She waved as he carried her past Loris, who waved back. “They’re bossy fuckers. Aren’t they?” she called out.
“Very!” Maddison replied, but she didn’t seem concerned.
He ignored their comments. He wasn’t bossy. He was the one in charge.
After a while, Maddison spoke up again. “So, this tree house of yours. Does it have a nice bed?”
“It does. I intend to tie you to it and keep you there until Rage arrives.”
She laughed and stroked his cheek with one hand. “Your offer is accepted.”
He broke into a run, eager to share his home and his life with this gentle, wonderful female. She’d shown him that revenge wasn’t the only path his life could take.
This time, he had another choice, and her name was Maddison. He’d choose her every time.
EPILOGUE
“Why is this taking so long!”Rage paced the small stretch of corridor immediately outside the cockpit of their ship, theTimeless Blue.
“Because the laws of physics are not affected by threats of violence or impatient demands from grumpy males,” Mercy retorted without looking away from the view screen.
“I’m not grumpy!”
“And I’m not having this argument with you. Sit your sexy ass down and strap in. We’re almost there.”
Almost wasn’t good enough. Not when he was so close. The last time he’d seen this planet, he’d had to sit by and watch as the verexi fired on the ship carrying the only family he knew. When they crashed, he feared the worst until he’d seen scans that showed lifeforms leaving the wreckage. When the scrawnies had demanded all the observers leave the area, he’d tried toargue. No one listened. Back then, it was just the two of them against the governments of the Galactic Legion. They had no allies, no friends, and a single ship.
Things were different now.
“Any word from the fleet?” he asked Mercy as he took his seat behind her.
“All quiet. No one is in this system except us. Everyone else heard your message and got the fuck out of our way. I wish I could have seen them run, the cowards.”
The fleet currently in orbit were a threat to any and all of the species that inhabited this part of the galaxy. The gyr had arrived in force only a few weeks ago, hell bent on getting revenge on the verexi.
Even months after he learned the full truth, the magnitude of what the scrawnies had done still hit hard.
They hadn’t created the fa’rel. They’dstolenthem.
Rage and his brothers weren’t experiments. They were children stolen from a species the verexi thought were barbaric primitives. They’d surveyed a planet that happened to contain one of the gyr’s recreational colonies. These places were where his people came to relax and reacquaint themselves with the wilder part of their nature. It was where generations of children learned to hunt and to find a balance between their primal instincts and civility.
The verexi should have spent more time exploring the area before committing their atrocities. Not only didthey steal more than twenty of the gyr’s children. They slaughtered anyone who tried to protect the creche.
They had declared war on an enemy and then vanished before they could be made to answer for their crimes. Until Rage found his people, they had no idea who had attacked them. He made sure they knew who had done it and where they could be found.
“How are our passengers?” he asked.
“You mean how’s your mom? She’s fine. We’ve been discussing what a stubborn male you turned out to be. She blames your father’s side of the family.”
He snorted. “I’m not stubborn. I’m focused.”
“I dare you to say that to your mother.”
He shook his head. “I’m also not an idiot.”
His parents were in the cargo bay of theBluealong with a number of other guests. All of them had lost children to the verexi raid, and they hoped to be reunited today. Not all of them would be so lucky. Of the twenty-two babies taken, less than half that number had been alive by the time Rage had escaped.
He was still adjusting to the idea that hehadparents, and they were coming to terms with the fact that their son had no knowledge about their culture, language, or values. Mercy had helped as much as she could, but there would always be challenges.
