“Kill him!” Drakdak shouted the order to his minions, but it was too late. I straightened my spine and shouted with glee as Mikos rose from his seat like an avenging angel. With a roar that reached into my soul, he somehow broke the restraints on hisarms into two halves and used them like clubs to bludgeon the two metal-heads closest to him.
“With me!” Slomak yelled at his men and grabbed me with one hand wrapped around my throat. He yanked me off the ground, my feet dangling as I glared at him.
“You’re dead, you know that, right?” I didn’t have enough air to shout the words at him the way I wanted to, but he heard me.
“You first, female.” He carried me off stage, his two personal guards falling into step behind us as I kicked and clawed at him. The same guard jabbed me in my side with the titan stick. My scream came out a pathetic croak, but I managed to land a solid kick to Slomak’s balls.
He grunted, the look in his eyes pure evil as his hand tightened around my throat, cutting off my air.
I didn’t fight, knew if I did, he’d just choke me for longer. I slumped in his hold, the sound of Mikos’s rage filled bellows wrapped around my heart and kept me warm as the outside world faded. All I had to do was stay alive long enough for my mate to find me. He would come for me. He would save me. He was not Robbie, not my father. He didn’t follow the rules, wasn’t limited by laws that gave assholes like Slomak the upper hand.
My mate hunted his enemies. Ripped their heads off. I’d just watched him do it to Slomak’s father. Maybe, right now, Mikos was killing Drakdak. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I stared into Slomak’s eyes for as long as I could. I saw fear there. Anxiety. He knew.
Mikos would come for me.
He…would…come…
Mikos
I’d been halfconscious when Breanna’s voice ordered the Officiant to release its hold on me.
Now I knew exactly who requested the memory of Tarduk’s cruelty be revealed.
“Kill him!” Drakdak’s order filled the Sim Arena.
Astra yelled. My Forsian brothers leaped from their seats to the floor of the arena, racing toward me. They would not be fast enough, but it mattered not.
Using every bit of strength I possessed, I twisted my arms, broke the cuffs, the energy field holding them together weakened, as Shade had promised.
I swung my arms, striking the two Scion guards nearest me. The other two hesitated, unsure what I was capable of now that I was no longer restrained.
They were right to fear for their lives, because I planned to kill them all.
From my peripheral vision, I saw Slomak raise his hand and strike my mate. She stumbled to one side as I watched. She glared at him, defiant.
Gods help me, that female had more courage than was good for her. She was going to taunt that fucker into killing her.
Fighting to contain the rage boiling over inside my veins, I slipped the cuffs off my arms and reached inside the fragmented remains. I pulled two blades free from the exact place Shade had promised me they would be. Each blade was the length of my forearm, hidden inside either side of the cuffs, waiting for me to use them. If I could control the killing frenzy rising within me long enough to see this through.
Swinging a blade in a wide arc, I took the first guard’s head, grunted with satisfaction as the silver-topped skull landed on the white floor with an audiblethunk. The remaining three guards stepped back, unsure. Terrified, as they should be.
I ignored them. My Forsian brothers raced toward us across the hard, white floor. Soon, these three would be no more.
Not bothering to look back as Astra Legion swarmed what remained of my guards, I raced toward the stage, toward my true enemies.
Drakdak stumbled back. His feet tangled in the long stretch of fabric behind him. He bent at the waist, gathering the mass of heavy fabric in his arms, screaming at his guards to help him. My gaze narrowed as Slomak’s hand wrapped around my mate’s throat. He carried her from the stage that way, her feet off the ground, her gaze locked onto his with undisguised hatred. I watched her lips move as Slomak and his guards took her and disappeared from view.
I could not run any faster. Could not get to him without going through Drakdak and his four guards first. That would take too long. Too fucking long!
“Breanna!” Rage erupted from my body. Primal. Raw. I had no hope of controlling the ancient instincts of the Hyperion male to rend, tear and annihilate any threat to my mate. The Forsian part of me was no less savage. The two parts of me in complete agreement.
Slomak would die bathed in his own blood, his limbs torn from living flesh. His screams the only thing that would satisfy this primitive urge to destroy him for threatening my mate. For touching her. Raising his hand to her.
I’d planned Drakdak’s death for so long, fantasized about the moment I would slit his throat.
His true end meant nothing to me now.
