by Eva Brandt
He had known. He must have. Even if they didn’t get along, his father shared a lot of information with him. Normally, Brendan didn’t keep it from me, but there were exceptions to every rule.
I didn’t mention my epiphany, though, and suppressed the growl of frustration bubbling in my throat. The others did the same and the whole group fell silent, choosing to focus on the potential battle ahead of us.
Our precautions were for nothing, because by the time we got to our destination, the hangars were empty and abandoned. There was no sign the king had been anywhere near here. Our chimeras were nowhere to be seen and Selene was gone.
This was all my fault. I’d been the one to send her through the vents, alone and unprotected. If anything happened to her, if she was hurt all over again, I’d never be able to forgive myself.
But this wasn’t about me and my remorse. After the disaster in Gaia’s Haven, it wasn’t news to me that I was bad for Selene. What mattered now was finding her.
The Centaurs were still right behind us. I had no idea why they’d shown up now of all times and what their connection to King Philip was, but I couldn’t afford to underestimate them. They wouldn’t give up just because we’d managed to blast them back in the infirmary.
August stirred just in time to confirm this. He cracked his eyes open and murmured, “Guys, we need to go. The herd is right on our tail. And Selene is gone. Hades… Hades Base.”
His voice was barely distinguishable. He was obviously in a lot of pain. I wanted to ask what had happened to him, but I held back.
“You heard him,” Brendan said. “Time to go.”
Fortunately, the systems of the Venom were independent of the academy itself, so we had no trouble getting inside Brendan’s ship. Brendan sat down in the piloting seat and started the preparations for take-off. Just as we were about to launch, the herd burst into the hangar, chimera fire blurring the air around them.
Brendan didn’t lose his cool. The shields of the Venom bloomed around the ship, absorbing the tachyon blasts. They wouldn’t hold under a concentrated assault for too long, but they didn’t have to.
The hangar gate opened and the Venom left the academy that had been our home for so long. The departure felt strangely final in a way none of our trips ever had in the past. I didn’t look behind. I could only look ahead, because that was where Selene was.
But I also couldn’t ignore my earlier realization. Pollux and I shared a look. “I’ll go see to everyone’s injuries,” he mouthed. “You talk to him.”
I nodded jerkily, although a part of me wanted to leave this duty up to anyone else but me. I hadn’t been badly hurt in the fight with the chimeras. My sudden shift had prevented that. It also left me on the edge, exhausted, furious, and not knowing what to do with the savage emotions still bubbling inside me.
But I owed it to Selene, to Brendan, and to everyone else to face this, so I didn’t hesitate. I joined Brendan and took the copilot’s seat, not bothering to secure the belt around myself. “So, Your Highness,” I drawled, “anything you want to share with us puny mortals?”
The sarcastic words came out without me even thinking about it. The title I’d only ever used to show my respect now sounded like an insult. I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
Brendan didn’t flinch, but his jaw tightened and for someone who was usually so unreadable, that was a huge tell. Setting the ship on autopilot, he turned toward me. His eyes burned with a venomous green light, one so intense that for a few seconds, I was almost afraid of him. Almost, but not quite. “Well?” I prodded.
“What do you want me to tell you, Knox? That I lied to you? You already know that. That I asked too much of you? It isn’t anything new. I’ve always lied and asked too much, and I’ve always known that one day, it will come back to bite me in the ass. I just didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“Brendan, I don’t care about your self-recriminations and doubts,” I snapped at him. “I’m sure you had your reasons to keep this from us. And normally, I would understand. I wouldn’t be mad at you for hiding it. You might be my lover and my friend, but you’re also my prince and my commanding officer, and I don’t blame you for keeping some things to yourself.
“But this is different. If Jared is to be believed, we’re talking about technology that can control chimeras. This isn’t just about me, about our sensibilities and lies. Cerberus and all the others are gone, and they’ve taken Selene. If we had known…”
“I wasn’t aware the technology was that powerful,” Brendan explained. “I knew it existed. I have… an inferior version of whatever my father used to control the chimeras. The tablet.”
