Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Saxon
Half an hour earlier
We arrive back at the circus ship, the vegetable man firmly in my grasp and unable to escape.
My body is buzzing with energy after drinking from Link.
I’ve never drunk from a cyborg before, but it’s like a bolt of lightning has infused my blood, and I feel like I can fly across the galaxy. Xavier is eyeing me suspiciously.
“What is wrong with you?” he asks as I bounce up and down on the spot.
“Fuck, man. Link’s blood is like a shot of pure energy,” I tell him, and the cyborg rolls his eyes at me, but I know he enjoyed me drinking from him as much as I did. The wet spot on his pants tells the truth.
“Keep it together while we question this guy, and then I’m sure our mate will let you use up all your excess energy on her when she returns,” he promises me.
“I’m going to go change if you have everything in hand here,” Link says, grimacing and pulling his pants away from his skin. The rest of the guys chuckle but don’t stop him.
“As much as I want to watch, I’ll go give the grandpas a reprieve from watching the babies. Echo was going to hang with Nikos, and I’m sure Maxsim is helping them, but our babies are hard work,” Caspian says affectionately and leaves with Link.
That leaves Xavier, Tirrian, Silac, Brannock, and me to intimidate the vegetable man, and I would say from the way his body keeps exploding and leaving debris all around him, it’s not going to take much.
There isn’t anywhere to interrogate beings on the ship, so we have brought him straight to the containment cells Brannock was kept in when he first arrived.
Xavier conjures up a chair that has restraints, and Brannock assists me in manhandling him into them.
He dropped his glamour, and the vegetable man just about peed his pants when he saw the Aaz’axian looming over him.
Having him here certainly makes our job easier.
I wouldn’t be opposed to Lila adding Brannock to our family.
No one will ever fuck with us once they realize she has him as a mate.
“Agh, please, what do you want with me? I told the girl everything I know.” He’s blubbering like a baby, and it’s all I can do to not backhand him just to get him to shut up. Pathetic.
Tirrian scoffs. “He’s useless. Let me shift, my dragons want to eat him.” He flexes his wings, and smoke drifts out of his nostrils. The minute we returned to the ship, Xavier dropped our glamours.
“Maybe he just needs a little help?” Silac flares his cobra hood and hisses, and it proves to be too much, because the asshole faints.
“Fuck.” I punch the wall of the cell, and my hand goes straight through it. Xavier just tuts and rolls his eyes before waving a hand and fixing the mess I made.
“Lila’s going to be pissed you hurt yourself,” he scolds me, and I shake my hand and hold it out, and we all watch as it repairs itself in front of our eyes. “Huh, that’s a handy trick.”
“Yes, all that blood from Link has made my regeneration even faster,” I tell them as the skin knits itself back together. “It’s even better than yours,” I tease the warlock who flips me off, not even taking the bait.
“Are you going to search his memories?” Brannock asks Xavier.
“Yeah. I’ll wait until he’s conscious and we can question him. People can’t help but think about their answers, even if lies come out of their mouths.”
“What are we going to do if he is telling the truth and knows nothing?” Silac asks. It’s the question that has been rolling around in my mind. We need the answer to be able to rescue Liliana Adams.
“Lila will have to mimic him and go in his place when the crew is recalled. It might add some time onto the mission, but...” Tirrian shrugs, leaning against the cell wall. “Without that information, it’s basically a suicide mission.
“But what about a forcefield around us?” Xavier suggests, and I can hear his frustration.
He doesn’t want to drag this out any longer, and none of us want to put our mate in even more danger.
It’s hard enough as it is, even though we know she is fully capable of defending herself with all her powers.
Brannock shakes his head. “No, we tried that, both magical and mechanical, and neither of them worked. One of the creatures has acid spit, and it could eat through either of them.”
“Fuck,” I growl and pace back and forth, unable to stand still. “I really don’t like the idea of Lila going on her own,” I announce to my friends.
We’re all silent for a moment, and Xavier shakes his head.
