The little boy survived, barely. The dark red armband the child wore identified him as someone from Cerberus Legion. I’d learned the colors since my arrival, and the relationships between the five Legions. Astra and Cerberus were enemies. That little boy was, technically, my mate’s enemy.
Mikos had saved the child anyway.
If I hadn’t loved him before, feeling his rage in that memory, his instinctive need to protect that child, would have sealed the deal. He didn’t believe he was a good male, an honorable mate for me. I had no idea if he wanted to be a father, but I found myself dreaming about having half a dozen little ones crawling all over him, calling him daddy.
He was so wrong about so many things. He was everything the men I’d dated in the past were not. Powerful. Honorable. Merciless. I was so tired of following all the rules, only to have those rules, laws, and restrictions, cost me everything. My father, killed in someone else’s war. My mother, lost to financial worry and keeping her new husband happy so he didn’t kick us out. Robbie, who knew exactly who the bad guys were, but couldn’t lift a finger against them because he had to follow orders, obey the law.
We obeyed the law, and the criminals ate us for lunch.
Not my Mikos. He killed who needed killing. No remorse. No guilt. No regret.
He and Shade had some kind of plan, right? When he’d allowed Shade to put those cuffs on him and lead him off Sebastion’s ship, Mikos hadn’t seemed worried. Not like someone who was literally being marched to his execution. When I went to visit him in that holding cell, he’d refused to try to escape, said he had to stay and finish this.
As hard as it was, I had to trust him and hope he knew what he was doing, even as my heart broke for him. No one should be forced to do what he did, to kill over and over just to protect the people he cared about. Killing took a piece of the soul. I’d felt it, first in the army. My bullets took down a faceless enemy and I’d still had nightmares for months. Then in the DEA, when I’d shot and killed a stupid fifteen-year-old kid running drugs for his older brother’s gang. He’d shot at me first, but that didn’t matter. He was a kid, and I’d hated myself for doing what needed to be done. Even the Hive Integration Units I took down left their mark on me. Not guilt, exactly. Just a thorn in my heart, a tiny ache I could never escape, not because they were dead, but because I grieved what I’d become.
If the Hive used their technology for good instead of evil, they could literally transform the known universe. Changeeverything. Help so many people. Instead, they made the choice to conquer, integrate and destroy everything they came into contact with. Such a waste. Such a fucking waste. Just like that fifteen-year-old kid dying so his brother could sell more cocaine. Why were people so lost?
“Get up, slave.” One of the two guards Slomak left with me prodded me in the hip with the titan stick. The electric jolt threw me back onto my side. “Time to let your mate know you’re here.”
I was going to kill this one, too. Right after I killed Slomak. That was the fantasy, at least. In truth, I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. They were both huge, integrated with Hive tech, and mean as hell. I’d be happy to let Mikos end them. I had zero doubts that my mate could rip Slomak’s head off his body, just like he’d done to Slomak’s father. That asshole had deserved it, as did his son. And this guy, brandishing the titan stick like it gave him superpowers.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
The guard responded by jamming the titan stick between my shoulder blades, right next to my spine. A jolt of agony bowed my back. That’s what I got for running my mouth. My mother always told me my sassy mouth would get me into trouble. Hah! She hadno idea.
“Get up.”
I obeyed, not because I was afraid of him and his stupid stick, but because I could do more damage on my feet than on my knees. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I wasn’t going to allow them to use me to take down Mikos. Not happening. I’d die before I let that happen, force them to kill me.
Hell, I should have died once already, on that Hive ship. Mikos’s bite was the only reason I was still alive. My mate had a plan, I knew it. I needed to stay alive and be ready to help when the time came. I could do that. I’d been trained in the militaryfor this situation, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and attacked, tortured, experienced the terror of being captured by the enemy so that, if something like this happened in real life, I wouldn’t panic.
Panic was not on my agenda. Fear? Yes. I wasn’t an idiot. But I buried that weak emotion under rage, disgust, and the absolute truth of my love for Mikos. I’d do anything to help him, including sacrifice my own life. He was mine.
With titan stick asshole behind me, I shuffled forward, walked to the front of the stage to stand a few steps away from Slomak. The confusion on his face was priceless as the leaders of the five Legions yelled at one another, and his uncle. He didn’t have one of the headpieces on, hadn’t seen Mikos’s last memory.
“Tarduk Trach attacked a child of Cerberus.” The woman who stood in front of the group with red arm bands had a look of death about her. She looked like she was about the same age as Astra, and her eyes blazed with killing rage. “There will be no execution today, Drakdak Trach. Be grateful Mikos gave your brother a quick end. He would not be so lucky if I had him.”
Drakdak was hideous, the weird band of silver circled his head like he had male pattern baldness and had replaced the remnants of his hair with metal. He didn’t look so regal in his ridiculous robes now. I hoped he tripped and fell on that train. I’d never seen a train that long, not even at the handful of weddings I’d attended on Earth. This was Princess Diana long, the heavy black material two or three times as long as the alien was tall. His skin was so pale it was nearly translucent. The veins in his temples and neck bulged now as he faced down all of Rogue 5. The Legions were angry, and he was their target.
“Drakdak Trach, you lied to all of us. Your brother broke the contract before Mikos took his life.” Astra stood up. The Forsians stood behind her—shit, where was Barek?—and pulledtheir weapons free. They looked ready to jump the distance from their raised seating area to the floor and charge the stage.
Good. Asshole. This was not going the way Drakdak planned.
Where was Mikos? Why was he not speaking in his own defense?
I found him at once, his eyes blank and empty, as if he were unconscious. His body slumped in a strange black chair that had been placed in the center of a white floor that looked like marble. The contrast in color made me think of a horror movie. Did they like the white floor because it would show all the blood? Why wasn’t he moving? Was he still under the weird mind control of the crystal machine? The Officiant?
Four metal-heads surrounded him. Too close. They could kill him before Astra Legion could reach him.
Damn it! Where was Shade? He was supposed to be in on this stupid plan. So where was he and why wasn’t he helping?
The Officiant had listened to me once. I hoped it would respond again. “Officiant, release Mikos.” I shouted the order, making sure whatever artificial intelligence ran the crystal, mind-control system would hear me.
Slomak’s hand connected with my cheek, hard. I saw stars as he leaned over me, a sneer on his face. “You’ll pay for that later, slave.”
I kept my mind on Mikos, willed him to wake up, to fight. Slomak was irrelevant. He had no idea who I was, what I was. I was a soldier, a warrior, a survivor. My mate was the scariest motherfucker I’d ever met, and he would come for me.
Slomak was already dead, he just didn’t know it yet.
