Maggie
Scarlett
You’re what?
Kerra
With Driok?
Rosalie
You do know he’s also called the Butcher of Haldane, don’t you?
I stare at the group chat. They’ve been trying to contact me since I returned, followed by a large Sarkarnii shadow who wouldn’t take the hint, at least until Dante’s guards stopped him from entering Dante’s sector.
I expected Driok to put up more of a fight. Make more of an effort to follow me. But instead he was gone like smoke. Of course he was, he has form for doing a disappearing act just when things get complicated.
Although that hasn’t stopped him from telling literally everyone about my present condition.
“When?”
Lydia leans in the doorway to my bedroom where I am sat on my bed, squeezing the remaining water out of my hair.
“Rosalie’s celebration.” I fix her with the gaze I reserve for curdling milk. “He was a one-night stand which wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“After everything we know about Sarkarnii males?” Lydia says incredulously. “After what’s happened with Kerra and Rosalie and Scarlett?”
“I thought they had to be in that thing for a female…you know, to be fertile or something?” I flap my hand. “Anyway, it’s done now. A mistake I won’t be repeating.”
“You mean the rut?” Lydia queries.
“Yes, that.” I run a brush through my hair. “The rut.”
“Maggie, how old are you?”
“Rude.” I glare at her. “I’m thirty-five.”
“And at thirty-five, you thought, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that if you did the horizontal mambo with a Sarkarnii you wouldn’t get pregnant because he wasn’t in the right part of his cycle?”
“Yes, well. Not my finest moment,” I grumble at her.
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“About Driok.”
“I’m not going to do anything about him.” I put the brush down on the bed and fold my arms over my chest. “Why?”
“You’re pregnant and the baby is his,” Lydia says, holding out her hands, exasperated.
“Then he shouldn’t have buggered off to fucking space the second he had a chance, should he?” I growl at her.
Lydia blinks at me. She should be used to the level of profanity I use by now, but it appears not.
“He’s been gone two fucking months, Lydia,” I say, quieter this time. “If I meant anything to him, he wouldn’t have gone. We’ve seen that with Kerra, and Scarlett and Rosalie—I mean look at Rosalie. Dante bit her because he just couldn’t help himself.”
“That’s not what you said,” Lydia says, her voice small.
“Yeah, well. I see more how the Sarkarnii operate now,” I respond, knowing full well the reasons behind my outbursts around Dante’s behavior.
“I still don’t like what happened, but he was feral for her.
” I look away from where Lydia stands and up at the porthole which shows a glittering night sky filled with mystery stars.
“Driok only wanted one thing. Once he got it, he left.” I stand up with a sigh.
“Which means he doesn’t get to have a say in what happens next. ”
I push past Lydia into the main living area.
Only to be confronted by the one Sarkarnii I have no wish to see.
“How the fuck did you get in?” I snap at Driok, although given the way his chest is heaving, I doubt it was via the door.
As his eyes roll upwards, and as I follow his gaze, the main doors to our quarters snap open and around a dozen huge Sarkarnii leap through them, most getting stuck in the scrum.
Driok turns to watch them with a cool detachment to match the chill night air rolling in from the Sarkarnii-sized hole he’s made in the hull above.
The Sarkarnii warriors advance on him, but one snarl from Driok and they stay where they are. Not unsurprisingly, Dante strolls in behind them as if he’s late to a party.
“Hello Driok,” Dante says, as if this is an everyday occurrence.
“You have something which belongs to me,” Driok snarls.
Dante looks around the room, his eyes alighting briefly on me and on Lydia.
“I don’t think I do,” he says. “And I think we’ve had this conversation before. It ended up with me getting a brand-new scout ship.”
“And I got a headache,” Driok snarls. “I’m well aware of your tricks, Dante. This female is mine. She will be joining me in my quarters.”
“I don’t think so.”
Dante looks at me and at Driok, his brow furrowed slightly.
“The female says she doesn’t want to go. Perhaps you’ll take the other one.”
“I am not going with Driok.” Lydia squeaks in alarm and retreats into the bathroom before she sticks her head back out. “And someone needs to fix the roof!”
The door closes, and there is a strange sort of silence interspersed by sounds from a Vorostor night and the slight shifting of a room filled with massive Sarkarnii warriors armed to the teeth and ready to turn into dragons despite the confined space.
All except Driok. He carries no weapons.
He is also entirely unconcerned about being completely outnumbered. Instead he holds Dante’s gaze steadily.
“This might take a long time,” Dante says eventually. “If both females do not wish to go with you.”
“I can wait for him to leave,” I respond.
“I can’t!” Lydia calls from inside the bathroom.
“I am not leaving without my mate,” Driok growls.
“I am not your mate,” I retort.
“Driok thinks you are his mate.” Dante looks more confused than ever. “One of you.”
“He thinks Maggie is his mate,” Lydia shouts.
“Which one of you is Maggie?” Dante asks looking at the bathroom.
“Good lord!” I groan. “We’ve only been living with you for months, Dante. You’re only mated to our best friend, Rosalie. And you can’t tell who we are? I’m Maggie!”
“It’s a good thing he does not know you, my spitfire, or I would have to remove his head from his body,” Driok snarls unhelpfully.
“Gah!” I throw my hands in the air. “Fine. Fine! I’ll go with you if only to stop this ridiculous conversation.”
“You will?” Dante queries. I think if his brow furrows any more, he might end up cross-eyed.
“You will?” Driok says, a grin spreading across his face.
“On one condition.” I put my hands on my hips.
“Any condition, my mate,” Driok says, with saccharine sweetness.
“We don’t go to your sector.”
“What?”
“In fact, we have to go as far away from it as possible.”