by Lili Zander
“Thank you.”
He shrugs away my gratitude. “It’s not an act of generosity on my part. I have an ulterior motive.”
Bryce.
All night, I tried not to think of her, but her parting words kept ringing in my ears. She’d been furious.
And upset.
All night, my dragon has expressed his displeasure, rumbling angrily in my chest. This is not how a dragon treats his mate. The beast is right. Neither part of me—dragon or man—approves of the way I’ve acted toward Bryce.
I shouldn’t have touched her last night. Shouldn’t have told her that my dragon wants her. No business jerking her around, one minute craving her more than words can express, and the next minute, pushing her away.
Ever since I saw her and transformed, I’ve been struggling, and Bryce has been the casualty of my identity crisis. Enough. That ends today. No matter what the future holds, Bryce deserves to be treated so much better. She deserves to be cherished by two mates who will do anything to make her happy.
Disguised as just another Ashara citizen, I make my way into the city. Last night, Cax had mentioned that their tech was a generation ahead of ours, and he was not lying. Their shield in particular, is unlike anything I’ve seen before. I’ve surveyed the prison planet. Studied the topography. According to the images I’ve seen, there’s nothing here except a whole lot of rocky mountains.
Clearly, they’re wrong, because I walk into a wide-open space with twelve massive towers. The city is either built inside the mountain range, or the mountain range is a projection, but one good enough to fool the Zorahn Navy. Either way, it’s formidable.
The city is bustling with activity. Skimmers dart from tower to tower. People sit in the parks, enjoying the warmth of the day. A trio of laughing Adrashian children, their feathers a pale pink, not yet the full red of adulthood, dart among the crowds, playing a game of their own devising.
The sense of peace and prosperity is palpable. When I contrast this place to the overcrowded Homeworld, where the Lowborn are squeezed into shanty towns, out of sight and out of mind, I see why Cax is ready to fight to protect his city. The three civilizations of the Triumvirate have created something wonderful here.
Following Cax’s instructions, I find the fountain in the center of the main square, my rendezvous point with Korum. He’s already there. “You must be Commander Hurux.”
I rub beaks with the Adrashian, their preferred method of greeting from one peer to another, and Korum’s smile widens. “Not too many Zorahn are familiar with our customs.”
“I’ve already managed to annoy Lieutenant Commander Silu, I’m afraid,” I say ruefully. “I’m trying not to make the situation worse.”
“Did you?” He gives me a speculative look. “Well, you couldn’t have bothered her too badly. She didn’t say anything.” He leads the way to a brilliant purple tower. As he walks, he hands me a black bracelet. “For access.”
“Your access chips aren’t embedded?”
He shakes his head. “The Makpi Alliance won’t hear of it. They don’t like implants of any kind. It interferes with their abilities.”
We enter the purple tower and head to the upper floors. “The scientist does not know you’re coming,” Korum tells me as we halt in front of a glittering black and purple-hued door. “It just seemed safer that way.”
Because of the attack. “People didn’t seem on edge.”
He shakes his head. “No, they don’t. The security breach has been hidden from the residents. They think it was a temporary power surge caused by the skrath, one that will not reoccur.” He shakes his head. “Everyone seems to be quite content to believe that we’re in no further danger.”
“You don’t think that.”
“The Makpi are uneasy,” he says simply. “I don’t understand their abilities, but they have always been prescient.” He forces away his gloom and gives me a bright smile. “Enjoy your conversation with the scientist, Commander Hurux. Will you need me to show you the way back?”
Once a spy, always a spy. I’ve been taking careful note of the exits. The fastest way to get through the city if I’m in trouble. The best places to hide.
“I’ll be fine.”
He nods and turns away, and I survey the door. Raiht’vi is a scientist. She’ll know, more than anyone else here, if the Draekons are threats. If I’m a threat.
I take a deep breath and press the chime.
The door slides open. “Enter,” a voice calls out.
This is it. The moment of truth.
“I know you.” Standing just inside the doorway, Brunox’s daughter, the High Emperor’s betrothed, the woman everyone on the Homeworld is desperate to find, stares at my face. “I’ve seen you before.”
I close the door behind me lest we are overheard. “My name is Hurux und Macex ab Mamarce. I am a commander in the Imperial Navy.”
“Zoraken.” Her voice grows cynical. “Let me guess. You’re here to save me from the evil Draekons and take me back to my father, and as a reward, the High Emperor will cover you with glory.”
I offer Bryce a silent apology. You were right all along, my sweet mate. I should have listened to you from the start.
“Not exactly.” I hold out my right hand and let Raiht’vi see the access bracelet. “Cax sent me.”
“He did, did he? Why would Cax send a Zorahn commander to my chambers?”
“Because I’m not Zorahn. Two days ago, I was on the trail of a woman. A human. Cax was following her too, and when we saw each other, all three of us, something unexpected happened. I transformed.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re an undetected Draekon? How is that possible?”
There are fewer than a hundred white-robed scientists. Raiht’vi would know my mother. I don’t want to get her in trouble.
“That’s not really relevant.”
