“Civilization ranking. Earth is a Level Zero world. Ezebeth governs it.”
“That’s one of the Golden Moons?” Audrey asked, already sure. She just wanted him to talk.
Basir smiled. “Ezebeth rules everything. Including you.”
So Emerson hadn’t lied. Ezebethians really were the apex predators here. Her belly hollowed out. What the hell had she been dragged into?
Nikos swerved the wheel, driving them into the brush. “Tracker,” he said. “We’re being followed.” He backed up and took them down a gravelly, dirt road instead.
Audrey’s pulse leaped with an unexpected promise. Emerson? If he was following them, maybe she still had a chance to force his hand.
About an hour later, Nikos muttered, “Oh, fuck. Aggregate security checkpoint.”
Chaos broke out as soon as they were close enough to be seen. Guns came out of hidden compartments, and Nikos shoved a scarf over his face, then reached for Audrey’s cuffs. “If they scan you in those, we’re dead,” he snarled, stripping them off. He grabbed her chin in a firm grip. “Try anything, and security will kill you first. You’re my soon-to-be bonded mate. We’re traveling to a Magister to confirm the bond. Understand?”
Audrey blinked. “What’s a bonded mate? What’s a Magister?”
“Legal lies to keep them away,” Basir snapped. “Shut up and pretend.”
Armed guards in black armor swarmed their truck, masks reflecting the yellow sky. Weapons were aimed. Warning shots were fired. “Out!” someone called. “Papers!”
Audrey stiffened. She had none, but Nikos flashed a battered tablet displaying official-looking documents.
An Aggregate guard dragged her out by the back of her neck as if she weighed nothing. “Move. Being pretty won’t help you here.”
She almost bit him.
The guard’s helmet tilted as he scanned her face. “Hold on,” he muttered. His grasp tightened, and his eyes narrowed, like herecognized her. Then Nikos barked something in Voírían, and the moment disappeared.
She scanned the cluster of trees behind them. Thin, alien trunks, but cover nonetheless. If she could slip behind them quietly, maybe?—
An explosion burst through the air. Audrey ducked and covered her head on instinct.
Was that Emerson? She held her breath, nerves ablaze. If it was him, why show his hand now?
Or maybe she was giving him too much credit. Turmoil had a thousand fathers on this moon.
Smoke billowed from the forest. Birds screamed upward in a cloud of wings. Guards issued orders as they hurried toward the blast. With everyone distracted, Audrey inched backward, step by steady step, toward the trees?—
“Hey!” the female guard shouted. “Stop!”
Three armed bodies converged on her.
But Nikos was faster. He kicked a guard in the shin, ripped off the scarf he’d been wearing to hide his face, and raised his hand. Fire exploded from his palm, devouring the man’s face in a flare of blue heat. A cry broke out. The body dropped like a stone.
Basir and Nassar pounced on the remaining guards, all fists and snarled curses. A gunshot rang in the air. The woman guard went down with Nassar twisting her arms behind her.
Audrey didn’t hesitate—she bolted into the trees.
Branches slapped her face. She didn’t breathe and could barely think. She just ran.
“She’s making a run for it!” someone shouted.
Audrey veered right toward the explosion—the only sign that her allies might be close.
Then—
A hand like iron clamped around her shoulder and wrenched her backward. She fell backward into a body, her skull cracking under Nikos’s chin.
