Taking in a deep breath, Tenthil curled his hands into fists—it was the only way to keep himself from drawing a weapon.
“I’m his,” Abella said. “And there really isn’t anything interesting about me.”
Alk raised a hand—from this close proximity, Tenthil realized that both the sedhi’s hands were cybernetic, cased in a dark metal run through with glowing yellow lines that matched his eyes—and pointed toward Abella’s head. “Lower your hood for me, would you?”
Tenthil growled, bared his teeth, and took a step forward. The sedhi shifted his hand to direct all his fingers at Tenthil, who barely registered the sound of machines moving in his fury. The autocannons at each of the room’s four corners dropped into attack position.
“Tenthil, no!” She wrapped her arms around him from behind, leaning her face close to his ear. “It’s okay. I’m yours, remember?”
Her touch, her voice, broke through the enraged haze in Tenthil’s mind.
We need this forger if we want a chance to live, he reminded himself.
The sedhi hadn’t moved; he stared at Tenthil and Abella with a strange mixture of fascination and amusement in his expression. He flicked the fingers of his raised hand aside nonchalantly. The autocannons reverted to neutral positions, their barrels angling slightly upward.
“The security system is a bit…sensitive to my prompts,” Alk said, holding Tenthil’s gaze. “Of course, should we come to an arrangement, I will need to know what she is—and run a full-body scan to complete the chip. The operation, of course, would be purely professional.”
Alk’s smile was anything but reassuring—it was a challenge, a subtle shove, a bit of posturing.
This is his home. His sanctuary. His fortress. He thinks he’s safe here, thinks he’s untouchable.
Keeping one arm around Tenthil, Abella tugged her hood down. “I’m human. Err, a terran.”
Tenthil clenched his jaw, but he made no move to stop her; he had to acknowledge that, despite his own greater experience with the Infinite City and its diverse species, Abella was better at talking to most of the people they encountered. Situations like this—and with the azhera outside—were some of the few in which Tenthil’s instincts were not necessarily of benefit.
He’d never experienced this before; his common sense had been overridden by anger or bitterness from time to time, but his instincts had always been reliable in every situation.
“Human,” Alk repeated, almost purring the word. “I was curious when terrans first came to Arthos a couple cycles ago, but you are the first I’ve met.” The pupil of his third eye expanded and shrank again.
Abella chuckled. “Yeah, well, like I said, nothing interesting. I mean, when you’re around all these other people with fur, fangs, claws, horns, tails, and,” she swept an arm toward Alk, “three eyes, a plain old human is nothing to get excited about.”
Tenthil turned his head toward her, brows falling low. Was that truly what she thought, or was she simply playing a part? He couldn’t tell, but the idea that she saw herself as plain, uninteresting, or boring upset him in a subtle yet deep fashion. It could be perceived as unhappiness, and he could not allow his mate to be unhappy.
“It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?” Alk asked. He blinked, his central eye lagging the other two by half a second. “Perhaps where you come from, I am exotic. But here, it is you—”
Abella held her hand up, palm out. “Let me stop you right there. I had a…let’s just say, a really bad experience recently, and I would rather not talk about how exotic I am. Okay? I just want some normalcy. Some freedom. That’s the only reason we’re here.”
Alk’s smile softened slightly, and he gestured toward the nearby couches. “Then please, let us discuss business.”
Abella returned his smile. “Thank you.”
A firestorm raged within Tenthil, and the only logical thought process he could manage for several moments was a calculation of whether he’d be able to close the distance between himself and the sedhi before Alk manually aimed and fired the autocannons. He was relatively certain he could. It wouldn’t have been easy or safe, but he’d dealt with similar automated weaponry before, and he’d never encountered one with a targeting system that could overcome his bioelectric disruption field. He could engage his field in a millisecond.
It might have been worth it just for the look on Alk’s face before Tenthil killed him.
Abella looked up at Tenthil, and her smile wavered slightly. She slipped her hand into his and wove their fingers together.
