Thing.
It.
"Where is he?" I meant to let it drop, but I couldn’t. I had to salvage it. "I need to know he's contained. Please."
Runa studied me for a long moment.
"He's in a holding cell," she said finally. "Restrained and monitored. We're still determining what to do with him."
Fuck.
Like he was a problem to be solved, a threat to be neutralized. Not a living being who'd chosen to help me, who'd flown me across hostile territory, who'd offered me everything he had on bended knee.
My nails bit into my palms. The pain helped, gave me something to focus on that wasn't the rage building in my chest.
"Has he said anything?" I asked. "Made any threats? Tried to escape?"
"He doesn't speak our language." Runa's tone was dismissive. "And we don't speak his. Communication has been impossible. He's been violent when approached, aggressive.”
Of course he'd been violent. He'd woken up in a cell, with no idea where I was or if I was safe. Any warrior would react the same way.
Any mate would.
"I want to see him," I said.
Runa's eyebrows rose. "Why?"
"Because I need to face him." To let him see that I’m okay, that I’d figure a way to get us out of this.
Runa considered this. Her fingers drummed against the desk again. "That's not advisable," she said finally. "You're still processing your captivity. Seeing your captor could trigger a psychological setback, make you regress into survival patterns."
"I'm a soldier." I straightened my spine, let my training show in my posture. "I've been through worse than this and come out functional. I can handle seeing him in a cell."
"Perhaps." Runa's tone suggested she disagreed but wasn't going to argue the point. "But not today. You need rest, medicalevaluation, time to decompress. We'll discuss it after you've had a chance to settle in."
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. But clearly, the captain wasn’t going to be any help.
So I’d just have to find Nyx on my own.
17
LEXA
The human… town? Camp? Village? Whatever they were calling it looked wrong.
The structures were clambered together, all sharp angles and mismatched materials that had never been meant to stand like that.
In the past months, I'd gotten used to the styles of Scalvaris, and human metal just didn't fit in.
Everything here was scavenged, repurposed, barely holding together. The seams where different sections joined showed gaps stuffed with what looked like fabric or dried vegetation. Nothing matched. Nothing belonged. It was all just pieces of a ship that had died screaming as it hit atmosphere.
Between two larger structures, I caught a glimpse of something that made me stop. A carefully shielded area, protected by what looked like solar panels rigged at angles to provide shade.
Through the gaps, I could see green. Rows of plants growing in what had to be an aquaponics setup, the kind we'd planned to use once we reached our destination planet.
Every single person had been briefed before signing on to the Nostos. The first years of life in our new home would bedifficult as we eked out life on some distant planet. But it wasn't supposed to be … this.
Volcaryth was a hell-planet.