He pulled out the device in question and showed it to me. I stared at him in disbelief. “This? You can’t be serious.”
I’d seen him use the damn thing so many times. I’d actually wondered in the past why a prince would resort to something so old-fashioned when it was far more practical to store data in the backups built into our suits. But some physical drives did provide an extra layer of security, so I’d assumed Brendan had gone for that approach as well. It had never occurred to me that the tablet would have a far darker role.
“My father gave me this the day I became Typhon’s tamer,” Brendan explained. “Typhon is a bit different. He’s the strongest chimera, so in some ways, the connection between me and him is unbalanced. It’s like with you and Cerberus, only worse.”
I understood what he meant, since I’d already been aware Brendan was struggling. And after what had just happened, I could empathize with the concept of an unbalanced connection. But that still didn’t explain the tablet’s role. “What does it do, exactly?”
“It’s meant to serve as a secondary anchor for the mind link between me and Typhon. Typhon was always aware of its existence, of course. I never kept any of it from him. But at the same time… The technology is very questionable. It taps into the core of the very first chimera and that always concerned me.”
Ouch. Okay, that was bad. The first chimera was a bit of a legend among tamers. Most people believed Typhon occupied that role, but that wasn’t true. The whole reason why the Chimera unit used this name was because of the very first creature that had been turned into a machine—Chimera.
“But the technology wasn’t perfected, so you didn’t think it was that dangerous. Why did you keep it from us then?”
Brendan fell silent. He seemed to be struggling trying to form his next sentence. In the end, he didn’t have to say anything at all. His uncle interrupted our conversation. “It wasn’t the technology itself. It was what it meant.”
Both Brendan and I turned toward Archibald. Earlier, he’d looked pale and wan, and Pollux’s help hadn’t changed that much. His eyes were bound with a thick bandage, and he was leaning against the wall like he was about to fall over any moment now.
“Uncle, you should be resting,” Brendan said. “You pushed yourself earlier.”
“Please, let’s drop the masks, Your Highness. You know very well you’re not talking to your uncle.”
Brendan audibly swallowed. “Do we really have to do this right now?”
“I’m afraid we do. Archibald trusted you to have more morals than your father. It looks like he was wrong. Maybe I should take off this blindfold and get rid of you before you become a problem even bigger than your father.”
The threat made me shoot to my feet and step between Brendan and Archibald. I might have been angry with Brendan, but I wouldn’t allow any harm to come to him. “Back off. You won’t touch him. Over my dead body.”
“That could be arranged,” Archibald hissed, “but don’t worry. I don’t intend to do such a thing, not right now, at least. I still need you to get us out of this mess. Now, Brendan, do you want to finish this tale, or should I?”
Brendan shrugged. “Go for it. I’m personally not sure I have it right. Typhon never told me one way or another. I made a couple of guesses, but it was never clear.”
“Convenient.”
Archibald clicked his tongue in disapproval, but let the issue go. “It’s quite easy. Chimeras don’t actually go dormant, not in the sense humans understand it. Our souls simply choose other bodies and not the metallic ones our would-be owners provide. Sometimes, we coexist with a secondary, human soul. Other times, the human shell belongs to us and no other. I have chosen the former approach. But it’s not something that’s very compatible with a long life, which is why Archibald has been having so much trouble lately, and why I needed Brendan to take the throne.”
“You’re a chimera. Right.” I remembered the crazy exchange in the infirmary. At the time, the Centaur’s words hadn’t made sense, but now, everything was becoming clearer. “And so is Selene? Is that why they took her?”
Much to my surprise, Archibald shook his head. “Selene is just a human. But her child… Her child carries a chimera soul—the soul of my son, Pegasus. That was why the Centaurs were hunting her. And my best guess is that Philip might know something about it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken her.”
