Chapter 23 Roqs
ROQS
The embers of our campfire had long since died to ash, but I couldn't sleep. Neither could Coone, judging by the restless twitching of his tail where he lay across the small clearing. The silence between us stretched taut as a bowstring, filled with all the words we weren't saying.
Three days. Three fucking days since Zirc had vanished, and we were no closer to finding him. Every lead had turned to dust, every contact had come up empty. The Silver Beast's trail had simply... ended. As if he'd been swallowed by the earth itself.
I rolled onto my side, studying Coone's rigid form in the pale moonlight. His ears were flattened against his skull, his shoulders hunched with barely contained tension. We'd been civil—barely—but the undercurrent of hostility was wearing us both raw.
"You blame me," I said quietly, breaking the suffocating silence.
Coone's golden eyes snapped open, fixing on me with laser intensity. "Should I not?"
The question hit like a physical blow. I sat up, running clawed hands through my fur. "You think I wanted this? You think I chose—"
"Didn't you?" He was up in a fluid motion, moving with that predatory grace that reminded me he was more than just Zirc's pretty little mate. "You had options, Roqs. You could have fought the bond, could have—"
"Fought fate itself?" I snarled, my beast stirring beneath my skin. "You think it works that way? That I can just decide who calls to my soul?"
"I think you decided Zirc wasn't enough." His voice was deadly quiet, but I could smell the rage rolling off him in waves. Sharp, acidic, cutting through the night air like a blade. "I think you got bored with waiting for him to claim you properly and went looking elsewhere."
The accusation ignited something feral in my chest. I surged to my feet, fangs extending. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" Coone circled me slowly, his own claws emerging. "Poor Roqs, displaced by an off-worlder. Always believing you and Zirc were destined, only to watch him bond with someone from another planet entirely. Must have been such a relief when fate handed you a consolation prize."
Fuck you. I wanted to scream at him.
My beast stirred. It was just me and Coone. This long-time resentment between us had been buried for too long because of our love for Zirc.
And fuck me, Coone's words hit their mark. I could feel my control fraying, the careful restraint I'd maintained for decades starting to crack.
"Careful, Neko," I growled, letting my alpha energy fill the space between us. "You're treading on dangerous ground."
"Am I?" He smiled, but there was nothing warm in it. "What are you going to do, challenge me? Fight me for the right to care about him? Because last I checked, I'm the one fate actually chose for him. I'm his true mate, not you."
He was right—fate had chosen Coone for Zirc, not me. All those years of growing up together, training together, believing we were destined for each other... only to watch Zirc's eyes light up when he scented his true mate from another world entirely.
But Zirc and I had held onto hope that there was a chance that Zirc's beast was just too stubborn to realize that I was his Manasty fated mate.
That hope had crumbled. Now I was mated to someone else entirely.
And yet, I couldn't deny what I still felt about Zirc. Nothing had changed even if I'd met my Manasty mate.
A mechanical whirring cut through the night, interrupting my spiral of self-recrimination. Both our heads snapped up as something small and metallic descended toward our camp, its crystalline wings catching the moonlight.
A droid critter. Advanced tech, the kind used for high-priority, ultra-secure communications.
The droid landed heavily between us, its mechanical chest heaving with simulated breathing patterns. A message tube was secured to its central core, but what made my blood run cold was the thin red line wrapped around the tube—a bio-lock keyed to specific genetic markers.
Coone reached it first, his smaller frame giving him the advantage, but the moment his fingers touched the red filament, it sparked and repelled his hand. "Fuck," he hissed, nursing singed fingertips. "It's keyed to someone specific."
I watched his face as realization dawned, saw genuine shock and something that looked like betrayal flash across his features. "Coone? What is it?"
"This droid..." His voice was tight with controlled emotion.
"See how it's following me?" He walked around and, true enough, it was following him.
"It's tied into my blood signature network.
Only a handful of people have access to that—people I trusted with my life.
" His golden eyes met mine, pupils dilated with a mixture of fear and fury.
"Someone either betrayed me, or this is from one of my oldest allies. "
The droid suddenly emitted a soft chime, and I noticed the message tube was glowing faintly. Text appeared along its surface in flowing script: For Roqs of the Silver Tribe. Blood-sealed. Priority Alpha.
"It's addressed to me," I said, moving closer.
"Say what now?" Coone moved closer as well. We looked at each other, the tension from before forgotten as we realized what this meant. Someone knew to look for Coone because whoever sent this knew I would be around.
After using one of his nifty tools to scan it, Coone gave me a grim nod to open it.
The moment my fingers touched the tube, the bio-lock disengaged with a soft click, and the red filament dissolved. I extracted the scroll, but as soon as it was free, the droid critter began to smoke.
"Self-destruct sequence," Coone said grimly, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. "Whoever sent this doesn't want any trace left behind."
The droid collapsed into a pile of ash and melted circuitry, leaving nothing but the message in my hands. I unrolled the scroll with trembling fingers, and what I read made my heart stop.
