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I don’t blame him. They’re a nosy lot, those who do business outside the borders of civilized space. We’ve been here three days, and already we’ve been approached by three of Marn’s merchants and two of their upper-noble families; all trying to deduce the reason for our visit – and how they might profit from it.

Aurelians don’t usually visit Marn. If we do, there’s a reason for it. Those with a nose for profit want to know that reason – and on Marn,everyonehas a nose for profit.

Otho stops pacing. I’m glad – he was like a caged beast. He takes his seat next to Lazar.

It’s a ridiculous sight. The chairs don’t match the table. They were hurriedly brought up by the hotel staff when we arrived – because this is a world in which most people are built to human dimensions.

Even these chairs are made for someone of ourweight, but not ourheight– and we look ridiculous in them; like children in play furniture.

“If we’re going to do this, we do this clean,” I warn. “There can’t be even a chance in a million that she gets hurt.” I take a deep breath. “My gut tells me Mr. Carani is not going to accept the offer. In fact, I don’t think he’d take forty billion, even if we had authorization for that amount.”

Beyond the windows of this penthouse, the darkness of the city is deep. It’s too deep and tainted to be fully lit by the streetlights down below. They can’t fully pierce the smog, so they just glow; like coals in a dying fire. That’s only exacerbated by the smog of pollution that hangs over the city. Only a thin pane of glass separates us from the darkness seeping through and into us.

It’s not just actual darkness. We’re wrestling with a darkness of another kind in this decision.

If we do this, there’s no going back.

If it was all business, it could be justified more easily – but ever since seeing Carani’s daughter, I don’t know if it is any longer.

Maybe the true reason we’re even contemplating something as craven as kidnapping suggests that our true motivation is more primal – a desire that lurks deep inside my bones. Something so primal that it strips away the rational part of me and turns me into an ancient beast.

The Old Ways are in my blood.

I ache totameCarani’s daughter. Ever since I saw her, I’ve been overwhelmed by the need to claim her innocence and mold her to my desires – to capture her and train that beautiful girl to be my perfect, submissive little Mate.

The Old Ways are in my blood.

I can force them down – but for how long?

5

Natali

The lights are off. My room is in darkness. I stare up at the ceiling.

Sleep comes easily to me most nights, but not tonight. Tonight, I toss and turn beneath my thin sheet. The AI controlling the house temperature could lower the temperature–but over the years, it calculated that I usually enjoy these warmer summer nights, with the cool breezes running over me.

Not tonight, though.

Tonight, I’m changed. That piercing stare did something to me.

The leader of that Aurelian triad looked straight into my mind and soul tonight – and left me feeling as though he knew secrets about me that I hadn’t even uncovered myself.

Those Aureliansscareme.

For years, I thought I knew their kind. I’ve read and studied about them relentlessly.

Yet, up close, those three Aurelians were nothing like I’d expected. In the flesh – all that towering, marble-white flesh – they’d lost all trace of humanity.

Today, I stopped believing in the Aurelians I’d read about inOn Aurelians– the brave, gallant knights of the ordered galaxies, serving the Empire and protecting the universe from Toad and Scorp. They were a myth – a legend, like the knights in shining armor of Old-Earth.

There was nothing gallant about the three dangerous creatures who visited our estate today.

My father told me that the triad worked for the Empire – but they didn’t look honorable and just. Those three warriors looked dangerous, instead – aggression seeping from them even as they sat there like marble-hewn statues.

I’d forgotten that they’re aliens.

Alien.