“That explains a lot,” Jared offered from behind Archibald. “I always wondered why the Great Mother encouraged my relationship with Selene.”
The latter sentence was barely audible, almost as if he was thinking out loud and not talking to us anymore. It still pissed me off beyond belief, reminding me of what he’d done to her and why we were in this situation in the first place. My claws emerged once again and I almost launched myself at him.
If I refrained, it was only because Brendan got up and grabbed my arm. “Look, now isn’t the time to fight. We’re not at our best. Our only real advantage is that we’re together and alive. We’ve been seriously wounded and drained. Our chances of getting inside Hades Base when we’re like this are already small. We have to focus on our goal, not on our disputes.”
“I agree,” Jared said. “I’ll get better by the time we’re there, but I’m no match for a horde of Grand Chimeras.”
A memory niggled at the back of my mind, that of Jared, Selene and me in The Fields of Mercury. That day, Jared had managed to paralyze both Cerberus and Sphinx. I hadn’t realized he was the one to attack us until our trip to the Apsid Quasar, but now that I did, I had to admit the skill could come in handy. “Can’t you immobilize them like you did on Mercury?”
Jared shook his head. “I’m not close enough to the sun to exert that kind of photonic manipulation. It’s a minor miracle I managed to incapacitate the Centaur Herd.”
“Proximity to the sun,” Brendan mused. “That’s interesting.”
For the first time since we’d received news of Selene’s near-miscarriage, his voice had gained that speculative note that signaled the fact that he had an idea. Whenever Brendan spoke that way, the plans he came up with ended very poorly—for whoever we were fighting.
“I think I know how we can extract Selene,” he said, “but it will take all of us for this to work.”
I didn’t tell him he had my guaranteed support. Instead, as everyone gathered in the depths of the Venom, I stayed by his side, watching the others carefully and wondering where this would take us.
Commander Trevor had managed to put together a rudimentary prosthetic from some of the equipment on board the vessel. He showed no distress over having lost a limb and instead eyed Brendan with clear suspicion. Pollux and August were a little more enthusiastic, although they weren’t completely over Brendan’s secret-keeping. Odette seemed the most excited about the idea, even if her part was among the most dangerous ones.
“You can count on me, Your Highness,” she said. “I want to finish this.”
“If I’m wrong, Odette, and my father does know about your involvement with us, you’ll be compromised,” Brendan warned her. “We might not be able to get to you in time.”
“I’m prepared for that. I always was.”
Brendan nodded. “Okay then. Let’s start this thing. We don’t have much time at our disposal.” Shooting Jared an unreadable look, he said, “Good luck.”
Jared smiled crookedly. “I don’t need luck. I have enough anger to compensate for anything.”
The shields around the Venom fell. Jared took a deep breath, his form starting to glow once again. In a flash, he was gone.
In the wake of his departure, I sent a prayer to Gaia, Tartarus, Helios, and every other deity that might have been listening. Maybe we’d failed them. Maybe we’d made mistakes and used the gifts they had given us in a wrong way. But Selene didn’t deserve to pay the price for it. And no matter what soul Selene’s child carried, the baby was still hers.
I only hoped we were right about this and the king would keep her unharmed, if not safe. Wait for us, Selene. We’re coming. Just wait a little while longer.
****
Selene
“What have you done to them? Why are they acting like this?”
I glared at Brendan’s father with all my might, feeling stupid and useless. He smiled at me, and the condescending expression made me feel even worse than before. “You don’t have to worry about that, little Terran. I’ve just put the Chimeras in their place. After all, weapons don’t need minds of their own.”
“They’re not weapons,” I shouted at him. “They’re living beings. They have thoughts, emotions, hopes of their own.”
“They did,” he corrected me. “And I’ve fixed that problem. A weapon with feelings is faulty and we can’t fight a war with unreliable tools.”
I could shout at him for years on end and it would solve nothing. The truth was literally staring at me in the face, through the emotionless eyes of my Sphinx.