She raises an eyebrow. “No, I suppose you’re right. You're here, and you’re Draekon. What are you going to do? Are you still going to abduct me from Ashara and return me to the High Emperor?”
“Bryce MacFarland—my mate—told me that you did not wish to go through with your bonding.”
“She’s right. Of course, to a Zoraken, sworn to serve the High Empire, my opinion shouldn’t matter. Not compared to the wishes of Lenox himself.”
“Yet here I am. No gun in hand. No crazy plan of breaking through Ashara’s defenses.”
She gives me a tired look. “What do you want, Hurux? Do you want me to plead for my freedom? Is that what I’m supposed to do now?”
We’ve been rooted to the same spot just inside of the doorway. I move past her and sit on a chair. “Actually, I came to talk to you about the women. Part of my mission is to retrieve the humans so that the High Emperor may return them to Earth. But Bryce insists that everyone is happy here. That they have found Draekon mates, and they do not wish to leave.”
“And you want to know if the Draekons are animals,” she guesses astutely.
“Yes,” I admit. “I do not wish to put the humans at risk. Right now, their loved ones believe that they are lost forever. Don’t you think that if we could, we should return them to their homes?”
“Not if they don’t want to go back.” She sits down too. There’s a half-open door behind her, and through it, I see a lab in the adjacent room. If Raiht’vi is being held prisoner, she doesn’t look too discomfited by the fact.
“In any case,” she adds. “They don’t have any loved ones.”
Bryce mentioned her brother had killed himself. “You chose them based on a lack of ties.” Of course. I should have seen it earlier. Who chooses to leave their homes to set off into space? Someone with nothing to lose. Nothing to hold them to their own planet.
“Yes.” Her eyes don’t meet mine. “Lenox wanted to do the noble thing and make guarantees, but we scientists knew there were no guarantees. Just in case something went wrong, we wanted to minimize the damage. The humans’ government will be happy to accept our apologies as l
ong as we cure their diseases.”
“This planet is primitive and dangerous.”
“Some of it is, yes. But humans are a sentient race, Hurux. They are choosing to stay because they’ve found belonging here.”
She heaves a sigh. “All my life, I was taught that the Draekons were beasts, angry and violent. I was taught that they were no better than animals. That, given a chance, they would tear us apart. Then our ship crashed here.” Her eyes are distant. “The Draekons tended my wounds and saved my life. They treated me far better than I ever treated them.”
She fixes me with a piercing glance. “Lenox isn’t concerned about his honor,” she says bitingly. “He’s thinking about the penalty he’ll have to pay the Triumvirate for the loss of neutral zone species. That’s what you’re really fighting for. Not Lenox’s honor. You’re ruining people’s lives so Lenox won’t have to pay a fine.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t even know if I can. “You are to be High Empress. Tell me why you don’t want that.”
She stares at me for a long time. I’m not sure she’s going to answer. I’m well aware she doesn’t owe me one.
I don’t need an explanation to take her words at face value. I just want to know. Spies are forever curious.
“I grew up on Giflan,” she says finally. “My parents were estranged. My mother brought me up, and she hid from everyone who my father was.”
She stares into the distance. “One day, I was playing on the streets, and I saw a Highborn boy beat his Lowborn servant. Just punching him over and over again, kicking him the ribs until the man was curled up into a ball of agony. Blood was everywhere.”
I am no stranger to the ills of the Empire. “No one intervened.”
“No. I was too young to understand why. I rushed in front of the man to protect him, and I called the boy a coward for beating someone who was already down.” She exhales. “The boy was Lenox.”
“What happened to the servant?”
“His body washed up on shore a week later.” She clenches her hands into fists. “You know what Lenox said to me, the night of our betrothal ceremony?”
I shake my head wordlessly. “He said that he would teach me an important lesson through our marriage since it was one I didn’t seem to know. He could do whatever he wanted, and no one would intervene.”
There is a sick feeling in my gut. “Your father…”
“Wants power. To him, I am a tool, Commander Hurux. Nothing more.” She takes a deep breath, and her face turns expressionless. “I am a pawn; I have always been one, and I have made my peace with it. But if the humans want to stay, let them. They’re choosing freely, which is more than I’ve ever been able to do in my life. Besides, what are you going to do about their younglings? They won’t be accepted in the Empire, and they won’t be accepted on Earth.”
Younglings? Shock jolts through me. “The women have conceived?”
“Two are pregnant, as far as I know. And one of them has given birth.” She takes in my stupefied expression. “You didn't know?”
“No.” My voice is a whisper. “No, I didn’t know.”
Fate has a sick sense of humor. The weavers of the tapestry must laugh as they inject threads of chaos into our souls.
My father was taken away from me in the middle of the night. And now, I’m here to do that to another child.
But we’re not done with the shocks for the day. Raiht’vi’s expression suddenly clears. “I know why you seem familiar.”
“Yes, I know,” I say impatiently. “Two years ago, you attended a banquet to celebrate Zorahn victory in the Skirmish of Paramis.”
“Did I? I attended a thousand of those things. No, that’s not it. You look like someone I’ve met recently.” She peers intently at my face. “Your father is Draekon, isn’t he? Exiled to the prison planet? He’s here in Ashara.”
