Chapter 17 #2
"Quadruple it," she pressed, because talking was the only weapon she had left. "No questions asked. Clean funds. You could disappear. Both of you. Start over somewhere the Empire would never find you."
There was no response. Nothing. Not even a flicker.
She switched angles.
"I'm the Emperor's matched mate. Harming me is an act of war under the Terran-Lathar alliance.
You understand what that means, right? It's not just me.
It's every human colony, every outpost, every ship flying under Earth's flag.
You touch me, and you drag your entire species into a conflict they didn't ask for. "
The guard on her left almost smiled.
Which was worse than the silence. That smile said he'd heard it all before, and he didn't care. None of them did.
Her stomach dropped.
The corridor angled downward, sloping deeper into the asteroid's core. The temperature dropped with it. Her breath came in short, visible bursts now, and her fingers were going numb. Number. Great, just great.
They turned a corner, and the corridor opened up.
The room was circular and seamless. The walls curved up into a domed ceiling, maybe twenty feet overhead, all of it the same smooth, grey metal that caught the light and threw it back. It looked like something out of an old medical horror holo-film.
In the center of the room sat a table.
Not a table. An operating table. Its surface gleamed under the overhead lights. Restraints hung open at the wrists, ankles, across the chest—thick, padded cuffs. Her heart was hammering, her pulse loud in her ears, drowning out the conversation of her guards.
She couldn't look away from the restraints.
"No." The word came out small. She cleared her throat and tried again, louder. "No. No way. I'm not getting on that."
The guards didn't respond. They just walked her forward, their boots ringing on the metal floor, and her legs moved with them even though every instinct screamed at her to dig in and stop.
A door on the far side of the room hissed open, and Korrait stepped through.
He wore the same dark shirt and pants as he had on Devan station. Unless his entire wardrobe was identical, it was still the same day.
His black hair was pulled back from his face now, highlighting the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the unsettling brightness of his orange eyes.
He smiled when he saw her.
His smile wasn't cruel. It was warm, genuine... like a friend greeting someone he'd waited for. The gesture tightened the knot of dread in her chest.
"Emily." Her name sounded wrong in his mouth. "Thank you for coming."
She barked a laugh, sharp and bitter. "I didn't exactly have a choice."
"Didn't you?" He tilted his head, studying her like she was a puzzle he was enjoying. "You chose to leave the Emperor's side. You chose to walk into that cargo bay. Every step that brought you here was a choice you made."
Her jaw clenched. "You had Lucy's sister."
"We had leverage," he corrected gently. "And you had options. You could have stayed. You could have gone to your guard." He stepped closer, hands clasped loosely behind his back. "But you didn't."
She wanted to spit in his face. Tell him he was wrong. That she'd been trying to save Raaevik, not running from him. But the words stuck in her throat. He was right…
"You're the most important person in this galaxy right now," Korrait said. "Do you understand that?"
"I understand you're out of your fucking mind."
He smiled wider. "Perhaps. But I'm also right."
He gestured toward the table. It was a small, polite invitation… like he was offering her a seat at a dinner party. "If you'd be so kind."
"Nope. I'm not getting on that table." Her voice was steadier now. Good. The rest of her was shaking, but at least her voice held. "You'll have to drag me."
Korrait's expression didn't change.
"So be it," he said, motioning, and the guards pushed her forward.
"I'm not getting on that fucking table!" She thrashed, wild and ugly, all elbows and desperation. Her heel caught someone's shin, and they cursed, but it didn't matter. There were two of them and only one of her, and she was losing.
They hauled her closer to the table.
"Let me go! Let me go!" Her voice rose to a shriek as they lifted her. She hit the cold metal surface, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. Before she could suck in a breath, the first restraint locked around her right wrist with a heavy click.
"No—" She yanked hard, but the cuff didn't budge. Her left wrist was next, then her ankles, then the wide strap across her chest that pinned her flat. "No, you can't do this. Let me go!"
The door slid open again.
A second man entered. Tall and gaunt, he didn't have the long hair she was used to seeing on a latharian.
Instead, his head was shaved. His eyes were the same burning orange as Korrait's, but colder somehow.
Without looking at her face, he crossed to the table, long dark robes swirling around his ankles.
He looked at the restraints instead.
His hands moved over them methodically, checking each of them. When he reached the strap across her chest, he tugged it tighter, and her breath hitched as the pressure increased.
"Be still, vessel." His voice was flat. Emotionless.
Vessel.
Not hostage. Not prisoner.
Vessel.
Emily had just gone from being someone's honoured guest to someone's equipment.
"This is Thraevan," Korrait said from somewhere behind her head. "Our priest. He will oversee the sanctification."
