Marie Harte - The Perfect Creation

Dammit. They were supposed to have more time. Rafe rubbed the back of his neck, lightheadedness taking him by surprise.

“Shit. I think we’ve been spotted.” Nu pointed to a large protrusion extending from Blue Rim’s roof that aimed at the ships. “Let’s go.” Set scooped up Anin and raced with the crew of Mara’s Light aboard the ship. Before Erin could protest her separation from her sister, Rafe hustled her aboard The Found , and Drekk followed dragging a confused and wavering Ryen.

“Erin, keep your brother in line,” Rafe ordered as he and Drekk set the controls and quickly piloted into the air, and none too soon. Where The Found had been sitting, a blast suddenly took out a large chunk of ground. “I’m really beginning to hate Blue Rim.” Drekk turned the ship around, and Rafe watched Erin lower her brother to the floor. He was bleeding like a sieve, and he acquieseced to her care without protest. In moments, he lay still.

“Dammit! Ryen? ” Erin prodded him, a worried expression darkening her face.

“I’m…okay,” he slurred.

“Hold on,” Drekk warned. “Here we go.” He pooled the ship’s massive firepower and held his finger over a button. “Good riddance.”

A large boom left the ship, and then, through the clear bridge, Rafe and Drekk watched as Blue Rim simply exploded.

“It’s gone now, Erin. No more Blue Rim to worry about ever again.” Rafe was moved by her tears of gratitude. “Smile, baby. It’ll all be okay.” He slurred that last word and saw Erin frown. “Ryen will be fine, right, Drekk? Just need to bleed on him…” The room tilted and Rafe fell to his knees. “Fuck, my back hurts.”

“You idiot,” Drekk scowled and left the controls. “Erin, tell the ship to set course for the rendezvous point. It’s preprogrammed, but you need to hit the blue, red and green buttons together to sequence our launch.” Drekk laid Rafe on his belly. “I’ll get to Ryen as soon as I save your mate’s sorry ass.”

Drekk touched his back, and Rafe hissed in pain, the world turning hazy.

“Dammit, Rafe, you’ve been burned and blasted, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. Stupid drun .” Grumbling under his breath, Drekk pulled a knife from a side sheath. Erin cried out.

But Rafe lost the rest of what was said as blackness overtook him.

“Erin, I’m not going to hurt him. Watch.” Drekk cut Rafe’s burnt shirt away and cleared the area around his wounds. Then, slicing his own forearm and grimacing at the pain, Drekk squeezed blood over Rafe’s back. The ship jolted and shifted direction, and then he felt Erin looming over him and his ‘patient’.

“Can I help” she asked.

“Yeah.” Drekk clenched his fist to bleed heavier.“Next time tell your mate to duck when someone’s shooting at him.” He glanced up to see her frown of worry. “It’s okay. A minor wound that bled a lot. He’ll be fine in a minute. It’s your brother that concerns me.

Looks like he’s suffered some massive trauma.”

Erin glanced at Ryen and her eyes welled with tears. She looked as if she wanted to go back to him but refused to leave Rafe’s side.

Stifling a smile, Drekk held his arm up and clenched a hand around the wound, forcing himself not to heal. “If you would, keep watch over Rafe while I look on your brother.”

“Thank you.” She knelt and put Rafe’s head in her lap. Stroking his hair, she leaned down to kiss him. “I love you, Rafe. Get well, soon, honey.” The lumbering Mardu sighed in her lap and nuzzled her thigh. Lucky man. Drekk turned to his next patient, not so sure how this healing would turn out. Watching Ryen kill had taken Drekk back to an earlier time, when he’d watched many of his brethren turn on their Creators. They’d fought with the same fervour the original Creation warriors had displayed during the war, or so he’d been told. And if that turned out to be the case with Ryen, Drekk would have no recourse but to put the man down.

Sighing at such a waste, Drekk dribbled a bit of his blood over Ryen’s wounds and studied the male, who now lay quiet and unmoving on the floor. “Is it true you and Ryen and Anin are siblings?” he asked Erin.

“I think we share some of the same genetic coding, but we were all Created. I’m not sure the definition of siblings applies to us.”

“But you’re family.”

“A social experiment that pleased Canunn. He wanted us to develop affectionate ties to one another, and we exceeded his expectations.” Erin smiled, still petting Rafe. “I love Anin and Ryen, and they love me.”

If Ryen can feel love, perhaps I can work with him. “Your brother…is he always so violent?” Erin shook her head. “He wasn’t always this way. But Synster trained him to be a fighter, to never lose. And they did things to stir his appetites. Ryen fights and has sex often, and that keeps him somewhat calm, or so Synster said. Honestly, I think if Ryen was left alone and not prodded so damned much, he wouldn’t need so many women and battles to help him relax.”

She had a point. But Drekk had spent the last several hundred years hunting down his kind and terminating them when needed, so as not to repeat their mistakes from the past. It was hard enough to hear what people thought about his kind. But to have their expectations justified by crazed Creations… Drekk wouldn’t tolerate that. Working with Cheltam allowed him to do good through other means as well, and he found he liked having a purpose other than to eradicate Creations from the System.

Meeting Erin and her kin gave him hope. Seeing her with Rafe showed him that he wasn’t the only Creation out there capable of living a somewhat normal life. Now he had to show Ryen he could do the same. He hoped.

“Erin, I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on them both, would you?” She nodded, and after grabbing a bowl and some water and bandages, Drekk returned.

To his surprise, Ryen was awake and trying to stand. What incredible stamina .

“Lay down.”

Ryen glared up at Drekk and worked his way to one knee. “I don’t need—”

“Ryen,” Erin tried, but Drekk interrupted.

“You don’t know what you need. Now lay the fuck down.” He put a hint of power in his voice, and like before, something strange passed between him and the giant male. It was almost like recognition.

“No, I—”

Drekk kicked him onto his back and moved too quickly for Ryen to argue. He straddled Ryen’s waist and pinned him to the ground, his hands fastened to Ryen’s bloodied wrists.

The attack startled Ryen, and though he tried to fight back, weakened as he was and under Drekk’s imposing strength, he couldn’t move.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to heal you. But I can’t if you won’t let me.”

Ryen lay quiet, staring into Drekk’s eyes. Like Erin’s, Ryen’s eyes were far from normal.

Dark blue centred around an iris of paler blue, surrounding a golden pupil. The effect was mesmerising, and the scent Ryen released in subtle waves nearly made Drekk salivate with lust.

Narrowing his gaze, he released his own scent and watched Ryen’s surprise.

“Yeah, I can do it too. Now are you going to relax and let me help you or what?”

“I thought we were the only ones,” Ryen rasped with a nod to Erin.

“You thought wrong.” Drekk stared, oddly tense as he waited for Ryen’s acceptance.

Ryen looked from Drekk to Erin and focused on her hand petting Rafe’s hair.

“He’s a friend, Ryen. You can trust him. He saved our lives.” Erin smiled and leaned down to kiss Rafe’s cheek again. “And you’d better learn to love Rafe as well, or I’m going to kick your ass as soon as you’re well enough to stand on your own two feet.” Ryen looked back up at Drekk, closed his eyes, then opened them again with a sigh.