Alien Devil’s Shadow (Vinduthi Captured Mates #5)

Kallum

Torek.

The name burned in the center of the holographic display, surrounded by encrypted data streams and partial coordinates.

Names. Locations. Fragments of the Sovereign’s contingency plans, scattered across the sector like seeds waiting to sprout. Details of a hidden cache of supplies that might give us more of an edge in the final fight.

And one ghost from my past.

The war room hummed with tension. All of us gathered around the holo-table, watching the data coalesce into something meaningful.

Rylos stood at the head, arms crossed, his violet sigils dark against gray skin. Talon flanked him, one hand resting on Tamsin’s shoulder. The others ringed the table in pairs. Zarek and Bronwen. Varrick and Sabine. Brevan and Carys.

I was already standing, my chair scraping back against the deck.

“Kallum.” Rylos’s voice was sharp. “You know this name.”

“He trained me.” The words scraped out of my throat like broken glass. “Before the Sovereign recruited me. Torek made me what I am.”

Silence settled over the table. I felt their eyes on me. Curious. Concerned. I wasn’t the one who shared. Wasn’t the one who had a past anyone asked about.

Tamsin leaned forward. “Is he Conclave?”

“No.” I shook my head. “He retired decades ago. Disappeared completely. Said he was done with the shadows.” I stared at the name hovering in the display, glowing soft blue. “If he still has the fifth key... if he’s still alive...”

I trailed off. Did the math I didn’t want to do. Torek had seemed ancient when I was young, his movements still precise but slower than they’d once been. The years had worn grooves into his face like water cutting stone. Now, after all this time...

“He’d be very old,” I finished. “Very old, or dead. If he had the key,” I said, “his apprentice might know where it is. Might be protecting it.”

Rylos nodded slowly. “Then we split up. Talon, take the others to Verath. Secure the supply cache before the Conclave traces the same data we did.” His red eyes found mine. “Kallum. Find whoever Torek left behind. Find the key.”

“The Turetsala’s faster than the Penumbra,” I said. “I can be there in thirty hours.”

“Go.” Rylos didn’t hesitate. “Contact us when you know more.”

I moved toward the door. The others parted to let me pass. Bronwen caught my eye and grinned, sharp and knowing. Varrick nodded once.

Talon caught my arm as I reached the threshold. His grip was firm, brief. He said nothing. Didn’t need to. We’d fought together long enough that some things didn’t require words.

I nodded back and kept walking.

The Turetsala sat in docking bay three, sleek, dark and waiting.

My ship. I’d built her piece by piece over the years, trading favors and credits for parts that couldn’t be traced.

Small enough to slip through sensor nets.

Fast enough to outrun anything in her class.

Sensor-blind hull painted the color of deep space.

Whisper engines that ran so quiet you couldn’t hear them from ten meters.

Perfect for insertions. Perfect for extractions. Perfect for a ghost who worked alone.

I ran through preflight checks while the computer pulled everything Varrick had scraped from the data burst. Property records. Agricultural permits. A single name on a deed transfer three years ago.

Anhara.

Someone had inherited Torek’s farm. Someone who’d stayed.

The jump coordinates locked in. Thirty hours in hyperspace. Thirty hours to prepare myself for what I might find.

Whoever Torek had left behind, they’d been living alone on that moon for years. Protecting something. Waiting for something.

Maybe waiting for someone like me to come looking.

I engaged the drive and watched the stars stretch into streaks of light, then blur into the formless gray of hyperspace. The Turetsala hummed around me, systems running smooth, carrying me toward answers I wasn’t sure I wanted.

Gray-green atmosphere swirled with cloud bands, sparse settlements visible as scattered lights on the night side. The kind of place people went when they wanted to be forgotten. When they’d done enough, seen enough, and needed somewhere quiet to let the years run out.

I brought the Turetsala down through wisps of cloud, running passive scans as I descended.

The property sat alone in a stretch of farmland, kilometers from the nearest neighbor.

Cultivated fields surrounded the buildings, rows of crops I didn’t recognize from this altitude.

Someone had put real work into this place. Years of work.

I set down in an unplanted field half a klick out, wanting to approach on foot. Wanting to see what I was walking into before I committed. The landing struts sank slightly into soft earth. Rich soil. I wondered if Torek would have liked that.

Outside, the air tasted of growing things and distant rain. A breeze moved through the crops, making them whisper and sway as I walked by. Peaceful. Quiet.

But I’d been trained to see past surfaces.

