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And then the door burst open and Dra’vik was there, filling the doorway.
TWENTY-SIX
Dra’vik slammed the door shut behind him without looking. For a moment he didn’t seem to understand what was happening. Then fury filled his slitted yellow eyes and he opened his mouth and roared—there was no other word for it.
It wasn’t like a lion’s roar—though there were elements of a big cat in it, Iyanna thought, wincing away from the noise. She had once heard a computer simulation of what the roar of a T-rex must have sounded like—there were deep notes of a foghorn mixed with the ear-splitting blare of an alarm klaxon and the shrill, piercing cry of an eagle. That was what the sound coming out of Dra’vik’s mouth was like.
It was louder than the copper Arch when it had been scanning her—Iyanna felt her eardrums bulging and wondered if they might burst.
Behind her, Gorn abruptly stopped fondling her breast and the slimy wet thing that had been nudging at her thighs was withdrawn.
Nak, who had just started uncurling himself from the floor, clamped his hands over his ears, his mouth a silent O of protest.
The roar ended as quickly as it had begun and then Dra’vik was striding over to her.
“What are you doing? What have you done to my female—my cherished wife?” he demanded, notes of the roar still throbbing in his voice. His chest was glowing—the scarlet and gold scales looked as though they were lit up from within. And was that smoke coming from his nostrils and his mouth when he spoke? Yes, long black tendrils were leaking upwards from the corners of his mouth and nose, like he was on fire inside, Iyanna saw, with a feeling of unreality.
The big Drake pulled Nak up off the ground by the scruff of his neck and shook him, glaring into his eyes.
“I…we… she hurt me,” the Lix’dorian guard whimpered, still clutching his crotch.
“I’ll hurt you more if you touched her! If you fucking laid a finger on her your life is forfeit! Do you understand?”
Dra’vik’s eyes were blazing so brightly they would have lit up a dark room and he shook the other male until Nak’s head snapped back and forth on his neck like a puppet. Then he looked at Iyanna.
“What did this one do to you—did he hurt you?”
“I…I kicked him before he could do anything,” Iyanna heard herself saying—she felt numb with shock. “It was the other one—Gorn—the one behind me. He was trying to…to put himself in…inside me.”
She could barely get the last words out, her throat was suddenly so tight.
Maybe you’re not as numb with shock as you thought, whispered a little voice in her head.
“He WHAT?”
The roar was back in Dra’vik’s voice again. He dropped Nak to the floor like a pile of dirty laundry and strode around to grab Gorn, who had been trying to hide behind one broad arm of the Arch.
The big Drake dragged him out into the open and Iyanna saw that his black uniform trousers were unbuttoned and his shaft—now completely flaccid—was flapping limply between his thighs.
“Look, we didn’t do anything we’re not allowed to do by Lix’dorian law!” he told Dra’vik in a trembling voice. “By law, any female without modesty patches is a pleasure slave. And if she doesn’t have a Master to speak for her, she’s free for any male who wants to use her. Nak and I were just going to take turns—”
But he didn’t get any further before Dra’vik wrapped one huge hand around his throat and began to squeeze.
“So you thought you could help yourself because I wasn’t here to stop you?” he growled, glaring into the other male’s face. The glow in his chest and eyes was brighter and the smoke was coming from his nostrils and mouth in thick, black tendrils. There was the smell of burning in the room—the scent of a bonfire just beginning to catch.
“No…I…please…” Gorn was scrabbling at the big Drake’s fingers, his formerly pastel face going darker and darker as his eyes bulged frantically.
“I ought to burn you to a fucking crisp,” Dra’vik snarled at him. “But if I start a fire in the fucking spaceport, innocent people are going to die too. So I’ll settle for this.”
Squeezing tighter, he rammed the Lix’dorian guard’s head against the sharp metal edge of the copper Arch. Then he did it again and again and again.
Iyanna gasped and looked away, her stomach knotting and twisting as purple blood began to spatter on the floor.
“Please!” she moaned. “Please, Dra’vik—I just want to get out of here! Just let me loose from these damn manacles—please!”
At last her voice seemed to get through to the massive Drake. He dropped the limp form of Gorn to the floor. It landed with a meaty thud beside the quivering, cowering Nak, who was sniveling and crying by this time.
