Which means whoever’s responsible for my capture is focusing the bursts on me, keeping my systems scrambled, shielded, and useless. It means they know exactly what I am...a cyborg with advanced systems.
Deep, burning fury rises inside me. My pulse accelerates.I will kill whoever’s behind this.
But at least they didn’t find Tilly. That’s the only thing keeping my sanity from shattering and my temper in check because I need to escape so I can get back and keep her safe. I promised I would never leave her alone again, and I intend to keep it.
Beep. Beep. Beep-beep.
Someone enters a code on the other side of the door. With a slight squeak, it swings open on its hinges, spilling yellow light onto the cracked concrete floor.
The silhouette of a man blocks the bright light, then he strides inside, accompanied by a woman with an electrified spear. ABaltinspear.
“Imagine our surprise and delight”—he says, his face still in shadow as he pulls up the collar of his coat—“when a runner reported a pod activated yesterday. And it wasn’t one ofours.”
Now I know for certain who captured me. Not a human, but one of my own people. A renegade. One of the rebels who probably followed my mother.
There’d only been a handful left to round up and bring to justice, and Tilly said Granny had relayed she’d sent teams to take care of the problem after I’d died. Yet after everything that happened with my mother and Colonel Robertson, I’m guessing Grandma hasn’t located the last pockets of resistance.
Just my bad luck.
When I moved the broken sphere yesterday, I’d only been thinking of protecting Tilly from other humans, not my own people. I assumed if there were any stragglers, their most pressing concern would be to remain in hiding in the hopes of evading a trial on board theStaleth.
As the man saunters closer, his face comes into the light. A clean-shaven jawline and dark blue eyes tell me exactly who I’m dealing with: Silarrian Everton. The son of Duke Everton, one of the former council members whom I forcefully retired.
He deserved it. Out of all my council members, he’d always been the first to jump at the chance to kill off the remaining human population.Not that I carry a particular fondness for Earth’s lazy, irresponsible inhabitants, but I did promise Tilly I wouldn’t hurt her people any longer.
“I never figured you for a traitor, Silarrian.” I twist my body to follow him as he stops at one of the chairs and carefully removes his coat, folding it in half then laying it over the back.
“And I didn’t count on you beingalive.” His shirt, a common elegant Baltin style, is a lighter shade of red than his coat. Black buttons march across his chest at an angle. He rolls up his sleeves and gives me a tight smile. “If your mother were here, she’d be so ashamed.”
Blazing fury whirls in my mind.My mother is the entire reason for this colossal mess. She only understood power and didn’t care who she had to hurt to get it. Including me.
Was I sorry for deactivating Aurora, killing both of us in the process?Never. I did it to protect Tilly and my son.They will always be the only people who matter to me. When she put Tilly through that grueling extraction without my permission, she killed what little love I had left for my only living parent.
Silarrian’s gaze watches my face, as if waiting for my reaction.
I say nothing. I’ll not give in to his baiting. There are only two things he wants: my access to the Baltin fleet to establish himself as ruler, or to ingratiate himself into the Averon bloodline to get back into good grace with the majority of the Baltins.
Since I’m dangling from a chain with my feet barely touching the floor, I’m going to go with the former choice.
“Hmm.” Silarrian puts his hands behind his back and sidles closer. “You’re not nearly so impressive when you can’t access your power and network.” He lets out a low laugh. “It must be quite frustrating.” His smile reminds me of an ugly weasel. Oily and too wide. “The big, bad Jareth Averon—the pinnacle creation of his family—reduced to an animal in a cage, unable to even scratch his own ass.”
The first thing I’ll do when I get free is punch out his teeth.I clench my jaw and meet his stare, narrowing my own.
“My, my. How the mighty has fallen.” Silarrian, only a meter away from the bars, tilts his head and runs his eyes over my body. “Disgusting. You evendresslike them. Whatever possessed you to turn your back on your people, to banish your mother, then fake your death?”
I glare but don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.Let him think I faked my death. I don’t care.
Ignoring my silence, he shakes his head. “You let a human girl turn you into something less, something broken, something weak. Not the Jareth Averon I remember, the leader who not only carried out the Council’s extermination, but who sometimes actively participated in it, too.”
Shame floods my heart. He speaks truth. I’d been so eaten up with rage and grief after losing my daughter and first wife, there were times when I’d join a group of carriers and watch them spread the virus to human settlements.
But I’m not that man anymore.Even before I’d met Tilly, I realized what a monster looked like every time I stared in the mirror. When the damage had been done, I no longer knew what path to take, only that I needed to get away from my mother’s schemes, the Council’s ultimatums, and my people’s constant need for bloodshed against the Henokans and Humans.
Some accused me of running away, but I saw distance as the only solution to recovery. To sanity.
“So, you’re not in a talkative mood.” He shrugs, then turns on his heel and stops in front of the concrete cell across from mine. “That’s okay. I have a feeling you’ll do more than talk by the time I finish showing you my plan.”
The female guard stands next to the solid door, her gaze constantly scanning the area, weapon in hand.
