Genmate Imperiled (Genmate Dilemma Book 3) Read online

  Genmate Imperiled (Genmate Dilemma 3)

  Copyright © February 2022 by Cara Bristol

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN: 978-1-947203-38-9

  Editor: Kate Richards

  Copy Editor: Nanette Sipe

  Cover Artist: Croco Designs

  Formatting by Wizards in Publishing

  Published in the United States of America

  Cara Bristol Website: http://carabristol.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of 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

  Epilogue

  Related Titles by Cara Bristol

  About Cara Bristol

  Acknowledgements

  Mysk is a powerful alien psychic, but will his mental powers be enough to save his genmate? Or will the mistakes he’s made claim her life? Read Genmate Imperiled for the exciting conclusion to the Genmate Dilemma series.

  Vengeance keeps ’Topian Edwin Mysk from surrendering to the pain of the destruction of his home world and the loss of the genmate he might have had. One day, the Xeno Consortium will know his wrath. Until then, he will pursue his self-imposed mission to locate and reunite the massacre survivors.

  When he lands on Laxiter 4, he finds the ’Topian settlement abandoned, except for a lone woman. Lala. Their immediate, intense bonding proves she’s his genmate, the one female his genetics have chosen for him—the one he’d believed lost forever. With Lala at his side, he resumes his search for the others.

  But Lala is not the ’Topian he thinks she is. She’s a shapeshifting Xeno, a disgraced former general in the consortium military wrongly convicted of helping ’Topian insurgents escape annihilation. Edwin Mysk offers her best chance to locate the escapees and receive a stay of execution—as long as he doesn’t discover her secret.

  Genmate Imperiled

  By

  Cara Bristol

  Chapter One

  Lalaaa! No! Lalaa! You can’t be dead. You can’t be. You can’t be!

  Mysk rocked the lifeless body of his genmate and wept. Please, Lala, no. Come back.

  He’d killed her. As if he’d taken her life by his own hand, he’d caused the death of his one true mate. Hatred and pursuit of revenge had blinded him to how sick she’d been getting. She’d been dying—and he thought she was faking it.

  He’d been so angry and hurt, when she tried to sneak back to her space pod, he’d refused to speak to her, had avoided even looking at her. When she lagged, he’d assumed she was trying to hinder his progress. He’d blamed her for everything that had happened to his people.

  Except Lala hadn’t participated in the destruction of ’Topia. She hadn’t murdered innocent people. She hadn’t killed anybody. Deep in his heart, his mind, his soul, he knew that because his heart, his mind, his soul knew her. She was his genmate, and he was a mind-reading Verital. The times they’d merged minds, he hadn’t ever detected malice toward him or his people. Why, why, why hadn’t he remembered that? She’d tried to explain why she went to contact the AI, but he wouldn’t listen to her.

  Hate is easy. Love will take courage. Psychic Mandy Ellison had warned him before he’d left Earth. To his misfortune and peril, he hadn’t given her words a second thought.

  It had been too easy to hate the Xenos and to let that emotion corrupt his perception of his genmate rather than risk believing in her. He’d lost sight of what was important. How many chances had he had to reverse course, accept her, and embrace the happiness that could have been theirs? Angry, stubborn, filled with loathing, he’d rebuffed every opportunity.

  A desolation so deep rolled through him, he felt like he was drowning in the river again. Except then, Lala had been there to save him—more proof of her veracity. If she’d intended to summon the Xenos to Laxiter, she could have let him drown. But she hadn’t. She’d fought to save him—while he hadn’t paid enough attention to her to see she needed saving.

  Lalaaa! Lalaa! Please, please. No. No.

  Life wouldn’t be worth living without her. He couldn’t lose her! He refused to accept she was gone. She couldn’t be gone! He cupped her feverish cheek. How could she be dead if her skin felt so hot? He pressed a hand to her chest. Against his palm, he felt a faint thump. A heartbeat! As long as her heart beat, there had to be a psychic thread. If he could find one, just one…

  Marshaling his mental power, he shot out hundreds of invasive tendrils. All he needed was a wisp of consciousness. In darkness, he followed her neural pathways, leaping over synapses to delve deep into her mind, searching for cognitive traces, a memory, an emotion. He found the collapsed remains of barriers she’d erected against him, and he flowed over the rubble to enter the hidden corners of her psyche.

  There was nothing but darkness around him, bleakness inside him.

  She was gone.

  How would he live without her? How would he do it? He would never forgive himself for his negligence and stubborn disregard. He’d accused her of malice, but he had been the malicious one.

  With great despair, he retreated, tightening and withdrawing his psychic tendrils—and then he felt a tingle in one slender thread. He focused on the sensation, and he found a memory. Lala stood in an imposing imperial chamber as seven Xenos peered down from their thrones. The anti-shift detonation band around her neck chafed. She was terrified, expecting to be executed for crimes committed by Chameleon. Then she’d been granted a reprieve—if she could find the escaped ’Topians.

