Kept by the Zandian (Zandian Brides 5)

There is a small pop and then a bright light and a searing pain in my hands. Then everything goes black.

But just a moment before I pass out, I think I hear my Zandian’s voice.

Drayk

My female. My little human.

She nearly died. I can’t get the image of Taisha’s crumpled form on the ground, the odious Ocretion battering her. Even as the ship speeds safely away, my body is in warrior-mode. I’m sick to my stomach. Ready to battle.

I would’ve liked to tear that Ocretion’s limbs off, but I couldn’t.

“Jump to hyper complete,” Tarak reports.

“Acknowledged.” I step back and turn. “Update on Taisha. How is she?” My voice is taut.

“Stable but still unconscious.” My med tech stands in front of me at the comm center, where Tarak and I just completed our stealth exit from the airspace of the planet.

“But she’s alive?” I step forward. “Speak faster.”

He puts up a hand. “Yes, Captain. She’s alive. Burns on her hands and forearms, and a broken wrist. We have her in the healing pack and have splinted the arm. She is improving as we speak, but will still need medical care when we arrive on Zandia.”

“Veck.”

“But we got the data!” My navigator’s voice is jubilant. “And she destroyed the evidence, and we left airspace without being noticed.”

“Except for the Ocretion we left dead back on the planet.”

“What will happen when he is noticed as missing?”

I run a hand over my face. “Since we used the toxin from our human on him, hopefully his peers will assume it’s a heart attack. Why he was in the woods, the excuse for that? They will wonder. We left no evidence of our presence.”

“In the end, a clean mission. As good as we could have hoped. Only one casualty, with a valid excuse, and nothing points to us. Nothing at all.”

“Except Taisha was on the planet,” I point out. “And she was seen by beings. If anyone reports her as being out of place, they might start to suspect something.”

“It’s a chance we had to take. It was a lower risk than us going personally. And at least now we have the information Dr. Daneth needs. He can get the children back.”

I nod. “It’s not an unmitigated success, but I’m cautiously optimistic.”

“She was brave.” Tarak looks toward the iso bay, where our human is still confined, albeit this time with more medical care.

“Yes.” I nod. “Indeed. It must have taken great courage to go there, knowing the risks.”

“I thought you were going to rip him apart, the Ocretion.”

“He deserved it,” I snarl, my fists clenching. I force them to relax. “But it was important not to leave any mark on him. By killing him with the syringe, it will leave the symptoms of a heart attack. Any damage on his body would be suspicious to the ones who find him.”

“Plus, you laid him out with his hands clutching his chest,” points out Tarak “That’s the classic way that Ocretions usually suffer from chest pain before they have an infarction.”

“Star willing, they will not find anything suspicious about his death.”

My mind is now on Taisha. “I will check our human.”

Our med tech on board, Kurtt, or the Zandian with the most medical knowledge to be exact, has treated and bandaged Taisha’s wounds. Seeing her hands and arms swathed in white gauze sends an unfamiliar feeling through me, forcing my chest to tighten and my blood to boil. I want to go back to that planet and incinerate all of the Ocretions.

Then I remember that she only put herself into this position because of me, and our mission, and I want to curse myself as well.

I sit beside her on the hoverdisk where she lies, her eyes shut. Long lashes brush her cheeks. She’s breathing evenly, and the pack affixed to her arm flashes one red, one green light.