15
Bryce
I spend most of the morning in my bedroom, clutching my head. Never going to drink again. First, the hangover is a killer. Second, and most importantly, booze makes me silly. And horny. And desperate.
By the time afternoon rolls around, I start feeling more human.
I’m getting a little cooped up. For two days, I haven’t really left Cax’s house, but as he pointed out last night, there’s no real reason for that. The doors aren’t locked, and there’s a whole new world out there. I’m going exploring.
“Come on, Fluffy,” I tell my pet karvil. “Let’s go find out what this part of the prison planet looks like.”
Fluffy, who is curled up in a sunny spot on the floor, raises her head and gives me a reproachful look. “Yes, yes,” I agree. “It’s terrible how I treat you. Come on, lazybones. I bet there are all kinds of interesting leaves to chew on.”
A door chime sounds through the house. A skimmer lands on the pad outside, and a familiar figure steps out. It’s Silu, Cax’s second-in-command. “Hello again, Bryce MacFarland,” she greets me. “I hope I do not intrude.”
“Not really. I was going to take a walk, but I can do that anytime. Can I help you?”
“Commander Cax thought you might want to explore the area around the mountains,” she says. “I’ve been sent to make sure you don’t eat something poisonous.”
Not that I’m not glad to have her; I am. But Cax seems busy all the time, and I’m sure Silu must be as well. “Don’t you have better things to do than babysit me?”
“The Commander is a very good friend. I’m happy to do this for his mate.”
“Yeah, well. We’re not exactly in mating paradise right now.”
She chuckles. “Yes, no doubt Cax is being stubborn and a control freak.”
Are we going to spend the next few hours bitching about infuriating guys? Because I’m on board. “Does he drive you insane too?”
She gives me a strange look. “I don’t like to interfere,” she says. “Especially in affairs related to the mating bond. But you have to know something about him. You can’t judge Commander Cax based on what he tells you. At any time, Cax has a primary plan, two secondary plans, and a handful of options in reserve. And he really doesn’t like making promises he can’t keep. When I joined, I asked how often I could travel back home and visit my family, and you know what Cax told me?”
I shake my head.
“He said that any applicant to the job needed to put the job above other concerns. I wanted to scratch him.” Her tail lashes to and fro, and Fluffy lifts her head up, takes a long look, and falls back asleep.
Her claws could do some damage. “I assume you didn’t.”
“No, and you know why? Because I’ve been able to visit my family whenever I want. Yes, of course there are security situations that could arise that would prevent me from leaving, but they are rare, and we are always prepared. And Cax knows this fully well, but he does not make promises he can’t keep.”
“There’s a point you’re making.”
“Of course,” she agrees. “It would be quite boring to listen to stories about my vacation requirements otherwise.”
My lips twitch. Silu’s pretty damn funny.
“Cax told you that if it came down to it, he’d surrender Raiht’vi to the High Empire.”
“Yes.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“How can you be so sure?”
She counters my question with one of her own. “Do you know what the commander did this morning?”
“Hopefully, he was clutching his head, nursing one hell of a hangover.”
Silu doesn’t appreciate my jokes quite as much as I appreciate hers. She’s Team Cax all the way. “He sent a small team to the Southern Outpost. You call it the Dsar Cliffs.”
“He did? Why?”
“To evacuate everyone to our city. Cax was concerned about the weak spot in the shield, the one you got out through. Also, one of the women, I believe her name is Felicity Rollins, is having a difficult pregnancy. It would be better for her to be monitored by our he
alers.”
“But I thought your Senators didn’t like us.”
“The city is in a state of emergency following the attack by the Zorahn Navy,” she replies. “The Senate is not in charge. Cax is. They will grumble, of course, but that’s their response to everything.” Her feathers ruffle, and her tail swishes to and fro. “Cax will not watch someone suffer without intervening. I cannot speak of his specific plans, but he will not send Raiht’vi to Lenox. Of that, I am positive.”
Can I believe her? After Liam’s death, do I still believe in happy endings? Can I reach out and claim it for myself?
16
Cax
I am concerned about the safety of the exiles living in the Southern Outpost. I am concerned with Felicity Rollins’ health. We don’t spy on them in their private chambers, of course, but the common rooms are monitored. One of my team had heard the human woman complain about chest pain.
That’s not good. If something starts to go wrong, the exiles don’t have the medical facilities to act.
That’s a pretty good reason to order their evacuation. But if I search my heart, I have to admit that I’m also motivated by a more selfish reason.
I want Bryce to be proud of me. I want her to believe that I’m a good person.
Silu saunters into my office late afternoon, looking pleased with herself. “Where have you been?” I ask her.
“I was talking with your mate.”
After last night? “Dare I ask what the topic of conversation was?” I had mentioned something to Silu about showing Bryce around, but I didn’t realize she’d scheduled it for today.
She gives me an entirely too innocent look. “Not everything is about you, Commander. Has the team checked in yet?”
She’s talking about the dozen soldiers that are on their way to excavate the exiles. “They’re almost at the Southern Outpost.” I fiddle with my screen. “I wish Sofia Menendez hadn’t insisted on going with them.”
