Chapter 8
Enslak
Darkness.
Not the cell. Not the pits where I'd killed things with names I couldn't remember.
This darkness was different.
Softer. Warmer.
It pulled at me like water, like I was sinking into something deep and endless.
Part of me wanted to let it take me. Wanted to stop fighting and just drift away.
But I couldn't.
Something held me back. Something kept pulling me toward the surface.
Her.
I couldn't see her. Couldn't open my eyes.
But I knew she was there.
I could feel her presence like warmth against my skin, like light cutting through the darkness.
The female who'd pretended to be Zarlak. The female who smelled like flowers.
My body felt strange. Wrong.
Like it was changing in ways I didn't understand.
Things shifted beneath my skin. Bones realigning. Tissue knitting together.
Augmentations that had been part of me for so long were beginning to dissolve, to transform into something else entirely.
I didn't understand it.
Couldn't make sense of the sensations rippling through me.
Sometimes there was pain, sharp and bright, flashes that shoved back the darkness for a moment.
Other times there was nothing. Just numbness.
Just the sense of my body doing things without my permission.
Healing, maybe.
The word floated through my fractured thoughts like debris in water.
Was I healing?
The pain came again. A spike through my shoulder where a bolt had struck.
Then my thigh. My chest.
Each wound announced itself in turn. A roll call of damage.
But the pain was... less. Duller.
Like it was happening to someone else.
I tried to focus on it. Tried to use it as an anchor to keep from drifting.
But it kept slipping away.
The darkness kept pulling me down.
And in the darkness, there was only her.
Her scent.
The sweetness that had cut through the stench of the cell. Through the rot of the sewers. Through the copper tang of blood.
It was the first thing that told me she wasn't Zarlak.
I remembered her voice.
Soft. Speaking words I could barely understand but that sounded like music.
Vaktaire words that touched something deep in my broken mind. Something that remembered what those sounds meant even if I couldn't quite grasp them.
She'd told me she was there to rescue me.
She'd told me to come with her.
And I had.
Something in her voice made me want to follow.
She'd looked like Zarlak. But underneath, she was different.
Her hands—so small.
When she'd reached out to me in that cell, when those tiny fingers closed around mine, I'd been shocked by how delicate they were.
How soft her skin was.
How careful I had to be not to hurt her with my claws.
I could have crushed her hand without effort. Could have broken every bone with the slightest pressure.
But I hadn't wanted to.
I'd wanted to hold her hand forever.
The memory surfaced through the darkness.
Carrying her through the sewers.
The way she'd felt in my arms—so light, so small.
Like she weighed nothing at all.
Her entire body had fit against my chest. Her head tucked under my chin. Her arms around my neck.
Fragile.
That was the word.
She was fragile. Breakable. Precious.
I'd carried her through the filth because I couldn't bear the thought of her walking through it.
Couldn't stand the idea of that stench clinging to her. Of the rot touching her skin.
She'd thanked me.
Her voice had been so soft. So grateful.
No one had thanked me in... how long?
A century? More?
I couldn't remember anyone being gentle with me. Couldn't remember anyone touching me without flinching. Without fear twisting their faces.
But she had.
In the cell, she'd wiped the blood from my body with a soft cloth.
Not the harsh spray of the hose. Not rough hands that treated me like an object to be cleaned and discarded.
Gentle touches. Careful.
Like I mattered.
Like I was more than a thing that killed in the pits.
The darkness pulled harder.
I felt myself slipping. Felt my consciousness fragmenting. Scattering like leaves in wind.
But then—
Her voice. Distant. Muffled.
But unmistakably hers.
"You're going to be okay."
The words cut through the darkness like a blade.
I tried to focus on them. Tried to hold on.
But they kept slipping away.
Niki.
That was her name.
I remembered now.
She'd told me. And I'd clutched it like a treasure. Turned it over and over in my broken mind.
Niki.
The female who'd saved me.
Pain flared again. My chest. My side. My leg.
And I welcomed it.
Used it to drag myself closer to consciousness. Closer to her voice.
I remembered the fight.
The guards surrounding us. So many of them. Too many.
I remembered moving.
My body doing what it had been trained to do for a century.
Kill. Efficiently. Brutally.
But this time had been different.
This time I hadn't been killing because the handlers forced me to.
Hadn't been killing because the collar would explode if I didn't.
I'd been killing to protect her.
Every guard who raised a weapon toward her. Every bolt that fired in her direction.
I'd put myself between her and them.
Used my body as a shield because the thought of her being hurt—of those bolts tearing through her—was unbearable.
I'd taken the hits.
Felt each one burn through fur and flesh.
Felt my body breaking under the assault.
And I hadn't cared.
All that mattered was keeping her safe.
The memory brought something that might have been pride. Satisfaction.
I'd protected her. Kept her alive.
Even as the bolts tore through me. Even as my blood soaked the ground.
I'd kept fighting because nothing was going to reach her.
Nothing was going to hurt her.
Nothing.
The darkness surged again.
I felt myself sinking deeper. My thoughts scattering into pieces I couldn't hold together.
But through it all, one thing remained clear.
Her.
The blackness pulled harder.
It would be so easy to let go. To stop fighting.
To just... sink into the darkness and let it take me wherever it wanted.
I was so tired.
A century of pain and torture and pit fights and experiments.
A century of being treated like an animal. Like a thing. Like something less than alive.
It would be easy to just... stop.
But.
But.
If I let go, I'd never see her again.
Never see her face without the disguise.
Never hear her voice speaking my name.
Never feel her small hand in mine or her soft body pressed against me.
I'd touched her face.
I remembered that.
Right before the darkness swallowed me the first time, my hand had found her cheek and I'd seen past the hologram. Past the Negita's features.
To her.
Beautiful.
She'd been beautiful.
And she'd been crying.
Tears streaming down her face because of me. Because I was hurt. Because she thought I might die.
No one had cried for me in a century.
No one had cared whether I lived or died.
But she did.
This small, fragile female who'd risked everything to save me—she cared.
And I needed to see her again.
I needed—
The thought fractured. Scattered before I could complete it.
But the feeling remained.
The need.
The desperate, aching need to open my eyes and find her there.
Pain spiked through my chest and I grabbed onto it. Used it to anchor myself.
The darkness clawed at me but I fought back. Pushed against it with everything I had left.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I had to see her again.
Had to know she was safe.
My body shifted again.
More changes I didn't understand.
Bones moving. Tissue reforming.
The augmentations that had been forced into me—the scales, the grafted skin, the modifications that made me more weapon than person—all of it was changing.
It hurt.
But not as much as it should have.
And beneath the pain, beneath the strange sensations of my body remaking itself, there was something else.
Her presence.
Constant. Unwavering.
As long as she was near, I would fight.
I'd keep fighting the darkness.
Keep forcing my eyes open even though they felt impossibly heavy.
Keep my heart beating even though it wanted to stop.
Because I needed to see her again.
The darkness pulled and I pushed back.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Her voice cut through the void. Distant but clear.
"Just hold on."
I would.
I would hold on.
I would survive this.
For her.
Always for her.