Eluria's Enforcer (The Argadian Heart Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Devon Andromeda, a nanus-altered Argadian Enforcer of the First Level, is assigned the mission to hunt down and eliminate Eluria Zydon, a rebel leader, who also happens to be the daughter of an Elite Tribunal Commander. Enforcers are altered and trained assassins who retain no memories, or humanoid emotions which would hamper their purpose. Aggression is the only emotion unblocked in an Enforcer; the Tribunal directs their existence.

  Eluria Zydon’s life is filled with more than enough memories and emotions for both Devon and herself. She lives with the guilt of past injustice and her life has been dedicated to finding the cure to set Devon Andromeda and those like him free. It is a payment she hopes will also free her soul once and for all from her tormenting past.

  Confrontation on the lifeless planet, Serdion, will change them both forever. An explosion delivers Devon into Eluria’s hands. An experimental drug opens the floodgates to Devon’s emotions...and his memory. The first emotion he faces, and must learn to control is desire. Eluria has been trained as a twilight companion and has the knowledge to help him harness his passions. Will he accept her help? Or is his only intent to complete his mission...her death...

  This story is a work of original fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.

  This book remains the copyrighted property of the author.

  Copyright ©2016 by Adrianna Dane

  Cover Art by Laura Gordon

  This story was originally released in February 2005 by Amber Quill Press/Amber Heat

  CAUTION: This story contains explicit sexual situations and strong language. You must be over the age of 18 years of age to read this story.

  The Argadian Heart Trilogy

  Eluria’s Enforcer

  Kierra’s Thread

  Ravager’s Redemption

  Eluria’s Enforcer

  By Adrianna Dane

  Dream Romantic Unlimited, LLC

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Glossary

  Author Bio

  Networking Links

  CHAPTER ONE

  Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

  Those were the first words that filled Devon Andromeda’s thoughts as he swerved the hovercade to avoid another fireball. The fragment of memory caught him unaware. Come and gone that fast. Lately, there’d been a number of uncomfortable, yet similar image flashes breaking his train of thought. None joined, none threaded to emotion. Confusing.

  Whoosh! Boom! Another fireball exploded on the uneven earthen track ahead of him, almost blinding him. Again he yanked the wheel around and swerved away. He’d need to pull over until the firestorm subsided or take the chance of disabling the hovercade in a nest of craters left in a fireball’s wake.

  Haydon! He wished he could engage the hovering capabilities of the vehicle; he would get to his destination much faster. But there was too much instability in the atmosphere of the planet even without the storm. Why anyone would use Serdion for a hiding place, he couldn’t fathom. In Devon’s opinion, Serdion was on the verge of splintering and was as dangerous as they came. Intermittent firestorms bombarded the planet’s surface leaving deep gouges in their wake.

  He was too close to his target to take unnecessary chances; he’d had come too far. Pulling over to the side of the track he, he powered down the vehicle. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, attempted to empty his mind, knowing patience would net him the prize.

  Having achieved the rank of First Level Enforcer, there were none who possessed Devon’s level of skill. Enhanced through Nanus, all emotion and memory forever locked away, he’d been reborn to serve the Argadian Tribunal, the highest power on Argadia. Enforcers were molded from adolescent Argadian youth, each chosen carefully by the members of the Elite Tribunal.

  Devon was selected in his seventeenth year. So they informed him. He retained no personal memory of the event. There were only three emotion levels allotted to an Enforcer. Stasis. Aggression. Killing Frenzy. Memory was viewed as an impediment to an Enforcer’s usefulness. Enforcers were controlled and monitored by the Tribunal. And terminated efficiently if they became dysfunctional.

  Devon rose to First Level Enforcer status because of the number and intricacy of missions he’d completed successfully. And lived.

  These breaks in memory disturbed him. Once this mission was complete, he would present himself for assessment and reprogramming. As required, he’d reported the memory breaks to his commander. The only reason he wasn’t at the Nanus refusion facility now was because of the apparent importance of this mission. He’d been specifically requested by a Tribunal member.

  The target had eluded or disposed of all previous Enforcer attempts at capture. From the chip they’d implanted in his neck, Devon possessed all the pertinent data he required to identify, locate the target, and…disable it. The photosimiles transmitted to him gave Devon pause and caused him an odd sense of confusion.

  Over the years of his services as an enforcer, a lone image had haunted him somehow through stasis visions. Female. Tall. Seductive. She’d floated within his stasis mind, beckoned him. Fleeting bits, quickly vanishing, soon forgotten. Until recently.

  He’d often wondered who the female was. There’d been nothing to connect her to him as far as he knew. For some unknown reason, he’d never mentioned her image to anyone. It was solely with the implantation of the chip Devon was now able to name her.

  If he’d been susceptible to the passion emotion, he would experience desire for her. He knew of the emotion’s affect on a man, understood its purpose, but had never personally experienced it. Not that he hadn’t been trained in seduction techniques. In fact, he had a reputation for being quite skillful in that area when an occasion warrented. It didn’t require feeling the emotion to use it against an opponent.

