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I roar out in anger, my cock surging up, the image of breeding her, seeding her, making her belly swell and her tits grow huge and laden with milk for my progeny, and it overwhelms the rage.

“Lola!” I yell out, and birds flutter from the trees in the dawn light.

I’m on the stone next to the shallow end of the pool. Krazak and Bolden are standing next to me, in fresh black robes. Krazak points to a third clean robe on the rock. I furrow my brows as I shake myself dry, pulling on the black robe.

“Where is she?”

“Gone. I sent her away. We will not go to her.” Krazak’s aura is harder than I’ve felt it since the day on the Tomb when we thought we lost our future.

Now we’ve bled to make a new one—and he sends her away?

“What the hell are you talking about? We need to take our Reaver and get out of here with her. Now! There’s no time to waste. General Ra’al will be searching for us. We risked our lives for her.”

Krazak’s lips pull back in a cruel smile. “No. We risked our lives for us. You felt the agony of Scorp blood. That is what Obsidian feels. All the time.”

“And what of it? It was worth it!”

“He is the only Aurelian born of a Scorp-Blooded father that we know of.” Bolden states the words coldly. He and Krazak reached some agreement while I was passed out.

I snarl. “I’ve read the texts. Scorp-Blooded Aurelians can breed, and have healthy offspring. It is only a child born of rape that can be born cursed.”

Krazak steps towards me and his hand moves so quick I can barely process it. It’s wrapped around my throat. He’s recovered his strength faster than me, and I can’t push his hand away as it tightens against my jugular. “Do you believe the Scorp-Blood tribes force their children to endure what we just felt? That they become twisted like us? Do your texts tell you that they are brute animals? Feel it, Khra. Feel what you have become. Feel the rage. We are beasts now, and we can only bring her pain.”

I let the rage well up, rage at Krazak, rage at myself, and my own hand tightens against his arm, forcing his hand away from my throat. I snarl, reaching for my Orb-Blade that is not there, and try to punch him, when Bolden grabs me and pushes me away. I blink. I’ve never tried to hit Krazak before. I was overwhelmed with anger, anger that is now a part of me.

Forever.

“This is what General Asmod endured. He sired a cursed son, a son destined for eternal agony. Can you imagine Lola’s face when her baby boy screams and never stops? Do we know for certain that Asmod forced himself on Obsidian’s mother, and that is why he was born cursed? Can we risk that it could happen to our own son?” His words are prophetic. There can be no argument.

I hate that he is right. All my research showed me that children could be born safely, healthy babes to Scorp-Blood tribes, but the three of us have a darkness in our heart, this infectious pain that threatens to corrupt all we love. Can we truly turn the one woman we love into a science experiment, just because we want to be whole?

“She is mine,” I snarl.

“No,” says Bolden. “She deserves better than us. Say it, Khra. You know it. Feel what you have become, and tell the truth.”

I try to push down the black-green rage, the venomous part of me that the Scorp-Blood has enhanced. It was always there. The anger, that I pushed down with cold logic, but now I cannot stop it. It is a geyser, fighting against my mind.

“Then what now?” I say, accepting it, accepting the one thing I cannot accept, because the alternative is unthinkable.

Krazak and Bolden are right.

We can only bring her pain now.

It would have been better if we died on the Tomb and she had never met us.

Krazak’s smartwatch blinks emergency red. A top priority from the General himself, broadcasted to all soldiers on the planet.

“Men. We have a mission from which a triad will not return. Obsidian needs volunteers. All those willing, report to the throne room.”

General Ra’al’s voice is deep and serious as he addresses us, calling willing volunteers for a suicide mission, and like a surge of energy, destiny surges through me. There can be no mistake with this. No chance, no roll of the dice. The message comes to us the moment we turn ourselves into the perfect vessels for a final strike.

“It is fated,” states Bolden.

There are no coincidences in this world. The war for a border planet felt empty because it was not our calling.

This is.

I look down at my bright green veins, feel the darkness welling up in me, and I know that I can bring Lola only a future of darkness. We are no longer the men she fell in love with. We are something else, changed beyond repair.