Claimed by the Zandian (Zandian Brides 6)

“Benn, what is it? What’s happening? Is that a fire?” The panic in her voice shakes me out of my self-imposed prison of stupidity.

I have a female I, too, should be calling. What in the veck i

s wrong with me? I drag Benn to the escape pod and shove him in it.

“We’re going down, Danica. Marea—Papa loves you. Remember that always, sweet thing.” His voice chokes when he speaks to his tiny young.

I try to activate my comms to call Zina, only to realize she doesn’t wear one. What kind of master was I to her that I didn’t even outfit her with such a device?

I hit the button on the escape pod and it shoots out into the atmosphere, but we’re too close to the ground to float. We plunge down, down, down to Ocretia, pulled by the heavy gravity of the devastated planet.

Benn faces me gives me the traditional Zandian salute. “For Zandia.”

This is it. A swifter end than I ever imagined.

“For Zandia,” I mutter.

Zina

No. It can’t be true.

I start running the moment Abbi tells me, racing beside her to the palace, where I’ve been summoned for a briefing.

Tarek’s ship went down. He’s been captured or is dead.

How could this happen? My strong, brave warrior captured by the horrible Ocretions. The father of my unborn child.

This can’t be.

I may have thought I moved on and had resolved to raise this young without him. To give myself to another male or males, but now I know it’s impossible.

I was made for Tarek. And he’s mine.

I know it’s true.

He has to come back from this. He can’t be killed or captured.

We arrive at the palace and I’m ushered into a conference room. Another human sits there, holding a plump halfling babe. A huge Zandian warrior sits beside her, his arm protectively draped around her, his face pinched with worry.

Master Seke enters. “I wanted to brief you all personally, as you are the family of the captured warriors."

I burst into tears. It’s all too much. I’m grateful to be recognized as family, but losing Tarek, first to his anger with me, now to the enemy, leaves me gutted.

To my surprise, the door opens and Enya slips in and slides into the seat beside me. When she takes my hand and squeezes it, my strength returns.

"I got Benn's holo communication just before they went down," the other human says.

"I'd like to see that," Master Seke says.

She presses a button on her wrist cuff and a hologram springs up in the center of the table. I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand as I watch the horror unfold. The ship is in flames. The image of the warrior is shadowy in the darkness of lost power. Tarek moves behind him, his giant hulking presence as sure in the dark as he is in the light. Tarek helps Benn with his helmet and pulling him into some sort of escape pod as Benn gives a choked goodbye to his mate and young.

The other human and I both choke back sobs when it’s over. She shoots me a grateful look and squeezes my hand. “I’m Danica and this is my mate Gorde and our young, Marea.”

“Zina,” I say. “And this is Enya.”

“Okay,” Master Seke folds his arms across his chest. “We know they made it out of the ship and onto the escape pod alive. After that, we lost the ability to track them. I have five ships heading to the edge of Ocretion airspace, ready to make a rescue if we can ascertain their location and situation. We are not assuming them dead.”

“Permission to join the rescue team,” Gorde asks.