Chapter 25
It takes two days to gather the Nebs from their ships and get them in cells on Mesannok, but we’re learning a lot about them already. Zariah has been teaching us the language. Her adopted son, Caddok, is helping.
Mindorans and Thorians do not have the fleet strength we do, but they are serving as solid patrols and security guards.
Aura has regular meetings inside Gravion to keep everyone updated on the uniting of our forces and the progress of the Nebulous Empire’s position.
No surprise, none of the Nebs in cells want to talk.
But they all seem shocked that there are ones like young Caddok who side with us.
Our hope is that seeing his happiness with his Lazariot-human siblings will inspire a change in them.
Jorusk and I wait with Mother Cinuska and several other members of the Drathious Command for Aura to finish his briefing. My sexy mate keeps me against him with an arm around my waist.
“He will not like that we have to leave,” Cinuska says. “We are able to infiltrate Neb shields like Amphirans. That will mean being without another major weapon.”
“He will work with what he has,” Fieri says as he enters ahead of Aura and holds the door for him, which makes Aura roll his eyes.
“You needed to talk… Oh.” Aura nods. “It is time, then?”
Mother Cinuska gets a nod from the other command members and speaks up as their representative. “It would be less strain on your fleet if we could move our civilians to a planet where we can rebuild.”
“Just the civilians,” Jorusk adds. “The plan is to lead them to Drathis and return to battle with those willing, if that will work.”
Aura runs a hand over his mouth like he doesn’t want to say what’s on his mind. “Well, I mean, you do whatever you have to. I just represent Amphirans.”
“You are still Prince Aurelius in my mind,” Fieri mutters.
“We’ve been over this.” Aura gives Fieri an annoyed glance. “If you need anything, for your trip, let Fieri know. He can get it for you. For now, I need to go have a chat with Green Bean about handling some childish Nebs who need a lesson in behavior.”
Elix and Zariah wait for Aura down another hallway with two teams of guards. I thanked them before the meeting, but it doesn’t feel like enough. And as I consider all those who helped rescue my mate, I begin to understand Aura’s deep commitment.
Aura hugs Jorusk firmly and pats him on the shoulder. “Do not be gone too long, my friend.”
“We’ll return soon,” Jorusk replies. “Thank you again. For everything.”
Mother Cinuska swats Fieri on the ass as Jorusk’s crew and their Pyraforce command members leave with her.
Jorusk snorts a chuckle.
Fieri’s eyes follow Cinuska with growing interest, but I think I know why he’s holding back.
“Go on,” I tell Jorusk. I’ll be right behind you and DIA in Black Sun.”
Jorusk kisses my cheek, glances between Fieri and me, and then follows the others.
“What can I do for you?” he asks.
“Fieri.” I give him a knowing look.
He sighs and looks away.
I rest a hand on his arm. “Tell me. I will keep it between us.”
His jaw muscles flex. “I can’t.”
“You lost your mate, the one you wanted, didn’t you?”
He’s quiet for a long time before he nods.
“And that’s why you’re so desperate to hang on to everyone around you, why you don’t let anyone waste time.”
He curls a purple lip like he’s fighting hard inside not to cry. But it is the dying green light in his eyes that confirms his truth. “Yes.”
“But what are you doing to yourself?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It absolutely does. To all of us who care about you. And to Cinuska. She clearly wants you.”
Fieri straightens and searches for her down the hallway but doesn’t say anything.
“Come with us. Before you lose your second chance.”
He rasps a low, broken note. “It would not be fair to her.”
“But she would want you to be happy, right?”
When Fieri glances down at me, I see a shimmer of tears in his eyes. “My Storm’s desire to mate died when she did. Cinuska just reminds me of her.”
“Then come on. Don’t let the closest thing you’ve found to your love get away from you again.” I loop an arm around one of Fieri’s. “Don’t fight a pregnant female on this.”
Fieri sniffs the air and relents. “Fine. But only because I do not want Jorusk mad at me.”
We walk through the hallway toward the hangars, and Fieri calls Aura to inform him that he’s going with us.
As we climb the ramp, Osiris and Cinuska turn to look back at us.
Cinuska gets up. “Fieri? What are you doing with us?”
He wipes his eyes and clears his throat. “Not ready to let Jorusk out of my sight.”
Her brows quirk, and she glances at my arm looped inside his.