Somehow, King Philip had taken control of all the chimeras. Everyone was here, from Sphinx and the other Grand Chimeras, to the Harpies. They stood lined up in the launch bay of the royal transport ship, motionless, even if they were online.
I’d tried everything in my power to reach out to Sphinx, but nothing had worked. When she’d grabbed me in the hangars, I’d accessed our connection, screamed at her, begged and pleaded. But she hadn’t listened. She hadn’t even acknowledged my words at all. And after my near-miscarriage, I’d been too afraid to try to use any of my powers against her.
I wasn’t physically hurt, but if I resisted too much or tried to fight them, that could easily change. On the other hand, I couldn’t just surrender. I had to get out of here somehow. I just wasn’t sure what to do.
Two soldiers grabbed me and ushered me away from the group of chimeras, into a different section of the vessel. I was tied down with thick cuffs. It was some kind of tachyon resistant metal, and even if I’d been able to use my powers like I usually did, it would have been problematic to destroy it. I could turn to Gaia’s Gift, but those abilities were unstable even on a good day. And if I did crack the cuffs, what then? Could I get out of here in my condition?
First and foremost, I needed to find out what the king wanted with me. There had to be something more to this than me being Brendan’s lover. Otherwise, he could have gotten rid of me ages ago. But the tournament, his sudden suspicious agreement to encourage Terran rights, his agreement to me being Brendan’s wife in the future… Everything had a purpose.
In the end, there was only one way to find out the truth and that was by asking him. He stayed behind after the soldiers left, and while I dreaded the reason, I also decided to use his decision. “Why am I here, Your Majesty? If you have Sphinx, you don’t need a chimera tamer anymore, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” he offered. “But you’re not just a tamer. I honestly couldn’t care less about that. You’re the perfect vessel for something greater—the mother of a whole new species.”
My mind went blank at his words. The baby. This was about the baby. How could he have known about the pregnancy?
Fuck, I was an idiot. Dr. Bell had been in the infirmary. He’d been the one to handle my near-miscarriage. He would have noticed any anomalous heat signatures. But he, like everyone else, must have assumed the baby was August’s. Then why the ‘whole new species�
� shtick?
“I don’t understand,” I told the king. “What do you mean?”
“Please don’t insult my intelligence. I’m perfectly aware of the identity of that child’s father.”
He knelt in front of me and gripped my legs, forcibly spreading them apart. “You know, I had my doubts about you when I first heard Brendan had started sleeping with you. But I should have known better. My son has many flaws, but he does have excellent taste in lovers. I wonder if he’d mind it if I sampled you a little bit. What do you say?”
He wasn’t actually asking for permission. His hands were already roaming my body, cupping my breasts through the material of my uniform. Horrified, I started to struggle. “No, don’t touch me. Let me go.”
It was futile. My legs were cuffed, like my hands, and the only one who could make the metal move was Philip. “Don’t be like that, little Terran,” he said, chuckling. “I’m sure you and I can have a lot of fun together. I hear pregnant women get really horny. I can fill you up just as good as Brendan does. I taught him everything he knows.”
Somehow, I doubted that very much. Even when we got rough in bed, Brendan and the others had never forced themselves on me. The idea of having sex with Philip turned my stomach, and what made it worse was that I wasn’t sure my hormones would agree. For all I knew, my body would start responding to him anyway, even if he repulsed me.
“You know, there are actually cameras in the showers. I got a good look at what you did with your unit. I’ve been thinking about fucking you for months, but that really settled it.”
I remembered the episode in the bathroom, when I’d gotten so lost in my desire that I’d forgotten about all sense of decency. If my lovers had pushed me just a little further, I probably wouldn’t have refused any of the other men there. I might have fucked every pilot in the other unit. It was so humiliating to know this man had seen me like that.
“You’ll be a good girl for me, won’t you?” he continued. “You’ll suck my cock good and take me deep.”
