“Prepare for boarding,” I growl. “This is not a raid. It’s a hunt.”
Cheers echo through the lower decks, a chorus of growls, stomps, and warcries. A sound like planets screaming.
I stalk down the gangway toward the drop bays, armor clicking at the joints. My boots leave dust-shaped echoes on the steel.
The docking clamps shudder as we ram theGrand Lady’s flank. The vibration buzzes up my spine.
“Entry sealed,” a tech calls. “Door breach in three… two… one?—”
A concussive blast tears through the corridor. Metal screams. The sweet, clean air of a pleasure cruiser rushes in.
And we’re through.
My Reapers pour into the breach like demons loosed from black myth. Smoke coils around them. Blades flash. Bone-armored silhouettes descend in waves.
I walk through them, unhurried.
Screams rise.
A steward bolts from a hallway to my left, slips in his own panic, and scrambles backward on all fours. His eyes are white, mouth open in a silent plea.
I step over him.
A Reaper starts to raise his weapon toward the man—an impulse, nothing more. I snarl and slap it down with the back of my clawed hand.
“Not that one,” I say. “He’s already broken.”
We move deeper into the ship. Down gilded halls and past mirrored walls, through lounges soaked in velvet and pheromone mist. The crew’s perfume masks the fear-sweat for only so long. Then the scent shifts.
Fear-urine. Adrenaline. Terror-soaked flesh.
Familiar.
Boring.
I don’t slow down.
My boots crush shattered glass and fallen datapads. A trail of unconscious bodies lines the floor, stunned and tagged for slave sorting. My crew knows to keep them breathing. Mostly.
But still… something’s missing.
I don’t know why the gnawing in my gut won’t stop.
Not until I pass the arched threshold into the forward viewing deck—and I freeze.
It hits me like a silent scream.
A pulse.
No sound. No heat. Just a sudden, impossible weight in the center of my chest, like something ancient and coiled just stirred awake inside my ribcage.
Jalshagar.
I go still. Vision narrows. The scent in the air shifts again.
Something new.
Something real.
