“Get out of my sector,” I snarl at the pair. “And away from my mate.”
“At least that’s one thing. You have your rut and you get to stay on Vorostor.” Dalox flashes me a full mouth filled with fangs. “As it looks like the female has accepted you.”
“Do not talk about my mate. Do not look at my mate. Stop polluting her air with your smoke and your presence.”
Darax snorts with amusement. “Dante in rut. Who’d have thought it?” He shakes his head.
“Rut, I can understand, but a mating frenzy?” Dalox rasps. “Nowthere’ssomething I never thought I’d see.”
“Not a frenzy.” I growl back at the pair who are finally doing as I requested without the need for me to resort to violence.
“Absolutely a frenzy.” Darax laughs. “I’ll see you on the other side, brother.”
I glare after him and Dalox, hearing the sound of their voices as they make their way out of my sector and Dart pokes his head around the door.
“Boss?”
“Have Darax’s guards gone?”
“We have been released.”
“I need to go after the others. I think I know where they’re going to be.”
“A rescue mission?”
“Yes, and if we’re lucky, we’ll get the eletviz and some answers as to how we came to be in this galaxy in the first place.”
Dart grins.
I do not.
“I have to do this without my mate. It is far too dangerous for her. She must not know I have gone. You know what to do.”
Dart holds my stare for a long time, longer than necessary, before twitching his tail.
“As you wish, boss,” he says.
But his tone betrays him. My crew care for my mate, not in a way which would make me remove limbs, but with respect for the mate of their captain and warlord.
He dislikes lying to my Rosalie as much as I do. But one day, if and when he mates, Dart will understand. Sometimes it is necessary to do this to our fated ones. Sometimes what they don’t know can’t hurt them.
ROSALIE
Iput Della into her bed. She slides out of my arms easily, having been completely tired out by the events of today and also playing with the warriors who were more than overjoyed to see the sarkarnlings were safe.
The feeling of palpable relief when I brought the group of children into the dining hall was quite the rush. And everyone got plenty of snacks, warriors and sarkarnlings alike.
But managing them, bathing them, and getting them all to bed has taken some considerable time, and whilst I’ve asked about Dante, I haven’t had much of an answer.
“Goodnight, don’t let the bed bugs bite,” I whisper in Della’s ear.
“I’ll bite them right back,” she says, her fangs poking sweetly over her bottom lip.
My heart melts. All these children, without their parents, and yet here and now they have an entirely new family who care for them more than anything. Warriors who I know would have once embraced their own chaos (Dante included), now are entirely down for the chaos of having two dozen small versions of themselves who are mayhem by their very nature.
I think perhaps it has surprised me possibly more than it has surprised them.
Della closes her eyes, and in no time at all her breathing evens out as she falls asleep. It’s been a hard day for her, and I resolve there should be no more days like this. The sarkarnlings deserve stability.
