“There’s a human settlement close by somewhere,” I mused. “There’s no other explanation.”
Overhead, a drone buzzed by. By now, the scanning and mapping of the city would be underway. It would give us plenty of data to work with until I decided our next course of action.
“I want someone posted outside this building. The humans will come back for their power source eventually and I want to know where they take it,” I said.
“Consider it done, Commander,” Kathar replied.
We climbed down, disturbing as little as possible in the process. We covered up our tracks as well so that no one would be the wiser when they returned to check on the solar panels. I was quite surprised at the ingenuity behind the whole operation. They’d ensured that it was hidden in a place that we’d be unlikely to search. I wasn’t certain where they’d have obtained so many undamaged panels. Maybe they’d found an old factory or had figured out some way to produce them all on their own.
We spent some more time searching the immediate area, finding nothing more of value. I spotted one more poster that had Raiza’s face on it, making sure to destroy it as I done with the last one.
When the sun started to dip on the horizon, I decided it was time to leave. I’d made my human a promise and I fully intended to keep it.
“Come on. Let’s go. I want everyone to regroup so that we can find out if our human problem is more widespread than we thought,” I explained.
In the back of my mind though, I was thinking more of the naked female waiting in my bed. I spent the entire ride back thinking about her.
I missed her too.
* * *
Upon my return, I spent several hours going over the data my men had collected in the command room. By the time we were done going through it, it was very apparent that there were several places where the humans had hidden solar panels to generate power. Most of them were stored in abandoned buildings, some on rooftops in places that weren’t visible from the ground or from above unless one of my drones was right on top of it.
I started studying the heat maps generated next. There were lots of small groups of humans that continued to survive on their own, but I didn’t think any of them would be large enough to facilitate something like this.
The next option would be to search underground, but I wanted to know more about the kind of numbers I might be dealing with before I decided on the best manner of attack.
Whoever these people were, I was going to conquer them. It was only a matter of time before they all learned that they answered to me and that their freedom thus far had simply been a privilege that I had granted them.
With that in mind, I set off to return to my human.
She had a fucking coming and I was going to give it to her.
CHAPTER 10
Raiza
I spent much of the day worrying about what Talyn might find. I was anxious that he might discover the people living beneath the city and kill them all. I went for a swim to try to distract myself, but that didn’t really work either. There was nothing to wear in the water, so I swam naked even though it had embarrassed me. The pool was warm at least, which felt refreshing in the crisp fall breeze.
When my fingers started to prune, I got out and wrapped myself in one of the thick towels from the bathroom, quickly moving back indoors once I started trembling in the cold air outside. I spent some time brushing my hair and rubbing a few scented lotions into my skin. Talyn had surprised me with several bottles of them one morning and I found that I really liked how soft they made me feel. I looked around for something else to do while I waited for him to return.
There were several screens that I could touch to watch a movie. Talyn had explained that they’d kept the data from the filmsthat the humans had made long ago for research purposes on their history. He seemed especially interested in the use of the medium as a delivery strategy of propaganda and hidden messages. I wasn’t as interested in that angle. I was in it for the story, so I found one that looked interesting and put it on, getting lost in a world of elves, hobbits, and some gnarly creature named Gollum that was cute in a weird sort of way.
The sound of the door sliding open behind me finally made me jump. I lifted my head to see his smiling face and I blushed a little realizing that I was still not dressed.
He’d probably like that. I hugged the towel more tightly around me.
“Raiza,” he purred.
My nipples hardened reflexively at the sound. I glanced away, slightly embarrassed, but not for long. I was far too concerned with what he’d found today. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. It reminded me vaguely of how he might look at his men.
It alarmed me that he might look at me that way.
“How was your day?” I asked. I needed to tread carefully.
“I had a rather fantastic day,” he replied. I gave his clothing a cursory glance. There wasn’t any blood from what I could tell. Either his armor was self-cleaning, or he hadn’t done any killing today. I hoped it was the latter.
“Would you tell me about it? I missed you,” I said, trying to err on the side of sweetness in case he’d decided to take his ire out on me.
