by Mary Auclair
The Ilarian army was losing. Everywhere, dead Ilarian guards lay under white roots, their bodies melting into puddles as their brothers kept fighting, not even sparing them a glance.
In comparison to the ten thousand Ilarians fighting like an unemotional machine and losing ground, the Eoks fought for each other, three out of the four still standing. Their protectiveness made them take risks to protect one another that the Ilarian didn’t, saving their lives where the cold-minded efficiency resulted only in death.
But even they wouldn’t stand long.
The Medina was back for revenge. It was like the plant-based lifeform was mounting a strategic attack, sparing her allies while striking down her enemies.
But this was impossible. The Medina was a forest, not a sentient being.
Then a dreadful, ghastly premonition scratched at the back of her mind.
But the Medina is dying, how can she help? With great sacrifice.
The Muharee and the Medina were one and the same. The Great Mother was also the Great Devourer. Harnessing her power was sure to have a great cost.
Like it could hear her thoughts, a white root came to hover just in front of Hazel. It stayed there without attacking until she noticed a green form, standing still in the chaos of battle, just a few dozen yards away.
“Yalko.” Hazel breathed the word as the green form came closer and closer.
From the corner of her eye, she saw that Khal was mesmerized in the same way, unmoving and silent.
Yalko moved forward with a fluid, reptilian grace. Around each arm was wrapped a white root, its mucus-laced flesh embedded deeply in the green fabric.
No, Hazel realized as Yalko got even closer. Not in the green fabric. In Yalko’s flesh. The white root had fused with his body, the Muharee becoming one and the same with the Medina. One and the same, but at a terrible cost.
Great sacrifice. That was what Yalko had said.
Hazel’s gaze went around the battlefield. The Ilarian army was all but defeated, with only pockets of resistance remaining, fighting in an orderly manner despite the overwhelming odds. Knowing their biological end was near, but not fearing it.
Muharee warriors stood everywhere, their bodies fused with the Medina, directing the white roots’ attack. A hundred, a thousand roots obeyed the commands of a single Muharee, turning the very ground of Muhar into a deadly weapon.
As Hazel’s gaze went back to Khal, his eyes widened and his hand extended, but it was too late.
Cold fingers closed around her throat and she was yanked back, her balance precarious.
“Stay where you are, Commander Khal, or your bloodmate will become plant-food.”
Knut was holding her close to his body, an ionic gun against her temple.
Chapter 25
Khal
Knut’s hands closed around Hazel’s throat and Khal’s entire body froze. He hadn’t seen or heard the Avonie sneak up under the cover of battle.
Rage filled his veins, running through his body like the digestive mucus of the Medina, clouding his judgment.
“Unhand Hazel!” Khal shouted, his talons fully extended into long, deadly weapons at his sides. “Your army is no more, your wealth is gone. You’ve lost.”
“Have I?” Knut retorted, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of Hazel’s neck, pulling her to him like a shield. “I still have the bomb, Commander Khal. I might have lost the battle today, but I haven’t lost the war.”
Khal took a step forward but stopped as Hazel whimpered, the barrel of the ionic gun pressing into her skin with bruising strength.
“Just like an Eok. So much power, so much raw strength, yet you would give up your victory for a female.” There was more than just derision in Knut’s voice. It was almost as if the monster within him was fascinated by the concept of love, but unable to understand it. “Your kind could rule the Ring, but you’re too afraid of your own power. I am not. I’m going to take power, and I’m going to wield it to mold the entire Ring to my image.”
“My kind is not afraid of power.” Khal circled Knut, putting his body between Knut and the Mother—Roohl’s old ship and undoubtedly the place where Knut had put the negative particle bomb. “We are ready to die for each other, to sacrifice for those we love. That is something you will never understand, and that is why you lost.”
Knut’s thin mouth pursed into an ugly sneer, but he didn’t respond. That was a first for the Avonie male. Khal moved again, gaining on Knut, who took a step back. Khal had seen the flicker of doubt in those purple eyes, that first glint of fear.
