“And if he’s dangerous… he’s dangerous to more than just me.”
“You think he’d hurt us?” I ask.
“Honestly? I wouldn’t put it past him to remove all of the Sovians on the station if he needed to. So, the fact that he had someone checking our blood at least means that he wanted to know which of us it was instead of just killing us all.
“You’re assuming you’re the only one on the station. There are probably a dozen more in this sector. It would stand to reason that more than one of you wound up here.”
“We’ve all checked. We’re not related. It’s pretty normal to ask the question when someone new joins the community. I guess they could be lying.”
“Do you think they marked the samples?” Mooralan asks.
“There was some sort of marking on them, but if it was a language, I don’t know what it was.”
“We have to hope they don’t try to remove the whole station.”
“Phantom wouldn’t let that happen.”
“Phantom might not be able to stop it.”
“We should warn them, at the very least.”
“And Sirin.” Ferrok nods his head and narrows all his eyes. “But, it won’t be enough.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” Mooralan asks.
“Iswhatnecessary?”
“If he’s on a bastard hunt, he isn’t going to be satisfied until every one of us is dead.” Ferrok answers Mooralan, not me. “It’s my only option.”
“What does that mean, though?” I stand up and make Ferrok look at me.
“It means that I have to leave.”
CHAPTER 2
“What? Why?”
He sets the tablet down on the table, and the screen on the wall flares to life, scrolling with half a dozen articles and obituaries.
Murdered Sovians throughout the charted systems.
“He isn’t waiting to see if someone is going to challenge him. He’s going to get rid of all of us, just in case.”
“Okay, so he doesn’t want you to try to take his crown from him.”
“It’s a collar,” he says, offhandedly.
“Semantics.”
They look at each other, and I know they don’t understand the word, but I don’t explain.
“How do we make you ineligible for that collar without making you dead?” I don’t care that it’s not how I should say it.
“There are ways,” Mooralan says, but Ferrok doesn’t look hopeful, and neither of them tell me what those ways are.
My mind shuffles through a dozen options I know aren’t right. And then one that might work.
“What if we get married? If you’re attached to a non-Sovian, surely that must mess something up, right?”
