As the ship breaks away from Pryt's gravitational embrace, part of me screams that this is insane and that I should havenever followed him. Yet there's no denying the magnetic pull, the tether that binds me to this male whose very essence calls to mine.
As I open my mouth to call out his name, the ship surges forward, breaking through the atmosphere, and for a fleeting moment, weightlessness claims me. There’s no time to scream for help as the ship's acceleration tosses me like a rag doll the length of the corridor. I reach a dead end and my head connects with something hard. A starburst explodes behind my eyes. The world slips away, and everything goes dark.
---
Silence greets my return to consciousness, a deep, suffocating silence that blankets the ship in an ominous shroud. I blink, trying to orient myself, the taste of iron sharp on my tongue. I push myself up, each movement sends a throbbing echo through my skull. I touch the back of my head, grimacing at the lump I find there.
My vision is a little blurry, but no rising into ears, or nausea so I don’t think I have a concussion, just a nasty bump.
"Behtu?" My voice rips through the stillness like an alarm. No shocked retort over my stowing away comes to ease the tension knotting in my chest. The absence of sound is more unnerving than any siren could be.
I rise unsteadily, driven by an urgency that overrides the pulsing ache in my head. My vision clears, the edges of the corridor snapping into focus as I stumble forward with determination etched into every step.
As I approach the command deck, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. There's a charged energy in the air, a sense of impending revelation that sends a shiver racing down my spine. My hand reaches out, hovering over the control panel beside the door, hesitating for a fraction of a second before pressing the access button.
The door slides open with a hiss, revealing the command deck suffused in gentle luminescence that spills from towering wall panels. The controls are dormant, screens dark and lifeless. I scan the room, my breath catching in my throat. Behtu is nowhere to be seen, and a creeping dread coils inside me.
"Behtu!" I call out again, louder this time, the echo of my own voice bouncing back at me, mocking my solitude.
I move to the viewport, my gaze sweeping across an alien landscape. A dense fog hangs in the air, washed with an otherworldly glow emanating from the vibrant bioluminescent plants that drape the rocky terrain in a spectral green glow.
Behtu is out there somewhere, searching for treasure as a pirate is inclined to do, that’s all. Nothing untoward is amiss. He landed and is now out looking for whatever it is he came here for, even though it's eerily quiet, the kind of quiet that screams wrongness in every corner.
I try and fail to suppress the unsettling sensation that something is wrong and stride over to the command console. I settle into his seat and tuck my legs under me, smoothing my hands over the strange material that’s not quite leather. I inhale his intoxicating spicy scent lingering on the unfamiliar material and try to relax while I wait for his return.
Will he be happy to see me or really pissed off?
The fog beyond the viewport shifts and I blink a few times in disbelief. There’s another ship parked a few feet away. Was Behtu here to meet someone?
The answer is not long in coming. My breath catches as the sight before me unfolds. “Oh shit!”
Two hulking aliens, their leathery scales glinting like oil in the soft light, are hauling Behtu's limp form between them. His head lolls back, revealing his pale and unconscious face, a contrast to his vibrant blue skin. Panic ignites within me, a flame threatening to consume all reason.
I slide out of the seat and duck behind the console. Peeking around the sleek structure, my eyes never leave Behtu. The nurse in me sits up and roars, watching his chest until I see the rise and fall of his steady breathing. He’s alive and that’s a relief, but who are the assholes hauling him aboard the other ship?
What the fuck do I do now? I don’t know, but I have to do something, I can’t let Behtu go with them. If I knew how to fly a spacecraft like that girl, Stacy, I could follow them and find a way to get Behtu back. Fuck, I wish I had paid more attention to how things worked, and I could use the comm to call for help.
Maybe I could find a weapon and leave the ship. The foggy air outside doesn’t look lung friendly and Behtu is wearing a breathing device clipped under his nose. If I open the hatch, I could suffocate on the surface on this alien world and that wouldn’t do either one of us any good. Trembling with adrenaline, I huddle in the shadows of the command deck, the metal floor cold beneath me as my heart pounds a frenetic rhythm against my ribcage.
My mind races with indecision, my pulse thrumming with a mix of fear and uncertainty. The answer comes in the form of a beam of pulsating energy shooting out the back of the alien craft, connecting to Behtu's ship with a violent jolt. My teeth rattle in my skull, and the taste of fear is acid on my tongue.
The alien ship shudders to life, engines humming with power as it begins to ascend. Behtu's ship, an unwilling consort, is dragged along in its wake. My stomach churns, and my thoughts turn to Behtu. Wherever we’re headed, rescuing Behtu is my top priority.
I need a plan, something to cling to beyond the helplessness clawing at my insides. The thought of Behtu, captive and alone, ignites a fire within me, a searing determination to rescue Behtu. I need to search the ship for weapons. I mean, this is a pirate’s ship after all, and corsairs always have weapons.
Chapter
Three
BEHTU
My head spins, a galaxy of stars bursting behind my eyelids every time I try to focus. The neurotoxin throbs through my veins, a vile guest that overstays its welcome, blurring the world into smudges of color and light. I blink rapidly, fighting off the vertigo, forcing the throne room on Vont 4 into some semblance of clarity.
There, on a dais forged from the bones of past conquests, sits General Kragar. His crown, a living, slithering metalloid wraps around his skull, a grotesque testament to his dominion over this star system. It moves with eerie autonomy, as if each segment has a will of its own, reflecting the dim light in unsettling patterns. This is no mere decoration; it's a symbol of power, alive and hungry like the male wearing it.
General Kragar looms over his court, muscles coiled beneath scales that gleam like a slithering pythose in murky water. His predatory gaze pins me with an intense glow, assessing and condemning all at once. Claws, sharp enough to etch fate into the fabric of the Universe, tap an impatient rhythm against theleg bone of some poor hapless victim now acting as the armrest of his throne.
"Behtu Ky'Orlax," he rumbles in a tone like tectonic plates grinding beneath the surface of a calm sea. "The Star Maverick who thought he could dance between the raindrops of my wrath."
