Davin's Quest Read online

  Dedication

  To my own Special Forces hero—now lost to this world—Colonel, you were the best uncle a girl could have and an example to live up to. I miss you.

  Prologue

  Human

  Richard St. John was a hard case. Raised in the Waste since his early teens, he had only scattered memories of the way the world had been before the aliens came—before the attack from orbit tore apart the fabric of the world.

  He’d wanted to be a doctor in the old days, but the crystal bombardment destroyed everything long before he was old enough to go to medical school. His mother died in the first wave, leaving his father heartbroken. But Rick’s father, Zach, was a survivor. He’d packed Rick up and they’d headed for the mountains in his pickup truck. They’d just barely made it before the next orbit when the attacks began anew.

  Zachariah St. John had been both a doctor and an Army Ranger in the old United States and he taught his son everything he knew about living off the land and surviving in the wild. Rick’s old man had a sixth sense about nature and was able to keep them both safe through the waves of attacks that followed, each time the Earth rotated fully on its axis. They’d moved farther into the mountains, working their way north, into the deepest recesses of the Rocky Mountains. They kept up with radio reports about the decimated coastlines as tsunamis spawned by the massive crystal shards hitting the Earth’s oceans killed by the millions.

  One day, their small transistor radio stopped working entirely. Only static met repeated attempts to tune in a station—any station at all. Civilization, as they’d known it, was over.

  “Guess that’s it,” Zach said, stowing the antenna and switching off the radio. “We’re on our own now.”

  The last broadcast had listed details of nearly unimaginable devastation. Coastlines all over the world under water from giant tsunamis. California separated down the line of the San Andreas fault. Massive earthquakes brought on by the crystal bombardment from space had finally clipped the golden state nearly in half. The ring of fire was more active than ever with two or three volcanoes erupting violently in the Pacific and Pacific Northwest.

  The sky was dark with soot covering the sun, and autumn came early that year, but by the following summer, temperatures started drifting back to normal. The sun shone brightly in the sky—but so did alien craft.

  Zach St. John took in the news spreading through the wastelands of the Rockies—now called simply the Waste—with his typical calm. They’d run into a trader one morning who told of tall, fair-haired aliens building a silver city on the plains. Rick asked his dad about it that night at dinner.

  “I figured it was something like this, son,” Zach said as he dressed the rabbit they’d snared for dinner. “The attack came from orbit. First thing to go down was my sat phone and GPS. Not many world powers who could do that, and none that could launch an attack on the entire planet. Had to be something from outer space.”

  “Aliens?” Rick wasn’t entirely surprised. They’d talked about various possibilities often during the early days. “So they’re not little and green like in the old movies.”

  “According to the trader, they look a lot like us, but with elf ears.” Zach finished with the rabbit and looked at his son. “This changes things. Now that they’re on the surface, they might just start hunting. Up ’til now, all we had to worry about was other men. The stakes are higher now, because any race that can do what they did to our planet has got to have superior weaponry. You’re going to have to learn to defend yourself, and we’ll make plans for when they come.”

  Rick thought it significant that his father said “when” and not “if”.

  He spent the next ten years learning from his dad and growing to adulthood. They’d met a few fellow survivors along the way, but not many, and not often. They grew close in those years.

  Zach shared an amazing secret that helped keep them both alive. He had a strong gift of empathy with animals, and could sometimes pick up their thought images and see through their eyes, sensing when the animals of the forest were scared or felt threatened. He could also read people, but only when he touched them.

  Rick had his own secrets. He finally let his father in on the biggest of them. He could heal most wounds by simply laying his hand over them and thinking real hard. That was why he’d wanted to study medicine—to find out how he did what he did, but also to help people with his gift.

  Through their infrequent interactions with other survivors, they realized they weren’t the only ones with psychic abilities. It seemed like every single soul they met had something different about them. Many had small amounts of precognitive ability that had led them out of harm’s way before the attack began. Some were telepaths, some could move things with their minds. Others had combinations of skills that were often benign, but some were downright deadly.

  All in all, Rick preferred to be on his own—just him and his dad. They didn’t need the society of others, except for one thing, but hetero sex was hard to come by since there were so few women among the survivors of humanity. Still, Rick grew into a good-looking young man and the few women he was able to charm were as eager for him as he was for them.

  But dalliances were few and far between as the lack of females turned many of the male survivors into beasts. Women went into hiding for their own protection, though few towns existed with even fewer inhabitants.

  “I pity women today,” Zach would often comment after contact with others. “They’re traded like commodities, forced into whoring or multi-partner families. That’s not the way it was, son. You should always remember that. You were old enough to know the way it should be. The way our family was. God knows, I miss your mother more every day, but I wouldn’t have wanted her to see the level of depravity to which we have sunk.”

  Rick took all his father’s teachings to heart, but especially that one. He’d just been starting to date when the cataclysm happened and felt strongly that girls should be protected, not exploited. Every time he saw some poor, frightened creature creeping about a settlement under guard by one of her protectors, the lesson was driven home again. He’d never sink that low.

