Page 67

ADRIANA

T he moment I’m out of sight of the triad, a weight lifts from my shoulders.

I wave away an escort, wanting to walk the sterile hallways of the Imperator alone. The hallways gleam, austere, shining bright like they’ve been polished daily. It’s a place that seems unsuited to life.

Even the air here is too clean, too pure, yet with the hint of staleness that tells me it has been recycled a thousand times over.

My footsteps echo unnaturally loudly on the sheening floors, the bright lighting cold and impersonal, and I find myself walking faster, needing to get back to the human imperfections of my own chambers.

I’m still not used to the alien species. Even spending all this time with them, I need to think of them as strangers. It’s easier to deal with Toad envoys at the border, the warty species filled with greed who would just as soon eat you if they don’t think they can make a profit with trade.

But Aurelians… for one, you have to constantly crane your neck to look up at them.

And their skin unnerves me. Like it was chiseled from marble, their veins like natural lines in the stone.

The way they move is predatory, their footsteps barely making a sound on metal floors when they want to be silent, and it feels like they could be coming after me, hunting me down.

Every time I turn a corner in the hallway, I’m afraid I’ll bump into a triad coming at full speed that I never even heard.

Gallien stood so still during the heated exchange in the royal chambers that the only indication he was alive was the subtle rise and fall of his chest. He barely blinked, barely moved, giving me no window into his soul.

That bothered me more than the terse exchange with Doman and Titus. That felt more alien.

I smooth my uniform as I walk, finding my way through the labyrinth of sterile hallways.

The familiar heavy cotton centers me. I wore it on the bridge during the demonstration, appearing there not as the mate of the triad but in my official position as Prime Minister of Pentaris.

It’s crisp and reassuring, a barrier between me and the cold marble sterility of the warship.

I turn a corner and a triad of Aurelians snap to attention, standing rigid and bowing their heads in respect as I walk, doing my best not to flinch away from them.

The silence is broken by distant sounds of the ship’s operation, and the low, near imperceptible hum of the Orbs that power the warship.

The hangar bay where my government-issued ship rests like an ugly duck among swans is a hive of activity.

Aurelians are working at a frantic, well-organized speed, the chaos streamlined as they rush between the Reavers that were just used in the PK test. Metal clangs, and shouted commands create a cacophony that’s strangely invigorating, a contrast to the oppressive silence of the hallways.

Their movements are efficient and precise, each action purposeful and deliberate, throwing the chaos of my own emotions in my face.

Here, instead of flowing robes, they have tight-fitted, plain grey workers uniforms with no loose ends to get caught in machinery or pure white to be stained.

But even dressed similar to humans, they are so unlike us, each towering, each with centuries of life and war.

Oil and metal tinges my nostrils, and a chemical smell I can’t place.

The engineers and workers pause in their work the moment I appear at the top stairwell looking down, their posture straightening to strict military attention.

Welding torches spit out sparks, biceps clench as they hold tools and parts, and their faces are a mask of concentration, broken by the slightest flicker of recognition.

“As you were,” I say, and they seamlessly return to work. I take a deep breath. Despite their deference, I am an intruder in their world.

It’s not my status as Prime Minister that makes them interrupt their business for me.

It’s my position as Mate of the triad they would follow into death itself.

As I approach my ship, the doors open. Gould, one of the Administrators who I can trust for blunt council, sighs in relief, and my eyes flick down to my smart-watch. I’ve got a dozen ignored message requests.

“Madame Prime Minister, the council is awaiting your briefing.”

“I’ll join them shortly. Give me five.”

He winces. “Gunnar’s getting damned impatient.”

“He can wait,” I say, walking past him and into my ship. I retreat to my quarters, sinking into my chair with a heavy heart. The urgency of the meeting fades as I activate the holo-vid projector, because there’s something on my mind.

Fay.

I need to trust the triad to help me rescue her. But can I? There was something in our interaction that planted seeds of doubt in the back of my mind.

