36. Chapter 36
thirty-six
Sor’en
Rage splits my mind into fractured pieces of cutting glass, all reflecting the face of my mate.
She’s here, on this ship.
Melion rages against the barrier as more and more Xyreliths gather just on the other side of the dome, rallying to storm the ship.
If I were not still so weakened by the Balla’mar’s sedation, I would be in my lesser form, ripping these forsaken chains from the wall.
It has been zentics since Melion’s fear for our mate slammed into me with the force of a thousand suns.
It has been nearly half an orbit since their newly formed bond woke me from my toxin-induced sleep.
Toxin slicks every inch of my being, but the tech tightens further, keeping me from slipping free.
My eyes scan the surrounding ceiling, my attention snagging on a caged light overhead.
I leap up, trying to catch my thumb in the cage.
My body lets out pang after pang of agony as my shoulders catch the chains.
It doesn’t slow me as I grip the cage, positioning my thumb just so between the narrow bars, then I let my weight fall.
Pain splits my hand as I hit the ground, checking on my newly broken thumb.
My entire left dominant arm is in spasms of agony.
Xyreliths' bones are nearly impossible to break.
Nearly.
I have been weakening mine for hours.
I work quickly, hissing between gritted teeth as I slip and manipulate the broken bone so that my hand can slip free from the oiled cuff.
It tightens just as I slip the digit free, getting it out by a mere fraction of a domtic in time.
The chain bolted to the floor falls to the ground just as the barred door slides open.
My eyes widen, a roar forming in my throat as my mate cries out at the sight of me.
She rushes in toward me, a male blanching at the sudden movement.
I recoil, flinging myself backward so hard that the force of the leap knocks me off my feet as my back slams the wall.
A gust of wind hits me in the dank room, throwing my hair back as the Kalzait male wraps his arms around her, tossing them both back with a powerful gust of his wings.
“Are you fucking insane? Look at him!” he hisses at her, making me snarl.
Hue gasps, finally taking stock of my toxin-soaked form. Already, I’m fighting my instincts to make it safer for her. Trying to when everything in me screams to stay lethal.
“Take your hands off my mate,” I warn.
Hue seems to gather herself, going to step away from him, only for an iridescent wing to jerk out, blocking her path. “You will stay behind me.”
She shoves at his wing, making him shiver and drop the offending part. For most winged species, their wings are a highly sensitive, highly private place. I roar, fighting against the chains, reaching with everything I have to touch him, to see him crumpled—
“Stop, Sor’en!”
My mate's voice finds me, and while I would’ve obeyed her command, it is not her that stops me. It’s the male. The shade of his pale skin, the tone of his hair…
Clayan…
“Draya’la, explain to me why you are in the presence of a male who most certainly wants me dead? And why, in all seven levels of Qavara, are you on this ship?”
My eyes snap to hers, her arms crossing indignantly over her round, beautiful belly. “I couldn’t just leave you. I wouldn’t do it, Sor’en. Please calm down. We need you to stop being toxic for a moment, please.”
My chest aches like I’ve been run through at the sight of my perfect little gift, so I address him. “If you have any mercy within you, release her. Please release my mate and let her and my child live. I will indebt myself to you, anything you wish. I can be an asset—"
“Of course you could, murderer,” he snaps, the princely facade blackening away to a husk, his shimmer bright and unyielding.
He will not die today.
Strange.
“Sor’en, please, Ravian has been kind to me.
He-he wants to look into your mind… to see that day.
” My eyes slide to her, to her burning desperation as she continues, wringing her hands in front of her.
“I know you didn’t do it, at least not on purpose.
Please, I want to go home,” she cries, fighting against reaching out to me.
It is safe to do so now, but I do not tell them that.
Not yet.
There are not many who can skill their toxin as I can. Years of constant self-loathing and imbalance forced me to learn. I am dripping with it, but it is harmless now. I don’t explain that as I flick my finger, sending a droplet straight onto his cheek.
To his credit, he doesn’t so much as flinch.
Hue screams.
We stare at one another.
“It would take nothing, prince.”
He sighs. “I have had your mate in my chambers for hours and have not harmed a hair on her head, monster.” He smirks. “I actually quite suspect she enjoyed her time with a prince.”
