Despair. Then nothing. It was as if all the emotions of the spa personnel had suddenly shut down, leaving a cold, empty hole in the atmosphere.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as dizziness now swept over her in waves.
Her weakened senses attempted to seek out the threat. Fighting to remain conscious, she searched the dead space that was now the spa with all her senses wide open. A new emotion rode the atmosphere. The aura was weak at first, undulating on the eddies and whirls of the air, then it grew stronger. The mental feel—the taste on the air currents was hate. Rabid, unceasing hatred for her. And it was coming closer.
“Shit, shit, shit…”
She attempted to stand and fell back into the chair. She clasped her head in her shaky hands as the room whirled around her, making her stomach roil. Drugged. She had to have been drugged. She needed to get as much of the poison out of her system as possible. Leaning over the side of the chair, she stuck her finger down her throat. She gagged as the acidic contents of her stomach emptied themselves onto the floor.
Weakly, she leaned back in the chair and gasped for breath. She was so weak. Too weak. Maybe she’d managed to get the majority of whatever they’d drugged her with out of her stomach. Whatever the substance had been, it was potent. She already had a debilitating amount in her system.
Pinching her naked thigh, she could barely feel it. Her fingers felt as if they were phantom limbs.
“Dammit, widespread neuropathy,” she muttered out loud, slurring the words into more syllables than required.
Aphasia also. Not good. Her brain needed a stimulant. And fast.
Recalling her training, she knew she had little time. She had to combat the drug using her body’s own hormonal defenses. Cortisol and adrenaline. She needed to get mad—not an issue since she was furious—and move.
Flight or fight. She chose to fight and prayed that her body’s defenses could meet the battle to come. And it would come. She already sensed the menace stalking her, coming ever closer to this room. Her mind’s eye envisioned a hulking black shape, an amorphous mass of dark energy, searching the spa, room by room. It … he … wanted her dead.
Struggling to stand, she staggered to the wall, knocking over the chair. The resulting noise sounded like an explosion in the all-too-quiet spa. He had to have heard the noise.
Maybe someone else would hear and come to help her. She searched with all her senses again and still found nothing but her stalker’s rage. She leaned against the wall, her forehead relishing the cool against her sweaty skin. There was no one else out there.
He killed the entire staff—just to get to her.
She was on her own. She needed a weapon. She needed a defensible position outside of this box of a room. Most of all, she needed to stay on her feet and to walk the drug’s effects off before the bastard found her.
Hell, she’d be lucky to be conscious when the son-of-a-frigging-bitch found her.
She did have one other option.
God, he’d go ballistic.
Damning the fact that she was naked under the robe and that her personal communicator and off-duty weapon were secured in a locker at the other end of the spa, she communicated to the only person who might be able to get her help.
“Wulf?”
No answer.
“Wulf?”
Still no answer. Why didn’t he answer? It wasn’t as if he were out in galaxy somewhere. Or, had the rebels gotten to him and his brothers somehow?
She swore under her breath in three languages. She staggered along the wall, her goal the doorway to the inner hall. She wanted to get to a space with more exits and more places to hide. This small room was a trap.
As she inched her way along, she sought Wulf’s mental touch again.
“Wulf, I need help.”
Again no answer. Nothing. She couldn’t find him. He wouldn’t be closed off; he never was. And, since the space walk on the Galanti, she’d kept her side wide open.
She’d come to revel in the closeness they shared and now that she couldn’t find him, she didn’t like it. Fine time for her to realize how Wulf had felt when she was closed to him.
She’d share her revelation, if she lived long enough.
So, where in Balcon’s Balls was he?
Out in the middle of the damn Tooh Sea, fishing for a predator fish a person couldn’t even eat. Damn men! Or, maybe dead at the hands of a rebel sniper? No. He wasn’t dead; she’d know that in her soul if her were.
Maybe she was too weak, not projecting enough?
“Wulf! I need you!” The energy expended sending the mental scream for help blinded her for a millisecond.
“Damn, that hurt,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead as her sight returned.
