The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,26
head. Fighting his way past the drug’s influence took so much concentration that he did not at first register that his new persecutor was female.
He frowned.
She was small and wore a lab coat, indicating her position as one of the sadistic doctors and scientists who worked here. But… she didn’t look well. Her face, which he reluctantly admitted bore unmistakable beauty, was gaunt, pallid, with a pert pink nose. Her big brown eyes were red rimmed, as though she had wept recently.
Both her face and neck were thin. In startling contrast, her stomach was grossly distended.
When her gaze fell upon him, she gasped.
And well she should. She saw what he wanted her to see. A monster with open manacles.
But instead of hurrying forward to press the button that would secure him—and inadvertently free him—she staggered as though her knees had weakened. Reaching out blindly with one small hand, she braced herself against the counters that lined the walls. A low sound escaped her as she wagged her head from side to side.
“No,” she murmured mournfully. “No. No. No!” The last emerged in a scream.
His mouth fell open as madness entered the petite woman’s big brown eyes. She staggered forward a step and sank to her knees. Huddled on the floor, she fisted bloodstained hands in the long curtain of her dark hair and screamed as though her mind were shattering.
Well, drek. He hadn’t expected that. Earthlings seemed to hold a twisted fascination with anything they considered freakish in appearance. He hadn’t thought showing her what they wanted to see would drive her insane, but that was precisely what appeared to have happened.
Yet another serious miscalculation on his part. These Earthlings were too unpredictable.
The piercing screams stopped abruptly as the woman looked down at her swollen belly. Whimpering, she scuttled backward into a corner as though she wished to escape it. She even held her arms as far away from the large mound as she was able, unwilling to touch it.
What the drek?
He noticed something else then. Her clothes were too big for her. When she shifted one arm away from her stomach, the sleeve gathered at her elbow slipped down and hid all but her fingertips.
That was not her lab coat.
He pieced together her pallor, her too-thin face and legs, and concluded she was not one of the doctors here. Was she another prisoner? Had she simply stumbled into the wrong room while trying to make her escape? Was she the reason the alarm had rung?
Dispelling the false image he had projected into her mind, he spoke for the first time since he’d been captured. “Don’t be afraid.” His throat burned. His voice emerged rough and gravelly, unrecognizable to his own ears, made ugly by the tubes the humans had forced down his throat, the many scrapings and samples they’d taken, and the poisons they had administered.
He doubted such coarse utterances, which sounded more like the growls of a wild koskoard, would reassure her.
Nor did they. She began to scream again—over and over—and pushed at her stomach as though it were something heinous that had fallen atop her.
Worried she might harm herself in her attempts to rid herself of her own belly, he tried to touch upon her thoughts.
Get it out of me! Get it out of me! Get it out of me!
He winced as her shrieks cut through his head.
Get what out of her? What had they done to her?
He spoke to her telepathically, projecting as much warmth and serenity as he could. Please, be calm. Please, do not fear me. I mean you no harm.
She froze. Taelon?
Shock rippled through him. It was her—the female whose despair had filled him and driven him to reach out to her. Lisa?
Yes. Deep, heart-wrenching sobs erupted from her as she buried her face in her hands. Please, she begged. You have to help me. You have to find me. You have to kill me. Please!
He stared, barely able to see her because he couldn’t turn his damn head. No!
She wept harder. You don’t understand. You don’t know what they’ve done… I can’t… The creature… Please! Where are you?
I’m right in front of you.
No, you aren’t! It’s just me and the creature. You have to—
The creature you saw was an illusion. I—
No, it wasn’t! she cried hysterically. I heard it hissing and growling!
Do you hear it now?
Her mind quieted. Her breath hitched in stifled sobs as she listened. No.
Because it was merely an illusion I projected. The butchers were distracted today and forgot