by Sara Page
“Fuck.”
“Yes, fuck indeed. We need to get out of here, Maul.”
“I don’t know if I can get up. My body feels like it’s frozen up.”
“That would be the sedation they have put in her body. Get up, you little bitch.”
“F—f—fuck… you,” I stammer as I stand to my feet. My body is very weak but I can feel the blood flowing through my heart as if I had been running for my life.
“Yes, yes. At least I’m not whining like a woman,” he snickers as I lurch towards the door.
I guess us being silent now is off the table. It takes too much energy to do that and walk.
Reaching the door that traps us, I grab at the bars to hold myself steady. Looking out, I don’t see anyone in sight, but on the wall directly in front of me I see a camera watching me.
“Bring down a Committee member…” I rasp out. “Now!”
Resting my head against the bars, I say, “Anything you can do, Marketh?”
“I’ve put myself into the net, unauthorized of course.”
“Wonderful. Why not earlier?”
“I’ve been going through these bouts of insanity too, Maul.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve tapped into the live feeds. Give me a moment. I also sent electronic transmissions to your father and the Supreme Leader… Probably shouldn’t have done that. But it is what it is. That was an hour ago though, so…”
“Anything at this point, little buddy. Get the ship up and running if you can. If possible, we can try reaching it if we can get to Lexi.”
“Got it. Be ready though, we have Masks coming down the halls towards us.”
“Anything you can do about this lethargy? I won’t be of much use if I can’t get past this.”
“No… I’m… Maul, we’re dying. We need to get to Lexi. If we don’t, it’s the end for us both.”
“Fuck. Give me two minutes past this sedation, Marketh. Two minutes.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Just get us out of this fucking cage.”
“Fourth-Striped Maul!” The guard shouts as he gets close enough for me to see him and the five-member squad trailing behind him. Red-eyes is yet again coming for my head.
Raising my eyes at them, I stare. “You are responsible for our death.”
I start to slide down towards the ground. My knees are weakening again and my chest is thundering. My blood is flowing too fast and my heart is working too hard.
That stuns them for a moment. I’m not quite sure what they expected me to say but my vision is going hazy again. Not of rage but of the oblivion.
I can see the yawning mouth of the stars threatening to take me over…
“Open the door!” Marketh cries in anguish.
“I command that the door be opened at once!” a rich baritone comes from the opposite direction of the men.
It’s a voice I’ve heard before, but where?
“Vice Admiral!”
Five of the guards snap to attention at once. Only the lead guard doesn’t move. He’s the red-eyed bastard.
“Did you not hear my words, guard?” the Vice Admiral growls as he arrives at our door.
Behind him are three gold-cloaked personal guards.
The whine of high-powered blasters pierces my ears but I don’t have the energy to see from which way they come.
“This prisoner is in the custody of the Supreme Leader!”
“This prisoner has been released by the Supreme Leader himself. He has absolved any crimes you may have trumped up, My’Clar. Release him now.”
That voice isn’t raised now, it’s at a calm and even cadence, and for the briefest of moments it gives me enough clarity to look up.
“Get us to his bondmate now or all this grandstanding will be over our three dead bodies!” Marketh says loudly.
And for once through this whole mess I feel like we might actually survive this.
That is until I feel myself falling back to the ground.
My head is dizzy as a numbing bliss takes over. Somewhere up above, I feel hands touching me, poking me.
Then everything goes dark again.
Chapter Nineteen
Lexi
Warm. The darkness inside me is warm and soothing, like a warm bath at night. The waters lap at my feet, beckoning me.
Pulling me in closer.
Deeper.
If I would just give in and let myself be pulled under, I know I can be warm forever.
It’s safe here, inside.
Off in the distance, I can hear Jack talking to me. Praising me as he touches me. He sounds so pleased with me as I let the current pick me up and carry me away that it makes me feel like what I’m doing is right.
Why fight? Why feel… why suffer? Only pain awaits me on the outside.
This is where I belong, the waters sing to me as I let go, floating away on the tide. This is where I was always meant to be. There is nothing to fear.
I lay back and spread my arms wide.
Above me, yawning across my expanse, stretches an endless black sky. There are stars twinkling, lighting up pockets of the darkness, and I watch in awe as they seem to burst then fade away, leaving no trace of their light behind.
One by one, they explode and it’s breathtaking. They’re beautiful as they burst and die. I watch in awe as hundreds of stars disappear.
Then there are only a handful left in my sky.
I don’t know why but there’s something about the last few that makes me sit up with worry.
I don’t want those stars to burst. There’s something about them fading away that terrifies me.
“I’ve waited so long for this moment,” Jack’s voice breaks through the haze.
I reach up as if I could grab the remaining stars but I just can’t quite reach…
Another star bursts then fades away.
“You’re mine. Finally mine.”
Another star bursts. Then another and another.
I jump up, stretching. Reaching. But my fingers are miles away.
“I won’t let you get away this time.”
