Chapter 54
GILLIAN
Dyana has the strength of an iron girder. As much as I fought against her, the drive, the glint in her eye which told me she couldn’t be stopped, I already knew it was useless. She would break all my limbs as long as I was alive for her to parade.
I chose to conserve my energy instead, wait for her to show a weakness I can exploit.
It meant leaving behind all the Sarkarnii, choruses of growls following me, Dyana and, disappointingly, Deus.
He trails us into the elevator, his tail dragging on the ground, his eyes dull.
“Why are you doing this?” I hiss at him. “Dalox helped you.”
“This pathetic creature wants his mate back,” Dyana booms. “And I have her.”
At the mention of his mate, Deus lifts his head, those half dead eyes filled with hope. In that moment, I already know everything.
Dyana doesn’t have his mate. Chances are she perished along with all the others. But Deus will do anything if he thinks she is still alive, even believe this mad Sarkarnii and go along with her insane plans.
“You let her get on board the ship, didn’t you?”
I try to glare at him with some sort of hate, but it’s virtually impossible. He cuts a pathetic, bedraggled creature who is held together by hope and pulled to shreds with grief.
Deus nods.
“If I help her, she will take me to my mate,” he says, his voice so low I can hardly hear him.
“At what price?” I toss at him as the doors open and Dyana drags me out.
“Where will they be meeting?” She presses a ray gun into my side.
“Tell me, don’t lie. I don’t know much about your physiology, but I doubt you can last long without vital organs.
” She twists her hand in my hair. “Don’t worry about your precious Dalox.
I won’t hurt him,” she adds as I release a strangled cry of pain.
“It’s this way,” Deus says. “The clan hall is this way.”
Dyana releases her hold on my hair but moves it to my neck, shoving me forward as Deus leads the way until we reach the entrance.
“You can’t use a disruptor inside,” Deus says quietly. “Ricochet.” His eyes slide away from her and around the empty area in front of the clan hall.
“I will use a disruptor wherever I want,” Dyana says. “But I have all I need, right here.” She shakes me like she’s shaking a sauce bottle. “And you will stay quiet, unless you want your mate to have less of a head than when he started.” She sneers at Deus. “Even males can’t grow those back.”
Holding me in front of her, she pushes us through the doors and into the darkened corridor. I listen for the sounds of the Sarkarnii guards, like last time. But there is no chatter. Instead we reach the entrance to the hall, and she edges inside, pulling me behind her.
Dyris is talking. I hear her voice, my heart warms with her desire, her need to be, as all things surely want to be, free.
When I am revealed to Dalox and the others, I see something cross his features, and I’m not sure what it is.
“I think you’ll give me whatever I want,” Dyana finishes triumphantly.
The rest of the warlords are looking at Dalox, all save for Darax who hasn’t taken his eyes from Deus.
“And what do you want?” Dyris says, stepping towards us. “A life without males? We had it, but you weren’t content with it.” Dyoti joins her.
Dyana presses the disruptor to my head, the metal digging into my skin.
“I want freedom, like you do,” she says, but for the first time, she sounds uncertain. “I want sarkarnlings without all the ritual.”
“The ritual is what makes us Sarkarnii,” Dyoti says. “It is what makes us strong. Males have a purpose, as we do. Together we are invincible.”
Dyana snorts, smoke and embers coming from her nose.
“If you believe that, you are as weak minded as a male in rut,” she says savagely. “As idiotic as those who brought us here without a thought for what it might do.”
“Punishing the males won’t bring your daughter back,” Dyris says. “And how were the males to know there would be a sickness here?”
“They should have known.” Dyana throws her shoulders back, her voice stronger than ever.
“We could not have known,” Dalox says. “We were drawn here, pulled through the wormhole by an old enemy, the Ulep, one we thought long vanquished. They laid a trap for us.”
“Enemies!” Dyana huffs. “Only males have enemies.”
“And yet you were prepared to bask in our spoils of war,” Deus growls. “War means enemies, as well as jewels. You cannot have one without the other.”
“Don’t tell me what I can have, or not.” She turns on him, spitting out the words. “You’re pathetic, all of you, pining away after your females. I offered an alternative,” she says. “A world without the rut, without all the complications. And you did not want to take it.”
“Perhaps because the complications make the universe,” I say, my voice hoarse from where she presses against my windpipe. “Because without the complications, without the love, what else would there be but an act of no consequence.”
I stare steadily at Dalox as her hand tightens.
“Perhaps because love is worth the complications,” I add.
Then I fling out my arm, slamming it into hers which holds the disruptor. She isn’t expecting the move, and it’s enough to dislodge the ray gun in a rising arc.
It’s snatched out of the air by a clawed hand, my head snapping to see who has it. But before I can, I’m flung across the room, my throat crushed and burning, smoke filling my nostrils, taking what air I have left, and a searing pain crosses my abdomen.
There are voices, raised, violent. There is fighting, but I cannot get up to join in.
And there is a voice in my ear.
“Stay with me, little spark. Stay with me.”