21. Naeris
Wow.
That felt incredible. I stood in the wrecked corridor with my chest heaving, my knife slick with black blood, and realized with a rush of almost giddy exhilaration that I hadn’t known how desperately I needed a good fight. Not a controlled sparring match. Not a carefully planned rebel strike.
A real fight.
The kind where adrenaline drowned out every thought except survival.
The kind where death roared in your face, and you roared right back.
The Moggaddesh were still sprawled across the deck around us, their enormous bodies leaking glowing ichor through cracked armor that resembled molten stone.
Even dead, they were terrifying. I had never seen anything like them.
They were monsters from the darkest corners of myth.
And I had just stabbed one in the eye. A breathless laugh bubbled out of me before I could stop it. By the stars, that had been fun. The thrill still raced through my veins. My skin felt too tight. My heart pounded with the intoxicating rush that always followed combat.
And then there was Thyros.
I turned toward him.
He stood amid the carnage like some avenging deity.
His golden aura blazed blindingly, his sword dripped black blood, and his amber eyes were still bright with battle fury.
His enormous chest heaved, while his biceps flexed, like he was still fighting for control.
The memory of what he had done sent a delicious shiver through me.
The sheer strength it must have taken to sever a Moggaddesh arm in a single strike.
Not just strength. Precision. Control. Absolute lethal power wielded with devastating accuracy.
Heat unfurled low in my belly. Fighting had always aroused me. Apparently, watching my impossibly large, impossibly beautiful mate carve through monsters like a god of war intensified that reaction to frankly alarming levels.
The golden thread between us flared, carrying a pulse of possessive satisfaction that made my cheeks warm. By the look on his face, he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Before either of us could act on the heat crackling between us, distant roars and weapons fire echoed through the ship. My exhilaration sharpened into focus. The fight was far from over. Thyros turned toward the sounds instantly, every line of his body taut and battle-ready.
He spared me a glance over his shoulder. “I don't suppose you intend to join the other females in the safe room?”
I snorted. “Yeah. Big chance of that happening.”
A slow, dangerous smile curved his mouth. Stars help me. Even splattered with blood and standing over the bodies of slain monsters, he was devastating. Perhaps especially then.
Without another word, he took off down the corridor. I followed at his heels. The ship shuddered beneath our feet as more impacts reverberated through the hull. Alarm klaxons blared overhead, bathing the passageways in pulsing crimson light. We rounded the next corner and ran straight into chaos.
Zapharos was engaged with four Moggaddesh.
The sight stopped me for half a heartbeat.
I had seen him fight before, but never like this.
He moved with terrifying efficiency, each strike of his blade precise and merciless.
Golden energy crackled around him as though the air itself had become a weapon. One Moggaddesh charged, roaring.
Zapharos caught its plasma axe on his sword, twisted, and drove his second blade through the creature’s throat in a burst of molten blood. Praetor of War was the perfect title for him. Where Thyros was all calculated coldness and precision, Zapharos was fury unleashed.
Nearby, Dravok stood before a reinforced door, his hands spread against the control panel as streams of dark energy flowed from his palms into the sealing mechanisms. The massive door slid shut with a final metallic clang. The safe room was the bridge, which now housed Nadine and Ella. Protected.
Dravok turned at our approach, his dark expression as composed as ever despite the chaos raging around us.
“Excellent,” he greeted. “Hold on while I reopen the safe room.”
He reached for the control panel. A massive shadow lunged out of the smoke. One of the surviving Moggaddesh charged straight toward him, its molten eyes blazing, its claws extended.
I launched myself forward before Dravok could touch a single control. If he thought I was going to be herded into a secure compartment and told to wait while everyone else had all the fun, he had clearly not been paying attention.
The Moggaddesh swung a claw the size of my torso. I dropped into a slide beneath the blow, feeling the rush of displaced air over my head. Sparks showered around me as I slashed my knife across the glowing seam behind its knee.
The giant roared and staggered. I came up on the other side, grinning like a lunatic.
“Safe room?” I called over my shoulder. The creature spun toward me, enraged. “Not a chance.”
It charged. The deck trembled beneath each thunderous step.
I darted sideways at the last possible instant.
The Moggaddesh crashed into the bulkhead hard enough to dent the metal.
Before it could recover, Thyros was there.
He moved like living lightning. One moment, the creature was turning toward me, and the next, Thyros’ blade flashed in a brilliant arc.
The Moggaddesh reeled as the strike cut deep into the glowing fissures across its chest. I vaulted onto a nearby storage crate, pushed off, and drove my knife into its remaining eye.
The beast roared, swiping blindly. Thyros seized the opening and delivered a final crushing blow that sent the creature collapsing to the deck with a resounding thud.
