Page 72 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

Grace

Glass shattered, shards flying everywhere. Grace’s heart was beating hard in her chest, each breath heaving in and out with force. She rolled away, in the opposite direction of the glass, and came up on her feet, lifting her shoe up over her head.

The domini guards began to converge again. She screamed, throwing her shoe. It bounced off one of the males’ chest, completely useless.

“Stop!”

Veesway’s commanding voice brought the threatening trio of males to a halt. Veesway let out a long, annoyed breath. “Female, please…”

He wasn’t begging her to cooperate. It sounded more like he was praying for patience. Grace glared at him, blowing out a short breath, moving some of the hair from her face.

They were trying to force her onto the bed of a mediscanner. They needed to check if Sway had impregnated her. She knew he didn’t, but she also knew that if they found that out, they’d be throwing her out into the wild. And she couldn’t let that happen.

She didn’t know if Sway – or the missing Loyalty for that matter – had survived out there, but she knew that she wouldn’t. She had to buy time until Tanin and the rest of Sway’s crew came. If they came. She had to believe that they would. And she had to keep resisting until they did.

The domini guards didn’t tell her they were taking her to medical when they escorted her from her room, and she didn’t realize that’s where they were going until she saw the mediscanner.

She thought she’d have a couple more days until they tried to check.

But it wouldn’t hurt to monitor her every day until they knew for sure.

The moment she realized where she was, she began fighting.

She point blank would not climb onto the bed under her own power.

Which prompted Veesway to order the domini guards to grab her and put her on the bed.

Which only made her scream and fight and struggle.

They got her on the bed, but they couldn’t keep her there, and if they tried to hold her down, they’d just make the scan impossible.

They also weren’t willing to actually hurt her.

Which was her greatest advantage. There was a mark around one wrist from a particularly hard grip, but that had earned a reprimand from Veesway.

They could hold her down, but they couldn’t hurt her.

And her delicate humanity actually served as a layer of protection in that case.

They could barely put their hands on her without her earning bruises, which severely limited their ability to control her.

She was starting to understand what the farasie considered to be purposeful harm.

Throwing her into the wild and letting her die was allowed because they weren’t hurting her directly, and what did hurt her wasn’t something they commanded or controlled.

They could hold her down and force her into a scanner because that wasn’t harmful, but if she fought back so much they were forced to hurt her, that wasn’t allowed.

They couldn’t let that happen because they commanded the domini.

It was like the domini were tools, weapons, and they weren’t allowed by their personal belief system to use them to hurt her.

They were allowed to drug her to force her compliance however. So long as the drug didn’t cause lasting harm – and so long as they cared for her properly while she was unable to do so herself – that was perfectly allowable. Which is what they just tried to do.

The glass now sparkling on the smooth floor was from the vial of medicine that they had been trying to put into an applicator. One that she’d kicked out of their hand before they could force it into her, causing the medicine to fall and the glass to shatter.

The problem now was stamina. They couldn’t hurt her, and she could fight back. But they had a lot more energy than she did. They only had to fight her until she was no longer capable of struggling, then it would be much easier to do what they wanted with her.

That’s where they were now. It was a battle of Grace’s stamina and Veesway’s patience.

And, to her surprise, it appeared her stamina was winning.

“We are not trying to harm you,” he said. “And if you are carrying, you could be harming the youngling in your belly.”

“Could be,” she agreed easily. “If I miscarry, it’s your fault, by the way.”

It was an empty threat, but they didn’t know that.

And it clearly made them uncomfortable as the domini males all looked to Veesway.

They were mercenaries but they weren’t bad people.

At least, not in their own mind. She wasn’t facing a room of villains and goons.

They were following orders of a group determined to protect their people.

A group that had just exiled a murderer and were going to do the same to his mate, after confirming that doing so wouldn’t hurt an innocent youngling.

As far as they were concerned, they were doing the right thing.

