She paced back and forth before the windows as she trained her translator, her gaze flicking restlessly over the smoldering trees in the forest beyond. Her agitation was obvious, and she’d tried twice already to convince him in broken conversation to take her out of the secure facility. He’d pretended not to understand, unwilling to face her disappointment when he outright refused.
For years before he’d been stranded planetside, he’d been singularly feared by the males around him. Aboard theGidalan, his mere name had been a threat. Yet when it came to this human female… his spine was shockingly weak. He had not taken an order off any but Thalen and Haerune since parting with his former master, but he thought he would pull the moon down from the sky if she demanded it.
The other females were gathered on the couch, talking to their translators between bites of food. He’d brought them a second round of rations after seeing how ravenously they ate thefirst portion. They were all outfitted in the same standard issue performance wear that the hybrids wore, two of the newcomers as swamped as Cordelia had been in the fabric. The third, the human missing her lower leg, fit comfortably into the smallest size. She was a towering female with a personality to match. She’d taken off her prosthetic and propped it against the low table, crossing her legs under her while she ate.
His attention drifted back to Cordelia, to the tension in her shoulders that he longed to ease. He would venture out and personally retrieve every human if it would bring her?—
“Rentir,” Haerune repeated in exasperation.
“What?” he growled.
“Did you hear anything we said?”
Rentir rubbed the back of his neck, his tail lashing. “…No.”
Haerune cursed, scrubbing a hand over his face as his tentacles scrunched up unhappily over his shoulder. “Why isyourbrain not addled?” he asked Lidan. “You were around three of them, and your faculties seem intact.”
Lidan shrugged his upper shoulders. “I’m not a fool?”
Rentir narrowed a glare on him, his scyra sharpening to a cutting edge. Lidan eyed it, taking a step out of reach. The pilot was tiresome—those who transmuted their fear to anger always were. He could see it in the male’s eyes, flickering beneath the loathing, and in the way his chest rose and fell too shallow, too quickly. Rentir was weary of it. If he could unzip his skin and don another to escape the lingering curse of that sour fear that followed him, he would not hesitate.
“Enough,” Haerune said, scolding. “I was trying to tell you that we’ve received word from Fendar. Communications are to be kept to a minimum, as he has reason to believe they’ve decrypted our secure channels. The last word we had from Thalen was that he and Elten were on the ground.”
“Do we know how many more humans are out there?” Rentir asked, his attention drifting back to Cordelia and her restless grief.
“There were nine pod signatures when your Cordelia dropped her load.” Lidan crossed all four arms over his broad chest. “We’re not sure if they all survived.”
My Cordelia.His chest tightened even as pleasure rippled through him at the acknowledgment. His ire toward the male thawed a bit.
“We have four here,” Haerune mused, oblivious to Rentir’s inner turmoil. “That leaves six unaccounted for.”
“Who was in the other hovercraft when theGidalanfired on them?” Rentir asked.
Lidan scrubbed his jaw. “Ah… Xeth.”
Rentir made a sound of outrage. “Thalen sentXethout after the females?”
“He’s an extremely resourceful male,” Lidan said, defensive over his batch brother. “I’ll remind you that none of us would be standing here at liberty to speak freely to one another if not for his sacrifice.”
“He’s a feral creature.” Rentir fired back, slicing a hand through the air. “He should not be permitted within thirty feet of the females. We cannot anticipate how he will react!”
“And what of how you might react, Rentir? Xeth is not the only hybrid with a reputation for violence.”
Rentir reeled back as the blow landed right at the heart of him. His shoulders sagged, his tail falling limp behind him. He worked his jaw, looking away from Lidan, unable to meet his eye.
“You’re the one who has become unpredictable,” Lidan pressed. “You had your scyra at my throat not long ago, ready to cut me open for a female you’ve known for less than a day.At least the last time you cut your own kin down, it was out of a loyalty not so easily bought.”
“Enough!” Haerune snapped. “This is fruitless. Slinging aspersions does nothing to help our cause, nor the females. We must formulate a plan.”
Lidan blew out a terse sigh.
“Haerune is right,” he admitted begrudgingly. “We haven’t been able to hail Thalen on the comms, and Xeth is down. We need to regroup, and quickly. Thalen wanted the females safe and recovering before he brought Yelir in on the update, and it’s going to be difficult to keep him from asking questions with theGidalanfiring on us.”
Rentir began to pace at the mention of the miners’ leader. They lived below the facility in their original quarters, numbering in the hundreds. They held no trust nor any love for the hybrids who had worked aboveground in service to the overseers, except for Thalen and Xeth.
Thalen was a twin to Ven, Yelir’s second. They were identical, an egg that had split during incubation. True blood siblings, an extreme rarity among the hybrids. Thalen had been assigned to security, and Ven to the mines when they came of age.
Xeth… Xeth had been deeply bonded to a male from the mines. He had a place among them still, if he sought to claim it.
