Page 33 of Captured By the Dragon Warlord (Fated Mates of the Sarkarnii Warlords #2)
D exx’s scales look darker than ever. His good eye is squinted as he suffers in the light. He also seems to have grown somehow, being taller and wider than the last time I saw him in his current form. In any event, he isn’t happy here.
I don’t want to leave my friends, but I know Dexx will not go without me.
Before I can say anything, however, the doors to the quarters snap open, and Dante strolls in. I brace myself for what is likely to come next, but other than a rumble emanating from both of them which potentially could have been explosive, this time there is no fight.
“Have you found any more of these devices?” Dexx asks.
“My warriors have found two more. I’m about to offer our services to Driok, Darax, and Dalox, to diffuse them given what they contain.” He gives Dexx an unhinged leer. “I think my crew will fare better with paraxio than yours.”
Dexx glares at him for a long, unblinking moment.
“Yes,” he says finally. “They will.”
“Especially with your little…problem.” Dante grins.
“I have no problem,” Dexx responds, flexing his wings.
I can see this conversation going adrift very quickly and it won’t end well for Dante.
“Lydia has seen who has been planting these devices,” I interject. “It’s the same aliens who took us from Darax’s sector.”
Dante snarls. “Veseli.”
“And something else, something the Paralnyi hasn’t seen before.” Dexx points at Cestapal.
Dante’s tail lashes at the sight of her. It’s difficult to tell if this is because he doesn’t like her or in fact, he does.
“Kerra, Darax’s mate, met one of them,” I interject.
Both Sarkarnii look sombre.
“So the entire of Vorostor Central is infiltrated,” Dexx growls. “Without our knowledge.”
“Don’t like it,” Dante mutters, and for a second, he doesn’t look fierce or unhinged. He looks lost.
“I won’t stand for it,” Dexx snarls, snapping Dante out of any mood. “No one enters my sector without my knowing and whoever dares to will die.”
Which sounds like a typical Sarkarnii response.
“But who is doing it? Undetected?” I look between the two warlords. If they don’t want to admit the obvious, I will. “Could it be a Sarkarnii?”
Dexx immediately inserts himself between me and Dante, pushing me back towards the door.
Before I can do or say anything, I’ve been hustled out of the quarters, into the passage, and without any ceremony, Dexx has me moving as fast as he can up towards the airlock leading to the neutral sector.
We’re joined by Cestapal and the two warriors who look slightly sheepish as Dexx snarls for the airlock to be opened, and we’re free of Dante’s sector.
“What’s going on?” I ask as we reach the airlock into Dexx’s sector. “I’d have liked to say goodbye to my friends.”
Dexx gives his warriors a snarl which they clearly determine to be a dismissal as I’m not sure I’ve seen Sarkarnii move so fast. Cestapal also disappears as if she wasn’t ever there.
“If there is a Sarkarnii making these devices and planting them for another species, it will not be one of mine,” he says.
“How can you be sure?”
“We have to stay shifted for half a nova-day, Scarlett.” Dexx studies me. “Shifted Sarkarnii would be noticeable in most areas, and if any of my warriors missed a session in the mine, it would be noted.”
“But they also spend half a day not shifted, Dexx. That’s plenty of time to be able to make and place these things.” I waggle the tube in my hand, and it occurs to me I probably shouldn’t rattle the thing about.
Dexx smokes heavily from his nostrils. I can tell he doesn’t want to think ill of any of his warriors, and I understand. I put my hand on his thick, muscular arm, the scales cool under my touch.
“I don’t like it,” he echoes Dante. “We’ve had it hard enough in this galaxy, for us to end up in this situation.
” He takes the tube from my hand, and for a moment I think he’s going to crush it.
“This needs to be studied. Find out more about it, more about who made it and how it caused the cave-in.”
“You think it did?” I look at the smooth metal. “I suppose if I had some equipment, I could run some tests.”
“I can do better than that,” Dexx says. “Come this way, little mate. I have something for you.”
He leads me through the ship, warriors scattering at our approach as if burnt.
“How do you do it?” I ask him as another pair scuttle away like lizards on hot concrete. “You’re not even saying anything.”
“I read their thoughts. Most warriors know and keep out of my way.”
“Can all Sarkarnii read minds?” I ask, and I find myself caged up against a nearby wall by a Sarkarnii warlord smoking like he’s on fire.
Dexx slides a knuckle down my cheek and under my chin.
“Just my clan, since a long time ago, many ancestors before I was born. My mother occasionally had the ability, although she only used it to determine if we had been behaving.” He chuckles. “However our ability came in after we came through the wormhole.”
“So, that’s really the reason why you don’t think it’s any of your warriors,” I say, my chin tipped up to look into Dexx’s face. “Because you think you’d be able to read their thoughts.”
“Most of my crew can only detect emotions, the occasional word, but I get it all.” Dexx sighs, smoke curling from him. “Every nevving word, every nevving emotion, from every nevving Sarkarnii.”
“Even the warlords?”
“Even them.”
The tiredness which steals over his face is something completely new. Dexx carries the weight of more than just the mutation which causes them to stay shifted for half of every day. He knows everything about everyone on his ship, every sector, every Sarkarnii.
“Do they know? The warlords, I mean.”
Dexx chuckles deep in his throat. “I doubt I’d be here if they did,” he says darkly. “I do my best to tune it all out, and being with you gives me peace, little mate.”