I am yours, her eyes said.
The gesture was enough to force him back from the edge, though it did not quench the fires in him. He allowed her to lead him to the nearby couch, where he sat down beside her and looped his left arm around her shoulders, leaving his right hand free in case he needed his blaster. Part of him still hoped for a good reason to draw it.
Alkorin sat down across from them, spreading his arms along the back of the couch and crossing one leg over his other thigh. The sedhi’s legs appeared to be cybernetic as well—the same dark metal as his hands, the same sleek design, the same faintly glowing yellow lines.
“Shall we leap to it?” Alk asked. “Are either of you currently registered in the Consortium’s identification database?”
“No,” Abella said.
“So, we will need two fresh chips. One for a terran, the other for a…?”
“Khetun,” Tenthil replied.
“I’m not sure I am familiar with any such species, and I make a point to keep myself very well-informed of the peoples listed in the Consortium registry.”
Tenthil released a sharp breath through his nostrils; khetun was what his people had called themselves. What they should’ve been called here and anywhere else. But they were a race who had not even progressed beyond living in mud-daubed huts and cured-hide tents. They had no say in a place like this. “Zenturi.”
“Zenturi,” Alk narrowed his eyes and looked toward the ceiling, his tail—which lay across the cushion to his left—slowly undulating over the fabric. “Ah, I recall now. Popular in the underground arena circuits. I’m embarrassed by my own forgetfulness on that. It’s an unregistered species, illegally imported.”
Something didn’t ring true in Alk’s words.
“That a problem?” Tenthil asked.
“That would depend on how we approach it, my dear little zenturi.”
Tenthil tensed, but Abella squeezed his hand before he could lean forward and growl. He’d seen enough interactions between people like Alk—criminals of varying specialization and standing—that he should’ve recognized this for what it was. Shows of weakness were perceived as vulnerability and were considered fair grounds for attack. Shows of strength, whether of position, influence, or body, established superiority and—sometimes—gave pause to would be attackers.
This was a game. A dangerous game, undoubtedly, but Tenthil had always played with the highest possible stakes. He’d killed people a hundred times wealthier and more powerful than this sedhi.
“If you’re not skilled enough, we’ll seek elsewhere,” Tenthil said, pushing himself up.
For the first time since Tenthil and Abella had met the him, Alk showed something other than smugness—a flash of anger crossed his face, turning the pupil of his third eye into an almost imperceptibly narrow line and brightening the glowing marks on his skin.
“You will find no one in this city more skilled than me,” Alk said through clenched teeth, leaning forward and jabbing a finger toward Tenthil. “And you will find no one else in this line of work who treats the privacy of their clients with the respect and care I offer. If you want to pay a hack to implant chips that will get both of you arrested by the Eternal Guard or who will sell your new identities to anyone who offers a few credits, so be it. But I will not be insult—”
“Neither will I,” Tenthil said, meeting the sedhi’s gaze. He eased down onto the couch. “You are the best at what you do. I resp
ect that. I’m the best at what I do. Respect me in turn.”
Alk clenched his jaw before taking in a deep breath. “And what is it you do, zenturi?”
“Kill people like you.”
Abella tensed, her blunt fingernails biting into the back of Tenthil’s hand. She turned her wide eyes toward the sedhi. “Let’s…just calm down. We’re here to do business, right?”
Alk didn’t look away from Tenthil. “Remove your hood and mask.”
Tenthil pulled back his hood with one hand and tore the mask off his face with the other, dropping the latter onto the couch beside him.
The sedhi’s stare persisted for a few more seconds before his eyes rounded, and he straightened. “You’re the one who attacked Drok a couple weeks ago. Right in the middle of his own club.”
Tenthil nodded once. He kept his attention on the edges of his vision, from which he could see two of the four autocannons mounted on the ceiling. Had he pushed Alk too far? Had he overstepped the unspoken boundaries of this verbal game?
