Chapter 42
DALOX
“How have I ended up dragging your sorry hide?” I growl at Deus as I hold him upright and push through the heavy jungle floor.
Deus says nothing. He hangs his head and doesn’t help as if all the life has drained from him.
Most of the feeling is back in my limbs. I have a strength I didn’t before, and my ability to shift my form is returning.
I also have Deus, who hasn’t nevving spoken a word for the last nova-hour as I’ve endeavored to drag us both back to where he says his flyer is waiting.
Might have been easier in my dragon form, but I wasn’t sure I could trust my shift entirely just yet, and the chances were we’d draw more attention.
I need weapons. I need armor to defend against another bite, and I need to find my Gillian.
More than anything, I need to find her before my heart explodes and my rage is all consuming. If those females have harmed a single hair on her head, I’ll burn this continent to ash.
“You do know I can hear you.” Deus comes to life, extracting himself from my grip.
“I don’t care.” I glare at him. “And now you’ve decided to rejoin us here in the real world and leave the ancestors behind, either you’re with me or you are against me. Your choice, but don’t nev it up if you want to keep all your limbs.”
“I will help you find your mate,” Deus says.
“I don’t need help finding her, I need help defeating the Nostenii in order to free her. My Gillian is not lost, and she doesn’t deserve to be at the mercy of this clan either. She has been through enough,” I growl.
“The Nostenii are what is left of my female crew,” Deus says, looking away from me into the distance. “More survived than on the other ships.”
“None of our females survived,” I snap. “How many?”
“More than half. Enough to prove problematic if you want something they have.”
“They are Sarkarnii. They were part of my fleet.”
In a lightning move, Deus has gone from limp to at my throat, his hand clutching there, twisting at my skin.
“Don’t you understand, Dalox? They are not as they were. They were the ones who recovered. They might be Sarkarnii, but they are no longer your Sarkarnii.”
The memory and the stench of the room within Deus’s ship comes rushing back, almost as quickly as he grabbed me. The bodies, unburnt, left as they were as those who survived stumbled free of the confines of the ship.
“What happened to your males?” I grab his hand and pull it from my neck.
Deus’s shoulders heave in time with his ragged breathing.
“They did not survive. Only me and the Nostenii,” he says, his eyes unfocussed.
“Then what?”
“I went searching for you, Dalox. And my brother,” he snarls. “You had it all. Your sectors, your warriors, everything.”
“And we let you have it too.”
Deus growls under his breath. “Like that was going to make up for all I’d lost.”
“We tried to do what was right and you tried to kill us!”
Deus growls and shrugs.
“With a spoon.”
He wrinkles his nose. “You’d have preferred a knife?”
“I’d have preferred you not roaming our sectors attacking everything you could, even your own reflection.”
Deus wrinkles his nose and sniffs. “I was not myself.”
I dip my head but don’t break eye contact.
“I cannot condone what Darax did. If you were my flesh and blood, it would not have been so.”
“I know about your brother,” Deus says. “He was a good warrior.”
“I would not have left him behind, but I am glad he did not suffer the same fate as us.” This time I close my eyes and send a silent thanks to my ancestors.
Drekkan might not have liked missing the fleet. In fact he would have hated it, the grumpy nevver, but to have condemned him to our fate would have been worse.
When I open my eyes again, Deus is still there. Without a spoon.
I should be grateful for small mercies.
“The Nostenii have three camps,” he says rapidly. “But they keep their prisoners separate in order to avoid any cross-contamination.”
“Dyana is their leader, of all the camps?”
“She is, and she is not to be underestimated. She was my chief science officer and about to be promoted to my second,” Deus says with a grimace. “She would have had her own command within the nova-year before we ended up here.”
“A warrior worthy of my respect.” I nod.
“She would have been if the situation here didn’t send her down the same path as me.” Deus taps the side of his head.
Nev it all to the ancestors. I thought I saw something familiar in her eyes. It was the madness Deus had, and still has on occasion. And she has my Gillian.
“She lost her daughter to the sickness,” Deus says. “She never recovered.”
“We all had losses.” I fix Deus with a look. “But we persevered.”
“Some of us had losses. Some carried on. No one is immune from how they react.”
I bare my teeth. “If she hurts my mate, she will not be immune from how I react,” I snarl. “No one touches her.”
“Good thing I’ve found you again, then, Dalox,” Dyana booms from behind Deus. “And the traitor, Deus.” She laughs. “Now I have two males.”
“Give me my mate,” I growl at her.
“I made it perfectly clear earlier.” Dyana puts her hand on her hip as she levels the pulsar disruptor at my head. “Do as I say and your mate will be injury free. Cross me and she will not be so lucky.”
“What about him?” I jerk my head at Deus who is staring at the females as if he’s never seen them before. “What hold do you have over him?”
Dyana looks Deus up and down and lifts her lip in a sneer.
“Guilt,” she says. “Deus will do anything I say because he knows what he did,” she snarls. “And now you will all pay for it.”