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Daccia

Ilet Allie trail behind us. She's dragging her sister, who’s still kicking and screaming as if she’s being led to an execution chamber.

The poor girl is terrified. When Kitos tried to pick her up, she screamed so loudly it hurt my ears. Allie had shot him a dark glare, and shaken her head. The young woman is obviously so traumatized, she can’t even barely to be near my kind.

We stalk through the halls of this transport vessel – the one that had taken off carrying our Fated Mate and her sister. When we’d intercepted it, the crew of men tried to stop us. That was a poor decision on their part – and they all died for it.

The vessel is an illicit cargo ship, which blasted off from Torelli's lair in The Rhino right after Allie disappeared.

At the time, she’d muted our presence in her mind – and then something had blocked out all trace of her. Her aura had disappeared – and for a terrifying second we’d all been worried that she’d been killed…

Then the AI of our Reaver spotted this cargo ship blasting off, and we all knew it was too much of a coincidence. We’d been proven right.

Allie – stubborn, foolish, but fearless Allie – had snuck back into The Rhino, apparently unconvinced that Torelli had no knowledge of her sister’s fate.

As it turned out, she’d been right.

Well, that bastard Torelli is still down on Salcus, in The Rhino, but not for long. We'll come back for him soon enough – and he’ll pay horribly for his wrongdoings.

As we stalk the corridors of the ship, we come across a man lying sprawled on the ground. His hand still twitches, though it's severed from the bloody stump of his wrist.

Our Orb-Blades don't cauterize wounds. The searing blue-black blade just cuts through flesh and bone like the sharpest knife imaginable.

After all – why would you want a weapon that does the work of the surgeonandthe nurse?

We pass by other bodies of slaughtered crewmen – until we finally get to the breach in the hull through which we’d boarded this vessel. We’d literally carved a hole into the vessel – shearing through the hull with our Orb-Beams, and then sealing shut the vacuum by ramming our vessel through the hole like a heavily-armored cork. It’s a standard attack plan for Aurelian Reavers; and remains an effective one.

I scan the controls for further signs of danger – but, according to the readings, we’ve killed every hostile crewmember on the ship.

That means we’ve saved Allie. We saved our Fated Mate.

Gods! When she’d first disappeared from my mind, it was like the sunlight disappearing from the sky above us. The moment it had happened, I’d realized she was either dead…

…or, someone with an intimate knowledge of the Bond, had temporarily severed the connection between us.

In addition to the cargo ship blasting off from The Rhino, that was our other clue as to who had taken Allie. As the only other Aurelian on the planet, only Torreli would have known how to sever our Bond – and possess a helmet which could block her aura from ours.

We all board our Reaver, Allie forcibly pulling Lilac behind her.

“Daccia,” Allie warns, as we seal the hatch behind us, "Torreli said he’d alerted Law Enforcement about you. He said they’re going to come after you!"

I snort bitterly.

“Well, they'd be better off picking up the three agents we knocked out first.”

Allie looks around the cockpit of this Reaver. At first glance, it would be easy to assume it was the same vessel we’d arrived in. In fact, it was a nearly-identical vessel – the one we’d taken from Dantus and his triad, just as planned.

It was a Reaver with a fully operational Orb-Drive.

“Yes,” I nod, “we stole their Reaver – and this one can Orb-Shift safely.” I look to Allie and her sister. “I promise, we're going to get you to safety."

The AI starts to beep. The robotic voice warns: "Ships approaching."

I run to the controls. There are four Aurelian Reavers chasing us. From far out, they start to fire at us – shots intended at first to make us stand down, and then damage our vessel enough to incapacitate us.

There are four ships… One of them is probably our own abandoned vessel. Dantus was clearly more enterprising than we’d given him credit for, and had woken up and come after us in the vessel we’d swapped for theirs.