by Maven, Ella
He sighed heavily and dropped his head between his shoulders before turning to face me. “The right thing to do would be to ask your opinion, wouldn’t it?”
I stared at him. “I mean… yeah. That would be nice.” I bit my lip. “Is returning to Earth an option?”
His sad eyes met mine, and he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. We cannot travel that far with the Pliken cargo ship.”
I had figured that. And honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go home. I was a completely different person now than I’d been when I left Earth. How would I even acclimate back to that life when I knew this whole other galaxy existed? I’d go crazy. Someone would 5150-me in a heartbeat once I started babbling about aliens with spikes and three tongues.
“So where else can we go? Can we … go to your home?”
He closed his eyes on a wince, as if I’d sank a knife into his chest.
“Mikko,” I whispered as I wrapped a hand around his wrist. “What’s wrong?”
“Home is complicated,” he said. “To the best of my knowledge, the rest of my race still live on Planet Torin, which is where the ones who did this to me still live.” He gestured to his forearms. “I have never had any wish to return.”
“I get that. I don’t want to go where you don’t want to go. What about your home planet? What is the name?”
“Corin.”
“Yeah, can we go there?”
He exhaled and his brow dipped as he thought. “I… hadn’t considered that. We’d be alone, Rian, as long as no one has settled there in the meantime.”
“I’m fine being alone… as long as you’re with me.” I smiled. “Alone together.”
His head lifted, and the hope in his purple eyes made my heart skip a beat. “You’d accept a future with me?”
How did he not understand how I felt about him? “I can’t see my future without you.”
“I want you to be my mate,” he said, more confident now as his back straightened.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Ditto.”
His arms shot out, and I let out a shriek of surprise as he tugged me into his lap. His hands gripped the side of my neck as he brought our foreheads together. “After you let me be inside you, I could only hope you’d accepted me. I’m not a human male. I’m a Drixonian male who long ago lost the dream of finding a mate, as I’m no longer who I once was.”
“Mikko,” I said softly. “I don’t know who you were before, but who you are now is honorable, loyal, and strong. You are everything that is safe to me. I know it took me a long time to trust, but you’ve earned it tenfold. I should be the one begging you to accept a future with me.”
A huge smile broke out on his face. “I wouldn’t choose anyone but my little warrior Rian.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a warrior.”
“As the warrior expert in this mating, I’ll be the judge of warrior status.”
Laughing, I dropped a kiss on his nose. “Fine.” I smiled. “So, does that mean you have abandoned your plan to destroy the Pit?” His expression shifted to a blank mask, and my heart sank. “Mikko?”
“No,” he said shortly.
“No?” I tugged myself out of his grip and shifted off his lap to sit at his side. “What do you mean no?”
“I’ll destroy the Pit and get you off planet.”
I’d just slept, and I was tired all over again. “I don’t understand. Why are you so insistent?”
“You’ve seen what that place turns the prisoners into. No one wants to live like that. I understand because that was me.”
“It was me too!” I shouted. “I do understand. But I didn’t want to die in there. I still held out hope. Hope is what made me want to stay alive. And if you destroy the Pit and everyone in there, you’ve taken that away from them. Can you live with being responsible for killing all of those beings?”
“I’ve killed before, and I’ll do it again.”
“For a reason,” I emphasized. “In self-defense or in protection of me. But that… going in there and collapsing the Pit on everyone inside, that’s not justifiable to me. And if you think that’s right, then…” I felt tears prick the back of my eyes. “Then you’re not who I think you are.”
He visibly flinched. Hard. As if I’d slapped him across the face. He turned on me with a snarl that showed his fangs. “I thought I told you not to assign morality to me.”
The tears spilled over, not because I was sad, but because I was fucking pissed. “I know who you are. I don’t know why you’re acting like this.”
“Because I refuse to abandon my mission.” He pounded his chest. “I have spent tens of cycles imagining the end of the Pit. That was the hope that kept me alive, even if I died doing it.”
