Chapter 75
Seventy-Five
Autumn was so scared she couldn’t breathe. Her dad’s teeth chattered in his mouth and his eyes grew wide with terror. She had to be brave. There were no excuses, and there was nowhere to hide.
Nobody could protect her dad except for her. He was a helpless human, and she had special abilities.
Despite seeing her in action earlier, her dad threw himself in front of her to shield her with his body like only a dad would do. “Who’s there?” he shouted, body shaking.
“Dad,” she hissed, trying to move him aside.
He waved a hand. “Autumn, I got this.”
No, he doesn’t.
The two creatures stood there with their arms folded. They stared at him before glancing at the shattered hole in his container. They grinned wicked, yellow-toothed grins, speaking in their native language before advancing, despite his question.
“Stop right there,” her dad shouted, raising his palms in the air. “Or else, I’ll…”
Autumn sighed. Crap. She walked in front of her dad, resting her hand on her hip, trying her hardest to look menacing. Her dad gasped, attempting to budge her, but he couldn’t. She was too strong.
The monsters stopped dead in their tracks, their red-slit eyes bulged in their heads.
“Why if it isn’t Empress Autumn Martyne,” one of the creatures said in Ivarkian, licking his black tongue against his scaled lips. “How does it feel to be the ruler of a fallen empire?”
She cringed. “If you come any closer, I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” The other monster’s mouth tilted on his frightening face. A dribble of blood ran down his chin from the arm he consumed, before he licked the droplets up greedily.
“I’ll kill you both,” she said. Her dad quaked beside her.
“What did you say?” he asked, and she shrugged.
She was glad he didn’t understand her because he wasn’t going to like what was going to happen next.
The aliens looked at each other and laughed. She was tired of being the butt of everyone’s joke.
Instead of guns, the creatures unsheathed sabers from their thick black belts. They held the pommels, pointing the tip straight at her.
“Emperor Izzo is expecting her,” one of the monsters whispered to the other loud enough for her to detect.
“She provoked us—we’ll tell him she put up a fight. A few nicks won’t make a difference.” He charged straight at them swinging back his sword, high above his head. At the last moment, he lunged to strike her dad. She jumped into the air, bringing her knee to his solid gut, stopping him in his tracks. He flew through the air, smashing through another glass tank. Her dad gasped, covering his whiskered mouth. He stared at the creature and then at her.
She regarded the other monster whose knees knocked together, wobbling with each step.
“Well, what are you waiting for? There’s plenty more where that came from,” she taunted.
The second creature shrieked, dropping his saber on the ground with a ping . He attempted to make a run for it, boots skidding across the metallic tiled floor. Autumn flew after him. She couldn’t allow him to escape, or else the Grand Supreme would figure out she was on board. She raised her fists high above her head, balling them with all her might, and smacked him in the back. He landed on his stomach, knocked out cold.
She knelt, catching her breath. Another wave of sickness rattled through her. These creatures sure stank. She rose to a trembling stand.
Her dad sprinted over to her. “Are you okay?” He hugged her again. She nodded slowly in his arms. “I don’t understand any of this. We need to get out of here.”
“No, not yet. We have to find Dante and bring him with us.” She grabbed the saber out of the unconscious alien’s hand. She passed it to her dad who fumbled it in his grasp. “Hold this. You need to be able to protect yourself just in case.” I can’t , she left unsaid.
He rolled his eyes. “What could you possibly want with him? He’s a?—”
“Murderer? Well, that makes two of us,” she glanced down at her hands.
He gasped and she ignored his reaction and raced into the cage, grabbing the other saber for herself. She didn’t have time to argue with her dad. She had to find Dante so they could get the heck out of there.
Dante knelt on the ground with his navy-gloved hand cupped over his mouth. He ran his fingers against what he thought was Izzo—only he wasn’t there.
He picked up the pieces of shed skin in the silhouette of his body. A cool chill trickled down the length of his spine as he tossed the skin to the floor. The casing crunched and scraped across the ground. He surveyed his surroundings. He was on the lowermost level of Izzo’s pleasure cruiser. Metal crates encircled him in stacks, piled high to the ceiling. Squealing chains swung overhead but he was nowhere to be found. The lights flickered and dimmed in a frenzy.
A throat cleared and he whipped around, but he couldn’t see where the sound came from. His eyes shot over to the corner where a long shadow swayed ever so slightly.
His entire body trembled down to the depths of his toes. He glanced up slowly, tentatively. His eyes widened in horror. Izzo towered over him, head almost touching the high ceiling.
Izzo’s muscles grew thick and bulging, his head rounded, free of horns and no longer elongated and cumbersome. His slit eyes ranged from yellow to a deep blood red, almost appearing purple. His teeth were sharp and jagged, and his tail slashed around, whipping through the air with cracks. As he walked toward him, his toenails scraped and clicked against the metallic tiled floor, dragging with fierce precision.
Oh please, no, he’d underestimated him. He transformed again.
Dante took two shocked steps in retreat before he froze in place. He struggled to move, struggled to think despite his attempts to break free. Izzo chuckled. His voice grew deep and raspy, and then his tail shot out, sending Dante hurtling into a pile of crates, smashing them to the floor. He groaned as Izzo’s tail slithered over, coiling around his neck, then locking against his skin. He choked as he dragged him back over, suspending him in the air.
“Did you really think I’d be so easily defeated, foolish boy?”
Dante moved his lips to speak, but no words came out as his windpipe was crushed by his master. He was in a world of trouble.
Izzo grazed his scaly taloned fingers against his ear, before chewing his lip into a smile. “What’s that—no smart come back? Nothing about how you plan to kill me?”
Dante’s eyes widened. All he saw was red followed by shooting stars.
“I didn’t think so.”
The Grand Supreme flipped Dante around and punched him in the back so many times he lost count. Fist collided with bone. No matter how hard he tried kicking and squirming, he couldn’t break free. Izzo was too strong. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Izzo loosened his grasp from around his neck and let him fall to the floor in a weak slump. He rasped for breath, lying at his feet.
Izzo grabbed him by the hair, and he winced in agony. “What? Had enough already? I’m nowhere near done with you, slave.”
He took his knee and brought the cap to Dante’s face. His vision began to fade at the corners. Warm salty blood trickled down his nose and over his mouth. The Grand Supreme took his foot, raised it up, and with two stomps both of his thigh bones cracked. He groaned, lying on the ground.
Izzo then swept him into the air telepathically and tossed him into the wall. Dante slammed into the cold hard steel before falling on his back.
The Grand Supreme waved a long taloned finger. “What a shame. Things didn’t have to end this way if only you had cooperated and given me what I wanted. It wouldn’t have come to this. You could’ve been a living god.”
Dante stared at him strangely before his eyes closed, and for a moment, he could’ve sworn he smelled Autumn, the love of his life. Her sweet floral scent permeated through his nose, warming his senses. He could leave this world knowing that she was safe, and at least he’d done one thing right. The jest was on his master.
A quiet buzz came, and he opened his eyes. A drone floated overhead.
“Now everyone can witness what happens to those who defy me. The end of a legend. Dante the Great Conqueror, do you have any last words?”