The moment the lizard-like beings saw her, though, they’d gone crazy, chattering in a language she didn’t understand. Within seconds, they’d surrounded her, and one of them shot her with a stun gun. She’d woken in this storeroom closet, tied on the filthy floor.
Veck. She should have stayed with Rok. He wouldn’t really have turned her in. He didn’t have it in him to send her to her death. Not with the way he cared for her. She should have had the courage to ask him what his intentions were, or if they’d changed.
Instead, she’d walked into this. Whatever it was.
She was probably speeding on her way to the Ocretion authorities right now. Or perhaps to be sold as a slave to yet another master. Of course, she might die before they even arrived because she needed medical care for her ankle wound.
She thought of Rok and wondered what he would think. Would he know where she’d gone? He’d probably believe she ran away. He probably wouldn’t try to look for her.
Even so, she clung to the tiniest sliver of hope—something she shouldn’t allow herself. Rok might come for her. Somehow, he might deduce which ship she’d left on and he might follow.
Please, sweet Mother Earth, please.
Things felt incomplete. She wasn’t supposed to die this way—to leave Rok in the way she had. She needed to see him again. All her life, she’d been searching for meaning. She’d thought it was about escaping, about setting up a free human colony. Now, she thought it might be much simpler than that. Maybe the meaning in life was just love. Connecting with another being. Sharing oneself. Trusting.
She coughed against the dust filling her nostrils and lungs.
Love. She’d almost had it.
~.~
Rok managed to catch the ship with Lily on it. He attempted communication with it, but either it didn’t have the same channels or they deliberately chose to ignore his messages. Though he wanted nothing more than to shoot their vecking ship out of space, but that wouldn’t help him get Lily back. He chose to follow at a distance, locking all tracking on their ship.
The moment it landed, he’d vecking storm the craft and incinerate every last one of them until he found Lily.
Mierna stared out into the space in front of them, her lips pinched. “You failed her,” she declared.
His fingers curled into fists, horns stiffened with anger, even though he’d been thinking the same thing. “What in the veck do you mean?”
“You let her believe she might come to harm. She was looking for other options when they took her.”
Ice flooded his veins. He clenched his teeth, his vision spinning. “No.”
“No? Did she not think you would turn her over to her masters?”
“Yes,” he snarled. “But I—”
“She is ill, also. Poisoned. She may not last another planet rotation.”
“She will last,” he gritted. She had to. He wasn’t going to lose another female he loved. Especially not this one. Lily was his mate.
He knew that now. His body had known it the moment he’d first seen her, it just had taken his mind a while to catch up. He’d never felt this way for any being before—so in need of her that taking his next breath without knowing she’d make it seemed an impossibility.
Yet he did breathe. One inhale, one exhale. Again and again as they zoomed through space.
They landed at an air station in the far outskirts of Ocretion territory. Rok docked beside them and went tearing out of the ship, weapon in hand, only to find an enormous troop of Ocretion soldiers crowded around Lily’s ship.
“Lily,” he shouted when he caught sight of the soldiers leading her out, wrists bound behind her back, head hanging forward. Her hair looked limp and dirty.
She looked up at his cry, and what he saw terrified him. Her face was pale and sweaty, dark hollows lay her under eyes, and her lips were cracked and bleeding.
Janu and Jaso yanked him backward, into their ship, when the soldiers turned and pointed toward him.
“Shut the veck up,” Janu hissed. “Do you want them to come and arrest you, too? How will you help her then?”
He fought them, not because he believed they were wrong, but because it felt good to fight. He needed to rip someone to shreds. Gaurdo and Depri joined the tussle, and he continued to fight until the four of them had him pinned to the ground, panting and cursing them like a crazed animal.
“Think. Think,” Depri shouted at him. “Think your way out of this. How can you help her? Who can help?”