Well, not here-here, but she washere.Huge face, dark brown hair, haunted gray eyes. She was young and beautiful but her eyes were old. Maybe she was one of those ‘old souls’ the psychics and Tarot card readers on Earth liked to talk about. Put on a hokey television show about paranormal phenomenon, and I was all in.
“Adrian. Stefani. I hear you have had an eventful visit.”
Doctor Helion crossed his arms. “That, Warden, is quite the understatement. It’s a fucking disaster.” The Prillon studied me until I felt like an insect pinned to cardboard.
“Daughter.” Max didn’t raise his voice, but he definitely got my attention.
“I don’t understand what is going on. We have to save Kovo. He doesn’t have much time left.” I was telling them something I hoped they already knew and agreed with.
Max held out his arm and my mother stepped in as close as she could get. They clicked, like two puzzle pieces designed to be together.
Like me and my beast.
“We are all here, Adrian, because Warlord Max has asked us to intervene.” Warden Egara’s familiar voice—I’d been at the Interstellar Brides processing center once a week to use their comm ever since our mom left the planet—seeped into my mind, slowly filling in the gaps until I could process what she was saying.
“He did?” I blinked, numb. Confusion warring with hope. I didn’t want to be wrong, it would hurt too much.
“He did. And we have a plan.”
Holy shit. Max? I hadn’t even asked him to help me yet and he was already moving mountains for me.
Of course he was.
Tears burned on my lower eyelids but I ignored them to walk to my Atlan stepfather and give him a side hug. I could totally understand why my mother was so out of her head in love with him. “A plan for what?”
Doctor Helion scowled, his earlier neutral stare gone. “A plan to save your mate.”
“What kind of plan?” I was glad Stefani asked because I couldn’t seem to talk past the lump in my throat.
“An illegal one,” said Warden Egara. For the first time I could remember, despite all the visits to the brides’ processing center in Miami where she’d helped us talk to our mom, she laughed. “My favorite kind.”
“I assume, Catherine, that after this we are even?” Doctor Helion stepped forward to stand directly in front of the screen.
Warden Egara’s laughter faded as she looked directly at him and shook her head. “We will never be even.”
After that curious statement, the screen went blank.
“Fuck.” Doctor Helion turned to face my family and gave a slight bow to all of us. “I have people in place who will take care of this. Discreetly. Make sure you are prepared to receive the cargo when it is delivered.”
“What cargo?” I asked.
“Kovo, honey,” My mom whispered. “They are going to break him out of that place.”
7
Kovo
Ihad ten minutes left. I had to figure out how to get out of these bindings, knock out the guards they would send to take me to the execution chamber, and fight my way out of here.
Just when I needed my beast to be a raging lunatic, he curled up in the corner of my mind and looked at me like I was the problem here.
You were the one who insisted on claiming her.He was not going to pretend this was my fault.
Mine.
We don’t have a right to claim a mate.
Fuck Helion.