Abella leaned forward slightly and said calmly, “We’re not looking for any trouble, Alkorin. We came to you because you’re the best, because you have a reputation for discretion, and because we had faith that you’d be able to help us. Tenthil and I have both been used as slaves. We have people after us, and there’s nowhere safe for us in this city. All we want is our freedom—and that means getting off this planet. Neither of us ever asked to be brought here.”
Alk lifted one of his hands. Tenthil tensed, ready to draw his gun and shove Abella away from the inevitable autocannon blasts, but the sedhi only ran his metal fingers through his dark hair, pulling it back between his horns.
“This is my business, not a charity,” Alk said. “But…we can all pretend we’re good friends while we sort this out, and I may even be inclined to slightly reduce my usual prices in your case. Once we’re done, you go on your way, and I forget you were ever here and continue on with my life and my work.”
Tenthil nodded again.
“I never disclose the names of my clients or the details of my business with them,” the sedhi continued, “but I can assure you that Drok was no friend of mine. News of his murder sent shockwaves throughout the Undercity because of its audacity, nothing more. I find that keeping up to date on such occurrences allows me to better protect the interests of my clients.
“That said, I don’t want to know anything more about your situation. I don’t want to know who’s after you, I don’t want to know what trouble you’re in—unless it pertains directly to the identification chips you need.”
“Good,” Tenthil said.
Abella’s tension eased, and she leaned against Tenthil. “Thank you.”
“I do it for the credits, not the thanks.” Alk sat back, though his previously leisurely position had taken on an undeniable stiffness now. The sedhi was likely rattled, but that didn’t mean he would be docile.
“How much?” asked Tenthil.
“Thirty thousand.”
“No.”
Alk’s dark brows angled downward over the bridge of his nose. He lifted his arms off the back of the couch, palms toward the ceiling. “Your situation isn’t exactly simple, is it?”
“Make us the chips and we leave. Simple.”
“I thought we were approaching this from a stance of mutual respect, zenturi.” Alk shook his head. “You need to pass through a checkpoint to leave the planet. That’s fine, my IDs can manage it. But she is part of a race that only has a few thousand registrants in a city of tens of billions, and you are part of a race that isn’t in the registry at all. That makes my work extremely difficult, because anything I produce will need to stand up to even greater potential scrutiny than normal. If you’re one in a billion, the Consortium doesn’t care. But one of a kind? That would draw their attention.”
“Fifteen,” Tenthil said, forcing his face to remain neutral; the sinking feeling in his gut was becoming too familiar as of late.
“Thirty is already low.”
Tenthil only stared at the sedhi.
“Give me the human, and I’ll make yours free of charge,” Alk said, his third eye shifting to glance at Abella.
Abella gasped and threw herself on top of Tenthil in the same instant that he surged forward; it was only some vague instinct that halted his momentum—even in the depths of his rage, he could not allow himself to do her harm. Still, his muscles bulged, his claws shredded the couch cushion beneath him, and he snarled through bared teeth.
Abella glared at the sedhi. “Are you serious? You’re basically asking to be ripped to shreds! I’m not his plaything or his property. I’m his mate.”
Hearing Abella reaffirm it once again, hearing her own their connection, was like a splash of cold water on Tenthil’s face, cooling him off enough to clear a bit of the rage fog from his mind. He slipped his arms around her and shifted her aside—he would not allow her between himself and the sedhi. It was his place to shield her from harm, not the other way around.
Alk’s eyes were wide, his marks glowing bright, and he was pressed so far back against the couch that it seemed the frame was likely to snap, but he kept his seat. Whether it was arrogance, stupidity, or fear that had held him there, Tenthil neither knew nor cared.
The sedhi’s tongue slipped out and ran over his lips. “Twenty-five for both. That’s the best I can do.”
There was a gleam of something else in Alk’s eyes, something Tenthil would never have expected to see in such a situation—curiosity.
“You can make them both free and I’ll let you live,” Tenthil said, for once relishing the burning sensation in his throat as he spoke.
