The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,41
softly.
Pain stabbed him. “I don’t know. She was held at another military base. One that was destroyed.” He frowned. “Much like this one was destroyed.” Could there be a connection between the two incidents? “I hope she survived and escaped. Or perhaps was moved to another installation. Our intel led me to believe the base you and I were held in was a good match. So I went there looking for her. She wasn’t there. But I hoped I would read something in the minds of the soldiers or the men in charge that would reveal her fate.”
Her eyes widened. “You can read minds?”
“Yes. That’s how I spoke to you telepathically.”
“Oh. Right.” Her cheeks pinkened. “You don’t just… read my mind all the time though, do you?”
“No. I would’ve known about the baby if I did. Lasarans believe it rude to peruse the thoughts of others without their permission.”
“You’re Lasaran?”
“Yes. I’m from the planet Lasara, which is on the other side of what you call the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“This is so unreal.”
He glanced at her tummy. “Yes, it is.”
“Did you find out anything about your sister?”
“Not much. There were a couple of lower-ranked soldiers who had seen her at the other base when they were stationed there, but they didn’t know what happened to her. They believed at least one of the officers who were visiting would know. But before I could read those men’s minds, they saw through my camouflage and captured me.”
“How did you even get in? The security there was crazy.”
“The soldiers who guarded the base didn’t sleep there. They were taken in military transport vehicles to another location. I took the badge and uniform of a soldier my size.”
“Do I want to know how you did that?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s your fear. Though that ultimately is what led to my downfall.”
“Not killing him?”
“Yes. I thought he would remain unconscious longer than he did.” Once more, Taelon cursed his own carelessness. He should have taken the time to summon Ari’k and have him keep the soldier unconscious on the ship. But the information he’d gathered had led him to believe the officers’ visit to the base was imminent and would be brief. Taelon had feared he would miss it if he waited until the next shift and gave Ari’k time to dispose of the soldier he mimicked. “I had just managed to get close enough to the military officers to read their minds when they received a call. The soldier I had incapacitated had awakened. One of the officers knew about Amiriska. I saw her in his thoughts just before he ordered my capture. I tried to make the lower-ranked soldiers think I was the officer and he was me, but it was too late. They knew me for what I was and injected me with a drug that sedated me. When I awoke, I was restrained to the table on which you found me. They’ve kept me drugged ever since, weakening me so I couldn’t use my gifts. Until the last day or two, that is. They became distracted. I think…” He stroked her tummy. “I think they expected you to birth our child soon. I heard them talking but didn’t know they were discussing you. Then they captured some vampires, which distracted them further. They forgot to dose me…”
She wrinkled her nose and dropped her hands to her knees. “Then the vampires’ friends arrived to rescue them. And I came to gawk at you.”
Missing her touch, he took one of her hands and carried it to his cheek. “No. You rescued me, Lisa… even though you must have been terrified after what I made you see.”
Again she drew her thumb across his stubble in a soft caress. After experiencing nothing but pain and humiliation during his long captivity, her touch felt sublime. “So you came here for your sister?”
He nodded. “She’s sweet and innocent. Like you. It tears me up inside to think of the butchers doing to her what they did to me.”
Her lips turned up in a wry smile. “I’m not that innocent.”
Though she probably referred to sexual innocence, he smiled. “And not so sweet? At least not to the soldier you threatened to shoot.”
She laughed. “Apparently outright terror can make me ballsy.”
Familiar with the Earth term, he laughed. Pain ripped through his chest.
Grunting, he leaned forward and rested a hand against the wound. It felt like the slightest move would send his drekking heart and lungs