Perdition's Child

Chapter 26

Familiar eerie green eyes caught Mehks' when he woke, and with a mewl he wrapped Irika into a hug and bit her hair before remembering she'd rejected him and he was still pissed at her and also they were captives of a xenophobic terrorist group. He let go of her hair and pretended to have come down with a sudden need to groom his shoulder. Not obvious at all.

She quirked an eyebrow at him, but didn't comment on the biting thing while he took in their situation. They weren't locked in a cell, just a large open room with several entrances and the same comparatively sympathetic guard from before. Although she looked less sympathetic while holding a gun. Context was an interesting thing.

Vega was lying down on a cot, soaked from a jug of water that had obviously been poured on him. He wasn't dead because his toes were moving, so Mehk ignored him to gulp down the cup of water near his own cot before returning his attention to Irika. Her skin was still bright red, but she didn't seem otherwise injured.

She pressed a hand against the top of his head for some reason. He flattened his ears and pulled back so she asked, "You feel okay?"

"Yeah. Empty, sort of. And why does my head hurt?" His mouth tasted like metal from biting his tongue, and his head ached like he'd whacked it against something, but everything considered he felt fine.

"You were twitching and thrashing for a minute, I thought you were dead." Why did she care? Why were humans so confusing? Were the two of them pack or not? Stupid aliens.

How easy it was to slip back into that easy camaraderie though... "Silly girl, clearly it would take nothing less that an incendiary bomb at close range to get rid of me." Kind of he wanted to ask about the missed calls and new guy, and what was going to happen next? But things were comfortable at the moment so he set it aside for if they had a later.

"Clearly, because if anyone else dared to call me that he'd be off to meet their gods by now." Hesitantly, she wrapped him in a hug. What should he do with this? He wanted his pack back, but not if she wasn't going to play by the rules. It hurt too much... He laid his forehead against her chest, not quite a pack-gesture, as compromise.

"Speaking of which, are we going to survive this?" The fact that they weren't all tied to the altar was promising, but every time he thought things were looking up the world threw a brick at his head.

The proverbial brick entered from one of the hallways with the rest of his pack.

Mehks' ears fell into a defensive position when Ritcha glanced at them with a sneer. "So sorry, did I interrupt?"

He was just half on her lap with his head nuzzling her collar, but Irika tugged him into a more compromising position with a single smooth motion. "Not at all, but if you want to watch we'll have to charge you." Fuck, they were absolutely going to die. He froze, hoping not to be noticed while the two of them glared.

Ritcha flicked an ear further forward, not letting her needle him. "Ah, no. I fear I really have to be off; places to case, people to kill, security compromised temples to blow up... You know how it is. Anyway, whatever you did worked, Mehk. Worse, it seems another similar attack against the extranet will be impossible with current technology. It's... Inoculated against that form of threat now, I guess you could say. Also, it's... Petty. Never mind. I suppose I should have expected that considering its host..." Trailing off with a sigh, one ear twitched in an annoyed gesture before he turned his attention back to them. "I suppose Shija's agents have triumphed over Skjol's revenge for now, and it would be unwise to directly oppose her will."