Behind Knut the white roots stood silently at attention, poised like waiting snakes, ready to strike. But Khal couldn’t let them do that, not with Hazel’s life hanging in the balance of a finger on an ionic gun’s trigger.
“All your planning, all your thinking… but there was still one thing you didn’t count on. One thing you never saw coming,” Khal went on.
Khal glanced to the side, to where Yalko stood, his flesh embedded in the Medina, his yellow eyes gleaming with a hatred born of bottomless grief. And all around Yalko were dozens, hundreds of white roots, dripping their acid mucus, ready to strike down the one responsible for so much pain on his planet. Dozens more Muharee warriors stood behind Yalko, flanked by white roots, waiting for their revenge, blocking Knut’s path to the Mother. The few Ilarians left were still fighting, but it was a done battle. A done battle that had wiped out all of Knut’s forces.
All because the Muharee had made the ultimate sacrifice for what and whom they loved.
Knut opened his mouth to speak, but then his eyes followed Khal’s. His pupils shrank to fine lines and abject fear painted his features as he understood.
He was dead already.
“No!” Knut’s voice rose, shrill and full of panic. “Stand back, you savages!” He lifted his ionic gun from Hazel’s temple and pointed it at Yalko. He fired, the ionic detonation filling the already noxious air with the stench of iodine.
He missed Yalko, but a Muharee warrior behind Yalko fell. It didn’t matter—none of them stopped moving.
“Hazel! ” Khal shouted her name as he dived for Knut. The few seconds of inattention from Knut were all he needed. Like she understood this was their only opportunity, Hazel moved. She was small and light, but she fought Knut’s hold with all her strength. She brought her elbow up to Knut’s side, embedding it deep in the vulnerable flesh of his waist.
The Avonie cried out in pain, loosening his hold on her throat. Death gleamed bright in the purple of Knut’s eyes as he understood what had happened. As Hazel slithered out of his grasp, he brought the ionic gun back toward her.
But it was too late. Khal was already on her.
Another detonation saturated the air. Hazel screamed, the sound broken and full of anguish as Khal’s arms closed around her. Then his shoulder hit the stones and he rolled over her, protecting her precious, fragile body with his own. Her tiny hands were clenched around his neck, holding on to him like he was a lifeline.
Khal looked up to see Knut still standing, still holding the ionic gun.
Gone was the monster, the master manipulator who had ruined thousands upon thousands of lives.
Knut was now prey, his eyes brimming with panic, his limbs shaking.
“Stay back!” Knut shouted repeatedly, shooting again and again into the Muharee who were now advancing on him, the roots like a crowd made of phantom limbs, pale, white and deadly.
“This is for my mate.” Yalko stood, his body blood from an ionic detonation, his chest wide open, but somehow still living. Still living because of his connection to the Medina. As soon as it ended, Yalko would die. The Muharee warriors would all die.
Their Mother was also the Great Devourer, eating her children as well as feeding them.
A white root shot from the ground just below Knut’s white robe. The Avonie howled as it wrapped around his leg, fumes and blood immediately gushing from its deadly embrace.
“This is for my off
spring,” Yalko continued as another white root wrapped around Knut’s hand, the one holding the ionic gun. The Allurium metal melted as Knut’s hand fell to the ground, cut clean off.
Knut’s howls inflated as abject terror radiated from his body, from his eyes. He knew death was coming for him.
“We need to leave.” A voice sounded behind Khal and he turned to meet another set of purple eyes. Zaxis was crouching beside him, cradling a mortally still Celaith against his chest. “This is a frenzy. We’re not safe as long as we’re on Muharee soil.”
Khal glanced back at Knut, who was slowly being wrapped in the melting embrace of the Medina. As their eyes locked, Knut mouthed the words.
Kill me.
Khal felt his eyes harden.
No, he mouthed back. Khal wanted Knut to feel every burn of his flesh melting from his bones, to feel the terror of prey as it was eaten alive.