Roqs—
I have him. The Silver Beast is alive but injured. Meet me at the Tundra's Pit three days from now. Come alone, or bring only the Spy. More than that and they'll know something is up.
I can get him out, but I need your help.
—Your mate
PS. Whatever you do, do not bring her here.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I slowly opened my hands to read the scroll again. When I looked up to find Coone, I saw he was poking at the droid with his sensor.
"What is it?" he demanded, moving closer.
He was staring at the droid's remains, his expression a mixture of shock and calculation.
"Someone breached my most secure network.
Someone who knows my deepest operational protocols.
" His voice was deadly quiet. "Either I've been compromised for months, or this message comes from someone I trust implicitly. "
I didn't need to read the contents of the scroll. I had it memorized in my heart.
Your mate.
The scroll crunched as I crushed it with my fingers.
His face burned into my memory from countless dreams and waking fantasies. Emerald-green fur streaked with white and gray. The distinctive scar that bisected his face from temple to jaw.
Trill.
My fated mate had Zirc. A prisoner in Kilo's stronghold.
"Roqs?" Coone's voice seemed to come from very far away. "What does it say?"
I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. The world had tilted on its axis, leaving me floundering in a reality that made no sense.
My mate—the male whose scent haunted my dreams, whose bond I felt growing stronger each day—was holding Zirc prisoner.
But he wanted to meet. Wanted to help. Called himself my mate openly.
"Roqs!" Coone grabbed my shoulders, shaking me roughly. "Talk to me! What does the message say?"
"It's from my mate," I whispered the words from the scroll to Coone, knowing this would ignite him, the words feeling like ground glass in my throat. "He has Zirc. He wants to meet at the Pit in three days."
The silence that followed was deafening. I could hear Coone's sharp intake of breath, could smell the shock and disbelief radiating from his skin. When I finally looked up, his expression was a mixture of horror and fury.
"Your mate has Zirc," he growled slowly, as if testing the words. "And he used my secure network to contact you." His eyes narrowed. "Your face shows you're either proud of him for besting me, or—damn it." He kicked the droid.
What he said was true. Despite what we'd just learned, my mate wasn't just an ordinary member of Kilo's gang. And that made me proud and filled me with dread about what it could mean.
Coone faced me again. "The Tundra's Pit. That's black market territory. Neutral ground. But we know it's a sore point for the Council, especially the Elders, because Kilo and his gang made it one of their strongholds. And no one can do anything about it because it's on neutral ground!"
"I know. But the fact that he mentioned her—" I took a huge gulp of air. Coone's stare could cut me in half. "He wants to protect her too."
"Your mate planned this. To capture Zirc," he said slowly, as if testing the words. "Your fated bond led to this."
"We don't know—"
"Didn't you?" His voice rose, carrying all the pain and fear we'd both been suppressing. "You've been acting strange for weeks, distracted, conflicted. Now I know why. You've been in contact with him."
As if. "It's not that simple—"
"Isn't it?" Coone was moving again, pacing in tight circles like a caged animal. "Your mate works for Kilo. He has our Zirc. And now he wants a meeting on his terms, using my compromised network to arrange it."
"I haven't been keeping anything—"
"Bullshit!" The word exploded from him with enough force to rattle the nearby trees.
"Your mate has access to my most secure channels, Roqs.
Do you understand what that means? Either he's been playing me for months, or.
.." He stopped pacing, his eyes widening with realization.
"Or he's been feeding me intelligence all along. "
He was wrong. Partly wrong, anyway. But there was enough truth in his accusations to make them cut deep. I had felt Trill's conflict through that one moment when we first met, had sensed darkness and pain and choices that tore at his soul.
I'd been a coward. Again. Refusing to accept the possibility that my mate couldn't be saved and was actively working to bring me and Zirc down.
"Don't judge me lightly," I said quietly.
"Nothing," Coone repeated, his voice breaking slightly. "While Zirc is suffering in some hell-hole prison, you were protecting your precious mate's secrets."
I should have known better, but the accusation hit its mark. I felt my careful control finally snap, years of suppressed emotion erupting in a wave of desperate fury. "You think this is easy for me? You think I wanted to choose between them?"
"You must choose!" Coone snarled, his own beast finally breaking free. His canine teeth extended, his claws gleaming in the moonlight. "Stop sitting on the fence and choose! Zirc needs us, and you're worried about hurting the feelings of the male who put him in chains!"
"It's not that simple—"
"It is that simple!" He lunged forward, claws raking across my chest before I could react. The pain was sharp and clean, cutting through the fog of confusion that had clouded my thinking. "Choose, Roqs! Right now! Your fated mate or the male who's loved you for decades!"
Blood welled from the scratches, the scent filling the air between us.
My beast responded to the challenge, roaring to life beneath my skin.
I grabbed Coone's wrist as he swung again, using his momentum to flip him over my shoulder.
He hit the ground hard but rolled immediately, coming up in a crouch.
"You want a fight?" I growled, feeling my bones begin to shift and elongate. "Then let's fight."