Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Murgen just left the examination room through a back door,” Arcanthus said over the comms. “I suppose he finally realized the severity of the situation.”
Drakkal growled a curse but didn’t allow himself to slow.
He was walking at a brisk pace with Shay beside him, his right arm around her back and hooked beneath her armpit.
She’d leaned on him less and less as they’d continued deeper into the zoo—undoubtedly the result of the booster Urgand had injected her with.
She’d crash and feel like shit again once it wore off, but all that mattered now was that she could keep moving.
“What about Leah?” he asked.
“She’s still in there,” Arc replied. “The techs are arguing…annnnnd never mind, they just ran into a supply room to hide. Left her on the exam table.”
“What’s happening?” Shay asked, tightening her arm around Drakkal’s middle.
“Is she all right, Arc?” Drakkal demanded.
“As far as I can tell. She looks like she’s still out.”
“Murgen ran off,” Drakkal said, squeezing the grip of his auto-blaster with his left hand and glancing down at Shay. “They left Leah behind, but we think she’s okay.”
Shay nodded.
Sekk’thi and Thargen, who had taken the lead in their new formation, turned the next corner. Drakkal followed with Shay just behind him, and Urgand took the rear. The wide door to the examination room stood twenty meters ahead. The door that led to Leah.
“Have any guards remained behind?” Sekk’thi asked.
“No. The two that were in there are escorting Murgen away,” Arcanthus replied.
When they arrived at the door, all five of them fell into position.
Shay didn’t resist when Drakkal angled himself to shield her body with his, though she did lean slightly to the side, aiming her blaster around him.
The door opened on a sterile, silent room filled with sleek medical equipment and several examination tables and adjustable chairs.
Thargen and Sekk’thi moved into the room with auto-blasters raised, checking corners as they went. Drakkal and Shay advanced in their wake, and his eyes were drawn immediately to one of those tables, atop which Leah lay beneath stark white light.
“Clear,” both Sekk’thi and Thargen declared. The door closed after Urgand entered the room.
Drakkal and Shay hurried to their cub, finally splitting apart to move to opposite sides of the table. Leah lay naked and unmoving but for the rise and fall of her little chest, head turned to one side and eyes closed. Her skin was too pale.
“Is Leah okay?” Samantha asked over the commlink, her voice filled with fear.
Shay picked Leah up and cradled her in her arms, holding her close. Her strained, worried expression eased, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them to meet Drakkal’s gaze, they were filled with tears. “We got her back.”
“We think so, Sam,” Drakkal said softly.
His chest tightened with raw, powerful emotion—elation, relief, sorrow.
They should never have had to deal with everything they’d been forced to endure.
No one should ever have had to deal with it.
If he could’ve somehow spared his family from all this suffering, if he could have somehow found Shay and claimed her without triggering this chain of events…
He leaned across the table, bracing himself on an elbow, and placed a hand on the back of Shay’s neck. Dipping his head, he placed a soft kiss on Leah’s forehead. He lifted his face a moment later to kiss Shay on the lips.
She returned the kiss, but a soft sob escaped her as she drew away, pressing her lips against Leah’s head. Her tears fell freely, cutting trails through the blood smeared on her cheek.
In the months he’d known her, Drakkal had only seen Shay show such emotion, such vulnerability, a handful of times—few enough to count on one hand, and he had a finger fewer on each hand than her.
It broke his heart a little, but it also bolstered his love for her.
He understood now what he’d been too na?ve to comprehend in his youth—showing these emotions was not a sign of weakness.
In many ways, in many cases, it was amongst the most admirable signs of strength.
“Don’t want to interrupt,” said Arcanthus over the commlink, “but I think Murgen is heading for a safe room deeper in the facility.”
“You saying he’s trying to hide instead of run away?” Thargen asked.
“A lot of people with his kind of wealth do the same,” Urgand said. “Used to see it all the time when I ran in private security. They have these rooms in their manors that are like little self-sufficient fortresses. They can just wait in luxury for help to come.”
Drakkal clenched his jaw, dropped his arm from Shay, and stepped back.
There was still another emotion roiling inside him with the others, stronger and deeper than all save his love for Shay and Leah.
Rage. It was driven in part by instinct, which had not yet been satisfied—which wouldn’t be satisfied until the threats to his family were eliminated for good.