“I’m not keen on the idea of dying, zenturi, but as I said—this is not a charity.”
“Twenty.”
“Even if you manage to kill me, you two won’t make it out of this room alive. Is that what you want for the human?”
Tenthil tipped the corner of his mouth up in a lopsided smile; it was the only outward display of the pain and worry he felt at the thought of losing Abella that he permitted. “You’d be too dead to care.”
Abella placed her hand over Tenthil’s and looked at him. “Twenty-five. He’s not our enemy. Let’s not make him one.”
Clenching his teeth, Tenthil turned his head to meet her gaze. The worried light in her eyes and the concerned crease between her eyebrows nearly undid him. “Fine.”
Alk groaned, lifting a hand to massage his forehead. “Twenty, all right? I’ll do the damned job for twenty. Bring me half to get started, the rest when we implant. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I do have other work to attend.”
Tenthil wasted no time in getting to his feet, keeping an arm around Abella to bring her with him. He walked with her toward the door.
Grinning, she twisted to look behind them and offered the sedhi an enthusiastic wave.
He wasn’t sure if she was being friendly or condescending, but when Alk only released another groan in response, Tenthil couldn’t help feeling a swell of pride and satisfaction in his chest.
Thirteen
Tenthil sank into a low crouch, placing one hand on the metal beneath. The shadows he’d positioned himself in were a welcome comfort, especially paired with his natural disruption field, but he refused to lower his guard.
He ran his gaze over his surroundings; from his perch atop their current safehouse, he could see the entirety of the rectangular chamber in which that safehouse stood, including the other units nearby—he guessed they’d originally been intended as storage units of some kind, though most of them looked like they’d been neglected for many years. Dirt and trash had built up on the ground, obscuring much of the concrete and metal. There were even some strange plants growing in a few places—they were pale, sickly things that had likely come from another planet thousands of lightyears away hundreds of years ago.
The chamber was perhaps twenty meters high—leaving plenty of clearance for the storage units—and a hundred meters across at its
largest point. The walls slanted toward the center, where the only light—a huge, yellow-orange circle that sometimes flickered—was situated. Its illumination touched most of the debris-strewn ground below, but it didn’t quite reach the buildings or their roofs, being largely blocked overhead by prominent pipes and large, squared-off bulges in the concrete and metal.
There’d been no sign of movement over the last ten minutes apart from a lone sewer skrudge; the half-meter-long vermin had dug something out from beneath a rusted metal sheet and scurried off into a crack in the wall.
Tenthil’s eyes shifted frequently toward the entry tunnel, which itself was dimly lit by failing lights. There were at least two other routes by which the chamber could be exited—the metal-rung ladders that led up from the sides of several of the storage units and connected the catwalks overhead, and a smaller access tunnel sized for foot traffic on the ground level, hidden behind a tristeel door that only looked like it wouldn’t open.
Without intending to, he turned his mind to Abella as he rose from his crouch. Pride warmed his chest, and a small smile spread across his lips. She’d done well today, better than he would’ve expected—better, even, than the best he could’ve hoped for from himself.
Frustration sparked in his gut to clash with that sense of pride; she wouldn’t have had to step in if not for Tenthil’s mistakes. He’d allowed his instincts to get in the way of his purpose. His need to protect Abella had placed her in greater danger. Their only goal had been to obtain the ID chips, and his need to assert dominance over anyone who challenged his claim on Abella—even when there was no true conflict over her, as with the azhera—had almost plunged their mission into chaos and bloodshed.
Were the forger not an honorable individual—at least on the surface—Tenthil and Abella would never have left that place alive, and the only Tenthil would’ve been to blame.
Abella, on the other hand, had proven herself clever, attentive, and adept reading people and situations. If he hadn’t known better, Tenthil would never have guessed that her only experience in Arthos had been as a slave; she’d carried herself with poise and confidence through circumstances that would’ve rattled many other individuals.
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