Chapter 27 #2
Turning where Arcanthus indicated, Drakkal entered another corridor and increased his pace.
His breath came quick and heavy, his muscles burned, and ever-intensifying heat radiated outward from his chest to suffuse his limbs.
Despite his weariness and soreness, he felt alive, his senses amplified and on high-alert.
He could detect Murgen’s scent on the air, strengthening with each step forward.
This was the realization of his instincts, the fulfillment of his current purpose—as a hunter, a mate, a protector.
“Next right,” Arcanthus said. “They’re thirty meters ahead, just about to reach the safe room entrance.”
Voices drifted to Drakkal from around the corner, barely above whispers and difficult to decipher—but he recognized one of them. The deepest, most frantic of the voices belonged to Murgen. A loud rumbling echoed down the hall, as though a heavy door were opening.
Drakkal slowed, raised his auto-blaster, and turned the corner, squeezing the trigger even before he’d had time to visually register his targets. A torrent of plasma sped along the corridor. The sound of the firing auto-blaster was the only warning Foltham’s guards received.
Both bodyguards spun to face Drakkal. The closer of the two fell almost immediately, hit by at least five bolts within half a second. Drakkal advanced toward them at a brisk stride, keeping the trigger depressed.
Wide-eyed, Murgen pressed himself against the opening door. The remaining guard was raising his blaster. Before he could return fire, a trio of plasma bolts hit him in the arm, chest, and eye.
Murgen ducked and fell through the doorway, vanishing from Drakkal’s view. The door slammed down with a thunderous finality.
Glowing rings and lines stood out all over the floor, walls, and overhead ductwork, slowly fading as they cooled.
Drakkal strode forward and fired a few more shots into each guard as he neared them.
He stopped in front of the large blast door through which Murgen had fled.
Extending his left arm, he banged his metal fist on the door.
The sound carried along the corridor in a deep, booming echo; no sound dampeners here, not for the staff.
The keypad on the doorframe flashed.
“You’re not getting through this door, azhera,” Murgen said through the intercom. “It’s made of the strongest tristeel in Arthos, and can withstand a direct hit from an orbital strike!”
“Seems excessive,” Drakkal growled.
“What’s excessive is what I’ll have my security personnel do to you once their special task force arrives. You don’t have the intelligence to fully comprehend the consequences of what you’ve done, you slavering beast. I suggest you flee while you can.”
Drakkal’s rage continued to burn hot around an icy, unshakeable core—that calm and patience he normally had such mastery over. Murgen’s words didn’t fan those flames; they couldn’t anymore. Ultimately, they were the same as their speaker—loud, arrogant, and empty.
“You’ve no idea who you’ve crossed, azhera,” Murgen continued. “Do you have the slightest notion of how many credits I’m willing to pay toward your prolonged suffering? Do you understand who I am?”
As Murgen continued talking, Drakkal asked in a low voice, “How long you going to make me wait, Arc?”
“What? Who are you talking to?” Murgen demanded.
“Part of me wanted to see how long he’d go on like that,” Arcanthus said over the commlink. “And I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond.”
“Kraasz ka’val, he’ll have my response the moment the door’s open.”
Murgen barked laughter. “This door won’t open until your body’s cold and dead, azhera.”
Though the sound was so faint that Drakkal couldn’t be sure if it had occurred, he thought he heard Arcanthus laugh—and Samantha scold him for taking so long.
The keypad on the doorframe flashed a series of glitchy, scrambled characters, and the heavy blast door rumbled. A moment later, the door began rising.
Murgen made a shocked, unintelligible exclamation; Drakkal heard the garbled words both through the intercom and the widening space beneath the door.
As soon as the door was high enough, Drakkal met Murgen’s gaze.
The large durgan was standing in a lavish antechamber that was decorated in a fashion befitting of the manor high above.
The walls were maroon with gold accents over dark paneling, the floor a gleaming polished stone, black with deep scarlet veins.
Murgen’s eyes were so wide they looked on the verge of popping out of his skull. “H-how did you…h-how—”
Drakkal unslung his auto-blaster’s shoulder strap, detached the energy cell, and tossed both the weapon and the cell aside. He took a step forward.
Murgen’s throat flesh swelled with an alarmed, grating screech.
He shambled backward and tripped over his own feet, waving his big arms in desperation to reclaim his balance; both the screech and his attempted recovery were at odds with his immense size.
“I’ll give you anything. Anything! N-name your p-price, azhera! ”
Balling his right hand into a fist, Drakkal surged forward and swung his arm. His knuckles struck Murgen’s cheek. The durgan’s fleshy jowls shook with the impact, and his head snapped to the side, rerouting his stumbling retreat into the same direction.
“Please, p-please,” Murgen stammered, raising an arm to shield his face. “You can have anything you w-want.”
Drakkal’s next strike caught Murgen in the gut, knocking him back several steps before he finally fell hard on his ass.
Drakkal pursued him at a steady, relentless pace, responding to Murgen’s pleas only with fists—and, soon enough, claws.
Murgen’s begging grew more frantic and babbling with each passing moment.
Drakkal only increased the strength behind his attacks as Murgen’s desperation grew.
If Murgen were saying words, the azhera no longer heard. That old, red haze had settled over his vision, welcome and familiar, and the only sound he paid attention to was that of his own steadily beating heart.
Each time Murgen struggled to his feet, Drakkal knocked him down again.
The scents of blood and sour sweat dominated the air.
Soon, Murgen was screaming between his labored breaths, and the sounds pushed Drakkal harder, faster.
He no longer saw only Murgen Foltham—this was also Vanya and the slavers who’d captured Drakkal long ago, this was all the cruel slave owners and arena masters he’d met on Caldorius, this was Vaund and the whole Syndicate.
This was everyone who’d ever wronged Drakkal, Shay, Leah, and his family, everyone who would ever wrong them.
When Murgen fell again, Drakkal didn’t give him a chance to get back up. Releasing a powerful, reverberating roar, Drakkal pinned Murgen on the floor and unleashed the fullness of his rage.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he finally stilled his arms. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since Murgen’s screams had forever fallen silent.
Drakkal’s chest and shoulders heaved with ragged breaths, and the exposed fur on his arms and face was drenched in warm, fresh blood.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel now.
There was that deep-running heat, of course, but it was already dispersing—if only slowly.
He pushed himself to his feet. His many aches and pains chose that moment to make themselves known anew, but Drakkal felt…
lighter. This situation was not yet concluded—there was cleaning up to do to ensure none of this came back on his people or on the prisoners locked in the zoo—but the final threat to his mate had been eliminated.
He turned toward the door and exited the room without offering Murgen a backward glance. Drakkal planned to only look forward—toward Shay and Leah.
It was time to bring his family back home.