Page 31 of Guardian's Soul (Space Guardian's Mate #2)

THARAAX

I was running through the same forest again, but I wasn't alone this time, and I was neither worried nor heartbroken. A shadow followed me, laughing, calling out to me.

"Tharaax!"

I stopped and turned to look into Suahaana's beautiful face. She ran full speed at me, and I caught her easily. Wrapping my arms around her, I swung her in a circle.

"It's starting," she said excitedly, pointing at her arm.

"I know," I replied, holding up mine, where the same swirling Soulweb Glyphs had started appearing since last night. It had taken all my willpower not to run to her house to make sure she, too, was beginning to show our bond. The thought that it could be someone else never entered my mind. We had been destined for one another since we were kids. Tradition demanded that we wait until the Soulweb Glyphs were complete. After that, the temple would bless our union, and we would start our lives together in the house I was about to begin constructing today.

"What do you think?" I asked Suahaana, pointing at the dense forest around us. This place was a little away from the main hub of our city, but Suahaana and I both liked to be alone, away from all the noise.

"It's perfect." She beamed.

My heart was filled with love for this female. I would never love another.

I woke with her name on my lips: Suahaana!

"Thrax?" Hannah shook me awake.

"You were calling her name again," she said when I opened my eyes, still caught in the fog of the dream. My heart hammered against my ribcage. Suahaana! I blinked and looked at Hannah. Two females, so different from one another, and yet, I loved them both.

How was that even possible?

The love I felt for either one was overpowering and unshakable, and yet I felt it for both in equal measure.

"Hannah," I said, hating the look of hurt on her face for having called another woman's name in our bed.

"Who is she?" Hannah asked, placing her palm on the side of my face, making me feel guilty. How could I mourn another woman when I was with her? How could I be with her when I had loved Suahaana so much? And I had. There was no doubt in my mind that Suahaana was a real person. She had lived, and she had died.

The thought of Suahaana dead nearly killed me. It choked my throat and made it hard to breathe, and yet all I yearned for was to pull Hannah into my arms.

"I think… I think she was my mate," I told Hannah as more guilt assaulted me.

"Don't." Hannah's thumb moved up and down my cheek. "Don't feel guilty for having loved someone else."

"How can you know me this well?" I asked, placing my hand on top of hers and moving it to my lips so I could kiss her tender flesh .

"I don't know, but it's like you're part of me." She tilted her head to the side.

"Hannah, I don't deserve you." I kept kissing her hand.

"Don't," she repeated. "It's strange. I feel like I know Suahaana through you. And I feel sad as if I'd lost a good friend or sister. It's weird, but I feel connected to her on a level I can't describe. I should be raving mad jealous, but I'm not."

"Hannah." I pulled her into my arms, knowing full well that I didn't deserve her. She deserved a male who loved her and only her, not some phantom or ghost. At the same time, I also knew I could never let her go, just like I would never stop mourning Suahaana. The more I thought about it, the more my head was beginning to throb. The light pain at waking up from the dream was increasing with every passing word.

I knew in my gut that all this was Possedion's fault. He had the answers we sought.

"Let's go talk to Possedion." I held her tight for a moment longer.

She looked so torn that I offered, "You don't have to be part of this, Hannah. I can do this myself."

She shook her head. "I need… want to be with you. Just give me a moment to get over myself."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded bravely. "Yes, I want to find out the truth. I need to know what the Ohrurs did to you."

"You can leave the room anytime you need to," I suggested.

"I might have to." She took my hand and we collected the things we needed before we returned to Possedion's room.

"This cursed drone won't let me sleep," Possedion complained the moment we entered his cell. He looked tired and worn. Good.

"Do you want to make this easy or hard? Give me access to the real database," I demanded.

"I don't know?— "

I raised my hand, staring him straight in the eyes. "Yes, you do."

His face fell. "So she's fully ensnared you then?"

"Wrong tactic, Possedion." I leaned forward, towering menacingly over him. He swallowed. The fear I had been looking for had finally found its way into his eyes.

"Well, go ahead and torture me then," he braved.

"Oh, we will," Hannah said in a hard tone I hadn't heard her use in a while.

Before Possedion could protest further, I grabbed and flung him on the table. He wriggled, but his scrawny body was no match for my superior strength. Within moments, I had him tied to the table. Hannah held out a shirt to me in lieu of what she called towels .

I placed it over Possedion's head, whose protests came out mumbled from underneath the shirt. Then I emptied a pitcher filled with water over his head. He sputtered and cursed underneath.

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 the Archegene . 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 gene might 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 how pure you 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.

With a roar, I sprang forward.

"Thrax. No!" Hannah yelled, but it was too late. I had controlled my urge to terminate the bastard for far too long. Now my blood screamed for revenge.

Even if Possedion hadn't been bound to the table, he wouldn't have posed much of a threat to me as my hands finally, finally , encircled his scrawny little neck.

"Thrax!" Hannah yelled my name, or at least I think she did. I wasn't in the right state of mind to notice anything. I was driven by pure, unadulterated bloodlust—the need to punish the man for what he or his ancestors did to my people.

Suddenly, a sharp pain entered my body, spasming my every muscle. My eyes turned up in their sockets, but before I fell to the ground, I saw Hannah standing there, holding a blaster in her hand.