Knut deserved nothing less.
He turned his back on Knut, his back on the Muharee and their terrible revenge.
“Run,” Zaxis urged him as a white root turned toward them. His friend was right. They had to get away from Muhar.
Khal ran, with Zaxis on his heels. They made their way up into the Mother, easily finding the control room. As the powerful ship lifted into the air, Khal got his last glimpse of Knut—or what was left of him.
The once all-powerful Trade Minister lay in a pool of melted flesh and blood as white roots curled around him, disintegrating until nothing was left.
Not even the memory of him.
“I’m setting a course for Garana right now.” Zaxis spoke curtly, his hands on the controls, his eyes laser-focused. “Then I’ll send a distress signal to Eokim.”
“No.” Khal shook his head.
“But Knut is dead and we have the bomb.” Zaxis looked dumbfounded. “We’ve completed our mission.”
Khal turned, looking back over his shoulder. Hazel sat in her seat, cradling Celaith in her lap as best as she could. Those beautiful, big green eyes looked back at him with a lucidity he did not expect.
She was so strong despite all they had been through. And he was going to ask her to be even stronger.
“We’re not bringing back the bomb,” Hazel finished for him. “We’re making sure no one will ever have that kind of power in their hands. Not Knut, not the Eoks, and not Prime Councilor Aav. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Prime Councilor Aav already has enough of it.”
Zaxis’s eyes grew wide, but he did not oppose her. “She won’t be happy if we disobey her.”
“This was always a secret mission. She won’t have any choice once we tell her the bomb has been destroyed.”
Zaxis fell silent for a few moments. “But how? It’s impossible to destroy without setting it off. We have to bring it back. The Ring’s headquarters is the safest place to keep it.”
“No, it’s not.” Hazel spoke again, like she knew what Khal was thinking. “We’ll tell her the bomb was sent into deep space. That it’s lost forever. But it won’t be. The bomb won’t be lost in space where it can be found and brought back.”
Zaxis inhaled, then looked at Khal. “You’re going to the surface again.”
“We will leave the bomb where no one will ever find it.” Khal nodded as the ship stabilized in the higher levels of Muhar’s atmosphere. “I will ask the Muharee to hide it deep in the core of their beloved home planet. No one will ever get their hands on this bomb ever again.”
Zaxis stayed silent for a long time, then his eyes went to Celaith, who still lay across Hazel’s lap. She was still breathing, but her life hung by a mere thread. He nodded to Khal, once, then got to his feet and retrieved Celaith, then disappeared into the ship, no doubt in the direction of the medical center. With a thousand bounty hunters living aboard the Mother, it was certain that Roohl had kept a well-equipped medical room.
“Do you think she’ll live?” Hazel asked him.
“She will,” Khal answered. “Zaxis won’t let her die.”
Hazel nodded, her eyes brimming. “No more death.”
“No more.”
* * *
Hazel
So much death, so much pain. Never again.
Not a single male warrior remained on the entire planet. That was the cost Yalko had spoken about. Using the Medina had been terrifyingly efficient, the white roots obeying the orders of the Muharee warriors, turning the entire planet into a weapon, but it had cost them their lives. That was the reason why the Muharee hadn’t fought back sooner.
The sacrifice had been worth it. The Muharee had vanquished Knut and his Ilarian guards, but all that remained was a population comprised of widows, elderly, and orphans.
They were a broken people, but not without hope. They had agreed to hide the bomb in the core of their planet, where their Medina would surround it, erasing the memory of it as the years passed.
Knut’s unmarked spaceship had been sent into the depths of space, beyond the known realm. Prime Councilor Aav would never find it, would never know of their treachery.
Hazel sat behind Khal as the communication screen filled with snowy interference. She had been careful to stay silent and out of sight as Khal spoke to Prime Councilor Aav, but now that it was over, she needed to be close to him.
If it were up to her, she would never be separated from him ever again.
