Her Commanders - M.K. Eidem Page 0,77

as Cali instructed, and the door slid open. He quickly made his way through Jamis’s office, and the next door then came to an abrupt halt when he entered the resting chamber.

What in the name of the Gods…

Cali was kneeling on the bed between the two Apre males, but that wasn't what shocked Xanto. What shocked him was the energy he could see moving between the three of them. It flowed down Cali's arms and into each male wherever she touched them. As he watched, Cali moved her hand to the Sub Commander’s chest, covering what looked like a bite mark before her glowing eyes turned to him.

"She's over there."

The power vibrating in Cali's voice snapped Xanto out of his stunned state, and he looked to where her eyes had gone. Lying there was a Si female.

"Restrain her, Xanto. She tried to assassinate the Commanders."

Xanto followed her order as if she were the Paramount, then moved toward the bed, stepping over the multiple decapitated young Sion Vipers, unable to believe they were actually there. He also couldn't believe what she was doing.

He was older than Cali knew and had lived the majority of that time working for the Paramount. Because of that, he was extremely knowledgeable of the gifts that came with being Zagreus. He was also aware that those gifts came with a cost. While the Zagreus had long life spans, they also had an extremely low birthrate.

Breeding with other species was only possible if the Zagreus was powerful enough to meld their energy with that of their mate, tying their life spans together. Even then, there was no guarantee that any offspring they produced would inherit the gifts as a pure Zagreus would.

Yet Xanto hadn't heard even a whisper of the possibility that Cali had inherited the rarest and most prized of her father's gifts. It was rumored that she received no gifts, which made her worthless in Zagreus society.

To have the power to heal…

It made her the rarest and most prized female in the universe.

Yet her family allowed her to travel the universe unprotected.

Why?

As he watched, Cali moved her hand, and the wound that had been on the Sub Commander's chest transferred to Cali's where her shirt had fallen to the side. Yet instead of the injury dissolving like he'd seen happen when the Paramount healed, it remained.

"Cali, what's going on?" he asked, moving closer to the bed.

Instead of answering, she straddled the Commander's chest and, using both hands, covered the most vicious bite Xanto had ever seen. If an adult viper had delivered it, the Commander's throat would have been crushed, killing him almost instantly. As he watched, the energy that had flowed so powerfully from Cali dimmed, and beads of sweat began forming on Cali's forehead.

"Cali, you have to stop!"

"Not yet," she said through clenched lips, she had to pull him back. "Jamis still has too much venom in him."

"Now!" But when Xanto tried to grab Cali's arm, a pulse of energy knocked him off his feet.

"Gods be damned, Cali!" he cursed. His twitching body made it impossible for him to do anything but watch as the wound on the Commander transferred to the base of Cali's neck, just moments before the visible flow of her energy dissipated, and she slumped down on top of Jamis.

"I'm getting you out of here," he told her, getting to his feet.

"No," while her voice was weak, Cali was still able to fend off Xanto's hands and sit up on her own. "You need to stay. You need to contact the Meddygs and explain what happened."

"And just how do you expect me to explain all this?" He swept his arm out to encompass the room.

"Just stick to the truth as much as possible." Carefully Cali moved off the bed, hoping her legs would support her. "You came to discuss something with the Commanders, and you found them incapacitated and subdued the Si female you believed responsible."

"What about the vipers?"

Cali looked around the room, seemingly having forgotten about them. "Gather them up and put them in something I can carry. I'll take them back to my quarters. We’ll figure out what to do with them later."

"And when she," he gestured to the still-unconscious Si female as he gathered up the viper remains, "wakes up and starts telling everyone you were here?"

"No one is going to believe her; she's crazy. The Commanders were incapacitated when I arrived. They'll never know I was here."

Realizing that was plausible, he handed her the shirt