“No,” I cry out as another star disappears in front of my eyes.
“Yes,” Jack hisses and the waters tighten around me, squeezing.
“What have you done?” I sob as yet another star explodes.
There are only six left now. Only six to light up my sky. When those lights are gone, I know in my bones that I’ll be forever lost in the darkness.
“I’ve done what I had to do. What you forced me to do.”
“What did I force you to do?”
“You forced me to do terrible things…”
The sixth star bursts. Now there are only five.
“If you would have only loved me… But no, you didn’t fucking see me.”
I fight the water back. My arms pushing and my feet kicking.
“All you could see was your family. You cared about everyone but me.”
I have to save my stars, I have to. The fifth one explodes and the haze around me darkens.
Like black slithering snakes, the water wraps around my legs, and I feel myself weaken. There’s a sharp tug and I watch the fourth star burst before I’m tugged beneath the dark surface.
Jack’s voice echoes all around me. Taunting me as I sink.
And sink.
My mouth fills with the water and I begin to choke on my own emptiness.
“So I got rid of them.”
The dark waters are filling me up yet I feel so hollow.
So empty.
I’m being drained and it’s too hard to fight it.
“Now you have me, only me.”
My legs and arms are so heavy, so tired.
“Maul,” I moan then gurgle and choke on the water.
“He’s probably being executed at this moment.”
No, I think and feel a surge of strength. The water wrapped around my legs weakens and the three stars left in the sky flare, brightening.
“Yes,”
Jack coos and I suddenly feel his fingers pushing through my hair. “Do you think after all the work I’ve done I’d let a fucking alien take you from me?”
Jack’s fingers in my hair gives me something physical to latch onto. A way to pull myself out of the water and up to the surface.
Coughing and expelling the darkness from my lungs, it takes me a few moments before I can speak again.
Jack continues to touch me, to stroke me. With a shock, I break through the last of the haze and realize I’m sitting on his lap, naked.
“What are you doing? Why are you telling me this?” I ask and push away his hands.
Jack looks up from leering at my breasts and his face instantly hardens. “Because it’s the only way to test your resistance.”
“What?” I repeat, not quite following.
The stupid fuck just confessed everything he’s done to me, but why is he looking like the cat that just caught the canary?
“You’ve always been so good at pretending. You’re quite the fucking actress, Lexi,” he says and his hand shoots out, grabbing me by the back of the head.
He tugs painfully on my hair, arching my neck back.
“You’re so fucking good, it’s hard to tell if you’re truly passive or just faking it. I guess I’ve got that traitor Yarrel to thank for that.”
Instinctively, I reach back, trying to dislodge his hand. “Stop Jack, please. You’re hurting me. Can’t we talk about this?”
“No,” he growls and gives my hair another hard tug, tearing hair out with his grip. “You had your chance to notice me. You had your chance to choose me. And you didn’t.”
He pulls me closer, his breath hot against my lips. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice the glimmer of a needle in his other hand.
“If I can’t have you willingly, I’ll take what I can fucking get.”
Maul
A dizzying warmth fills my body.
I can feel the two strong broad backs my arms are slung across holding me up as they drag closer me to Lexi.
Red Masks and Gold Cloaks standing off against each other… It’s unheard of.
We don’t fight amongst ourselves like this. That this My’Clar committed himself so fully against a Fourth-Striped Red Mask, he is either one hundred percent sure I had committed serious crimes or he is insane.
I’ve truly done nothing to merit the risk to my life. If anything they could have stripped me of a stripe if commanded from the Committee. But to imprison me and deny me my right to be near my bonded, to deny me my right to have legal counsel…
My’Clar has gone far beyond our mandates.
He knows better dammit! It’s us, then the committee for oversight, and then the Supreme Leader. If the Supreme Leader is called for, then he had better be damn sure he was right. And My’Clar was as wrong as he could be. It doesn’t make sense.
The warmth continues to flow through me as I get closer, but there is a sharp discord that comes with it. I can feel my beloved bondmate slipping in and out of consciousness. I know my life isn’t as close to the edge as it was, but whatever’s happening I know she is going through moments of hatred.
I try to call to her, to push my love through to her, but I don’t think she can feel it through the serenity flooding her veins.
The feeling of slipping into the warm breath of oblivion…
The ability to fall into nothingness…
To no longer have to choose, to just be inside of myself…
It’s enough to drive me into a rage.
A blood-red haze filters my sight. Those are weak emotions. They are the coward’s way of facing life. I know she runs to it now because of fear, but she must be strong.
“We must hurry,” I say quietly, “Someone is pushing her to the brink of oblivion.”
Marketh flies past me. “I’ll try to get as close as I can, but I can only go so far.”
I watch as he races up ahead of us, the small silver orb keeping ahead of us by two dozen paces. It’s the furthest we can go for any length of time, much like the bond between Lexi and I.
