I tore the jaw off another alien with a hard slap of claws against his face; his buddy scuttled under an empty table to escape, so I picked the table up and crushed him with it. I bit through the throat of another and turned in a slow circle, looking for more, but there were none. Except for the still screaming, newly paraplegic Red still trying to crawl away.
“Not so fast!” I growled out and laughed, the sound a nightmare imitation of what a laugh was supposed to be, and the crawling Red started begging. I shifted back, turned him over and lifted him with my hand wrapped around what was left of his face, palm against his mouth.
“Shut up! You answer my questions and I won’t start eating you untilafteryou’re dead.”
I hauled him over to a table, laid him down on his back and sat down, my hands splayed across his belly. I looked around the room, catching the haunted eyes of the bystanders staring back at me, and grinned. No doubt I was covered in blood and viscera. It would make the legend that this would undoubtedly turn into extra special.
“These men disobeyed my mate. Your General has been good to you, he respected and admired your loyalty to him, and how do you repay him?’’ I asked, sinking a single claw into the stomach of my captive. He screamed and the cowering from the crowd got worse.
I chuckled darkly at them. “You do nothing! These idiots sat here in a crowded room and talked about their involvement in a plot against my mate, and you sat there and did nothing!” I snarled and sank another claw. “You didn’t link the General or Rema. You just sat there eating your lunch and ignoring it. I would kill you all for the disrespect but my mate values you. I’m going to give you this one warning. There will be no others. I will kill any who stand in his way. You may leave if you don’t agree with him, as he has offered, or you can stay and do your fucking job. Betray him, don’t inform him of a traitor, or assist any traitors and I will kill you.”
I sank another claw and got one more tortured scream out of my captive. I rose over him to look into his eyes. “Tell me what you know, little rat.”
His strangled voice rasped from a mouth without lips, making his words half mumbled. “Rakis has spies on the ship. He had me planted at the beginning of the officer’s selection. I watched and reported to him.”
He screamed when I dug my claws around in his insides. “Please! I brought reports of flight coordinates to the team aboard the ship that works for Rakis. They are professional soldiers. I don’t know their names, they never met me in person. That’s it, I swear!”
I snarled at the room and tore into his stomach while the rest watched. His agonized screaming turned to wet gurgles and then silence as I pulled his organs out and laid them on the table. I sat back down and kept my promise.
I only started eating him after he was dead.
Chapter 16
Rema ran into the room with Ohem just after I’d finished my meal of traitor tartare and was sitting back, rubbing my full belly. No one had said a word while I’d eaten their crew mate in front of them. Oh, there’d been some vomiting and sobbing, but everyone had been too terrified to move.
Rema came to a stop and looked at the massacre with assessing eyes. They came to land on me, sitting at a table with a hollowed corpse on top and my food belly jutting out from my gore covered body. He looked both sick to his stomach and impressed. I had that effect on people.
“I said not to get blood everywhere, Rijitera,” he said, his voice mild and casual. Rema was going to be my bestie, he just didn’t know it yet. Or maybe my bestie in-law since Patty was my best friend and Rema was doomed to holy matrimony with her.
Ohem’s presence had a profound effect on the atmosphere in the room. There was an easing of tension and terror. I didn’t blame them, Ohem could probably kill me if he truly wanted too. Oh, it would be a hell of a fight and he would never lay a hand on me in anger, but I understood why he was their savior. It probably made them feel like my leash had arrived. In a way, it had.
“I see you caught my brother’s spy,” Ohem said, he didn’t sound angry and his Izi was a pale glow so I wasn’t sure what was going on inside his head right now and I tried not to fidget in my chair like a naughty school kid caught passing notes.
“They weren’t exactly being subtle about it,” I drawled. My eyes never leaving Ohem’s face.
He walked into the room and circled the scene, his feet making sticky sounds in all the blood. He came to stand in front of my table and looked at the body of Red splayed out on top. He went through his clothes with his tentacle clasper fingers, his hands resting on his hips. He’d raised his tails so they wouldn’t drag through the blood. He was angry, I could tell now in the calculated way he held himself. I just didn’t know if he was angry at me for blowing my semi-peaceful persona of a friendly wife, or if he was mad that Red had been on this ship in the first place.
A heavy thudding from the archway had me glancing up in time to see the big green officer from the meeting walk into the room and survey my artwork. He was grinning like a madman. I had one in my corner at least.
He walked with heavy steps to where I still sat in front of my leftovers and looked down at me. “Have a pleasant lunch, Nin At’ens?”
I shrugged my shoulders and answered him honestly. “It was more for the shock value, but yes, you aliens are tasty little snacks.” My smile was wintry when I met his eyes. “If they’d been loyal, this never would have happened. I respect loyalty. I respect even indifference, but I just don’t like traitors to my mate.”
Big guy nodded and swept his arm out. “I agree with you. I have long said we needed to clean house. Rakis was always an oily little male. I never liked him.”
My new fan was a lizard-like alien, a crocodile that stood on two legs like a man. He didn’t have a tail, and his face was human looking, complete with a hook nose that looked like it had been broken a couple times and he’d never had it fixed properly. He had big round orange eyes that were laughing at me.
He was built like a brick shit house, too. Shorter than me by a few inches, but twice as wide, and I was a big girl with big shoulders. He had teeth that shone white like a crocodile too, conical and sharp, that he flashed at me when Ohem approached.
Ohem sighed and crouched down in front of me to take my bloody hands in his. “Did they tell you anything before you slaughtered them?”
He didn’t sound angry at me or resigned, like I’d fucked up and he was going to have to clean up my mess. He just sounded tired.
I nodded. “Yes. Red—Serail, was a plant from the start. Your brother has been planning this for a long time.” I squeezed his hand in sympathy. “I know they called Rakis and told him our plans for letting people leave and for our jump in two days. There are more of his people on the ship. He said there was a team of soldiers here. I’ll sniff them out. It’ll be harder since I lost my temper a little here, but I’ll find them just the same.”
Ohem nodded and stood. He glanced around at his people coming out from under their tables and from their huddled corners. “Any traitors will die. We can not afford leniency right now. Not with what is at stake. If you see or hear something, report it. Do not approach them on your own. What has happened here today was in my mate’s nature to defend and protect me. I don’t necessarily condone it,” he said, but he touched my cheek in reassurance. “But I understand it. I would kill her enemies as well. She will not harm you if you pose no threat.”
I looked at the scared and traumatized faces and nodded my agreement.
