A vengeance I hadn’t felt in eons coiled in my chest. To see what they had become—what had been done to them—was enough to make my blood burn black.
The lead male moved with that peculiar assurance of hired killers who’ve been paid to break and take without asking questions.
“You,” the man at the front said flatly, as if reciting a list of sins. “By order of the Ohrur Council, you are under arrest for unlawful interference in merchant operations.”
A laugh threatened to tear out of me. Arrested. The gall of mortals to think chains could bind gods. But I remained cool and did what I always did: carefully weighed my options. I could have ended them. A few flicks of my sword, and the concourse would have become a grave. It would leave no sign beyond the echo of a storm. My hands twitched; the hunger in my blood answered the impulse with a promise of carnage.
Then the idea struck, cold and precise.
If I landed on Morrakbarr with my ship, alarms would flare. Cryons and Ohrurs alike watched for such sparks. But if I allowed these Guardians to claim me, to present me as a prisoner loaded aboard their sanctioned route, I could travel to Morrakbarr under their credentials, and neither Cryons nor Ohrurs would ever suspect a thing.Vaelion would seethe with fury that I had lost us another ship, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
So I let the predatory grin die.
“Under arrest?” I echoed, letting the mock-annoyance settle into my voice like dust.
The lead Guardian inclined his head. His expression was unreadable, a stony mask that made my inner alarms flare. “You will come with us. Resistance will be met with death.”
I gave a single, theatrical sigh and offered no fight. Let them make their show. Let them think they’d caged the animal. Electric cuffs snapped around my wrists. For a while, I’d allow the illusion: my shoulders slackened, my aura dimmed to a dull ember. I folded a practiced scowl into my face.
They hustled me through the station under the watchful eyes of traders and scavengers. A youngling slipped between crates and stared up at me, whispering, “Who are you? You look like a god.”
At least someone had some sense here, even if it was a youngling. The Guardians ignored him; their business was to take me to the Ohrur council. I suppressed a grin. We would never get to Ohrur. Already, I was implanting orders in the lead Guardian's brain to take me to Morrakbarr. It was more difficult than I would have thought; his brain didn't work the way normal mortals' did.
At the airlock, one of them barked into a comm. “We have a prisoner. We’ll route with the transit manifest to Morrakbarr. Stand by for clearance.”
A lie already stitched to their purpose. Perfect.
As the Guardians shoved me up the ramp and into the belly of their vessel, I sent more mental commands to smooth my presence—a low, false hum that made the sensors read me as sedated, compliant.
They locked the transport’s hull and sealed it with a short hiss. Inside, the Guardians tried to prod me with questions; their eyes were hungry for violence and confessions. Tired of their games, I put them to sleep, then found myself suitable accommodations. Inside, I finally, finally, allowed my rage to take over. I’d never know how long it lasted. My aura went completely black, and I forgot everything around me. I destroyed the room in its entirety until I was breathless and unable to lift a finger. Only then did I collapse on the ground and allow sleep to take over. I needed to be at my best when we landed on Morrakbarr. Ella was counting on me.
Only what was happening to her in the meantime haunted me, broke into my sleep, and filled it with nightmares.
By the timethe ramp lowered, I had stopped screaming. The beings had marched me down into their transport’s belly, sealed me into one of those narrow cylinders, and flown me to a god-knows-where location. There, the air tasted different—thin, sharp, almost metallic—and needed some getting used to. At least it wasn't the stale air of the space station, but the stench of soil and industry fused together wasn't much better.
When the tube hissed open, long spindly fingers dragged me into a building that looked grown rather than built. White stone came together with strange metal that pulsed faintly, alive in the walls. They shoved me into a cell with bars that shimmered whenever I touched them, like lightning waiting for skin.
So that was it. I was a prisoner again.
The cell wasn’t mine alone. On either side, rows of women filled cages stacked two levels high. Some werehuman. Some weren’t. One woman had silver-tinged skin and scales like jewelry around her wrists; another had eyes that burned molten gold. Many were visibly pregnant, their hands resting on swollen bellies—or, in one alien’s case, on the two rounded bulges swelling along her flanks; no matter how different we all were, our faces were all carved hollow with exhaustion.
I backed against the wall, trying to steady my breathing. If I let panic take me now, I’d never claw my way out again.
A voice came from the cage beside me. “You’re new.”
I turned. The speaker was tall even sitting down, her posture straight despite the filth of the floor. Black hair streaked with bronze framed a face sharp with pride. Her gaze met mine and didn’t flinch.
“I’m Nyara,” she said. “Pandraxian.”
The name meant nothing to me. But we were both locked in a cage like the rest of the women. What else was there to do but talk?
“Ella,” I whispered, in a tiny voice that felt raw from screaming. “I'm a human.”
She gave me a slow nod, as if filing the information away. Then her hand drifted to her belly, not yet swollen but not flat either.
“They make us carry them,” she said bluntly. “Children that are not ours. Hybrids. The Ohrurs think they can build soldiers by breeding us like animals. They buy us at auctions, steal us from villages, drag ushere, and when the baby comes, they take it away. Always. None of us has ever seen what happens after.”
My stomach clenched. “That’s—monstrous.”