We come to a four-way intersection where Marketh hovers in the air. “I don’t know which way to go, Maul… I want to know, but something is blocking us off. It’s like her transmitter is being smothered.”
“She’s straight ahead,” I say.
My body slowly pulls itself up from the two men holding me.
“Can you be sure, Fourth-Striped Maul?” the Vice Admiral asks me from behind.
“Yes, I can feel her straight ahead.”
“Truly? You can feel this… human through your bond?”
“Sir, I can feel her dying,” I say as I pull away from the men who have helped me walk this far.
My muscles are twitching and the heart in my chest is thudding hard, pounding beats. I can feel the red haze overtaking me again, forcing me into a berserker state of rage.
Like the time I first met my other half, I feel myself nearly consumed by the need to fight. To protect what’s mine. There’s a fury that she is being kept from me, that she is being fed poison.
That the very stars themselves would dare keep her and I separated.
“Maul,” Marketh tries to break through the haze. “You are pushing your body past it’s limits. You must calm down!”
“She’s close, I can smell her scent now,” I say as I take a long inhalation of air. “I can almost taste her skin in the air.”
I stalk down the row of doors that are evenly spaced apart. When I come to the fifth door I stop in my tracks. My heart hurts in my chest. I don’t know the exact reason I can no longer control my anger, but I can feel it inside of me as a living thing. It’s there, coiled in my stomach like a deadly animal, just waiting to be released into the universe.
Through the steel door of the room, I can hear a loud male’s voice and my bondmate’s small whimper.
In my heart I know this is the last moment between life and falling forever between the stars. I feel her tears of rage and despair fall down her cheeks. I feel every single ounce of misery she feels.
I feel the love she holds for me and our unborn child. It’s there, inside of her.
I fall through the memory of her telling me what sex our child will be. Her certainty, her resolve, for us to be so happy together.
I push hard against the door, but it’s locked. Fuck.
Then I feel the steel shudder as my fist slams into it. The sound is a low rumble, like the way a mountain sounds as it crumbles.
I pull back again and slam my fist into the door. There’s a dent in the door now. Pushing against it again, I know it’s useless to try.
Fuck punching this thing.
Lifting my leg, I lunge forward. The boom from the kick is even louder.
Pulled back suddenly, I look murderously at the two men standing beside me before I understand.
“Do not fire!” I growl out. “She’s not that deep inside the room!”
The Gold Cloaks turn to the door and as one they take a step back. Lunging forward, their right feet slam hard into the door.
The mortar around the door frame makes a cracking sound as the metal frame twists.
They pull back then lunge forward and kick again. I watch as the door goes flying into the room, its metal hinges ripped apart.
Stepping past them, I rush into the room with Marketh right ahead of me.
Stunned beyond belief, I stare at not just my bonded human, but another human male sitting there, holding a needle to her neck.
His eyes have a manic look about them as he growls out, “Get out of here, you disgusting freaks! She doesn’t need your help!”
Whatever the fuck he’s talking about doesn’t stop me from advancing on him. My breath comes out in loud heaves.
“Maul…” Lexi moans as she struggles to get away from the man.
Marketh flies to the hand holding the needle. Swiftly he slams his small orb into the needle’s syringe and shatters it.
The unknown man looks
around wildly and his hand drops to her neck.
He starts to squeeze her tender throat. “She’s mine, damn you! She’ll die before I ever let you freaks touch her!”
My movements are fast and brutal. I don’t give him a second to think as I dart across the small space between us. My fist rams itself practically down his throat and I send him flying across the room.
He drops Lexi as he goes spiraling away from her and I fall to my knees.
I don’t quite catch her before she lands on the ground, but I’m there to pull her into my arms once again.
Our bond, once stretched to the limits of snapping, is now tightly holding onto our hearts. I can feel the drugs running through her body through it, but I can also feel the strength she possesses to fight them. To keep her head above the oblivion that threatened to swallow us both whole.
The Gold Cloaks quickly secure the male human. I suspect he’s the one she called Jack. He will die by my hands, but not now.
Not while I finally have my heart back in my chest.
Chapter Twenty
Maul
Two days full of medical rooms and sweaty bedsheets follow us as I watch my delicate wife go through withdrawal a second time. We both fear for our unborn child, but must trust when the doctors promise that it will be safe. That the serenity that was pushed into her system would not have enough time to get to the fetus.
I don’t know what would have happened to either of us if our child had been affected… Even I cannot say the word that causes me the most pain. The loss would have surely destroyed us both.
Lexi and I have wanted nothing more than privacy, but with so many things happening all at once, we’ve barely had time to be intimate. Trying to fit my frame against hers in her medical bed was most uncomfortable.
We did it though, and I’m sure she enjoyed the results as much as I did.
The bonding tests that they performed were limited in every way. My steadfast refusal to go out into the hallway quickly shut most of them down. I feel sorry for the poor scientist who was thrown quite literally out of the room, but I meant it when I said I would not be separated from her.
