33. Lorken
Lorken
Ididn't know where to look first. My warbird was a maze even for those who spent their lives within its steel bones, and Athena had not been on board long enough to know its convoluted layout. She could be anywhere, including at the bottom of the warbird’s gaping chasm if she’d lost her footing or slipped off a floating staircase.
Regret sat heavy in my chest as I ran, growing colder with every level I descended.
I had left her crumpled on the floor of my own quarters without a single word of comfort.
I had let my fury at my brother and at myself override every instinct that told me to hold her instead of storming away.
Whatever danger she was in now, I had put her there.
I had made her feel so unworthy of comfort or understanding that she'd fled rather be there when I returned.
If something happened to her before I found her, I would never forgive myself.
I nearly collided with a cluster of raiders coming up from the direction of the munitions bay, soot still smudged across their bare chests, and I caught the nearest one by the arm before he could click his heels in salute.
"The human female," I said. "Dark hair. Have you seen her?"
The raiders exchanged a look I did not like, a flicker of hesitation that made my stomach trip before any of them spoke.
"We saw her, Raas," the nearest one said, motioning to a level beneath us. "On the bridge just below. She was with the battle chief."
My breath hitched as fear iced my skin. If Zarn had her, I knew exactly where he would take her.
Rage rose up through me so fast and so complete that I barely registered rushing forward, taking the nearest staircase two steps at a time and then three, my lungs burning, and my vision narrowing to a single point far above me where the command deck waited.
As I tore across suspended bridges and leapt from platform to platform, my mind conjured what I might find when I arrived at the oblek.
Each image worse than the last, until I could think of nothing but reaching her.
I burst through the doors of the command deck at a sprint as I sucked in breath, and the raiders at their console spun and clicked their heels in startled unison.
I did not slow or even acknowledge them.
My gaze cut past the wide viewscreen of stars and locked instead on the smaller door set into the left wall of the deck.
It was the door to the oblek, the place where he broke enemies and gathered confessions.
A muffled sound reached me, and even through the steel wall, I knew it was hers. Something in me went cold and still.
Crossing the deck in only a few long strides, I slammed my palm against the panel beside the door. Nothing. He’d locked it. Tvekking bastard. I punched in the override code that only I possessed, and the door shuddered and slid open.
Zarn had her pinned against the far wall, one hand wrapped around each of her wrists, as he held them above her head.
Her face was turned toward the door and toward me.
In the space of a single heartbeat, I watched her expression shift from raw terror to relief, the taut lines of her body sagging in response.
Red flooded my vision, and a primitive roar bellowed from my chest. Zarn's head snapped toward me, his satisfied expression collapsing first into confusion, and into something close to regret. His grip on her wrists loosened, but it was too late for that.
I was already moving. I leapt across the room and slammed into him with the full weight of my body, driving him back from the wall and away from her. I landed on top of him, fury pulsing from me as I cocked one arm.
I was going to make sure my brother knew exactly what it meant to lay a finger on a female under my protection.