  The likelihood he’d ever have a woman of his own was close to nil, but Rick didn’t curse fate—at least not too often. He had his dad. That was more family than most people could claim nowadays. So the St. John men lived off the land in their own small cabin out in the middle of nowhere.

  Until the Alvians came.

  They heard the ships fly by in the night and then the miniscule sounds of one landing not far away. Silently Zach signaled his grown son to head for the woods behind the cabin. They’d planned for this kind of thing. Each man would fend for himself, since two together were more likely to be captured or killed. They had a rendezvous and backup plan already in place.

  Zach grabbed his son for one last hug before they headed out the doors—Zach out the front, and Rick out the back.

  That was the last time Rick St. John saw his father.

  Alien

  “Chief Engineer, it is an honor to assist you.” Young Selva’s gaze lowered, almost submissively, but Davin knew she was ambitious.

  Perhaps too ambitious.

  So much so, she was even willing to work closely with him. There’d been few volunteers to act as his private assistant, regardless of his important position. Most of the Alvian race shunned Davin for having primitive, excessive emotion.

  “Come here, Selva 56.” Davin slid his console chair back from the huge work station. She stood in front of him with a questioning smile. Like the rest of their race, she didn’t really experience emotion, but she was a smart woman. She could see the hard-on in his trousers.

  “Can I help you with that, sir?” Her dark gaze traveled the length of his erectio
n.

  “Yes, you may.” Davin got comfortable in his chair. This was going just as he expected. The Alvian race was nothing, if not predictable. He spread his knees to make room for her.

  “Kneel in front of me, Selva, and see what you can do about this.” He slid one palm over the bulge in his pants and her smile deepened. She probably thought she was getting her way, but in reality, it would be his way or no way at all. He was in charge here, as she would soon learn.

  She sank to her knees and freed him with practiced movements. She had dark skin and wide brown eyes, a rarity among their race. He liked the look of her darker hands against his cock. Her nails were neatly trimmed and softly tinted. Her looks were exotic and he soon learned her hot little mouth was very talented indeed, as she took him deep.

  Davin gasped. He hadn’t quite expected that. She was certainly no novice at sucking dick. Perhaps he’d keep her around for a bit longer than he’d originally planned.

  Her gaze swept upward, the fringe of lashes flirty. He couldn’t help but wish she could feel even a flicker of the emotions he experienced on a daily basis.

  But that would never be. Davin was isolated in his ability to feel and these moments of purely sexual relief were all he would have. Among his kind, he would never find a true mate—a resonance mate—to share his life. Just schemers like Selva who thought they could get ahead by throwing the big man a bone once in a while.

  “Suck harder. Take me deeper,” he instructed, clasping the back of her head and pushing her more firmly onto his cock. “Use your tongue and swallow it down.”

  She complied readily, apparently willing to do just about anything to please him. Davin appreciated that. It would come in handy with his strong sexual needs.

  Still, something about her didn’t add up. She was beautiful, even sexy in her own way, and Davin was not immune to her planned seductiveness. The way she brushed up against him, touched him when she had no real need to do so and used her big, dark eyes, was not lost on him. She was rather obvious in her attempts to tease. For a woman without emotions, she didn’t know quite how far to go in trying to fool a man who saw more than she would ever realize.

  Still, she was pretty, and eminently fuckable. And he needed relief.

  “Massage my balls, pretty Selva,” he ordered, almost too gratified when she used just the right pressure on him. “I’m close.” He gave fair warning, but she didn’t let up. He took that as a good sign and let go completely.

  He came hard in her mouth, holding the back of her head so she had no choice but to swallow everything he gave. Not that she was complaining. She obviously wanted to please him. She’d made it more than clear over the past few days.

  For a brief moment he felt a sense of blessed relief, an almost blissful feeling of completion. He soared. But all too soon, it was over and he plummeted back to earth. Davin relaxed back in his chair, straightening his clothes.

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  “I spoke to some of the women who service the soldiers.” Her expression didn’t change and her clinical tone set his teeth on edge.

  Soldiers were considered lower life forms because their race’s aggressive tendencies had not been completely bred out of them. Certain women were given the job of serving their needs, but someone like Selva 56 would never have been chosen for the task. Her crystal gift alone kept her from such menial jobs, but even if she had not had crystal ability, the line of Selva was usually gifted in business and politics. She was highly ranked for her age, at 56th on this planet. She would move up swiftly—especially if she used him to speed the process. He knew her game.

  The pleasure he’d taken in release was dimmed by the thought. He meant nothing to her beyond a possible stepping-stone to greater authority and more power.

  “Thank you, Selva 56. That will be all.”

  She stood and smiled, but it was a smile devoid of feeling that left him cold. “I’d be happy to assist you further, Chief Engineer. Anytime at all. Just call me.”

  Davin nodded. “I just may take you up on that. I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She smiled once more and turned gracefully, leaving him without a second thought.

