Sahvin's Mate Read online

  Farseek

  Sahvin's Mate

  Farseek Mercenary Book 3

  Clarissa Lake

  GTQ LLC

  Orlando, Florida

  Copyright © 2017 by Clarissa Lake

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  GTQ LLC

  PO Box 540375

  Orlando, FL 32854

  www.thesios.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Farssek: Sahvin’s Mate/Clarissa Lake – 2nd ed.

  ISBN

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Bonus by Christine Mayers: The Deserter

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  CHAPTER ONE

  SAHVIN

  An explosion shook the whole building, and I awoke to chaos. The barracks guards came running from their rooms at the four corners of the men’s barracks, pulling up their clothes, and with weapons drawn. Someone turned on the overhead lights as we started rousing from our bunks. We didn’t have to dress. Slaves only got one set of clothes and one pair of shoes.

  Not knowing what might happen, next, I pulled on my boots. Suddenly, both the front and back doors of the barracks crashed open, and four armored beings stormed in and took out the guards. I thought we were next, but one of the beings receded his helmet and spoke in a calm even voice. Except I didn’t understand a word, he said. By then my friend Bill was up. I waited until he stopped talking, then asked “Bill, who is that and what did he say?”

  “They are Farseek Mercenaries, looking for people from their world. There are quite a few of them here, but they also said they will take all of us slaves with them.”

  “As slaves?” I wondered.

  “No, as free people. They can’t promise they will get us back to our homeworlds, but we will be free to make new lives for ourselves.”

  “Thank the Gods,” I said gripping his arms as he grasped mine. “We’re going to be all right.”

  “I sure hope they have some decent food,” Bill said. “Look at me, I’m wasting away to nothing.”

  I just grinned at him. He was a big guy and more than a little overweight when we arrived on this gods-forsaken planet called Breskaa. His excess body fat probably helped sustain him through our ordeal. He was now at an ideal weight for his body type.

  I had lost weight, but my species has a slower metabolism, and our bodies are better at regulating our weight than homo sapiens.

  “He said pack up our stuff as quickly as possible then he will lead us to the shuttles that will take us up to their ship.”

  “That won’t take long. We are wearing practically all we own,” I said. “All I have to do is put on my jacket.”

  We had to wait about an hour while the Farseekans secured the area around the barracks, then we were loaded into a troop shuttle to go up to their starship orbiting the planet. I didn’t know where they were taking us, but anywhere was better than here. But I am getting ahead of the sequence of events that brought us here.

  I am Sahvin Kazza, a feline humanoid from Narova. I was stationed on Earth as an operative for the United Galactic Alliance of Planets Law Enforcement. I was off our base there on reconnaissance at a tavern where we suspected Tenzari agents were kidnapping Earthers to sell into slavery. I was disguised as a homo sapien, wearing contact lenses to cover my feline eyes and my blue hair had been dyed a dark brown.

  Walking back to the lot where my assigned vehicle was parked a dark SUV with tinted windows pulled up beside me and asked where the visitor lot was for a business I did not know. When I stepped a little closer to tell them to ask at a nearby restaurant, they shot me with a stunner, and the next thing I remembered was waking up on a starship strapped to a bunk. Wearing only a thin pair of shorts and a shirt.

  I knew immediately I was on a slave ship; I had been stolen from Earth to become a slave. But by whom? This wasn’t a Tenzari vessel. The language printed on the signs that I could see was a language I didn’t recognize. I am a trained agent with seven years’ experience, but I was going off duty and heading back to my dwelling. The car driver looked like an ordinary human. I had no reason to suspect any harm from him. I only turned my attention away for a second to point out the local café when I was zapped. I was armed with my own similar weapon at the time.

  Now I had nothing but the clothes on my body and a horrible headache. There were many bunks like mine in the room with other males strapped to them. Some were homo sapiens, and others were of humanoid species I did not recognize.

  As I heard them talking, I realized I couldn’t understand any but the English speaking humans. There was pain behind my right ear that felt like a foreign body was embedded there. It vibrated whenever people spoke which led me to believe it was a somewhat primitive translator. It took a few days to find someone to tell the beings who now ruled us that my device didn’t work and was causing me pain. His name was Bill Waters. He was an automobile mechanic from a town not far from our secret Earth base. He has become a good friend, probably because he was one of the few people whose language I could understand.

  They took me to a med bay and strapped me down to a table.

  Without applying any painkiller, the medic made a small incision with a laser and pulled it out. It hurt enough that it brought tears to my eyes and a few muttered curses out of my mouth. They sealed the wound with liquid skin sealer, but the pain lingered for a few hours. It was healed by the time we reached some planet in a sector outside of Alliance Space. I never had been so far from my world, and I was losing hope of ever getting back. That was only the beginning of my descent into despair.