“I don’t get it. You escaped. Why can’t you just let it go?”
“Because that place made me feel helpless.” He slashed a hand at a nearby rock, leaving behind deep claw marks. I startled and shifted away from him as his eyes blackened in anger.
“Mikko—”
“When I woke up in that Uldani lab, bleeding and in pain, my body altered without my consent, I was helpless. In chains. Taken from my brothers and sold like property. When they were lowering me in that Pit, I promised myself I’d destroy everything that made me helpless. And that starts with the Pit.”
I shook my head. “But you’re not helpless anymore. Decide if you want to be someone who looks to punish others for your past or if you want to focus on the future with me. Your mate. Because you can’t do both.”
I didn’t look to see if he flinched. I walked away to hide with tears streaming down my face and pieces of my heart sprinkling the sand at my feet.
* * *
I quickly discovered stomping away dramatically on an alien planet was not possible. There was nowhere for me to go. I thought about retreating to the spring, but the sky was darkening as night fell, and I wasn’t comfortable being out of sight of any of the Drixonians.
So, I had to pout within ten yards of Mikko while his concerned gaze remained on me. I mulled my words over and over in my head, worried I was too harsh. Was this a cultural thing and I was misunderstanding the importance of this mission to him? But I couldn’t reconcile him ending the lives of everyone in the Pit with the caring, selfless way he treated me. If he wanted to take out a few guards, I would have easily looked the other way. But ending all those lives? I couldn’t understand that.
I hated he felt helpless at any time in his life. Because I absolutely knew what that felt like. But destroying the Pit and ending lives wasn’t going to fix how he felt in the past. Couldn’t he see the future was what mattered now?
I also wondered what happened to York and Crife. Were they still alive? Did they get out safely? Meri was currently cuddled into the crook of Zecri’s arm, and I had a feeling my new friend would stay behind rather than come with us.
My heart ached. My head pounded. I felt like the ground was shifting under my feet and I couldn’t get my footing. Mikko had been the solid foundation for me since I got here, but now that solid base was cracked. I believed in my heart he was who I thought he was. Why couldn’t he see that too?
Eventually Fenix wandered over toward where I sat hunched against a rocky arch. Mikko watched us the whole time with sad puppy dog eyes, although I pretended I didn’t notice.
Fenix sat down in the sand next to me, his orange hair flopping over one eye. “Mikko is really stubborn, you know.”
I sniffed in response.
Fenix’s lips curled into a small smile. “I heard your fight. Kind of hard not to since we weren’t far. I’m on your side and so is Zecri.”
I plucked at a tear in my pants. “I don’t want you to pick sides. Maybe I’m being too hard on him, but why can’t he move on from the past and accept we can have a future?”
Fenix glanced over at Mikko, who was no longer watching us, but instead sat with his head bowed, almost like he was praying. “While I agree that Mikko needs t
o turn his focus away from the Pit, I think I need to explain something to you.” With a sharp breath, Fenix peeled off one of his long black gloves.
I just barely held back a gasp at his hand. From the tips of his fingers to the middle of his forearms, the scales were a twisted mass of scar tissue. My reaction wasn’t from how he looked, but because I couldn’t imagine how painful that had been. “Fenix,” I whispered. “What—?”
He closed his fist, and when he opened it again, a spark ignited in his palm. Fire spread to cover his whole hand and wrist. Flickering flames, reflected in his purple irises. He closed his fingers again and the fire went out. Face pinched with pain, he replaced his glove and met my eyes. “We are reminded of the past every day. It’s not so easy to let go when every waking moment is consumed with what happened to you. When you’re reminded of the time you were powerless. It’s not that we don’t want to move on, it’s that we can’t. We don’t know how.”
I reached for his hand, in shock at what I just saw, but he drew back out of reach with a jerk. I quickly withdrew my hand. “I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s okay.” His eyes held infinite sadness as he ducked in what seemed like shame. “Touch causes me pain.”