I see red. While I do not doubt the loyalty of my mate, the sheer concept is enough to nearly make me mad with rage.
The mate in question stomps between us, wincing as her hands draw up to her belly. When was her last dose? “Enough! Ravian, please.”
My mind shakes with the sudden onslaught of memories—Clayan ducking into an unused storage room with me, our laughter all too loud in halls that were supposed to be quiet, other secrets whispered his skin inches from mine without a single feat shared between us.
“Ravian helps me hide from our teachers. I despise my lessons.”
It is like staring down at the grown-up ghost of my friend.
What he would’ve grown into, had I not killed him. Had Adder not ripped me from his corpse, his gloved hands punishing, and forced me into the bowels of Vortara while I sobbed.
“I am here only as a favor to her, so that she may rest well once you are executed by my father.”
I let my body sag to my knees, my eyes only on my mate.
I have fought hard not to think of that day for so many orbits.
“One wrong move, murderer, and I will rip through your mind so violently that not even the birth of your son would bring you back from the drooling, mindless husk I would leave you as.”
My head snaps toward him, the same time hers does.
Her voice is the only one given substance in the dark room. “I knew it!”
Kalzaits are highly intelligent. Dangerously so.
Particularly in the field of medical advancement.
Bio-hacking their own species to the point where they can hardly be considered a species at all.
So devoid of their own customs and needs, they pale in comparison to what they once were.
They are no more than pretty robots to dance around their grottos, lost to everything that made them… them.
“And then what?” I ask. “I killed your brother. Will watching me do it through my own eyes afford you any peace?” My words are a haunting growl because he’s close now, the stinger on his tail poised and ready, the antenna they hide in their hair twitching above his head while his wings flutter with barely concealed malice.
I cannot blame him.
But my mate is here.
Within his grasp.
I should kill him.
Right now.
My body tenses before a pair of soft hands finds my face, making me melt apart in her orbit. My oil turns for her, warm and buzzing as she likes. She gasps, her eyes fluttering closed as it reaches her. She doesn’t have to ask as I lower my head to rest on hers. “It’s a chance, Sor’en.”
My eyes slide away as I lean up, back to the male, offering him a curt nod.
The next moment, he leans forward, and he does, in fact, rip into my mind.
Pain is all that finds me next, and I welcome it as the horrible story is pillaged from my memories.
It had been so amazing to have a friend who wasn’t exactly like me.
Clayan thought so too. Every limtic for kintics during those talks, we would sneak onto our leaders' vessels and disappear together where the hidden nooks and crannies of Vortara became our playground. Our make-believe world where he wasn’t the heir to his throne, and I wasn’t a botanist in training who had just planted my mother and father.
It was fun, endless fun… until it wasn’t.
We should’ve known better.
Too lost in the game to realize we had made a horrible mistake.
I stumbled into the outer rim, bright with its neon lights, the maintenance hatch that led to the safety of the halls popped open, suddenly spilling me out.
Still to this day, I can’t recall why the door to the hatch had failed.
If we’d, in our rush, not secured it properly, or someone else on another solar had made the mistake.
It didn’t matter because a horrible secret had just been told. I shouldn’t be there.
Clayan and I both knew it.
Whatever would happen next would be the end of our fun. The end of our friendship.
The screams had started immediately.
It had been so deafening, the stars swirling ahead dizzy to a child unfamiliar with space.
I was fucking terrified when the first of the nearby males had thought to begin stomping me.
Their foot coverings keeping them safe. Their blows landed so jarringly that I thought they would kill me right there.
I yelled for Clayan to run. Forgetting in my panic that I was the only one not welcome.
That Clayan was safe. I think he’d forgotten too.
My vision blacked out as a male’s hooved foot drove jarringly into my face, and I crawled. The sound of the incoming Port Police had stopped their assault, but the hatch seemed so far away, the terrified, hiding face of my friend had seemed impossible to reach.
He’d meant to help. I was almost there when a small, pale hand reached out, gripping my arm from inside the hatch. He’d dropped to the floor in less than a blink later.
In less time than it took me to scream for him to stop, his pale body foamed and writhed on the ground just inside the hatch as I watched in bloodied horror. Adder had shown up just after that.
The rest plays out like a horrid dream.