Tirrian
Lila has Link and Mark meet her in the spaceport, where the three of them take care of the crew member Smith shot. Brannock and I go with her when Brannock suggests we should question him before we leave. The others go back to the suite to change into battle gear.
I watch patiently as Link digs out the bullet with his tools, and Mark then uses his power to heal the remaining wound.
“Luckily Smith had an Earth gun and not one of the ones we use,” Link says to the crew member, holding up the small metal projectile. “Otherwise, you would be dead.”
The pale male blanches further and sways on his feet. Mark grabs his arm to support him. “Maybe a blood transfusion would be a good idea,” he suggests to Link, who agrees.
“We will take him up to the med bay to administer it and keep him overnight for observation.”
I put my hand out before they can leave. “Did you hear them say anything?”
The crew member blinks at me, slightly dazed from residual pain and blood loss. “Not really.” He shakes his head.
Damn, I was hoping they would have given a hint about where they were going. We still haven’t been given a location, because Brannock hasn’t informed them that he has the orb, only that he knows the location. We plan on relaying that message once we finish rescuing Chloe, his daughter.
They move away, Link and Mark supporting the man, but then they stop. “I heard them arguing as they were getting on the shuttle. The man who shot me said they needed to go to Grichi 517E. Lester said it couldn’t be that location because the planet has been desolate since the Aaz’axian and Una’s war. Only ruins remain, and no sentient life-forms.”
I don’t have to be a warlock to feel the rush of shame that hits Brannock when he mentions this.
“Are you okay?” I ask the man, even though I know it’s a stupid question. The guilt he’s feeling would be pretty fucking bad.
“That was one of the planets our leaders ordered us to decimate. They thought the orb had been hidden on it. Our military leaders were reluctant, since there was no credible evidence that it was on the planet, but they did mine a mineral that our leadership wanted to get their hands on. I always thought it was a convenient excuse to invade.”
He hangs his head in shame and walks away from Lila and me. We follow him, but as Lila reaches for him, I stop her. “Give him a moment,” I caution her.
I’ve been in battle, and I know what it’s like to relive those memories. That planet had done nothing to deserve the invasion, they just ended up on the radar of bad leadership, and both they and the actual people who were forced to attack suffered.
Our soft-hearted mate can’t let one of us suffer in silence. “No,” she says with a stubborn set to her jaw. “Our family doesn’t suffer alone.”
She hurries after him, putting her hand on his arm. “Hey. You aren’t to blame.”
He jumps, so lost in his memories. “Aren’t I? I helped in the genocide of that species,” Brannock snaps harshly, but instead of recoiling, Lila just shakes her head.
“Unwillingly. Are you telling me that if you weren’t being controlled by the chips inside your heads, the one that has now been removed, that you would have done any of those things you were ordered to do?”
“No, of course not.”
“Exactly. You have nothing to feel guilty for, but if I ever find where your leadership went into hiding, then I can assure you, I will cause an incident of mass destruction that they’d wish they had been able to cause. Remember, I will be the goddess of death, and they will answer to me as a death creation.”
Her eyes blaze with righteous fury, and her body practically vibrates with her intention. She never looks sexier than when she is trying to gain retribution for one of us. I am truly blessed she forgave me for all my idiotic actions.
Brannock looks at her with stars in his eyes. “You have no idea how thankful I am that you don’t judge me for my past. I don’t like the person I was then. I should have fought harder to disobey our orders. We all should have.”
“You couldn’t have, otherwise you all would have died,” I argue, and Lila nods.
“You’re right. We would have died. They didn’t hesitate to use the kill switches in our brains if we defied orders. The Aaz’axian Death Squad was quick on their trigger. They were the team responsible for keeping us all in line. Our superiors, whowere right below the council, didn’t want to directly stain their hands with blood.”
“What happened to them? Do we need to track them down and kill them?” Lila asks, baring her teeth as smoke drifts out of her nose. Her dragon is very close to the surface, and mine is getting turned on by her bloodthirsty ways. Having a dual soul can be terribly inconvenient when you get aroused at inopportune times.
“No, they were captured by the warlocks and Vilaxians in a joint operation and were sentenced to death. It was telecast across the galaxy. At that stage, I still had not settled on Earth, and me and my team watched the execution on a screen in a dirty, backwater tavern on some desolate planet at the edge of the galaxy. We celebrated for three days straight. It was one of the best days of my life, apart from Chloe’s birth and mating you,” he tells her, and she smiles sweetly at him.
“Unfortunately, the ten men and women on the ruling council who started the war escaped. I doubt the women survived, because they would have succumbed to the illness that affected all the females of our race, but that still leaves six monsters unaccounted for. With our ability to glamour, they’ve managed to stay hidden all this time—much like me and my team on Earth, or we had until one of us turned into a traitor and gave me up to Smith. I think I was the only one who was captured. I never saw any of my team in the facility.”
“We will find out soon, and if they are there, then we will help free them. If we run into the traitor, we will take his head for you,” I promise, and the grin he gives me sends shivers down my spine. I can see the Aaz’axian berserker gleaming in his eyes.
“So it shall be,” he agrees.
