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I reach out to hit him, but he’s too far away. “Don’t avoid my question,” I grunt, as the ray bathes me with its painful, healing beam, knitting together my flesh.

He pauses. Of the other two in my triad, he’s always been harder to read than Krazak. Then he opens his robe, and pulls out the barb of a Scorp, this one fresh and dripping. He’s got a cloth around it, stained bright, venomous green. He’s got three more, wrapped in cloth. When did he sever them from the Scorp we killed in the mines?

“I’m going to run some tests on these.”

“Tests? I’ve seen men die to that. I’ve never seen them survive. Forget that foolish notion, Khra. You’ve never been one for idealism.”

“Some do survive.”

I grunt as my wound closes up together, the flesh knitting, my leg feeling like it’s been struck by lightning. I want to go to the cockpit, but it won’t take my weight yet. “Throw those out to the ground, and be rid of them. No test is going to tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“Then I’ll be the test.”

My eyes jerk from my healed leg to my battle-brother, and I can’t stop the anger from pulsing up. He would throw his life away for nothing? After all the centuries we had together?

“Fuck you, Khra. Where one goes, we all go. You put that venom in your veins, you’re putting it in mine as well.”

“You make everything more difficult, Bolden.” He’s got a small, sardonic smile, but I can feel that he accepts. We’ve been waiting endlessly for the war, and we cannot allow ourselves to die at the cusp of destiny.

Krazak barges into the med-bay. He sensed our auras, not even needing a telepathic message to know what we were discussing. One look at the long, needle-sharp barb is all he needs to confirm it. “We go to war first. We go to war, and when we return, we decide. Until then, I do not want to hear a word of venom.” He states it as an order with finality, and Khra nods.

Krazak is the one who takes the burden of responsibility. He is the one who makes the final decisions, and his commands give me certainty.

I’m eager to strike into the Aurelian Empire, for the true war to begin. No more of these skirmishes and small engagements. A true war, Aurelian against Aurelian, a dance of death, Orb-Blades singing in burning cities, the shock waves from missiles making your bones rattle, ascending to your highest self as instinct takes over.

I lick my lips as I massage my aching leg. Lola gives me that same sensation. When I seeded her, I swear I thought I’d Bond her to me, her perfect scent in my nostrils, feeling so right. I was ready for her to blossom in my mind, a third aura appearing as I could feel her being in entirety, and it was a fresh wound that we were not linked.

Krazak turns and leaves the med-bay, his work done, to take the controls and pilot us back into the Royal City.

“The Scorp-Blood tribes. How do they do it?” Now that I am certain Khra will not put the venom in his veins without us, I’m curious. Khra’s got the barb on the counter under a microscope, looking at it intently, and he pauses a few moments before taking his eye from the device.

“The books say they are covered in tattoos, green tattoos from some mixture of Scorp venom and something else, that every vein in their body is tinted green. When they bleed, they bleed green and red.”

“We don’t know their secrets. They must mix it with something that makes it less potent.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they use a diluted mixture.”

“Or maybe the patterns of the tattoos have meaning. We don’t know their secrets. Putting that in our veins is suicide.” I give Khra a long look. I’ve been at his side for centuries. I’ve seen his confidence, but it’s always been tempered with reason. “You think of a future with her. You put that venom in your veins, you’ve got no future with anyone.”

“The great General Asmod was a Scorp-Blooded Aurelian. He sired a son to a woman he did not Bond. That is how Obsidian came to be.”

Obsidian. The War-God himself. One of the only Aurelians taller than me, eight feet of brutal strength, always with his twin shadows at his side. Wolf-Men who can shapeshift. When we were inked with our first honor, it was agony. The Priests say that the ritual lets you experience a fraction of the pain he lives with eternally.

“You would damn a child to a life of agony?”

Khra’s aura flares with indignant anger. I stop massaging my leg as the AI metallic arm makes another pass of my leg, blasting it with radiant light that burns but will speed the healing process. “Or do you just plan to let it kill you? You don’t think your plan is really going to work, do you?”

I usually don’t speak too much, acting according to my instinct, without doubt. Khra’s plan fills me with uncertainty.

“And what of you, Bolden? Did you think you would survive when you charged into a Scorp nest with your sword arm near severed, when the two of us had to come after you and save you?”

I snarl, kicking the AI medic away and standing. My leg nearly gives out, but I don’t grab the medical table for support, standing eye to eye with my battle-brother.

The memories hit me like a hammer. Finding the sun-bleached bones of our Fated Mate drove me to insanity. I ran into the nearest Scorp nest like a berserker, before my triad could follow. Alone, the Scorp surrounded me, one claw clamping on my right arm, shearing it near off, hanging by a strand of muscle and bone. I thought I’d lose it, but I didn’t need it for where I was going. I pressed on into the darkness, not illuminating it with my smartwatch, deeper and deeper underground. I never made it to the Queen. The blood loss made me pass out, and my last memory before I faded away to blissful nothingness was being lifted onto Krazak’s back as Khra protected our rear, pulling me out of my rightful grave and back into the pain of existence.

“So this is suicide,” I say, understanding that he doesn’t think the Scorp blood will save him.

“No. It’s a chance.” Khra turns, stalking out of the med-bay, leaving me alone. The second he’s out of sight, I grab the table, nearly falling, panting with exertion.