I immerse myself in data streaming from the universe, our network of spies.

Pentaris has agents deeply embedded in Aurelian strongholds.

Among them, a cook, who risked his own mind to infiltrate the royal palace itself.

His brain is fragmented into two personalities, the second one crafted in an intense eight-month hypnosis program on Etherion.

The alternate identity is the only way to pass the grueling psychological tests of the Interrogators who run the Aurelian Empire’s spy agency.

To free Fay, I’ll have to reveal the existence of my network. I hinted to Gallien that it was deeper than they thought - but they surely can’t imagine I have spies embedded within the palace itself. People don’t look as hard at impossibilities.

If the Aurelian Empire finds out it’s possible I have spies in their palace itself… it’ll threaten the program for centuries.

Just how much can I trust the triad?

They would kill for me. This, I know. Die for me? I shiver, remembering the way Doman stared through my soul as he fucked me, the way he pulled me against his pounding chest. He would die before seeing me hurt.

But would he let his entire Empire be threatened for what is right? Because right now, as we play as Gods with a weapon we should never have had, there’s a woman, laden with the child of the War-God, laden with the babe who will one day come for revenge.

Are they using me? My head throbs. The deceit they would have to be capable of, the inhumanity. They’ve had centuries to steel themselves. Centuries to become unknowable, to have thoughts beyond what a human could dream. I might be a foolish human to even consider trusting them.

Doman is sworn to uphold the Aurelian Empire above all, and I am a tool to bind Pentaris to him, to destroy his enemy.

Once he’s conquered the universe, the only thing left will be to conquer me.

I shiver as I imagine the three of them turning me into nothing more than a Bonded vessel for their seed, tying me up in their pleasure room and rutting me until I am swollen with their son, then hidden away deep in their palace like a precious possession too rare to be allowed outside.

I grit my teeth and rub my temples, flicking away the holo-vid and standing, preparing myself to meet with the representatives of the five planets, when a hand reaches out for me, a hand that cannot be there, huge and grasping, coming straight from my wall.

It tumbles, pumping out blood, my mind trying to process that marble flesh that thuds meatily on the ground, the fingers still clutching at me.

The scream from outside my room jolts me into action.

Emergency lights flick on, dim and red, and the terrifying sound of an Orb-Blade sheering through my metal door makes the fine hairs on my arms rise.

The Orb weapon drives through the door and I jump away from it before it can pierce my skin, when the door itself is kicked off its hinges, and the beast snarls at the precipice of my room.

They are here. Incomprehensibly, they are here.

An Aurelian of Obsidian’s forces, with a black brand on his forehead, crazed eyes, and the sigil emblazed on his chest. His eyes glint with feral, untamed wildness, and my body moves by instinct, whipping around and bursting out through the back door into the recesses of my ship.

Heavy bootsteps follow me, and I round a corner, coming face to face with another branded Aurelian.

His blade is active, casting a dark glow, but his expression is twisted, contorted with insanity. He clutches his eyes with his free hand, in torment. To my horror, I see his two battle brothers lying in a gruesome display, ripped in half, their lifeblood pooling around them in a macabre tableau.

The realization hits me like a blow—Obsidian shifted them in to hunt me down. But even he doesn’t have the precision to place triads in perfectly, and many of them were warped straight into the metal of my ship itself, cut in two before they could get to me.

The crazed Aurelian sees me, and advances, blade leading the way, hatred in his eyes. I back up until I hit the wall, my mind racing, when the door of my chamber opens for more of his men to chase me.

I brace myself, when instead of the triad I had feared, it is Titus who bursts through the door, filling the space with his huge frame. His white robes are stained crimson, his expression fierce determination contorted with a barbaric bloodlust that terrifies me.

“Behind me!” he roars, his voice a commanding boom that cuts through the chaos.

I press my back against the wall as he puts himself as a shield between me and the crazed Aurelian.

More of Obsidian’s branded troops pour into the corridor, charging forward in the halls that are made for humans, too thin for more than one to advance at once.