  Being sold in the group with my human friend whose translator did work was the only positive event in my situation. My group had the misfortune to be sent to a mining colony on a remote planet. It was a dark, dirty place to work. They worked us hard and fed us with the lowest grade food they had. We hardly ever saw the light of day. We left the barracks before dawn and returned after sunset. There were no days off and no time on the surface in daylight.

  I was partnered with my human friend who translated their orders to me. I slowly learned some of their language, but not enough to understand when they spoke fast. They knew I could not understand, but they used my hesitation as an excuse to whip or beat me. More than once they punched me until I fell down and then kicked me until I thought I would die.

  The first few times, I fought back. I was trained in mart
ial arts and pretty good at hand to hand combat. But there was no winning against them. When I fought them, more guards came and used a stunner. Then they threw me into a hole for three days with no food and minimal water. When I was pulled out, almost too weak to stand I was beaten unconscious.

  Bill thought I was dead when he came back to the barracks and found me on my bunk barely conscious. I opened my eyes when he put his fingers to my throat to check for a pulse and startled him.

  “Oh my God, Sahvin! You scared the shit out of me. I was sure you were dead.”

  “Not yet, but I am starting to wish for it,” I muttered. “Why fight to live when all we have ahead of us is more misery? When we die, they will just get more like us to take our places. Death may be our only way out.”

  “You don’t know that Sahvin,” Bill said patting my shoulder. “There’s gotta be a way out. These people are going around from planet to planet stealing people, someone’s going to figure out who they are and come after them.”

  “Before or after they work us to death or kill us for entertainment?” I said.

  “Well, if you just lay there and die, you’re never going to find out, are you?” he pointed out. “Come on, Sahvin. You’re the only comic relief I have in here. Pull yourself together. Here, I brought you some protein bars. Eat. It’ll help you heal.”

  I sat up slowly on my bunk and took the offered bars. He had pilfered two extra, so I could eat. “Thanks,” I told him. I ate them slowly as it was hard to chew when my jaws were both sore from punches. They had little flavor, but they had some nutritional value.

  The next day they sent me back to the mine to work even though I could still barely stand. Bill took my pick and shovel job and let me push the ore cart because it gave me something to hold on to. I lost track of how many days until I had mostly healed.

  Days turned into months, and we all thought we would die in those horrible mines. If we even stopped to catch our breath after moving a heavy load, they would beat us with a short wire whip. Some of the other humanoids were not as strong as Bill and me. They just dropped dead when the guards tried to make them keep working by whipping them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SAHVIN

  Everything changed in the middle of one dark starless night when we were awakened by the sound of explosions and weapons fire. The mine camp was attacked, and we all thought we were going to die. But the only the guards were attacked and killed.

  That’s when Commanded General Maktu came and announced that they were there to free us. There was still weapons fire in the background as the shuttle arrived for us to embark, but the Farseek warriors stood guard on either side of the short stretch of ground between the barracks and the open hatchway to the shuttle. It was standing room only, but we were all thrilled to be getting out of that hell hole.

  Twenty minutes later, we were debarking on one of four dreadnaughts of the Farseek fleet that had come to rescue us. Then they took us into what was apparently the cargo hold to be checked in by four beautiful Earth females. That’s when I scented her.

  I had thought it was the best day of my life when Bill told me that Commander Maktu was there to free us. When I scented her, my meomee or soulmate, I knew it.

  “Bill, my meomee is here!” I said as we stood in line to be registered.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Oh, I am sure. I scent her. She is one of those women,” I told him. “I can hardly believe it.”

  “You can smell her through the stench in here?”

  “Of course, I am feline,” I said, smiling. “I must get closer.”

  Suddenly the hopelessness and chronic fatigue that had plagued me through the months of long grueling days and short nights with too little sleep faded away. I had thought I would die in that horrible place, and then I scented her. At first, I couldn’t tell which one she was. It didn’t matter because they were all beautiful and seemed to really care about us.

  I didn’t want to push ahead of the others, but it needed to know which of these magnificent females was mine. I wormed my way through the others until I was near the head of the line. The female with the short reddish hair and luscious curves looked up and met my gaze. I knew she was the one.

  I waited to approach until she finished speaking to the man she was interviewing.

  “Meomee, you are a long way from Earth,” I said and extended my hand to her. She gave me a stunned look as she took my offered hand.

  “I am,” she smiled up at me and I felt my cock stir just looking at her and holding her hand. “And who are you? You don’t look exactly human. How is it that you speak English?”

