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I repeated the process three times before I lifted the shirt to stare into his face. It didn't take a genius to see that the male was broken. His chest was heaving for air as he coughed and spluttered.

"I'll tell you everything, but please, please stop," he pleaded.

To say I was deeply impressed with human ingenuity was an understatement. I planned to ask Hannah to use the technique on me later. I needed to determine its effectiveness and whether Possedion was just a weak Ohrur or if he was playing me.

"All right, talk." I crossed my arms over my chest.

That Possedion didn't even ask to be untied to sit up told me how desperate he was to get this over with.

"You are a Darlam," he said.

Darlam.

That word resonated inside my chest just like Suahaana had. I swallowed. Rage rose inside me from deep down in my gut,and I itched to terminate the Ohrur now that I had this information. I took a step forward, but a small, fragile hand reached for my arm and stayed me. When I looked at her, Hannah shook her head. Her eyes pleaded,not yet, and I sighed. She was right.

"What happened to Darlam?" I pressed out.

Possedion closed his eyes in defeat. "I had nothing to do with this. This happened more than twenty thousand years ago, and I've been cursed with the aftermath just like you."

"What happened to Darlam?" My voice was deadly quiet.

"Let me start from the beginning, as I know it. As I said, this was done by my ancestors."

I made an impatient gesture with my hand, and he finally continued.

"Ohrurs have always been merchants, always have been of small physiques, and always have fallen prey to stronger species." He stopped, throwing an accusing glance at me. I shrugged, having had nothing to do with their physique or ever having picked on them. "As successful as we were as traders, we stood little chance against most other species in the universe. We lost many credits to pirates and thieves or just to anybody who didn't want to pay. We hired guards, of course, but some of them betrayed us as well.

"Thus, my ancestors became obsessed with the idea of genetically enhancing us so that we wouldn't have to pay for guards and could defend ourselves. During that time, they discovered what is called theArchegene. A gene that is present in all lifeforms in the universe. From plant life to animals to what we call intelligent species."

"If it's present everywhere, why didn't you just harvest it?" Hannah asked.

Possedion glared at her contemptuously, making me want to dump another pitcher of water over him. I didn't know if he read my facial expression or had simply given up, but after a few heartbeats, he answered, "It's not that simple. The genemight be present everywhere, but over time, it becomes altered and corrupted. Our ancestors searched for the seedspecies or, if that wasn't possible, one that was still the closest related to it."

He looked at me. "And that they found on Darlam."

His menace shone brighter when he stared at me, and again, my hands began to clamp and unclamp with the urge to terminate the bastard. He might not have been personally involved in what happened on Darlam, but he was reaping the rewards from it, and he was just as corrupt as they must have been.

"Unfortunately, some of us Ohrurs were taken with your species. They liked the idea of howpureyou were." His expression changed to disgust when he glared at me. "You and your brethren cost the loss of nearly half of my people."

"Yet somehow you don't seem that upset," I fished.

"They were fools. All of them," Possedion spat.

"Hold on. First, you said you're not responsible for what your ancestors did. Now you're saying they were fools, or the ones that died were." Hannah held up a hand. "Which is it?”

"Does it matter?" Possedion spat.

"To me, it does." Hannah nodded.

"Why?" Possedion seemed actually interested in her answer.

"Depending on the answer, it will make it easier or harder for me to kill you," Hannah stated, glaring straight at him. She was the most magnificent female I had ever met.

"Females." Possedion lifted his head off the table to make his dislike for Hannah as a female known.

"You don't like females very much, do you?" I picked up. I had never much interacted with the Ohrurs other than via holovids, so I had no idea about their mating habits.

"They're the scourge of the universe. There's a reason why we killed them all on Ohrur…" he drifted off, realizing what he had just said.