yourself and try.”

  His hands moved to her shoulders, and Rachel wallowed in their warmth as he kneaded the stiff muscles. Heaven and earth, she loved it when he touched her. His hands were square and solid with strength. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation, though it was surely a sin to shut Conyod’s face out. Made herself take a couple of deep breaths. Opened her eyes to his slight encouraging smile and opened her mouth.

  The word was right there, flashing neon-bright in her head. It traveled down, moving towards her mouth. Coming, coming, almost there. Then it ran into the roadblock of knotted tightness that refused to budge. It was right there, and she couldn’t get it out! Tears of frustration spilled down her cheeks.

  Conyod stopped rubbing her shoulders to cup his palms around her heart-shaped face. His thumbs gently erased the wetness from her skin. “Hush, sweet girl. It was a good try. Take a moment and breathe.”

  Still only infinite patience and kindness on his face. No disgust. No disappointment. No wonder she had the hots for Conyod. Rachel smiled a trembling apology for yet another failure on her part.

  He smiled back, and her breath caught. Damn the man, he was just too handsome when he did that. As he sat back in the big seating cushion opposite hers to make notes on his handheld computer, Rachel had the opportunity to look him over. And yes sir, she took every opportunity offered when it came to eyeballing the delightful topography of Imdiko Conyod.

  The alien was remarkably similar to her own species. Kalquorians looked like large, muscled versions of Earthers, with a few differences. For one thing, there were those catlike eyes. A longer torso. Fangs that imparted a kind of intoxicant to their bitten victims.

  Another important difference had Rachel darting a glance at Conyod’s crotch. Kalquorian men had two penises, a larger one up front and smaller one behind it. Rachel had once had the very delightful opportunity to experience a man so endowed. The Kalquorian who had rescued her from the bowels of the prison she’d been incarcerated in had been a pure joy despite his inexperience with women. She couldn’t help but wonder how the older, more knowledgeable Conyod would feel inside her.

  Yeah. She had it real bad for her doctor.

  Like all the Kalquorians she’d seen, Conyod’s skin was the mocha with cream shade she associated with Earthers of Middle Eastern descent. His hair was so black the waves had blue highlights. His rugged face was delicious to the eyes. Not to mention a muscular body the loose-fitting tunic and trousers he wore couldn’t hide.

  Rachel was getting wet and she forced herself to look away. She’d heard Kalquorians possessed a keen sense of smell, better than an Earth bloodhound. She certainly didn’t need to humiliate herself by letting Conyod know he aroused her to distraction. One of her worst fears was that she’d do something that would make the gorgeous Imdiko reassign her to another doctor. And while she liked most of the psychiatric staff in Kalquor’s largest hospital, none of them were Conyod.

  She made herself look around her room. It was small, but comfortable. She had her thick sleeping mat in one corner, the softest surface she thought she’d ever slept upon. She made it up tidily every day though the orderlies were perfectly happy to do it for her. The room was softly lit, but she knew the illumination was more than bright enough for Conyod. Kalquorians could see in the dark, it seemed. Rachel envied the aliens that ability. Too many times she’d wakened in the middle of the night, certain she was still in the bowels of the prison, alone and frightened.

  Stubborn pride had kept her from sleeping with the lights on, so she’d spent many a sweat-soaked night peering blindly about until one of the night orderlies, keeping careful watch on monitor vids, came to check on her and give her a sedative.

  Restful cream-colored walls and dark blue carpeting kept her room from looking too institutional despite the spartan decor. Her only furnishings beside the sleeping mat and Conyod’s Kalquorian-sized seating cushion consisted of a low table to take her meals at and another seat cushion, which she sat on now. Two vids provided pictures of pretty outdoor scenes, giving the illusion Rachel was looking out of windows. She had the options of viewing landscapes of any number of worlds. She kept the vid settings on random, and the view changed about ten times a day. Right now, one vid showed her the rolling hills of Joshada. The other depicted a Kalquorian mountain range which Conyod had commented on when he’d entered the room.

  “That reminds me of my childhood home,” he’d said. As complex as ever, his expression had registered both sadness and pleasure.

  How badly she’d wanted to ask why Conyod had such mixed feelings about his past. Not for the first time, she wondered how a man dedicated to healing the pain of others seemed to find no relief from the conflicts he himself bore. She was sure something preyed on the psychologist’s mind. He wore sadness like an almost visible cloak.

  Rachel knew the feeling well.

  Her doctor’s voice brought her back from her contemplation of the mountains that reminded him of home. “What do you want more than anything, Ray-Ray?”

  She turned to look at him. His eyes were big, bigger than most Kalquorians she’d seen. The vibrant blue-purple orbs almost seemed to glow against his dark skin. She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat having nothing to do with the blockade against her speech. What did she want? Boy, she would l
ove to give him an earful on that.

  Conyod nodded in encouragement. “If it’s something I can get, I will. Then all you have to do to claim your prize is say just one word. Any word.”

  Love. I want to say love. Because every time I look at you now, that’s what my heart screams. It might be just infatuation, but damn it, it feels like the real thing.

  He leaned close to her, his gaze avid. “There is something you want. I can see that. Tell me.” He nodded at her handheld computer sitting on the floor next to her cushion. She used it to communicate with the staff, since her stubborn throat refused to open up.

  Damn it, she didn’t want to type. She wanted to talk. But fear of what she might say, the secrets she might tell, kept it all bottled up. Back on Earth, she’d been beaten and tortured for information. She’d kept the words inside, only screaming as hideous pain was inflicted on her poor body. I’ll never, ever tell you anything had been her internal mantra for all those terrible months. And now she couldn’t tell anyone anything at all.

  She wanted to make Conyod proud. And he’d said she could say any word. Perhaps a word her now-dead torturers wouldn’t understand?

  Rachel opened her mouth. She thought of a new word, saw its brightness in her head.

  Watched it travel down, down, closer to her mouth, approaching where the blockage always appeared just in time to keep her silent. Closer still, the passage still open, almost there…

  “Retig,” she said.

  The word was little more than a breath, with just enough grating undertone straining through to make it audible. It had been years since she’d spoken, and the weakness of her surgically healed vocal chords was obvious. But she’d said a word. Damn the bastards who had shut her up, she’d talked.

  Conyod's mouth dropped open. He blinked. Then pure, unadulterated delight suffused his face, making him smile broader than Rachel had ever seen him smile. Her heart thumped painfully to see how he transformed with unguarded happiness.

  He laughed hard, and the deep, rolling sound of it filled the room. Rachel had always wanted to hear Conyod laugh. It was a beautiful sound. His eyes were bright, as if they'd filled with tears. He reached for her as if to gather her in an embrace. Apparently he remembered himself just in time and settled for clapping.