  “My name is Sahvin Kazza. I am a feline humanoid, and you are my soulmate.” I told her wondrously.

  “Oh!” she drawled as the pheromones I exuded hit her right to her core. “I-I am Nora Reed.”

  All I could do was stare into her beautiful green and gold eyes. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk? I need to explain what’s happening.”

  “But I have a job to do here,” she protested.

  “The pheromones are too potent. You won’t be able to function normally now that we have connected. We must mate very soon,” I told her.

  She looked at me like I was speaking a different language. “Mate? But we just met. I don’t know you from anyone, and you want to mate? I don’t think so.” She pulled her hand from mine.

  In my excitement, I broke protocol with the human female. I should not have touched her without telling her first what would happen---especially an Earth female human.

  I knew better, but I was too elated on top of being rescued to think about anything but claiming her. Earth humans had different criteria for mating. Even so, by exposing her to the pheromones, I gave her no choice as to whether she wanted me as a mate. We could both die if she didn’t.

  “What do you know about Earth?” demanded one of the other women. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I do, but not how to get there from here.”

  In my excited state, I don’t remember all that was said. Her friends pulled her away for a moment to speak in secret, and Nora kept looking at me with an expression between fear and longing. She did not know me yet so I could understand her reluctance. I had waited all my life to find her, I could wait a little longer to make her mine.

  Had I met Nora on Earth before my months as a slave in the mines of Breskaa, I probably would have followed protocol. But my soul had known such despair in my months on Breskaa, I was like a man hanging on a cliff grasping for the hand of the one person who could save me.

  I am a Narovian feline. We are an ancient race, at least as old as homo sapiens. It is not known if we originated on Narova or if our kind were seeded there. But as long as there have been felines and humans living on Narova they have interbred, long before we ever became spacefaring.

  We have been spacefaring for about a thousand years. The United Galactic Alliance of Planets is even older than that. The Alliance had been watching over Earth for over four hundred years, trying to protect them from alien slavers. We built a secret base in the mountains of West Virginia on Earth before the pilgrims came over on the Mayflower.

  Feline humanoids have been serving there for all that time and have mated with Earth humans all that time. Most matings between humans and feline result in offspring that appear to be purely human. With over four hundred years of fraternization, many Earth humans are genetic soulmates of felines.

  Since Earth scientists have mapped the human genome and genealogy companies have started offering DNA tests to find out ancestral origins, it has become easier for us to find human soulmates from Earth. The Narovian Matchmaking Service had tapped into the DNA database to find those humans who are the soulmates of felines.

  The cost for the service on Narova is low, but the cost for a search through Earth databases is almost a month’s pay for an Alliance Law Enforcer. I paid for the service several years ago, and no mate was ever found on Narova or Earth. I had transferred to t
he Earth base hoping to find my soulmate by chance.

  Instead, I am kidnapped by alien slavers of a race I had never seen before.

  While there is no law regarding proper mating procedures for feline, it is our custom to allow the soulmate to decide whether to accept a feline meomee before meeting in person. This is how the Matchmaking service operates.

  When a feline humanoid meets their meomee, they give off potent pheromones and hormones that are irresistible to the meomee. They cause intense sexual arousal, driving them to mate within hours of meeting. Sometimes immediately.

  Sometimes, they can avoid the reaction if they don’t touch, but sometimes just being in the same room will touch off the response. I can tell myself that happen with Nora, but I will never know for sure. By taking her hand, I denied her the only chance she might have had to decline my claiming her and becoming my mate for the rest of our lives.

  I didn’t think about it until later. That day I had worked until I almost collapsed from exhaustion. We each got protein bars and a cup of water before we fell into our bunks. Then we thought we were going to be killed when the mercenaries came to rescue us.

  In those few hours, my emotions had gone from despondency to hope and then elation. After all that had happened in just a few hours, and I was not capable of risking the loss of the one person who could make me whole again.

  It didn’t surprise me that Nora refused me outright when I told her she was meomee and asked her to mate. Sapiens don’t believe in soul mating as we do. But I knew the pheromones would soon affect her, and she would want to drag me off to mate in a matter of time. Meanwhile, I stood off to the side watching her with my hands clasped in front of me to hide my visible erection. The pheromones she’d stoked in me affected me as much as her.

  Within minutes I could see she was distracted. She looked across the room at me and crossed her arms over her breasts, discreetly rubbing them. She glared at me, and her friends gathered around her, and she looked a little distraught. Each of them looked at me and smiled, and I wondered what they were telling her. Finally, they went back to interviewing, and Nora reluctantly approached me.