“Make your mind up.” I sigh. “My fault, Darax’s fault. Anyone else’s fault save for the ancestors’ and fate’s.”
“Fate doesn’t do this to a Sarkarnii.” Deus pushes himself off me and sits back against a tree trunk.
“Fate does what fate does, Deus.” I manage to sit as well, finding my tail has decided to shift out too.
“You have a mate. It’s easy for you to say.”
“And you have an entire clan of Sarkarnii females here on the second continent you didn’t tell anyone about,” I growl.
Deus flicks his gaze to me then studies the ground between his feet.
“I did not think they survived, not when my mate perished. I came looking for Darax, and he imprisoned me.”
“I suspect that was due to the fact you wanted to kill him. Kill us.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” Deus growls. “When you took from me the thing which meant most in the universe.”
“It wasn’t us. It wasn’t anything to do with Darax or me or any of the other warlords,” I respond. “It was the Ulep.”
Deus starts as if he’s had a pulsar bolt up his ass.
“Ulep?”
“Was it too much to believe we might not have been responsible? That it could have been an outside force rather than your fellow Sarkarnii?”
“The Ulep,” Deus says again. “It was the Ulep.”
“They were manipulating the wormholes, including the ones to this region,” I snarl. “They were looking to trap species here and use them for their own ends, as well as continuing to experiment with their wormhole tech.”
Deus stares at me. “I didn’t know.”
“Neither did we until recently when Driok discovered what they were doing and was able to use their tech against them to drive them from this galaxy.” I huff out a smoke ring, enjoying the burn of the accelerant in my chest and the increasing feeling of power returning to my limbs.
Deus is staring at the ground again.
“Perhaps if you had stayed with us, you would have known all of this,” I say with more force than necessary. “Rather than fighting against us.”
“It was me.” Deus raises his eyes to mine. One burns like it should do, the other has a blue tinge to it which is disconcerting.
“What was you?”
“I brought the Ulep,” he rasps. “I took something which belonged to them. They were chasing us. I did this.” He stares up into the square of sky above us. “I killed them all.”
GILLIAN
I’ve not had any more visitors. Not only am I hungry, but it’s rained, and I’m frozen. I keep working my way around the cage attempting to find the way out, but so far, I’ve been unsuccessful, and now I’ve lost the feeling in my hands. I have them tucked under my armpits as I drip and the jungle steams. It doesn’t make any difference the outside temperature, my wet trousers stick to me, and while my jacket was reasonably waterproof, water has run down my neck, soaking my shirt, and this hasn’t improved things.
I can’t remember the last time I ate, and with every shiver, I’m losing vital energy. Perhaps the Sarkarnii will return, perhaps they won’t, but it’s beginning to feel rather like being back in the pit.
Where time played out in an endless loop of cold, and horror, and hunger, whether mine or the creatures’ sent in for me to battle. At the time it felt like a punishment I should accept because I was stupid enough to go walking at night and get myself abducted by aliens.
But this time, I burn with anger, the only warmth I can generate. Anger at ending up like thisagain.
An anger I can’t control. The one which says you can’t fall in love.
Not now.
Not here.