“She won’t have to. Link told me that the doctor friend of his who found this guy” —he gestures to the unconscious vegetable man— “mentioned that the job has a high turnover rate, and the company who hires them is always looking for new harvesters. How about I mimic this idiot, and I can say I have two friends who want to become halla harvesters. Lila can take her earth elemental form, and Brannock, you can either glamour yourself the same or just go as you are. We can use the excuse that nobody wants to give an Aaz’axian a job. ”
Brannock nods slowly. “That could work. Then we can get a good look at this leader. Either Lila will have eyes on him to mimic, or we can force him to take us to the death forest and rescue Liliana.”
Tirrian scoffs. “Sounds like a long shot, but it’s the best we’ve got so far. I can come and watch from the air,” he suggests.
“I don’t remember there being any flying creatures big enough to take out a dragon, but I can’t guarantee things haven’t changed since I’ve been there,” Brannock tells the dragon.
“Sounds a little risky to me,” Silac remarks, and Xavier nods.
“Seven hundred years is a long time for something new to evolve. Let’s just play it by ear. Both of you can always teleport down from the ship if needed,” he tells Silac and Tirrian, who reluctantly agree.
“Alright, let’s see what we can do to wake this guy up.” Xavier waves a hand, and a bucket of water appears in mine. “Want to do the honors?” he asks me, smirking.
I shake my head at his ridiculousness. He could have just nudged his mind. I think he can tell how edgy I am, and he’s trying to distract me.
I throw the contents of the bucket over our detainee, who jolts to consciousness. Xavier doesn’t even wait for him to talk, he just lets him splutter slightly before he drives into his mind. The man’s eyes roll back in his head, and his body twitches violently.
“How do you survive on Husadavia?” Brannock demands, bringing the memories we need to the front.
We’re quiet as we watch Xavier sift through them, his eyebrows jumping in surprise at what he sees.
It doesn’t take him long, maybe five minutes, before he releases the captive who slumps, unconscious once more.
“Well?” Tirrian asks, unable to be patient.
“He wasn’t lying. This being who they call Zeygan really does just stand there and everything stays away.
They walk through the bushes, picking everything they can, and move onto the next section.
It looks like he can control maybe a couple of hundred yards.
Anything that steps out of that area gets attacked, quickly and violently I might add, and he doesn’t warn them, he just moves.
He doesn’t speak, and he wears a long, cowled cape, and I couldn’t make out any details according to what this man has seen.
Once they finish, it looks like he teleports them all off the planet to a ship that hovers in orbit.
They usually have at least one hundred harvesters, but regularly lose four or five a trip on average because he doesn’t wait for them. If they don’t keep up, it’s too bad.”
“That doesn’t seem like good staff management,” Silac jokes nervously, and Xavier shrugs.
“From his memories and conversations with his fellow harvesters, I got the feeling that the being doesn’t care.
They call him a sociopath. They think he lets people get eaten on purpose.
This guy has only been twice, but there are some who are seasoned veterans who gave him tips to survive.
Don’t draw attention to yourself is the main one.
It’s the ones who do stand out who end up dead. ”
“That’s actually good to know,” Brannock comments, but suddenly Xavier freezes. His eyes turn white, and his body crackles with power. He snarls, and when his eyes open, I can see the fury in them.
“Lila has been taken. Care to have some fun?” he asks me, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder, and I feel that telltale tingle of teleporting, and then we are somewhere else.
It only takes me a second to assess the room.
Xavier freezes everyone in place, but the bear with his gun pointed at my blood rose must die.
I unsheathe my claws and rip out his throat, splattering blood across my blood rose and the bear next to her, but she just grins and tells me how tasty the blood is, offering me a sample from her finger.
I suck the blood off her finger, noting that while delicious, it’s not as tasty as my blood rose’s. I can’t stop the rumbling growl that comes from my chest as Xavier and Lila discuss what’s going on.
“Can I kill them now?” I manage to grind out when there is a lull in the conversation.
Lila gives her consent, except for the brightly colored one next to her.
Apparently, he’s been protecting her, and she’s grown attached.
As they walk away, Xavier and I can see how attached they are.
Lila’s top doesn’t have much of a back, since Xavier loves seeing all our marks on her—but there’s a new one that wasn’t there previously.
My eyes shift to the bear’s back, and sure enough, Lila’s mark is on his fur.
She flips us off as he calls some teasing remark, but he quickly unfreezes the rest of the bears, and then he and I make sure that none of them live to tell anyone else about our Lila, who now has the carevasta bear in her repertoire.