At his words, understanding clicked into place in my brain. I got it then. Their traumatic past held them in an iron grip in a way I could never imagine. While I’d made many mistakes in my life, and I’d surely felt helpless at times, it was nothing compared to what they’d gone through.
Fenix, who exuded a friendly warmth, couldn’t be touched.
Zecri was massively scarred and seemed to carry a heavy weight of sadness on his shoulders. And then there was Mikko, as prickly as the spikes on his back, but once I got past the deadly exterior, I found a soul just trying to handle all that life had thrown at him.
“I’m sorry, Fenix,” I whispered to him.
His head came up and he gave me a small smile.
I held my arms out in front of me and curled them in the air like an imitation hug. “There’s an air hug for you. It’s not much, but—”
His eyes lit up as he mimicked my gesture. “Air hug. I like it.”
I smiled. “Thank you for patiently explaining to me why I should be more understanding of how Mikko feels.”
He cocked his head. “Did I really do that?”
“You did. I don’t think it will change Mikko’s decision, but at least I get it now. I just hope Mikko can live with the consequences of his decision.”
“I don’t know what he plans to do, but I do know you’re worth him choosing his future.”
“I hope I am,” I whispered as I glanced at Mikko. Our eyes met from across the stretch of sand. “I really hope I am.”
I knew I needed to talk to Mikko. Even if I didn’t agree with him, I did have to respect his past and his feelings. I hated there were even a few hours where a rift had opened between us. I gathered my courage to go speak to him when I caught sight of a figure racing across the sand toward us. I braced, worried it was a Pliken until I spotted the familiar blue skin and horns.
Zecri barreled into our camp and skidded to a halt near Mikko. “The cargo ship is early!” he panted. “I went to scout and spotted it. You have to leave now before they send out a search team for Rian. You can’t wait another three rotations for the next drop.”
Mikko cursed and sprang into action. We’d already packed as we’d planned to leave tomorrow. Now, with the shadows lengthening at the end of the day, there would be no rest. We were going off planet. Now. To where? I had no idea.
“I have time,” Mikko was saying to Zecri in a low tone as Fenix and I drew closer. “I know how long the drop lasts. I still have time.”
“You better be sure,” Zecri said. “Because if they come searching for Rian in numbers, we won’t be able to hold them back. You cannot miss getting on that ship.”
“I won’t,” Mikko gritted out. He took my hand and tugged me to his side.
I stumbled and had to brace myself with a hand on his abs. The muscles tightened under my palm, reminding me of happier times in the spring when we’d been a team. Now we were at odds. My stomach soured.
“Stick to the path we talked about. Wait for them to unload. Get on and get the fleck out,” Zecri said. Meri sat perched on his shoulder, looking sad.
“Hey,” I reached out to her. “You can stay here, or you can come with us. Your choice.”
Her little paws shook my hand and then she pulled back to grab a lock of Zecri’s hair.
I smiled and felt tears gather in my eyes. I was going to miss the little hilphen. “I get it. You’ll be safe here.” I smiled at Zecri. “Take care of her.”
His finger touched her foot. “I will.”
Fenix shifted beside us, and I turned to him with the tears spilling down my cheeks. “Thank you for everything.”
His expression was tight with pain, and I imagined it was a mix of physical and emotional. “Of course, warrior Rian. You keep Mikko in line, all right?”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I’ll try.”
Mikko and Zecri clasped each other around the back of their necks and brought their foreheads together. They whispered something to each other before Mikko turned to face Fenix. “One last time, brother?”
“One last time.” Fenix’s voice wobbled.
They brought their foreheads together and Fenix let out a long exhale before saying, “She is all.”
Mikko nodded and his hand tightened in mine. “She is all.” He pulled away, slung the pack over his back and nodded to his friends. “May Fatas bless us and we never meet again.”
“Thank you both,” I babbled as Mikko began to pull my arm. I felt unsettled as I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on the security of the three Drixonians in such a short time. “I’ll miss you. Thank you!”