  He followed her memories to the launch from Xeno, conversations with her AI, her investigation into the bombardment, and the epiphany the Xeno Consortium High Council had committed a horrific atrocity. Her memories shifted to the landing on Laxiter 4, her first glimpse of him—and her fear, her decision to personify a Verital.

  She’d been wise to fear him. It had saved her life. If she’d confronted him in her natural form, he would have shot her on the spot. Her personification had given the genmate bond time to solidify.

  It had been said when a person died, their life flashed before them. Was that what he was seeing?

  Lala! Lala! Concentrating hard, he searched for cognition that put her in the here and now.

  There! There! He raced toward the tiny, feeble flicker. Not full consciousness, rather a hibernating sentience. Lala! Lala, please answer me. Wake up, sweetheart. Please!

  Mysk?

  Oh God. Oh God. Yes! It’s me. His hands, cupping her face, trembled. I was afraid you were dead.

  I am going to die.

  No! You can’t. I won’t let
you. Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  I don’t have much time—

  Don’t talk like that.

  Listen to me. I don’t have long. I love you, Mysk. I wasn’t going to betray you, you have to believe that.

  I do believe you. I love you, too. I’m so sorry for what I put you through. But, you’re not going to die. I won’t let you!

  Unfortunately, my love, this isn’t something you can control, she said. Do you have weapons aboard your ship?

  What?

  Weapons. Plasma blasters.

  Yes… Why? Why would she ask that?

  Listen to me, Mysk. You must blow up my ship before the AI reports me missing.

  He shook his head. You’re going to recover, and you’ll send the message like you had plan—

  No. I’m not. The Xenos will come if you don’t destroy my ship.

  That will give them more reason to come!

  Yes, but not until they realize they’ve lost a ship. You’ll have more time to lead the ’Topians to safety.

  We’ll talk about it when you’re well. When we can discuss it face-to-face.

  That’s not going to happen.

  It will if you let me help you. He would do whatever it took to get her well. First, he had to determine what was wrong! Before he could fix it, he had to diagnose it.

  I hurt all over.

  Let me feel what you’re feeling. He suspected her coma was her body’s defense mechanism against the physical discomfort. He’d assumed she’d been suffering from something akin to the Earth condition, turista, temporary gastrointestinal distress often experienced by travelers. Now, he feared her illness might be more like cholera, an often fatal Earth disease. What if he’d caused her illness? What if he’d carried and infected her with a microbe from Earth her body had no defense against?

  It hurts too much, she said.

  I’ll work as fast as I can. Then I’ll block your pain again. But you have to show me so I can figure out what’s wrong.

  The silence lasted so long, he feared he’d lost her. Lala?

  All right. A wall lowered, releasing body ache, heat, and tiredness, and then the barrier crumbled, and a tidal wave of sickness crashed over him as Lala cried out and jerked in his arms. He merged into the physical sensation so that her illness became his and he felt what she felt.

  His veins were on fire. So laden by fatigue and weakness, he could barely lift an arm. Holding her required all his strength. Muscles cramped. And everywhere that burning, burning pain. Herian, this is what she was experiencing? No wonder she’d fallen unconscious.

  Lala moaned and thrashed.

  He could hardly think straight from the pain and sickness, but he traced the physical discomfort to the point in time where the tiredness, the aches, the nausea began. Each symptom originated from the same source: a soreness in her neck. He’d assumed she’d gotten ill from tainted water. He turned her slightly to examine her nape, and alarm shot through him at what he saw.

  She contorted her face and moaned, the sound of her distress cutting through him like a knife.

  He couldn’t let her suffer any longer. You are drifting to sleep and, with every breath, the pain becomes less and less. He assisted her retreat into a protective coma again.

  She went limp in his arms. Mysk?

  I’m here, sweetheart. Fuck! He’d feared the worst, and her situation was far more critical. What the hell had happened to her? She needed a med pod immediately. I have one more question. You have a sore on your neck. Do you know how you got it?

  That’s from the inoculation I received before leaving Xeno.

  Chapter Two

  Mysk implanted suggestions to deepen the pain-blockers, shore up her immune system, and help her rest, and then he withdrew, leaving behind a few psychic tendrils to more easily monitor her condition. He’d hidden his fear to avoid alarming her and undermining her willpower, because the latter was all she had. Without a med pod, the situation was dire. Hopeless. She was far sicker than he could ever have imagined.

  Gently he rolled her onto her stomach so he could examine the nape of her neck. Her powder-blue skin had turned a sickly yellow-green all over, the color deepest on her nape. Pea-soup streaks radiated outward from a bright yellow nodule the size of a quarter. He palpated the lump, and, even unconscious, her face contorted, and she moaned in pain.

  Deeper sleep, Lala. Deeper sleep. You are immune to the sensation of pain. He waited until her expression relaxed before resuming the examination. The nodule was hot and hard to the touch, almost like something embedded beneath the skin had gotten infected.

