I look down at him, on the floor.
“You were saying?”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, little spark, than at your feet, gazing up at your beauty.”
I hold out my hand to him, once more helping him to his feet.
“But having you by my side is the best feeling in the universe,” he adds. “Shall we go? I have a dance to do for a beautiful female to call my own.”
I slip my arm in his. He looks down at where we are joined.
“You’ve persuaded me.” I put my hand over his clawed one. “And there’s nothing I would like to do more.”
“Then let me dance for you, my spark, my mate. Let me dance for you and show the ancestors we belong together, now and for eternity.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Sounds like I finally have your heart.”
“Always.”
The door opens, and we walk out past everyone into the large, open atrium of Dalox’s ship, where cheers raise the roof and drums thump out a beat no one could resist.
Especially my big, bad Sarkarnii warlord.
BONUS EPILOGUE
LYDIA
I’ve somehow got myself turned around…again.
These passages in the various quadrants belonging to all the warlords all look exactly the same. Except Dante’s which is a bit more scorched than the rest.
Darax’s is also seemingly more of a maze than any of the others. Despite all the time I’ve spent in it, I still get lost.
Usually I have someone else with me, or at least somewhere I need to be, but with all my friends loved up with their Sarkarnii mates, I’m on my own.
I mean, I’m not really on my own. Kerra has invited me to live with her and Darax permanently, given everyone else is with their warlords in their quadrants. As I find Darax the least scary of all the warlords, I’ve agreed.
The thing is, Kerra is often busy. I love helping her out with her baby when I can, even though I never thought of myself as particularly maternal. She’s often with Darax, who clearly wants to have her to himself, and I can’t exactly hang around, being a spare part to their loved up coupledom.
Which means I seem to spend a lot of my time roaming around, trying to avoid the scary Sarkarnii warriors who areparticularly loud and bombastic. Alternatively I can sit in my quarters.
I don’t like being on my own. The silence…
I can’t.
Either way, it’s all about the lesser of two evils, and today I chose to risk the noise and scales and tails of the Sarkarnii in order to not think about anything else.
Then I got lost.
I’m sure I’ve not been in this part of Darax’s quadrant before. It’s less used than the rest of the places I’ve been, and I haven’t seen or heard a Sarkarnii voice for a while.
The passage in front of me opens into a large atrium. This one is bare of the usual lush vegetation the Sarkarnii like to adorn their open spaces with. Being sort of reptiles, they seem to like the warm, the moist, and then the dry, as if they can’t quite make up their minds.
This place is eerily quiet too. As if all the air and all the sound have been sucked out of it, to be replaced by absolute silence.
A silence broken by a long, low, painful growl. One which rises then falls away to nothing.