“Cren, how are you three doing up there?” Drakkal asked.
“Moving up to the last group now,” Kiloq replied over the comms.
“These guys fight like amateurs,” Koroq added.
“All right.” Drakkal turned to look at his companions. “Urgand, can you check Leah and make sure everything looks good as best you can tell?”
Urgand nodded and walked to stand beside Shay.
Drakkal turned to face his other companions. “Sekk’thi, you’re on watch. Cover the door. Thargen…go take care of the staff hiding in the supply closet.”
Thargen sighed and let his shoulders slump. “Are they even armed?”
“No,” Arcanthus said.
Releasing an even heavier sigh, Thargen stomped toward the supply room door on the left side of the room. “Fine. But only because we had some real fighting earlier.”
“They might not fight back,” Shay said, “but they’re the ones that were poking and prodding me and Leah. The ones that Murgen wanted to experiment on us.”
Thargen’s expression fell subtly, conveying an oddly cold fury that was a rare sight from him. “Oh, I hope they fight back.” He swung his auto-blaster on its shoulder strap, stowing it behind his back.
“Arcanthus, I want you to guide me to Murgen,” Drakkal said as Thargen entered the supply room.
Arc chuckled. “And here I thought you were about to give me a challenging task.”
“You want a challenge? Try to go five minutes without sounding like an arrogant prick.”
“A fair challenge, azhera. That’s asking the impossible.”
Smirking, Drakkal turned back to Shay and reached across the exam table. His smirk faded as he placed his palm over her cheek and gently brushed the pad of his thumb under her sealed cut. “I’m going to finish this. Be right back.”
Her blue eyes blazed as she pressed her face into his palm. “Make him hurt.”
The weight behind Shay’s words was not lost on Drakkal. This was not a demand for cruelty—it was a demand for vengeance, for closure, for justice. A demand to right the scales, which had been wildly misbalanced for too long.
But the heart of this matter was simple—Murgen Foltham had caused Drakkal’s mate and cub suffering, distress, and pain.
The degree of that suffering mattered only in relation to how much pain Drakkal would now inflict upon Murgen.
There were no more deals to be made, no more second chances to be claimed.
There was no more forgiveness to be offered.
Drakkal closed his eyes just long enough to take a deep breath, filling his lungs with air perfumed by his family’s scent, which surpassed all the other smells in this room based on its familiarity alone. He didn’t want to leave it behind—didn’t want to leave them behind—but he had to finish this.
Opening his eyes, he offered Shay a solemn nod, lowered his hand, and swung his auto-blaster back into his hands. He turned and walked toward the back door. “Arcanthus, show me the way to this fucking zhe’gaash.”
“You want me to close off the corridors and trap him somewhere closer?” Arc asked.
“No,” Drakkal replied without hesitation.
“Let him get far away from Shay and Leah. Let him get to his safe room. I want him to believe he’s safe, want him to believe he’s secure, so I can show him that all his fucking money doesn’t mean anything.
I want to see it on his face the moment he realizes it’s over. ”
“Remind me not to piss you off in the future.”
At Arcanthus’s direction, Drakkal plunged into a network of long, dimly lit corridors that were wholly at odds with the rest of Murgen Foltham’s zoo.
These corridors were drab, gray, and narrow—barely wide enough to fit the hovercarts used elsewhere in the facility.
Exposed pipes, ducts, and conduits ran along the ceiling in a haphazard bundle that altered as components branched off and turned inward to join the flow.
It briefly brought his mind back to his days on Caldorius.
How many such passageways had he walked in the bowels of those arenas?
How many times had he been made to sleep in chambers that had the same sort of grungy, mechanical inner-workings on full display, knowing all the while that the owners and the ravening audiences enjoyed comfort and relative luxury during every moment of their lives?
Murgen Foltham and his colleagues, his guests, were too good to endure the sight of these places under normal circumstances.
These were the territory of slaves and servants, of the subordinates. The territory of the less fortunate.
Drakkal didn’t care if it was petty, but the thought of Murgen scurrying through these corridors like a terrified sewer skrudge was immensely satisfying. Foltham deserved to spend his last moments brought low, deserved the fear Drakkal hoped he was feeling right now.