  Nanus programming allowed his khout to stiffen on his thought command when seduction mode was required. His ability to pleasure and fully satisfy had served him well to elicit necessary information from informants.

  Devon’s thoughts returned to the target. He’d wondered if the stasis visions stemmed from yet another fracture in memory. It disturbed him the way the images continued to invade his mind. It represented an imperfection. He was no longer an imperfect being as existed before conditioning.

  The fact Devon still lived and had risen to a rank no other had been able to achieve in the last twelve years was evidence of that level of performance. No, imperfection could not be tolerated.

  When they’d implanted the chip with her image, aggression consumed him. Foolish female. Now knowing her identity, he reasoned she’d sought to disable him through his stasis visions. She’d obviously thought she could elicit a softness in him and deter him from his mission. Perhaps distract him long enough to kill him.

  Her name was Eluria Zydon. One of the rebel leaders to a group of young, idealistic Argadians who had recently led a new, futile insurrection attempt against the Elite Forces. As expected, it ended in swift and bloody defeat. The Tribunal had hoped to wipe out the whole cell. But it was discovered shortly thereafter that Eluria Zydo
n survived, and had disappeared.

  Fortunately, the Tribunal was able to plant an informant within the Freelion rebel organization, and information had finally been received as to her whereabouts. She’d been adept at eluding him so far. Unusual for a rebel. But then again, Eluria Zydon had slipped by more than one skilled hunter. Devon had tracked her movements for months, and it ultimately led him to this desolate, ravaged planet.

  The information chip also informed him she was the eldest daughter of an Elite Tribunal Member. A dishonored daughter, her purity compromised, and for a number of years she had supported herself as a twilight companion, one who provided skilled sexual release to those who would pay a twilighter’s exhorbitant price.

  It was not uncommon for those in power to contract for a twilighter’s services to provide long-term companionship when transferred for duty to one of the lesser planets. Devon surmised her skill as a twilighter was what allowed her to breach his stasis. In some instances, twilighters were known for their unique enhancements beyond simply physical pleasuring and companionship.

  It was her father, High Commander Zydon himself, who sanctioned the mission and requested Devon specifically to carry it out. Eluria Zydon had been an embarrassment to him for years, but now she’d become a danger as well—apparently more than just a worrisome thorn in the High Commander’s side. One that would not be allowed to continue.

  Upon arriving on Serdion, Devon drove past field after field of flattened desolation. There was no longer life on Serdion. Elite Forces conquered this planet long ago. All inhabitants had been moved to Argadia to serve the Tribunal. Hence, even with its obvious instability and dangerous environment, it often served as a perfect hiding place for those seeking refuge from Argadia’s brand of justice. Although there were several smaller planets more conducive to life, Serdion was positioned an equal distance between Ednos, the rebel stronghold, and Argadia, the home planet.

  His informants indicated this was where Eluria’s transport unit had landed. Each time he thought he had her location pinpointed, she’d changed transports, requiring him to wait until new information filtered out to him. Hopping from one planet to another, to this point she’d successfully thwarted his attempts to capture her.

  Not this time. Finally, he’d tracked her present unit here. There’d been no indication of lifeforce nearby when he’d discovered her ship. It had not proven difficutl for him to gain entry to the conveyance. He’d efficiently searched it for anything useful, then destroyed the unit, making certain she was left with no way to escape the planet, or to change transports before he located her. He’d followed the trail left by her land conveyance.

  Traveling this desolate planet for days, he tracked her evasive maneuvers. Until today she’d invariably eluded him, but now he understood there was a subtle pattern to her evasion. She was clever, but not clever enough. Or she was tiring. One less skilled would not have discovered the seemingly random movements she used, never resting long enough in one place for him to target her. But he would have her soon. Anticipating her next move, Devon was confident that soon enough he would have her.

  Yet now another delay. This time a firestorm hindered the completion of his assignment. And this was a mission he wanted over. Chasing some scrap of a rebellious female was not what he’d been trained for. It offered too much down time as he awaited news from his informants, time in which more fragmented memory scrambled his thoughts. A First Level Enforcer should only concentrate on the task at hand. Memory and confusion were not acceptable.

  Devon squinted and looked up at the cobalt sky littered with what appeared to be a diminishing number of fireball missiles hitting the planet. He turned and stared down the length of the dark, deserted track. Devon narrowed his gaze as he targeted the brief glow of a soft yellow light in the distance. It was not the reddish-orange of the tiny, fiery embers falling from the sky. It was a steady cream-yellow glow in the night, indicating lifeforce. Possibly a dwelling or an encampment of some kind.

  Devon sensed the elusive quarry would soon be his. He inhaled deeply, centered and narrowed his dark inner power, felt it surge within him. He focused on the mission, capture…defeat of the enemy…a quick termination. Hot, sizzling energy flooded and encompassed him. The window of the hovercade reflected back to him the familiar focused red glow of his eyes as he simmered with the molten frenzy of battle, the signature of a true Enforcer. It was a look that made more than one enemy quake.