Thraevan didn't acknowledge the introduction. He moved to the side of the table and pressed something on a panel she couldn't see. There was a mechanical whir, and her gaze snapped up toward it.
A mechanical arm unfolded from the ceiling. Its movement was smooth. Precise. At its tip was a pressurised injector—not medical-grade slick chrome like she'd seen in hospitals, but something older-looking. Military and brutal in its simplicity.
The cylinder was thick, industrial metal scored with scratches and dents as if it had been used over and over again.
No sterile packaging. No reassuring beep of calibration.
Just a vial of liquid locked into the chamber that glowed deep, shimmering purple…
like someone had stuck a load of glitter in food dye.
For one lurching second, it reminded her of Raaevik's eyes.
"What is that?" Her voice cracked. "What the fuck is that?"
Thraevan's fingers moved over a control interface, and the injector's tip angled down, lining up with the side of her neck. Right over her jugular.
"The sacred burns before it sanctifies."
She didn't think it was a warning. He said it like a prayer instead.
The injector lowered.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, her pulse so loud she could hear it in her skull, as the cold metal tip pressed against her skin.
"Raaevik!" She didn't mean to scream his name. It just tore out of her, raw and desperate. "RAAEVIK!"
The injector fired, piercing her skin, and cold flooded her bloodstream.
Not the cold of ice. Not the cold of space. This was wrong. It spread from her neck in a wave. It felt like her veins were being filled with liquid metal, heavy and foreign and other. Every cell in her body screamed in protest, rejecting something that didn't belong inside a human body.
She arched against the restraints, her spine bowing, her mouth open in a soundless scream as the pain went on and on. Panic filled her. She couldn't survive this. No one could.
But she did.
Seconds stretched, became minutes… or hours. She couldn't tell anymore. Time had stopped meaning anything.
And then, just as quickly as it started, it was over.
The cold remained, but the pain faded to a dull, throbbing ache that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She gasped, her lungs burning as she dragged in air. Sweat soaked her hair, plastered her shirt to her back.
Everything felt different.
Something hummed beneath her skin. A low, constant vibration that hadn't been there before. She looked down at her arms, and her breath caught.
Her veins were visible beneath her skin. Dark. Too dark. Like ink had been injected into her bloodstream, spreading and mapping her circulatory system in black lines.
Thraevan checked a readout on his interface. Nodded once.
"It is done." He stepped back from the table, his robes whispering across the floor. "She is sanctified."
Korrait moved into her line of sight and looked down at her with something close to reverence. "How do you feel?"
She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. She wanted to scream. She wanted to spit in his face and claw his eyes out and make him hurt the way she was hurting.
Instead, all she could do was whisper, "What did you do to me?"
He smiled.
"We saved our people."
Pulling a small stool from the side of the room, he sat beside the table.
"The serum is harmless," he began. "To you, to humans, and even to most Lathar. You'll feel the cold for a while, and the discomfort will fade. In a few days, you won't even remember it was there."
She stared at him.
"But to anyone carrying K'Saan blood…" His expression shifted. Tightened. "To the K'Saan bloodline, you are now lethal."
Her mind went blank.
"You don't need to touch them," he carried on. "You just need to be near them. The serum reacts to their genetic markers, triggering failures at the cellular level. It's quick, irreversible, and incredibly painful."
She couldn't breathe.
"You're not a hostage, Emily." He leaned forward, his orange eyes bright with conviction.
"You were never a hostage. You're a gift.
The Lathar have been polluting themselves for generations, weakening the bloodline, and the K'Saan are the heart of that rot.
Remove it, and the Empire can finally heal. "
The restraints bit into her wrists as her hands curled into fists.
"We're going to send you home," Korrait said gently. "Back to Devan Station. Back to your quarters. And when you walk through the door, and the Emperor welcomes you back…" He spread his hands. "The problem solves itself."
"You're insane," she breathed. "Absolutely, madder than a box of frogs, insane."
Then the facility shuddered.
The ceiling cracked, and dust rained down over them in fine grey powder. The overhead lights flickered. Somewhere outside the room, an alarm shrieked in a high, piercing wail that set her teeth on edge.
Korrait's head snapped toward the door. "Report," he snapped.
Thraevan's robes billowed as he crossed to a wall panel and pulled up a tactical display.
"They found us." His voice was still flat, but there was an edge to it now.
There was another explosion, closer this time. The table shook beneath her, and the restraints rattled.
Korrait stood, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "How?"
"Does it matter?" Thraevan's fingers flew over the interface. "They're here."
Someone had found them.
Raaevik.
It had to be Raaevik.
Emily's heart surged, hope flaring bright and sharp—
And then crashed just as fast.
Because even if he tore this place apart. Even if he killed every last one of them and carried her out in his arms.
She was still the weapon.