I nudge him in the side. “Go talk to her.”
“I am not a talker,” he growls.
“Then sit at my defense systems, but tell her the truth before you lose your chance.”
Fieri slumps, takes in a deep breath, and marches himself to the defense controls.
Cinuska looks between us. I give her an encouraging tilt of my head before taking the pilot’s seat beside Osiris.
“Welcome to Black Sun,” I tell him. “I’m glad you’re joining us for this trip.”
He smiles. “It’s nice to get to spend some time with humans. Sometimes, the Drathious anger really gets to me. They can be so cynical, sadistic, pessimistic...”
“Hey, shut up.” Rykarn hobbles in with a foot in a brace and his right arm in a sling, eating a sandwich with his good hand. He sits down in the navigation seat.
Vryskas sighs as he joins us. He bends over and belts Rykarn in.
“Thanks, babe,” Rykarn says, throwing Vryskas a kiss through the air.
“Ugh.” Vryskas gags.
“Love you back,” Rykarn snickers.
Vryskas pats his shoulder and takes the seat next to him. Sidius calls out from the back that Gypsy Star is secure, and my plants are ready for the trip.
“Hang on.” I find Jorusk’s ship and chart a path behind him.
“Portal generation ready,” my new AI system reports. “Jump sync with DIA?”
“Please.”
Green light swells at the nose of my ship and swallows us in a ring of fire, an Amphiran upgrade I like. We drop out into space outside a fiery nebula beside DIA. All around us, Drathious ships pop into view.
Nervousness tenses my stomach, and I call Jorusk. “Be careful, love.”
“I will.”
Climbing out and onto DIA’s roof is my sexy mate, flaming wings stretched out and trailing embers.
He ventures deep into the nebula. I try to follow but quickly lose him in the clouds.
“Jorusk?”
When he doesn’t respond, the entire crew starts running scans and tuning frequencies to pick up a sign of him.
“Jorusk, come in!”
A flare of firelight appears ahead of us like a dragon-shaped torch, pushing back the nebula and opening the stars to the fleet, exposing an icy blue-green world and a small armada of ships like DIA, waiting in low orbit.
The coms crackle. “Hello? Who am I speaking with? This is King Traosis of Drathis.
“King Traosis,” I reply. “This is Brynna of Black Sun, an agricultural vessel carrying Drathious refugees. We have 120 ships, led by Jorusk of Drathis.”
“Jorus…?” The King’s voice cuts out.
“Bad com feed,” Vryskas mutters.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Do you know of him, King Traosis?”
“Come to the surface. We have waited many centuries to greet our lost colony. Follow us.”
I send out the signal to the others falling in line behind us in the channel Jorusk has made. I can’t say that I understand what he did, only that the nebula seems to recognize him.
“Mines.” Fieri motions through the window. “For those of us without Infernos.”
The ships ahead of us turn around and descend toward the surface. DIA follows, and I’m certain she’s heard the communications, even if Jorusk’s ear com has fried. Jorusk rides her hull all the way to the surface.
We set down in a lush, green field below a city made of pale stone, chrome, and glass with spires that stretch up into the sky.
I lower the ramp and get up to hurry outside to my man, but Cinuska takes the lead, warily walking to the edge of the ramp.
She ignites a fireball in a hand, steps into the soft grass, looks around, and snuffs out the fire.
Fieri and Osiris stay close as I descend like I suddenly need guards. Sidius, Vryskas, and Rykarn form up behind us.
Cinuska picks a handful of grass, turns it to ash, and stops me. “Wait, we must fix this mark.”
She smoothes my forehead and then, with her smallest finger, draws a symbol. “You are mated. I want all Drathious and Drathis to know not to mess with you. If they do, they will have to go through me.” She looks at Fieri. “Too.”
He cracks a smile, even if it is brief, and I think he is slowly healing inside.
“Okay.” Cinuska steps aside and lets me continue toward Jorusk’s ship. I round DIA’s wing as he jumps from the hull and glides to the ground on his wings.
“Someone healed fast,” Osiris mutters. “Unlike the big baby back there.”
“Hey. We’re out of serum, so I am milking this for all it’s worth,” Rykarn chuckles. His bandaged wing twitches. “I torched a ship and then smashed into one.”
“Three short of your twelve,” Vryskas mutters.
Jorusk walks to me. “DIA says you spoke with the king?”