The compound came into view as I crested a low ridge. Farm buildings arranged around a central house, weathered but well-maintained. Barn to the east, storage structures to the west, the main house set back with clear approach lines in every direction.

Defensive positioning I recognized immediately.

Clear sightlines that let a defender see threats from any angle. Natural choke points at each approach where an attacker would have to slow down, bunch up, become vulnerable. Open ground that looked innocent but would become kill zones if someone started shooting from the house.

Torek’s design. His philosophy made physical. Even after all these years, I knew his hand the way I knew my own.

I walked closer. Kept my hands visible, my movements slow and deliberate. If someone was watching from the house, I wanted them to see I wasn’t trying to hide. Wasn’t trying to be a ghost. Not yet.

Movement near the barn.

Something massive rose from the mud where it had been wallowing. I stopped dead, every instinct screaming at me to draw my weapon.

The creature stood nearly as tall as my shoulder, maybe two hundred kilos of armored hide and dense muscle.

Its skin was the mottled brown of old leather, thick plates overlapping across its back and flanks.

Tusks curved up from its lower jaw like fighting blades, yellowed and scarred from use.

Small eyes fixed on me with an intelligence that made my skin prickle.

A Frangian boar. I’d read about them but never seen one in person. Rare this far from their native system. Expensive to import, difficult to raise, and absolutely lethal when provoked. Their hides could turn a blade. Their tusks could punch through light armor.

The way it held its ground told me everything I needed to know about its training. Weight shifted to its haunches, ready to charge. Head low, presenting those tusks. But it hadn’t attacked yet. It was waiting. Watching. Disciplined.

That was training. That was someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

I reached for my sidearm then stopped. The boar’s eyes tracked the movement. Killing it might be possible. Might not be. Either way, it wouldn’t help me find what I came for.

“That’s close enough.”

A woman’s voice, coming from the porch. I looked up and saw her standing in the shadow of the overhang, positioned so the light was behind her and in my eyes.

Smart. It would have worked on a human. But Vinduthi eyes cut through glare the way claws cut through flesh.

Human. Dark hair pulled back from sharp features, a face that might have been pretty if it wasn’t set in hard lines. Green eyes, steady and cold.

Something in my chest tightened. I ignored it.

Practical clothes, worn soft from use. And a pulse rifle aimed at my chest, held with the easy confidence of someone who’d fired it more than once.

The barrel didn’t waver. Her breathing was slow and even. Controlled.

“I’m looking for someone,” I said. “Someone who lived here with Torek.”

Something flickered across her face. Surprise, maybe. That I already knew he was gone. “You’re looking at her.”

“You’re the one who inherited the farm.”

“I’m the one who stayed.” Her aim didn’t shift. “Who are you?”

“Kallum. He trained me. A long time ago.”

She studied me. Seconds stretched. The rifle stayed even, her aim rock-solid. Behind me, the boar made a sound low in its chest. A rumble that vibrated through the ground. Eager. Hungry.

“He mentioned you once,” she said finally. “The ghost boy.”

Something twisted in my chest. A feeling I couldn’t name and didn’t want to examine. He’d remembered. After all those years, all that distance, he’d remembered me.

“I’m looking for something he was protecting,” I said. “Something important.”

Her expression went cold. Shuttered. Whatever openness had flickered there was gone now, locked away behind walls I recognized. I had walls like that.

“There’s nothing here for you. Leave.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“I don’t care what you think.” She adjusted her grip on the rifle. Minute movement, barely visible, but I caught it. “You have thirty seconds to get back to your ship before I let Turnip off his leash.”

Turnip. She’d named that nightmare creature Turnip.

I almost smiled. Almost. Torek would have appreciated that kind of humor. Naming something terrifying after a root vegetable.

I could push. Could probably close the distance before she got a shot off. I was faster than she knew. Faster than most people could track. Deal with her, deal with the animal, search the property by force.

But something stopped me.

The way she stood. The grief underneath her anger, held tight but visible if you knew where to look.

She’d cared for Torek. Maybe been family to him, in the way that mattered more than blood.

She’d buried him here, I realized. Tended this place alone for three years. Protected whatever he’d left behind.

I wouldn’t repay that by treating her like an obstacle.

“I’ll wait,” I said. “In my ship. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be there.”

I turned my back on her and walked away. Felt her eyes on me the whole distance. The boar’s too, tracking me with that unnerving intelligence, waiting for permission that hadn’t come.

In the Turetsala, I pulled up my surveillance suite and settled in to watch. To learn. To wait.

The way Torek had taught me.