She closed her eyes again and tried to breathe.
There was a deep pain within her—digging into her skull, sitting on her chest. She wanted to cry but didn’t think she had the energy for it.
Just breathe. It became a mantra as she focused on manually inhaling and exhaling. At first, every breath was a battle. But then the tightness in her chest loosened incrementally, and her other senses came to the forefront.
There was an undercurrent of sound like standing in a tunnel while harsh winds blew through. She was cold and lying on something hard. When she tried to stretch her legs out from her curled position, no matter what direction she moved them in, there was a wall.
When she dared to open her eyes again, what she thought had been blazing beams were nothing but a handful of small indicators. They were the only source of light in the entire space.
The very small space.
She was trapped.
Fighting against nausea and the spinning in her head, she sat up. She’d only overindulged in wine once and experienced the aftermath of doing so, and this was ten times worse than that. When the room righted itself, she took note of everything. It was shaped hexagonally with what she could only describe as a fancy-looking chamber pot on one side.
They had locked her in a lavatory?
The idea was so ludicrous that she barked a hysteria-filled laugh. The effort of which sent her into a coughing fit.
When she was free of the attack, she wiped away the tears pooling in her eyes. She needed to get ahold of herself. Straightening her spine, she took a more logical look at her situation.
She’d been captured by Ved’s enemies.
She was no longer on Earth.
At least, the steady thrum of the ship and the feeling of movement led her to believe that was the case. Which meant, even if she could get out of the lavatory, it wasn’t as though she could escape from the ship. Ved had explained that there was no breathable air among the stars—the blackness was avoid.
“Then what?” she murmured to herself.
Waiting for her captors, whoever they were, to decide her fate was hardly ideal, but she had no real choice.
She pulled her legs to her chest and buried her face in her arms. What time was it? How long had she been away? Had they hurt Clara and Henry? Bile rose in her throat at the thought, but even if they were unharmed, they’d be so worried about her. She had to believe they were alive, and undoubtedly searching for her at that very moment. The alternative was unthinkable.
Would they think she ran away? Did they know she’d been torn from her bed and abducted?
She chewed on her bottom lip worriedly.
Minutes or hours later, the locked door of her makeshift cell slid open with a hiss. Isobel backed up as far as she could from the hulking Xaal that stood in its entry.
He said something in Xaala over his shoulder before looking back at her with an assessing glow. “Do you know what we call creatures like you on Dremas?”
When she didn’t respond, he repeated it, slower, with the words less chewed on. It still took her a solid minute to understand that he was speaking her language.
“What?” she asked quietly.
He laughed—an ugly sounding thing. “Chegar.Filth.”
Lovely.
He could probably see her indecision on her face—her desire to insult him was visceral, but she also realized she was at his mercy.
Being a proper woman didn’t matter here. The insult won out. “Yes, well, at least I’m notdishonorable,” she spat. If she’d learned anything about Xaal, it was that they held honor above all else. And whatever this was, it wasn’t honorable in the least.
He moved so fast, she didn’t have time to defend herself against him. He wrapped his hand around her throat and pulled her upright, bringing her face to face with him.
“Only a weak Xaal would feel anything for something so frail and insignificant,” he snarled. “But he’ll come, chasing the scent of you like a mutt. And then you’ll both be put down. Perhaps the qon will let me deal with you. I’ll slice your flesh from your bones and feed it to the Kroids while you’re still alive.”
His pronunciation was so much rougher than Ved’s, but when she detangled what he said, something shattered inside of her. The threat, the promise of torture and death, made her stomach roil. But it wasn’t what bothered her the most right then.