  What kind of inoculation would cause such a severe reaction? Maybe it was a waterborne parasite after all. He’d assumed she’d swallowed something, but maybe an alien insect had burrowed in. The puncture by the injection could have provided an entry point. Maybe she hadn’t picked it up on Laxiter at all but on another planet she’d visited.

  He probed the lump and frowned as his fingers traced hard, circular edges. The shape was too perfect for an organic organism. It had to be an implant. Had her inoculation been a timed release? Why would it cause such a reaction now? Could she have developed an allergy to whatever she’d been given?

  Parasite or implant—whatever had lodged under her skin had to come out.

  Mysk dug out a first aid kit he’d tossed into his pack as an afterthought. The unit had been a free “gift” for purchasing enough MREs to feed an army platoon. Rifling through the contents, he discovered the kit provided little of use unless you had a paper cut and needed a Band-Aid. It didn’t even offer good painkillers, just a few packets of weak analgesics that worked only if you weren’t in much pain to start with. There was no topical anesthetic.

  Pressing his lips together grimly, he grabbed some antiseptic wipes, gauze dressings, and a roll of tape. He rejected a pair of useless mini scissors in favor of his pocket knife.

  He disinfected the knife blade with the antiseptic and then swabbed her skin. After reentering her psyche and implanting suggestions to further deaden the pain, he got to work. He isolated the hard nub with his fingers and then incised the top. An oily near-black substance oozed from the cut. What the hell was that? Xeno blood was blue. Squeezing below the base of the object, he tried to force it out through incision, but that didn’t work. With no other choice, he used his knife to dig out the object, glad he’d had the foresight to put Lala deeper into a coma. Finally, a tiny cylinder, a centimeter in diameter and centimeter and a half in length, popped out through the incision.

  Slick oily black fluid coated the object.

  Her wound continued to ooze the same fluid but also bled blue now. He wiped the cylinder off. Black fluid filmed over it again. It’s leaking. He suspected the object was no inoculation against disease but a poison pellet that had been set on a timed release or that had malfunctioned and begun to leak. Either way, he was sure the High Council had intended no good deed by injecting her with it.

  He set the cylinder on a piece of gauze and probed the incision to ensure nothing else was embedded. The black substance worried him—he feared much of it had spread through her system already.

  Maybe he could extract whatever was left. Placing his mouth over the incision, he sucked hard. Careful not to swallow, he still tasted the bitterness. He spat out blood and black fluid onto a gauze pad then continued to suck and spit until he only drew blue blood.

  After rinsing his mouth with water and spitting outside the MHU, he disinfected Lala’s neck with the antiseptic, closed the wound with a butterfly bandage, and then taped a sterile dressing over it.

  If only he hadn’t been so blind! If he’d paid attention to her physical symptoms when they first started, he might have been able to remove the pellet before it poisoned her.

  Now? He didn’t know if the extraction would be enough to save her. The toxin had been spreading through her system for at least a couple of days. Maybe longer.

  He sealed the cylinder in a plastic bag.

 
If Lala died, the High Council would pay for her death. He would not strike against the Xeno citizens whom he now accepted were mostly innocent, but the members of the council? If it took the rest of his life, he would see every last member dead.

  Dousing a clean cotton T-shirt with water from the canteen, he bathed Lala. She was sloughing off scales like one shook off sand at the beach. He washed her from head to tail and then bathed her face and forehead with fresh water, hoping to provide relief from the fever.

  He remained by her side through the day and the night.

  Chapter Three

  Mysk?

  With a curse, Mysk bolted awake to find the MHU awash in morning light. “Lala?” Sometime during his vigil he’d fallen asleep. “Lala?” he repeated as his gaze flew to his genmate.

  She did not respond. Still unconscious, she lay as still as death, her chest barely moving, her skin more green.

  She’s not better; she’s worse. I’m losing her.

  No, it’s still too soon to know. He argued with himself. I only removed the pellet yesterday. Of course she needs time to heal.

  A flaky powder, which he realized were her scales sloughing off, coated her skin. She was losing hair, too, the bristles on her head falling off in clumps. Her skin had yellowed further, the back of her neck mustard-colored.

  Mysk? Her consciousness was inside his head.

  Even as she lay dying—no, she’s not!—the genmate bond had strengthened their psychic connection, enabling her to reach out to him. Lala. I’m here.

  It’s so hot. I’m so hot.

  He rested his hand on her forehead then her cheek. She was burning up. Her lips were dry and chapped. You have a fever, he stated, downplaying the seriousness of the situation. If she had any chance of survival, she had to believe she could beat it.

  My blood feels hot.

  He grabbed the canteen; it was empty. He’d used it up bathing her in the night. He got another from the pack and ran a quick inventory. Three empties, three full. He hadn’t counted on using their drinking water for bathing. Not dire yet, but before too long, he’d have to scout for water.