“What now? Do you think she believed you?” Hazel watched as Khal pivoted in his seat to face her. There was a strain in his features, an exhaustion that echoed in her very soul.
“Yes.” Khal nodded. “She had no other choice. Her hold on power will never be the same now that she will never possess a negative particle bomb to back it up, but she isn’t without resources.”
Sadness washed over Hazel, but she pushed it away. “There is no end to these power games, is there?”
“No, there is none.” Khal shook his head. “But for now, we are safe. Our world is safer than it has been in decades. We can live.”
His mouth lifted at the corners and his entire face took on a heartbreaking beauty. The wariness melted from his eyes and he looked younger and more carefree despite the wrinkles of fatigue around his mouth and eyes.
“What will you do, then?” She felt the smile rising from her lips, reaching that cold place between her ribs that had frozen over during the fight down on the Muhar soil. Thawing the icy landscape of her fears. “No more wars to fight, no more criminals to chase. What’s the all-powerful Commander Khal going to do with his precious time?” she teased, and was rewarded by Khal’s genuine smile. Those Prussian blue eyes twinkled and a wicked, sexy grin lifted his hard, full lips.
“If I remember correctly, I haven’t had much time for my bloodmate since the mating. I might just devote all my time to her from now on.”
Those too-blue eyes raked over her body with an owner’s appreciation and Hazel felt her cheeks burn at the openness of the lust brimming in his gaze. There was no doubt as to what he was implying. The smile warmed her chest and Hazel leaned back lazily in her chair.
It felt so good to play after so long lost in fear.
“And what will you do with your bloodmate if she accepts that?” Hazel bit her bottom lip as Khal’s eyes reduced to slits at the challenge. “What if she refuses?”
“I have ways to convince a reluctant bloodmate,” he drawled, the words dragging on his tongue as he looked at her body like she was naked and being offered.
Heat rose from inside her body, from low between her legs. Khal’s nostrils flared as he caught scent of her arousal and he rose, graceful and lethal.
Perfect.
He was right in front of her in a single long stride, his body radiating warmth and strength. His large hands flattened over her thighs as he pulled her hips forward. She parted her legs as he pulled her closer until she was flush against him, her body reveling in the contact, her hands running along the hardness of his arms.
His strong hands traveled up to her face, cupping her neck in a firm grip that s
ent erotic pleasure shooting straight to her clit. She wanted him. She wanted him so much, it hurt.
“Is that how you plan on convincing me?” she teased, loving the way Khal’s eyes brimmed with pleasure at the defiance in her voice. “It’s going to take more than that, blue boy.”
“Is it?” Khal’s voice was filled with danger as his lips hovered just above hers. “Then I’ll have to try my best in the coming days.”
“Why the coming days?” Hazel frowned, lust casting a fog of confusion in her mind. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going home.” He kissed her lightly, nipping at her bottom lip at the same time. “We’re going to live on Earth, together.”
Lucidity washed over Hazel like a cold rain and she stared at Khal in shock. “Earth?” The very word was like a mirage, a promised land she had held close to her heart for what felt like an eternity.
“You’re looking at the new Commander of the Eok forces on Earth.” Khal smiled again, that wicked, sexy, carefree smile that gave her a glimpse of an entirely different side to him. A side that was fun and warm.
Far from violence and fear. Far from pain and death.
“You would do that for me?” Emotions choked her and Hazel had to force herself to swallow. “I’m going to see Sally again.”
Khal nodded, then kissed her again. “She’s waiting for you,” he whispered against her ear, pulling her close, his arousal digging into her belly, making her wild with desire. “I contacted her the day I found you in my rooms. We received her message this morning, when we crossed the border back into the Ring’s boundaries.”
Her head was swimming and Hazel found she could barely breathe. Too much was happening, and she couldn’t grasp the entirety of it. “Does she hate me?”
“She spent the last three years hoping for an opportunity to take back what she said.” Khal kissed her again, just below her ear, and the sensation traveled down inside her skin, erasing the pain, the fear. The past. “You’re going to have your family again.”
