I dip my head to capture her sweet mouth with a kizz. For a moment, I think she will not let me, but then she does, her hand in my hair and her tongue fighting with mine.
“If I ever leave you again, my little flame, I will hand myself over to Dalox and be banished forever.”
ROSALIE
Dante is here. He is alive and uninjured. I am so angry at him, and I love him so damn much I could burst.
The very last thing I want is for him to go after the Gonoz, to risk it all again, like he always seems to do. But I have him with me. We can do it together.
After all, I don’t want the Gonoz to win any more than he does, or any of the Sarkarnii.
“Boss, Dexx wants to know what you are planning.” Dart approaches us with his eyes firmly on the floor.
Dante snarls a little and straightens. “Dexx is here?”
“Lord Dexx said we helped him so he would help us,” Dart says with a curl of his lip.
“Dexx loves a good fight.” Dante grins. “Even if he pretends not to. And his crew love a good explosion as much as we do.”
“That is so,” Dart intones, lifting his head enough for me to see his smile. “Presumably there are going to be some, boss?”
“I expect this entire facility needs to go.” Dante looks around with a proprietorial air. “Have the warriors who were here with me been given a dose of paraxio?”
“They have, boss.”
“Good.” Then let’s get the information we need for a cure and get the nev out of here,” Dante says, his tail lashing.
“A cure?” Dart’s eyes widen. “They have the eletviz here?”
“Something better,” Dante says. “The Gonoz are the ones who made us like this in the first place.”
“What?” I stare at him. “It wasn’t a mutation caused by the wormhole?”
“Nothing which has happened to us is caused by the wormhole,” Dante says. “It was all caused by the Gonoz, including the wormhole.”
Dart growls unapologetically. “They did this to us?”
Dante returns his growl and adds a snarl. “They did. To all the Sarkarnii in this galaxy. They were experimenting on us.”
“So, why did they let you go?” I voice my thought out loud. “Only to take you again?”
Dante rubs at his chin.
“I do not know,” he responds. “But they won’t do it a second time.”
I’m pulled tight against his muscular body as he barks orders at his warriors. Most of them involve setting charges everywhere they can in order to send this place to oblivion, and I don’t blame him.
It has an antiseptic chill I dislike very much, as if it’s a morgue. I very much want to get out of here and make sure Dante comes with me.
Finally, he’s given enough weapons to equip a small army, which is the only reason I am released, so he can distribute them around his person.
“What now?” I ask as he has cohorts of warriors running in every direction.
“Now Dart is going to meet with Dexx and have him ready should the Gonoz try to escape.” Dante nods at his second in command.
“You’re going to stop things which have no form from escaping?”
“No one said they didn’t have a form. They are using bots at present. They can escape.”