They didn’t say anything, only watched us as we began our trek back to the Pit, where I’d find out just who Mikko was. I glanced up at his face as we walked at a steady pace. His brow hung low over his eyes, and his lips were pressed firmly together in concentration. This was Mikko on a mission. I just hoped it was one that ended with us both alive and without an extra burden on our souls.
Eleven
Mikko
The cargo ship was a growing black dot on the horizon. The sun had set and only a slight glow remained along the edge of the sands. When I’d been in the Pit, I’d been aware that a ship arrived with the food drop. It had been easy to hear. And it had never been early. Zecri was right, and it should have arrived tomorrow at sunset. Maybe the search for Rian had something to do with it. I had heard the digging and explosions as we escaped. Were there repairs to make in the Pit?
What I hadn’t known was how the drop worked. When I escaped the first time, I hadn’t hung around to observe. Zecri said the entire cargo ship was vacated during the drops. Some guards made security rounds while others conducted repairs. Then there were those who gathered the food into the cage for the drop.
He said at most two guards stayed behind, and I could easily take out two guards. The ship stayed approximately three yoras. Zecri said it had just landed. That left me two and a half yoras to find the Pit explosives and then another half a yora to get on the cruiser.
Beside me, Rian panted as she sought to keep up with my jog. Her curly red hair was piled into a knot on her head. I wished we had material to make her a hood, as her locks stood out even in the moonlight.
Her words to me rattled around in my head. When she’d walked away from me, I knew she hadn’t wanted to be followed, but I would have if she’d left my sight. I wasn’t angry with her. In fact, her words only made me more resentful about my past. If I could just do this one last thing, if I could eliminate the Pit, I’d be able to move on. I knew I could. I’d show Rian.
We reached a small cluster of rocks and I drew us to a stop while dropping down to a crouch. Rian followed me, falling to her knees as her chest heaved. I laid a hand on her back. “Are you okay?�
�
“Yeah,” she nodded with a gasp, her head down. “I thought I was in decent shape, but that was … tiring.”
She wiped at her forehead and glanced up. “What now?”
I peered at the rim of the Pit. I counted two patrol guards walking the perimeter, four loading the food into the cage, and two more near the supply building. That was where the explosives were. They were stored in case of riots, and used sparingly, they didn’t do much damage except to break up fighting. But all of them together would cave in the entire Pit. I could kill Plikens all day and they’d keep cropping up like weeds. But take down the Pit, and they’d lose the ability to sentence anyone for life. “I’m going to get you on that cruiser.”
She stared at me with big eyes. “And you?”
“I just have to finish my mission first, then I’ll join you.”
I saw the moment she knew what I meant. Her shoulders fell and her face paled. “Mikko…”
“We have time,” I insisted.
“Please, can we talk—”
“When we’re safe.”
“And what if we don’t get safe.” She tugged on my arm with her small hands.
“We will get safe,” I said. “It will fall into place. This is supposed to happen. It’s my destiny.” I pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead, my mind already on what was to come. “We have to go. Stay at my side and do what I say.”
She nodded with wet eyes. “Yeah, of course.”
With her tucked behind me to the side of my spikes, we took off across the sand toward the ship. The guards stood at the bottom of the boarding ramp, backlit by the interior lights. Leaving Rian crouched under the landing gear of the ship, I took out the guards quickly and quietly with a quick twist and snap of their necks. After dragging their bodies behind a few nearby rocks and swiping away the drag marks in the sand, I returned to Rian’s side.
Her hand was clammy when I held it, and her breath came in sharp bursts. I could feel the rapid beat of her cora. She held strong though, her chin lifted in determination as we entered the ship. The cargo ship had several rooms—including a lower hull where the landing gear was located, and a main living quarters as well as the crew quarters. After determining we were alone, I directed her to hide in a small cabinet in the storage room of the ship. She curled her body into a ball and gave me a sharp nod. “I’m good. Go, Mikko. Erase your past.”