“Your…”
I swat Fieri in the chest. I want Jorusk to find out however they want to tell him, just in case my theory, and apparently Fieri’s, is wrong. “Yes. They want to speak with you.”
From the landing pad just up the hill, hundreds of Drathis fly out of their lowered ramps and gather up behind a large, molten man who wears only a single black band on his head to set his armor apart from the others.
A woman lands beside him, flutters her wings, then folds them up neatly against her back.
Jorusk takes my hand and hesitantly leads me toward them as his team and others stay close and vigilant. He notices the gray mark on my forehead.
“Cinuska insisted,” I tell him. “And his name is King Traosis.”
Jorusk stops before the king and queen. He glances back at the Drathious that fly in and land to get a look at the other colony.
The queen makes a noise of desperation. Beside her, the king holds her back with an arm. “Jorusk?”
My mate steps forward, but I stay behind. He looks back at me like he’s confused. I smile and nod.
He folds his flaming wings up and darkens their fire. “DIA says she crashed on the Talhuskin world. Cinuska found me in a cracked egg with a name painted on the shell.”
The queen looks through the crowd for her. I wave Cinuska up to my side. She joins me with a bow.
King Traosis chokes up. “We sent you out as our last chance of reaching the other world. We do not have starships for the realm beyond. I am not surprised the one we sent crashed. We had hoped for better.”
“Now you have many,” Jorusk says. “We would like to propose a trade. Our civilians for those you want to explore the stars.”
“What about the Talhuskins?” the queen asks.
“They are fewer every day. And we are stronger than they are now. We are no longer servants to them.”
“Servants?” The queen’s wings wilt. She turns and begs the king with words I can’t discern.
“Okay. Let us welcome you with a celebration tonight. We can work out details of bringing the colonies together then,” the king replies.
“Joris, tell him.” The queen can barely contain herself.
The king leaves his people and walks up to Jorusk. His wings spread and ignite. Then he lifts them until they form the vertical salute. “Jorusk…”
He looks my mate over with careful inspection. “Welcome home…son.”
Jorusk stares at him for a moment. He looks between the king and the queen, then spreads his wings, ignites them, and salutes his father.
The queen leaves the safety of her guards and crashes into Jorusk, wrapping him up in her arms.
I’ve never seen him smile so much or hear such jubilant cheers from his friends. Even Rykarn whistles with his teeth in celebration.
Jorusk reaches back for me. “This is my mate, Brynna.”
I approach, hesitant about their reaction to me being human. So the moment I’m free of the crowd, I open the synthetic wings Eluni made for me. I cannot raise them quite as high, but I select the salute option in my visor, and they rise above my head.
The queen steps back and opens her wings, saluting me. The Drathis behind her ignite and lift their wings. It is the biggest blaze I’ve ever seen. The heat ripples the air far up into the sky. Embers dance through the crowd as the Drathious at our backs return their sister colony’s greeting.
The king takes Jorusk by the back of his neck and guides their foreheads together. “I have prayed for your return every day. We were nearly out of hope. You have returned with more than we ever imagined. I am so proud of you.”
He steps back and takes the queen’s hand. They lower their wings with force, and it launches them into the air. “Our first united Devil’s Dance will commence tonight at sunset. We want everyone to join us.” They ease back to the ground. “Even the purple one.”
“I am Amphiran,” Fieri bitterly remarks, lifting a hand, showing off an electric green arc. “Jorusk has been under my electric wing for the last three years.”
“Then I would like to hear everything you can tell me about what we’ve missed,” King Traosis says to him. “Come. You and Cinuska must join us.”
Fieri looks down at the Drath female who cared for and raised Jorusk. He offers Cinuska a hand, which she takes.
“Go, we’ll catch up.” Sidius motions us after Jorusk’s family. “We will organize the fleet and make sure they’re going to behave.”
Jorusk agrees, and we follow his parents up the hill to the landing pad. He turns around and looks at the cold mountains surrounding the valley.
“That is where we used to live,” his father says. “We slept in caves in the rock. It took a research vessel crashing here many centuries ago to introduce us to other ways of living. It carries small life forms like balls of light.”
“Orillium.” Fieri is confident. “My kind was one of the first into space in this galaxy.”
King Traosis glances back at him. “Then we must get to know each other better.”
Fieri glances at me with appreciation in his eyes. “It would be my honor, sir.”