Then something touched her mind. A sizzle then a pop sounded loudly in her already aching head. Warmth flowed through her and her mind seemed to clear, shoving away the pain and the waves of hatred flowing from the assassin coming ever closer to her.
“Wulf?”
“Lubha? What is it? You are weak.”
“Someone drugged me.”
Too tired to form mental conversation, she sent him images.
Mel knew he’d gotten the message when adrenaline resulting from his rage spiked through her. She took four steps this time without the need to use the wall to hold herself up. The room stopped spinning enough that her nausea settled down.
“We’re almost to port. We’ll dock soon. Can you defend your position?” His mental voice was calm, commanding, but underneath his rage and fears for her burned bright red. His mental touch was everywhere at once, giving her his strength and examining her situation through her senses.
“Yes…”
“Don’t sugarcoat it for me, lubha . I sense the evil approaching. Get out of that room now . The locker rooms or the gym would be better for defense.”
“I’m trying…”
“What’s wrong? What are you not showing me?”
“I am showing you everything. It’s the drug they used—it has slowed me down. I’m near the door … but I can hear him now. Not just feel him. He’s too close. I can’t get out without him seeing me.”
Wulf’s roar of frustrated rage caused her heart to pump faster.
“Huw has contacted Maren and the Embassy Guard. And the Alliance Military.
Barricade that door and stay alive.”
“Well, that was the plan.”
“Like I wouldn’t have thought of that myself,” she muttered under her breath.
Her warrior was absolutely unstable when she was in danger. And, for the most part, she understood it. She’d feel the same way about him being in danger, drugged with no weapons and no back up. Come to think of it, she felt the same way when rabid, man-stealing hussies eyed Wulf as if he were the flavor of the month.
“Focus, lubha. And no other woman interests me. Just you. So your duty is to stay alive!”
“Yes, sir. Captain Wulf, sir.”
His low, throaty growl, the snarly-angry one, not the yummy-we’re-having-sex one, came across their mind link. She smiled. Damn, she loved that snarly growl.
Energized by Wulf’s presence in her mind, her heart pumped faster. Her body responded, producing the stress hormones that had ensured humanoid survival in the Milky Way for eons. She felt stronger, not her usual one hundred percent, but enough to defend until help arrived.
Weapon. She needed a weapon. She searched the room. There was only the chaise, a small table and the chair she knocked over, and the glass that had held the drugged drink.
She thought fondly of her powerful little sidearm in the locker just meters away. It might as well have been light-years for all the good it could do her.
Mental note, never go anywhere completely unarmed. She’d strap a knife to each leg the next time she got spa treatments and the attendants would just have to deal.
Her narrowed gaze returned to the stemmed glass. It was made out of heavy crystal.
Here was her weapon—or it would be with a little modification.
She shuffled to the table. Okay, her legs weren’t totally working as well as she would’ve liked. But she could feel her feet and her hands, so the debilitating neuropathy was receding.
Picking up the glass, she dumped the rest of the contents on the floor, then broke the solid crystal goblet against the ledge of the tiny mullioned window. Now she had a weapon. She thrust the sharp, jagged end of the stem between her first and second fingers, palming the base.
She wavered on suddenly unsteady feet. No, she would not faint. That was girly. She was an Alliance military officer and there was no fainting before a battle—or after if she could help it. And then she had better be three pints low on blood or something.
“I’m with you, lubha . Use my strength. We’re on land, and on our way.” Okay, so she wasn’t one hundred percent. An Alliance Military officer was two hundred percent better trained than most, so she should be able to hold her own until some sort of help arrived. Maybe she should inform the enemy of that fact, it might scare him off. She choked back a laugh.
The enemy was only a room or two away. His emotions sickened her with their chaotic litany of hate and prejudice. His malevolent energy reminded her of the Prime traitors on the Galanti. This was not just her enemy, this was an enemy of the Prime people and their future. A fanatic, and all her training had taught her that zealots were the worst enemy to face. They cared nothing for the sanctity of life—theirs or anyone else’s.