  Davin was not too proud to take the sexual release she offered, but he also wasn’t above admitting his needs were fiercer than the other males of his race. Unless they had hints of aggressive tendencies like the warrior lines, the males of his species didn’t have strong sexual needs anymore. Neither did the women. Procreation was taken care of in a lab more often than not, with genetic designers manipulating almost every aspect of the process. They’d taken an ancient and proud race from overly aggressive killing machines, to unfeeling automatons in less than ten generations.

  Davin was a throwback. He was like his ancestors, with all the emotions and fierce needs that had since been bred out of almost every other Alvian. His new assistant had done her research and found one way in which she could serve the Chief Engineer—and her career ambitions as well—by submitting to his sexual needs. He’d watched and listened carefully, and realized that while she was somewhat talented in crystal work, she was still young and unskilled. Careful questioning of his colleagues had revealed that she’d jumped at the chance to assist him, when everyone else tended to avoid him. Throwbacks were known to be unstable, after all.

  So he questioned her motivations—both the obvious ones and the not so obvious. She probably wanted his job. Being the Chief Engineer for the new planet was a very big deal. Davin had power few of his kind ever attained, and unlike young Selva, he’d gained his position based solely on ability. There was simply no other way the Council would have let a throwback advance.

  But they were conquering a new planet. They needed his skill. They watched him carefully and did not trust him, except where the crystal was concerned. He had proven time and time again he was the most gifted crystallographer in generations and only with his leadership and diligent work could the Alvian people tune the remainder of Earth’s wild crystal deposits to their own uses.

  Without Davin, the process would have taken many generations, but with Davin on the job, they were far ahead of schedule and increasing their ability to maintain the new settlements with each passing day. Expansion plans could move ahead and the High Council was happy. They had much to do to reestablish their race on this new homeworld.

  He thought again of seductive Selva 56. He really should take her up on her blatant offer, but he’d keep his eyes open. He didn’t trust her, but he wouldn’t mind a little more sexual relief. In return he would make sure she experienced a level of sexual satisfaction she had probably never experienced. Perhaps he could make her want to be with him for more than just career advancement purposes. He knew he could make her crave the satisfaction she would find in his bed.

  But first he needed some space. Davin’s people didn’t want him. They didn’t understand him. They thought him inferior in all ways.

  He was a freak, but he would rather be a freak with feelings and emotions than an automaton like the rest of his people. The geneticists had bred out aggression to end the constant warfare, but with it, they’d removed all other emotion. Once in a while a “throwback” was born, like him, with deeper emotions than the rest of the population. They were studied and patted on the head, but otherwise misunderstood and even reviled in many quarters.

  Eventually, there would be an accounting. The day was coming when his people would learn the error of their ways. They would learn as they interacted more with humansor Breeds, as they called them, a word borrowed from the human lexicon and used to disguise the higher echelon’s knowledge that the native survivors were descended from the first explorers his people had sent to this remote system. The Breeds had survived because of the extraordinary mixture of human DNA with his people’s genetic code. Gifted with extrasensory perception and psychic abilities of all kinds, the Breeds survived the crystal seeding of the Earth that had raised the resonance of the entire planet, making it habitable
for Alvians. In their arrogance, Davin’s people had stolen this beautiful blue planet and murdered most of its native inhabitants. It was a heinous crime he feared they would never understand.

  Chapter One

  “She’s coming.” Harry spoke into the silence of the ranch house kitchen. Callie felt the waves of fear his words inspired with her strong empathic gift, and wanted to go to him, but he caught her eye and sent a short burst of telepathic thought. He had to do this alone. She understood, but still wanted to stand by her brother as their family turned to look at him with varying degrees of alarm.

  “Your mother? Mara’s coming here?” Mama Jane’s cheeks went pale as Harry nodded. “Dear Lord, why?” Her voice was a terrified whisper.

  It had been a long time since the alien scientist called Mara 12 had come out to the O’Hara ranch for any reason. Harry’s biological mother literally had the power of life and death over all the human inhabitants in the small, protected valley. Harry’s gaze shifted to the eldest of the three O’Hara brothers.

  “Papa Caleb knows why.”

  “What’s going to happen, Caleb?” Jane whispered. The whole family knew Caleb had a strong gift of precognition. He knew things about the future.

  He sighed and leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. “She’s coming for me.”

  “No!” Her mother got up and went to him. Callie felt the sorrow, fear and flat out denial that surrounded them, but knew from past experience Papa Caleb’s visions were never wrong. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’ll be all right.” He stroked his wife’s hair with deep affection, turning to nod at Harry. “Tell her, son.”

  Mama Jane’s gaze focused on Harry, Justin’s son by the alien Mara 12. Compared to his human half brothers and sisters, Harry had almost supernatural powers, but today he looked fragile where he rarely had before. Like Callie, he was only fifteen years old, and just getting comfortable with his incredible gifts of both intellect and psychic ability.