Fighting a pregnant female until she miscarried was not the right thing, and even the possibility made them uneasy.

Her non-existent baby was her greatest weapon right now.

She just had to buy time. Surely, some kind of solution would present itself.

Some way to find Sway and rescue him. If he had been on Rik-Vane most of his life, there was a good chance he’d never stepped foot in the wild.

He couldn’t be expected to know how to survive in such a place.

Save herself. Save Sway. Get out of this place.

Easy. If she could just figure out how .

As they were all standing there, staring each other down, the door to the medical room opened and Vweet joined the party.

He stepped inside, frowning at the mess.

The glass and medicine on the floor, the uneasy domini mercenaries, annoyed Veesway, the medical officer who was standing the corner, their expression carefully blank.

And her, on the far side of the mediscanner, one shoe on, hair a mess, crouched and grounded like she was ready to take off in either direction at any second. He gave her a sad look.

“Grace, please,” he begged, coming fully into the room, the door shutting behind him.

“It’s for the sake of your youngling as well.

I just got back from checking. There is only one other human mated to a farasie, and it is a male human.

But humans have mated other egg laying species.

Humans carry eggs differently than we do. It’s a very delicate time for you.”

“Yeah, you should probably stop stressing me out so much then,” she grinned, trying to sound braver than she felt.

“Grace-”

“Enough,” Veesway snapped, crest starting to rise. “Female, this is going to happen. If I have to drug your food to force your compliance, I will.”

“Well, that’s dumb,” she laughed without any humor. “Now you’re just going to make me go on a hunger strike.”

“Female-”

An alert came from the combot in the pocket of one of the domini males. He grabbed and checked it as Veesway came in closer.

“We are not going to hurt you,” he repeated, like that was her hangup.

“You and I have very different ideas of what it means to harm someone,” she laughed, backing away from him. “Don’t you touch me! Or I’ll rip out those crest feathers and make myself a pretty fan.”

Veesway’s lip curled. “And you really think you’d be capable of raising a farasie hatchling? You’re just as much of a brute as the rest of the universe.”

“Really depends on where you’re standing.

See, on Earth, us humans pretty much agree that any violence committed in the act of protecting your child is not only justified, but expected.

You’re the one who would be harming them by taking them from me.

And for throwing out your son when he’s done nothing to you. ”

“I have no son but the one you might be carrying in your belly,” Veesway said, voice hard and icy cold.

“If there is a baby in my belly, the only thing I can guarantee you is that you will never be able to hold them in your arms. If Sway is no son of yours, then his son is a stranger to you too.”

“Get on the bed.”

“Screw off!”

“Get on the bed.”

“I won’t!”

“Veesway.”

“What?” He turned with a sharp whistle.

The domini mercenary that interrupted remained unimpressed by his short temper. He gave him a serious look. “We have a problem.”

“This is more important. There is an innocent youngling’s life at stake.”

“Yes, but-”

A loud explosion ripped through the air, shaking the glass in the windows. Grace, still poised and ready to run, didn’t flinch, but others in the room jumped. The medical officer cried out. Grace whipped her head around, looking out the window, but there was nothing to see.

“What was that?! ” Veesway yelled even as he was running to the door.

The mercenaries followed after him, so Grace didn’t get to hear the answer.

Vweet and the medical officer were the only ones left in the room and, after a moment’s hesitation, the healer left too. The blatant curiosity on his face told her what he was up to without him even needing to say anything.

Vweet, however, remained focused on her. She stood straight slowly, giving him a harsh look. Though she was abandoning her position, she was still ready. And it would be easier to get away from one farasie.

“Are you okay?” He asked, stopped to grab her shoe. He dusted it off with his hand, making sure no glass remained on the slipper. He held it out to her and, after a moment, she snatched it back, moving quickly like she was afraid he might try to grab her.

But he didn’t. His eyes looked hurt, but it was only for a second before it vanished and he was giving her a calm, understanding smile.