Chapter 1 #2
The hacker nodded, his feathered mohawk flicking back over his head, the implant on his temple gleaming silver as it engaged.
His eyes glazed over as a display projected right in front of his face, and he was lost to the data he was mining.
It wouldn’t take long, there was no better hacker than the Mithrakon.
No one quite so dedicated to his technology and machines.
Except, of course, when it came to his mate.
He was another of those always-cheerful, satisfied males with a female to curl up with at night—a female he didn’t have to share with anyone.
“I can go,” I declared, even though Val itched along my skin in objection.
She didn’t want to go to some dangerous planet with nothing alive—unless you counted the danger beneath the surface.
I reminded her gently that the bad guys living in that stronghold to care for it in Jalima’s absence probably lived in daily fear.
A buffet. She settled, then turned eager and that wasn’t much better.
There was a long, drawn-out silence as everyone in the room stared at me.
Dravion, the half-Aderian, half-Grolarnx, was an empath, and he was the only one who might have a clue what was going on inside my head.
A male to avoid, except his feelings were still deliciously dark and pained.
He just kept them in check far better than the others had.
Harder to reach, harder to feed on, and still not enough.
Sitting at the end of the table, directly across from Asmoded, the male had his arms crossed over his chest. Tentacles gently undulated around his seat, and his armor was starkly black in contrast to the white lab coat he wore over it.
He was a deadly warrior, given his Grolarnx nature, but also a healer and scientist. As long as he didn’t open the third eye at the center of his forehead, all was well.
Even I, impervious as I was to nearly anything, would not survive that. At least, I did not think I would.
Maybe everyone had been waiting for the doctor to agree on whether I could do as I claimed.
Something eased and settled around the room when he inclined his head.
“Yes,” he said, “I suppose you and your symbiont might be the only ones able to take that risk. I shall research just what the danger is. Mitnick, you’ll assist? ”
The hacker was the only one who hadn’t been staring at me, his mind still deep in the data streams of the quadrant.
Now he jerked up his head, sharp tigerite eye flicking to the doctor, then to the captain, before settling on me.
Sharp like a predator, that gaze, he did not seem intimidated the way most were.
Perhaps he was too distracted by his data to have time for feelings; that would not surprise me. He nodded, and that was all.
The captain dismissed the crew attending the meeting, and everyone rose to trudge from the ready room.
I saw Aramon slap Jaxin on the shoulder, the two bending their heads close together to discuss some kind of weapon polish.
Flack quickly scurried around Solear before the male could snap his sharp teeth at him.
In that area, some things had not changed.
Dravion and Mitnick were already engrossed in a discussion about the planet’s merits and dangers.
Only Asmoded remained seated at the table as he watched his officers leave, and I made no move to get up, either.
I knew he wanted answers—he wanted to know where my head was at—and I wasn’t going to tell him.
It was very tempting to just get up and stalk out, incite a bit of anger so I could let Val feed on that, but it wouldn’t be enough.
I also did not like the idea of using my one good friend that way, much.
Honestly, as much as I acted like I couldn’t stand any of these guys, they were like family.
They might not like me, but I’d grown to like them.
And now it sucked to be around them, and I hated that most of all.
“You’re sure about this, Sin?” Asmoded asked, his voice turning concerned with each carefully spoken syllable.
He had me pinned with his stare, and though he was no match for me, he still made me feel like he was calling me out—asking me to explain why this should be my mission, asking, perhaps, if this was intended to be a one-way trip for me.
I was this male’s superior in many ways: older, more jaded, more powerful.
I still felt myself wither just a little under that golden-eyed stare.
“I am sure,” I said as my hand slid over the table, silver dripping from my fingers and pooling into a shape Val liked best. A Gracka, a hound-like creature native to Talac, my home world.
Not that I’d been home in a long time, or that I even considered that barren ice planet anything worthy of the name home.
Just as Val and I had failed to integrate the way we should, and the Sons of Ragnar had rejected me, so too had my family cast me out.
“You know there’s always a place for you aboard the Varakartoom, right?
” he said, and I cursed internally. He knew I was withdrawing, that I had not been happy with my fit on the ship for some time.
Not since even Solear had managed to find a mate.
Three weeks with her aboard the ship—Lyra—and he was practically dancing down the hallway.
Not really; that would be ridiculous. But his feelings, sure as the blazing stars, were.
It was terrible. Val hated it. It made her ache and hunger, and thus, it made me ache and hunger.
“I am sure,” I said again, and then I rose.
Val coiled about my legs in her Gracka shape, her sharp, pointed ears twitching nervously.
She was sleek, peltless, but when I petted her, she felt warm and alive, and soft as sin.
“I will find the stronghold, destroy it, or kill Jalima and destroy it. Then you and your precious mate and children can sleep easy, knowing your people were avenged.”
His expression grew tight, and Val and I greedily drank in his displeasure.
“Revenge isn’t everything, Sin. You were the one who once said that to me, don’t you remember?
” I had, back when Asmoded had been single-minded in his search for Jalima.
He’d been consumed by the need to kill the male who had murdered his wife and unborn son.
Now, he knew neither of those things had happened.
His wife had betrayed him, his son had been raised without him, but now he had his true mate, and a reunion with Saisir, his son.
These days, he was the calm one, the one sitting back and analyzing the facts.
Back in the day, I had been the one holding him back, looking out for him lest he kill himself in his quest for vengeance.
That seemed like a lifetime ago, and I missed it.
It made me feel like a heel thinking that, but it was true.
I was never hungry then, Val’s pain didn’t gnaw at me endlessly in the days when Asmoded’s grief and fury filled me.
“I am going. I don’t plan to die,” I said to Asmoded, and that was the truth.
I was a survivor, if nothing else. Even if this planet was deadly to me, I’d come out on top.
The challenge filled me with something to look forward to, and it rallied Val, now that she’d been tempted to participate.
Yes, we’d find this castle, destroy Jalima’s truest stronghold, and drive him further into despair.
Then I’d feed on him. Those tenacious Gladiators of the Vagabond had done it to the crimelord Drameil; we would do it to Jalima.
“Very well,” Asmoded agreed, rising from his seat and passing me on his way out.
He did not touch my shoulder, though I saw his hand twitch at his side as if he meant to.
My shoulder was still dripping silver fragments of Val, my symbiont.
I did not blame him for holding back, even if a part of me felt pain, knowing I was repulsing even the touch of my closest friend.
It was not Val’s fault, and it was not his either. It was mine.