  The familiar power of rage coursed through him, heating him until it was a fire enveloping him with an intensity that blistered away all unnecessary thought. He started the hovercade and slowly directed it toward the beacon of light. Eluria Zydon was about to confront her fate.

  * * *

  Eluria sat huddled beneath the overhanging rock formation, a fire lamp her only source of warmth and light. She didn’t dare sleep, knowing an Enforcer was on her trail and closing in quickly. With only snatches of sleep over the last few days, her strength was almost at an end, and her alertness was not what it should be.

  She’d come to Serdion thinking to avoid detection. Apparently, it hadn’t worked the way she planned. This Enforcer was better than the others, more persistent, determined. His thought processes more refined, able to adapt far too quickly to any deviation. He’d kept close, forcing her to constantly keep moving, and she’d only just managed to stay one step ahead of him.

  This firestorm had halted what little progress she’d made. She could only pray that it stopped him as well. All around her the fireballs fell, flashing showers of orange and smoldering to gray ash, leaving huge gouges in the planet surface.

  She’d wound up here because the research team had discovered the antidote. After all these years of testing in the Freelion labs, finally it had been perfected enough to try out on a living, breathing Enforcer. She carried the first precious vials with her. The attack on Argadia had been a diversion to allow her enough time to flee.

  It pained her to think of so many lives lost, just so she could escape. But this antidote could mean the difference between their future success and a continued long, drawn out battle against the Elite Tribunal. The struggle had already cost too many lives.

  When she’d discovered what her father had done, it had started out as a personal crusade to right a wrong. But when she’d witnessed up close the brand of justice the Tribunal meted out to innocent citizens, the enforced slavery it termed “service to the Tribunal,” her involvement had turned into much more than personal.

  It was her task to get the vials off the planet without detection. Another arm of the plan was in place to capture an Enforcer, incapacitate and transport him to Ednos. They would rendezvous at the home base of the rebel faction. It was secure, a sanctuary for them, and offered a secure place to detain a trained Enforcer while the antidote attempted to unweave the nightmare Nanus enforced.

  If they were successful, the Freelion forces would use the antidote on enough Enforcers to overthrow the Tribunal. They could re-educate them and gain entry to the Nanus facility, destroying it before more Enforcers could be molded. Once infiltrated, Freelion forces would be able to end the terror of the Tribunal’s domination over Argadia.

  The plan was solid. But an informant, a traitor, had breached their security. It was something they hadn’t counted on. Their strategy was revealed to the Tribunal and everything unraveled. The last communication Eluria had received indicated the entire cell on Argadia had been destroyed. They’d also informed her an Enforcer beamer had been attached to her current transport unit and she was alone with a hunter on her tail.

  Eluria had placed a rebel beamer inside the container of antidote. If she didn’t return to Ednos, others would at least be able to find the precious cache and complete the mission. It was imperative the vials be kept out of the Tribunal’s grasp, whatever the cost.

  When the Serdion firestorm first started, she’d taken cover, and hidden the antidote. The metal container now rested beneath a pile of rocks near where she s
at, hidden in case she was discovered. Once the storm abated and she was certain the Enforcer was not close by, she would recover them and make her way to safety.

  For days she’d eluded him, trying to get to the secure cave she’d prepared, without being discovered. There was no way she could capture him by herself. Kill him maybe—if she caught him unaware. Yet, she was so weary of the deaths. Each time she killed it was another mark on her soul. And there were so many already.

  Eluria sought only to evade him. The point of the antidote was to save lives, not sacrifice more. Once she reached her sanctuary, he would be unable to detect her location as it was veined in plordium, a natural yet effective mask to any tracking devices the Tribunal might use.

  Eluria stepped out from beneath the overhang and squinted up at the sky. The firestorm had abated. She scanned the desolate, rocky area around her, hand poised in readiness above the weapon strapped at her hip.

  Serdion had once been the home of a benevolent, thriving community. It had been destroyed because word spread that Serdion insurgents planned to overthrow Argadia. But that information been a simple ruse that allowed the Tribunal to conquer the planet.

  Once it was a beautiful planet, rich, lush, teeming with life. Until it was discovered it contained several rich deposits of Talagite. The indigo colored, glowing nuggets were considered priceless by the greedy and powerful on Argadia. A very lucrative deal had been struck with certain members of the Tribunal, and the Enforcers were sent out to secure the planet and subdue its supposed insurgents. It was such a surprise when exploring the planet, a team “accidentally” discovered the Talagite.

  Once the Talagite had been mined, the planet was stripped, and all life destroyed on Serdion. All done in the name of the Tribunal for some pretty baubles and more power. Such tragedy, pain, and suffering from what had once been a welcoming, indulgent society. All based on lies. The Tribunal must be stopped, whatever the price.