“I don’t know for certain. She disappeared just over three months ago.”
“And you think you can rescue her?”
“Or die trying.”
That, ladies and gentlemen, was all I needed to hear. No woman—alien or not—was going to sit naked, in a cage, while some Nexus asshole tortured her bodyandher mind. Not while I was alive and could do something about it. “Put those on. We’re getting out of here.”
“Excuse me?” The weight disappeared from my arms even though he sounded suspicious. “Is this Helion’s newest trick?”
I scoffed. “No. Not a trick. When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know. Two days?”
I was going to literally kill Commander Zarren Helion if I ever saw him again.
The thought made me so furious I couldn’t contain the emotion.
Don’t you dare cry. I told you this fantasy land of yours wouldn’t last.
I know. Just, be quiet. This is hard enough.
Back at the S-Gen machine I ordered what I’d heard Kayn order—with seconds. Had to be good, didn’t it? Behind me, I sensed a change in Oberon’s movements. He had completed dressing and bent over to put on his boots. I brought the full plate of food and set it down next to him on the torture chamber’s sorry excuse for a bed. “Will this work?”
“Yes. Thank you.” He lifted the plate and began scooping large mouthfuls of food into his body as quickly as possible.
“You don’t need to rush. And you can have more, as much as you want.” I’d locked the door. No one was getting in here until I said so. Not even the commander of this ship.
“Who are you? Really? And why are you doing this?”
Reasonable questions. “My name is Willow Baylor. I’m from Earth. And a little over eighteen months ago, I was rescued from a Hive facility. I was a prisoner there for a couple years. Just like your sister.”
The utensil stopped halfway between his plate and his mouth as his striking yellow eyes focused on me, solely on me, with too much knowledge behind them. “My lady—”
“Shh. Doesn’t matter. I survived. She will, too.” I shook my head. “And don’t call me that, please. Call me Willow.” If I never heard myself referred to asLady Helion, orMy Lady,ever again, that was just fine with me. Ignoring unpleasant memories was one of my specialties.
Yeah? How’s that working out for you now, sweet-cheeks? Wasn’t Coalition forces that came for us either, was it? If it were up to them, we’d still be with that blue fucker.
Shut. Up.
But she wasn’t wrong. We’d been discovered accidentally during one of their missions. They hadn’t come specifically to rescue us; they’d been tracking down Nexus 5 through his connection to Danika and her mates. Finding the prisoners on the Hive ship had been pure chance. No one had even been looking for us. Why not? Probably because someone like Helion—no, probably because Helion himself—had refused to try anot-so-feasiblerescue mission.
I’d spoken to Danika about that day more than once. From what I could tell, the Coalition would do just about anything, if it meant a chance to capture a Nexus unit alive. Rumor was, they’d only managed to do it once. Hundreds of years of war, and they’d only caught one of those blue bastards? Piss poor track record, if you asked me.
“I appreciate the food and clothing, my—Willow, but we will not get off this ship. The I.C. operators here are all highly trained and deadly.”
My mind went to Kayn and Razmus. I’d met a few others, but they weren’t the ones standing on the other side of the door. What about the doctor? Yes. He was a piece of work, hopefully still wiping wine out of his burning eyes. The other two seemed perfectly reasonable. Maybe I could talk to them, make them see how wrong this was?
“Lady Helion! Open this door at once!” The doctor’s voice exploded through the comm system, flooding the room with hostility as a loud, angry pounding sounded through the door.
Or not.
“Oh, shit.” They’d been listening. Ugh! “I always forget that part.” Hands on hips, I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the panic setting in over the magnitude of what I was about to do. “Cease all comms and monitoring in this room. Go dark.” That was the command I’d heard given during some of our debriefing sessions on Prillon Prime, after our rescue. I’d asked Queen Jessica about it, and she’d told me it was a total shut-down of all security and monitoring in that location. Sound. Video. Everything. The ship would erase the fact that I’d ever stepped foot in this room. The command was saved for things that needed to be truly private.
The ship’s comm made a ping noise. “Shut down complete, Willow Baylor. The room is dark. Is there anything else I can do to assist?” Not going to lie, sometimes I loved the Coalition Fleet’s super advanced artificial intelligence system. The hub was somewhere under the surface of their planet—or so they officially said-- and it connected all their comms and transport systems throughout the entire fleet. I’d heard whispers that the system was in a stealth vessel orbiting one of their moons. Who knew? Didn’t matter as long as I could talk to my friend.
“Yes. Private comm, high security, Lady Danika Arcas, Prillon Prime.”
“Initiating.” I counted to three. Four…. Ten. “Connected.”