For a heartbeat, we simply stared at each other over the fallen giant. His amber eyes blazed. My blood sang. The bond between us surged with exhilaration, admiration, and enough raw desire to leave me breathless. Dravok looked from the dead Moggaddesh to me, one dark eyebrow lifting.
“I take it,” he commented dryly, “you will not be requiring protective custody.”
I twirled my knife with a satisfied flourish. “Absolutely not.”
Something suspiciously like amusement flickered across his normally impassive face.
“Good,” he nodded, turning back toward the battle. “Because we have more incoming.”
As if summoned by his words, two more Moggaddesh thundered around the corner. Zapharos met them head-on, golden blades blazing. Thyros stepped to my side, and the moment his shoulder brushed mine, I felt more exciting heat spread through me.
This time, when he looked at me, there was no trace of overprotective frustration. Only fierce pride.
“Stay with me,” he said.
I flashed him a grin. “Try to keep up.”
Then we charged into the fight together.
The Moggaddesh kept coming. No sooner had the first wave hit the deck than more thundered through the smoke-filled corridors, their obsidian hides glowing like fresh lava.
They poured from the breached sections of the ship in a relentless flood of muscle, armor, and rage.
For every one that fell, another seemed to take its place.
The ship lurched violently. The deck tilted beneath my feet, sending me skidding into Thyros. He caught my waist with effortless strength, steadying me with one hand even as he decapitated a charging Moggaddesh with the other.
“More vessels incoming,” Dravok called, while shooting a blaster at another Moggaddesh, his voice eerily calm amid the chaos.
He stood at the rear of our makeshift defensive line, one hand braced against the wall while the other held the blaster, as if he were listening to a comm.
Dark energy swirled around him, and after a quick mental probe, I realized that Ella and Nadine were at the controls, trying to get our ship away.
On the comm, Ella’s voice crackled through the noise. “Nadine says three more ships just dropped out of jump!”
“Four,” Nadine corrected in the background. “One was masked by the debris field. And if they continue their current vector, they will cut us off in approximately ninety seconds.”
The ship rolled hard to the left. Gravity shifted. One of the Moggaddesh lost its footing. I drove my knife into the glowing seam beneath its arm. Thyros split its chest open before it could recover. A savage thrill rushed through me.
We were learning each other’s rhythm.
I struck low and fast, exploiting the weak points in their armor. Thyros followed with devastating precision, his blades turning every opening I created into a killing blow. It felt less like fighting beside him and more like dancing with him.
A deadly, exhilarating dance.
“Ella is taking us into the debris field,” Dravok continued as though discussing weather patterns instead of imminent death. “Nadine is rerouting power from life support to aft shields.”
“Tell them I love this plan,” I said, ducking under a claw the size of my head.
The ship spun abruptly. The corridor rotated ninety degrees.
For one dizzying second the wall became the floor.
A Moggaddesh roared in surprise as it lost its footing and slammed into the opposite wall.
Thyros and I reacted in perfect unison. I pushed off the wall, planted a boot on the creature’s chest, and stabbed downward into its eye.
At the same moment, Thyros drove his sword through the exposed fissures at its throat.
The giant collapsed. We landed together, shoulder to shoulder.
The golden thread between us blazed with exhilaration.
Ahead, Zapharos fought like a celestial storm.
His golden energy arced around him with every strike.
Two Moggaddesh charged him at once. He ducked beneath one weapon, pivoted, and sent both attackers crashing to the deck in a whirl of steel and light, making me understand why entire armies followed him.
The ship shuddered as weapons fire slammed into the shields. Warning lights still strobed crimson.
Nadine’s voice came over the comm, breathless but controlled. “We have entered the asteroid field.”
A sharp impact rattled the hull.
“Correction,” she added. “We have collided with an asteroid.”
Ella cursed somewhere in the background. “That means they’ll have trouble targeting us!”
Another wave of Moggaddesh surged around the corner. At least six this time. My pulse leapt. Thyros stepped closer, his blade humming with lethal energy.
“Stay with me.”
I flashed him a grin. “Always.”
The word slipped out before I could think. His eyes flared with a fierce, almost startled intensity. Then the first Moggaddesh reached us. There was no time to dwell on what I had said.
We moved as one.
The ship rolled again, sending all of us sliding across the deck. Thyros caught my hand and used the momentum to swing me around his body. I drove my knife into an exposed eye as I passed. He severed the creature’s arm before it hit the floor.
Another lunged. Zapharos intercepted it.
A third swung at Dravok. Dark energy burst from his hands, hurling the brute backward into two of its companions.
The corridor filled with roars, sparks, and the thunder of colliding bodies.
And still they came. A seemingly endless tide of obsidian giants poured into our ship.
But I wasn't afraid. I had my knife. I had my friends. And at my side stood the male destiny itself had forged for me.