Rosalie
Dante is here. He is alive and uninjured. I am so angry at him, and I love him so damn much I could burst.
The very last thing I want is for him to go after the Gonoz, to risk it all again, like he always seems to do. But I have him with me. We can do it together.
After all, I don’t want the Gonoz to win any more than he does, or any of the Sarkarnii.
“Boss, Dexx wants to know what you are planning.” Dart approaches us with his eyes firmly on the floor.
Dante snarls a little and straightens. “Dexx is here?”
“Lord Dexx said we helped him so he would help us,” Dart says with a curl of his lip.
“Dexx loves a good fight.” Dante grins. “Even if he pretends not to. And his crew love a good explosion as much as we do.”
“That is so,” Dart intones, lifting his head enough for me to see his smile. “Presumably there are going to be some, boss?”
“I expect this entire facility needs to go.” Dante looks around with a proprietorial air. “Have the warriors who were here with me been given a dose of paraxio?”
“They have, boss.”
“Good.” Then let’s get the information we need for a cure and get the nev out of here,” Dante says, his tail lashing.
“A cure?” Dart’s eyes widen. “They have the eletviz here?”
“Something better,” Dante says. “The Gonoz are the ones who made us like this in the first place.”
“What?” I stare at him. “It wasn’t a mutation caused by the wormhole?”
“Nothing which has happened to us is caused by the wormhole,” Dante says. “It was all caused by the Gonoz, including the wormhole.”
Dart growls unapologetically. “They did this to us?”
Dante returns his growl and adds a snarl. “They did. To all the Sarkarnii in this galaxy. They were experimenting on us.”
“So, why did they let you go?” I voice my thought out loud. “Only to take you again?”
Dante rubs at his chin.
“I do not know,” he responds. “But they won’t do it a second time.”
I’m pulled tight against his muscular body as he barks orders at his warriors. Most of them involve setting charges everywhere they can in order to send this place to oblivion, and I don’t blame him.
It has an antiseptic chill I dislike very much, as if it’s a morgue. I very much want to get out of here and make sure Dante comes with me.
Finally, he’s given enough weapons to equip a small army, which is the only reason I am released, so he can distribute them around his person.
“What now?” I ask as he has cohorts of warriors running in every direction.
“Now Dart is going to meet with Dexx and have him ready should the Gonoz try to escape.” Dante nods at his second in command.
“You’re going to stop things which have no form from escaping?”
“No one said they didn’t have a form. They are using bots at present. They can escape.”
“So, if they have robot forms, why would they want Sarkarnii?”
Dante pulls himself up to his full height. “Why not?”
“I mean, you’re flesh and blood. You have a life span. You are not completely indestructible. I would have thought being a robot would make more sense.”
Dante cocks his head on one side.
“The myth says they had forms once. Perhaps they want them again,” he says simply.
I suppose there is no real rhyme or reason to what anything wants. But when they are prepared to destroy another species to get to it, then it becomes a problem which needs to be dealt with.
“But they cannot have ours,” Dante adds with a snarl. “Not now, not ever.”
“So, you have a plan?”
“I think I make good bait,” Dante says.
“Oh no, you are not doing that.” I slap him on his chest, which is like hitting iron. “There has to be another way.”
Dante gives me a discordant blink.
“I mean, we have to be able to find them somehow. In the data banks of this place or in the bots or something. If they can get inside, there must be a way to contain them…somehow,” I say rapidly, useless idea after useless idea tumbling from me.
I might understand the human body and computers on Earth, but this is like nothing I’ve ever encountered, and I cannot even fathom how a species could survive in the way the Gonoz have.
Dante does another blink. “You could be right.”
“I could?”
“Containment, that’s the key.” He shoves his fingers into his hair and stares at me with a pair of pupils which are mere slivers of dark onyx.
“How?”
Dante looks me up and down. “Will you accompany me to find out, my mate?” he says, pushing me an arm’s length away so he can make a deep bow.
“Will you protect me, kind warrior?” I try not to giggle at his actions, but I can’t help myself.
“No,” Dante says, looking up at me, squinting out of one eye and with a flash of wicked fang. “I will give you a weapon, and you will be able to fight at my side.”
“I like this plan.” I wind my arms around his waist. “But don’t forget my warning. Banishment awaits if you pull another stunt like the last one.”
“My sweet mate, I wouldn’t dare,” Dante rasps.
And I know he absolutely would.