And then forced him to live.
But she had, and he’d been hunting for her ever since.
A deep, rolling growl vibrated through his whole body.
It’d beensevencycles. Seven cycles of his life searching the stars for her, being haunted by her. She’d plagued his every moment since, a haunting in the form of a warrior with cold death in her eyes.
Kedar had hacked the security networks of countless cities on countless planets. Sensors, ship activity logs at ports, cameras, Federation databases. He’d programmed his systems to look for any sign of her and alert him of anything slightly resembling her. He’d trained hard, forced himself to consume sustenance, and watched the feeds. Waited. Sleepless setting after setting, cycle after cycle. In all that time, he had received less than two hundred hits. Every time he arrived at the source, she was already gone.
But this was different. This signal originated from the ixom-nano technology in the hilt of a plasma dirk. A plasma dirk he’d made and shaped with his own hands over the course of a cycle and gifted her.
As he finally accepted the alert, the system she was in bloomed to life on his screen. It zoomed in and enhanced the exact planet she was on. That burning intensity prickled at his skin.
Vessa was on planet 815-208, located in the Outer Drift system. Information about it populated on his screen, and he skimmed through it. Nearly uninhabitable for many lifeforms. Blizzards and hail, lightning and shifting ice masses.
Vessa hated the cold. Sekens, by nature, didn’t do well in wintery climates.
“So why are you there?” he murmured to himself.
The last time he saw her, she had the very same blade he’d gifted her pressed to his throat. “Do it,” he’d told her. She wasthe victor. It was her right. Herduty. Instead, she had pulled the plasma dirk from his neck and cursed him with a single word.
Live.
Kedar punched in the commands to redirect his course and enter hyperwarp. The deep expanse beyond the viewport blurred, distant stars vanished. All that was left before him was the impenetrable darkness that would usher him to his fate.
Vessa of the Minad had given him mercy, but she’d takeneverythingfrom him.
She owed him a death.
Chapter 3
Vessa
Vessa was shoved down on an oddly carpeted floor. Rugs and other fabric clashed discordantly, a quilt of stolen things from around the universe. Very raider-chic. After days of dragging her across the wintery wasteland, they’d reached their destination—the horde’s encampment.
When she’d come to, her hands were bound by maglock cuffs. Made with bresanium magnets, once locked and drawn together, they were impossible to get out of. The inner mechanism had to be activated from an outside device to unlock them.
Vessa was good, but not break-out-of-the-unbreakable good.
Gor Lug and the remnants of his raiding party crowded into the sturdy tent to present their stolen goods to their horde leader. Vessa’s awareness extended only as far as her current face-to-carpet positioning and the heat that filled the room, but that was all they had talked about the last day.
“Her?” the ogg asked some inordinate amount of time later. His voice was exceptionally grating.
“Make good slave," Gor Lug said. “Strong. I capture her”—Bargo, Gor Lug’s rival, protested at this—“and want for prize, Ogg.”
The brute hauled her to her knees before his horde leader. The room spun. After days without water and food, all while being subjected to the Orcru’s brutality and the harsh elements, Vessa was not her best self. The concussion didn’t help matters, either. As she blinked rapidly, the room finally came into focus.
All the stolen goods from the wreck sat before the horde leader. Her raze sword and plasma dirk were suspiciously absent, though. The ogg was taller than the others by a good head, and thicker. His large stomach hung over his coverings—a sign of power for the Orcru. Red cuffs that she was certain were made of dyed hair were tied around his upper arm. Huge, browning tusks hung over his lips. They were in contrast with the small, dark eyes set close together in his wide face.
Vessa sighed. Was it too much of a request to be captured by hot aliens for once?
The ogg stood from his saddle-shaped chair. Her focus caught on the familiarity of it. Histhronewas a very distinct Sewarian design. A laugh bubbled out of her throat, bringing the looming form of the horde leader up short. Something about his shifting gaze only added to her hysteria. He was probably used to his captives crying and begging all while pissing themselves.
Though she lived to disappoint, this was wholly uncontrollable—she was losing it. Laughter racked her sore body even as Gor Lug pushed her forward, knocking her down. Her ribs creaked in warning as he pressed down on her with his foot until she could do nothing but wheeze.
“What?” the horde leader growled in the universal tongue. At the same time, Gor Lug’s disgusting foot eased off her.
Vessa struggled to get herself on her knees again, drinking in lungfuls of air. “Your throne,” she wheezed, “is a gods damn Sewarian birthing pod.”
