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M aking my way slowly around the edge of the egg filled room, I spot the occasional Veseli from time to time. They don’t seem to be doing much. If anything, I’d say they look dormant. A leg kicking occasionally, the odd click from their mandibles, but certainly not coming after me.

I’m not sure what this means, and I don’t think I’ll test my theory and instead keep moving until I come across a depression in the wall which I hope is an exit.

Either that or I’m going to be sucked into space with everything in this room. But that seems like a terrible design flaw even an alien wouldn’t make.

As I step in front of it, the depression whooshes open, sucking me through and out into another massive room, only this one is empty.

I drop my head back with a groan. This is getting stupid. Am I going to end up going from room to room, each one getting larger like a reverse Russian doll?

But the thought of the evil professor motivates me enough I start moving. It takes me a good ten minutes to find another depression. This one sucks me into a smaller room, one with a dark hole in the center of the far wall.

It looks like a porthole, but it’ll be the first one I have encountered on a space ship. My curiosity gets the better of me and I scuttle over.

It is a porthole. We are in space. The stars seem enormous, like diamonds waiting to be plucked. For all my time up here, I never considered it was beautiful, but it is. Deadly and stunning at the same time.

“Hello, little mate,” Darax rasps into my ear.

I virtually hit the roof.

“Darax!” My voice isn’t working properly, and his name comes out as a croak. “What are you…how did you find me?”

“I will always come for you, heartsfire,” he says, a sinful light in his eyes. “The distance between the stars is nothing if it means I get to be by your side.”

I cup his jaw, still not able to comprehend Darax is here, in front of me, his arms around my arms, his eyes burning into mine. Smoke curling in such a familiar way from his nostril and a grin I could lose myself in.

He is really here.

And he is not mad. Not at all. If anything, he looks completely and utterly sane, especially compared to his brother.

“Darax.” I whisper his name. Feel his warm scales against my hand. “It is you.”

“Always.” He takes my hand and kisses it. “My sweet mate, can you ever forgive me for my errors?”

“You were protecting yourself,” I say, studying his handsome face. “It doesn’t make it right, but then what is?”

“There is no excuse, my Kerra. You are my queen, my mate, my szikra . I should have given myself over to you the moment I found you. Instead I concentrated on the rut, on what it meant to me, rather than offering you my hoard and my life.”

“The rut’s still important.” I melt into his arms. “It still means something.”

“Nothing is as important as you,” Darax says, inhaling deeply in my hair. “Nothing.”

“Found your female, I see.” A vast Sarkarnii appears behind Darax. He looks like he’s been digging, streaked in dirt from head to tip of tail. “Where are the others?”

I give Darax a sharp look and he shakes his head. “Dexx knows nothing other than what he believes he knows and what I tell him,” he murmurs in my ear. “The choice still lies with your friends, if they are here with you.”

“Where are the other females?” Dante pops out of a side door. “If you’ve got yours.”

“Dante, on the other hand, knows too much and will broadcast it to the entire universe given half the chance,” Darax growls with a glower and a shake of his head.

“I don’t think we were going to be able to keep four other women secret for long,” I reply. “And given you needed help…”

“I did not need help,” Darax interrupts. “These nevvers followed me.”

“He needed help,” Driok says clambering through the airlock. “And we need females.”

Dalox comes through last. He is truly an enormous specimen of a Sarkarnii. He surveys this place as if he owns it before grunting at Darax.

“Are we going to deal with the Veseli or not?” He produces the biggest, meanest looking battle axe I’ve ever seen.

Admittedly I haven’t seen a huge number of battle axes, but this has to be one of the biggest.

Darax sighs and looks down at me. “Are you ready, little mate? You’re about to see a bunch of nevvers go into battle, and it isn’t going to be pretty.”

“Wait,” I say as Dante approaches the door with what looks suspiciously like some sort of mineshaft. “There’s something you need to know.”

I get the full attention of all five hulking Sarkarnii. It is disconcerting.

“Your brother is here too.” I look up at Darax. “He didn’t hurt me. In fact, he tried to save me from the Veseli.”

“Deus is here?” Dalox growls. “That makes things interesting .”

“But also, the Veseli are being controlled somehow. I don’t think they’re doing any of this of their own volition.”

“Controlled by what?” Darax asks, gently tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear.

“He looked a bit like a human to me, but I don’t think he was human, more of a robot.” I shake my head, “I’m not sure. All I know is he was very interested in the fact I was a mate to a Sarkarnii.”

Darax looks across at his fellow warlords. Driok and Dalox shake their heads. Dante and Dexx continue to look completely feral. Or murderous and feral in Dexx’s case.

“New species in the galaxy?” Dalox growls. “I don’t like it.”

The chorus of echoing growls suggests none of the warlords are keen on this idea.

“A new species which can control others and has an unhealthy interest in Sarkarnii?” Darax says darkly. “Not something I believe we should permit.”

“I’m ready for the Veseli,” Dante snarls, a vicious double-bladed sword in his hand which I didn’t see before. “They won’t escape destruction this time.”

The latest round of growls is something which should chill the blood of anyone opposing these huge creatures.

Only I don’t know if that’s even possible for the Veseli or the evil professor.