Page 35 of Guardian's Soul (Space Guardian's Mate #2)

THARAAX

The importance of the things I had found out weighed heavily on my shoulders and chest. I still didn't know how my memories fit into that, but then I had to ask myself if those were really memories or something I had only dreamed up.

No, Suahaana was real. The love I felt for her was too real to only be someone I had dreamed up. All I knew was that this puzzle was far from being figured out yet.

We entered the room, where Possedion still lay tied to the table. The room stank because he hadn't had a way of voiding himself, and I cursed myself for that oversight. His lids were heavy, and he barely reacted when I untied him.

"I'm going to take him to the cleansing chamber," I told Hannah, who scrunched up her nose.

"I'll get some cleaning drones in here," she agreed.

Possedion was barely a shell of the man I had initially kidnapped. We might need to postpone further interrogations until he regained some of his strength. I didn't want to kill him yet.

When I had him cleansed and returned to the main room, it was back in perfect order .

Possedion had regained some level of consciousness during the cleansing process, but he was fading again fast.

"He's gonna need a break," I told Hannah, who glared at him.

I could feel her hate for Possedion emanating from her and began to worry that she was getting too close. I didn't want her to feel this way for a man or cause that was my responsibility.

"That's all right. We're going to Darlam, and we'll find all the answers we need there," Hannah replied.

A loud cackle from Possedion startled both of us.

"What?" I asked, holding him up by his shoulder.

"You'll never set foot on Darlam." His voice was muffled, and his chuckles didn't help understand him any better.

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"I mean that Darlam is surrounded by a forcefield that destroys any ship trying to enter." He cackled louder. His weight was getting heavier as I held him up because his legs were giving in. He needed sleep. But he was talking.

"How do we turn that forcefield off?" I nearly shook him.

"You can't." He snickered, his eyes closing.

He was out.

Frygg.

I dropped him on the ground. I needed to give him time to sleep and recover, but I wasn't about to put him to bed. He could sleep on the floor for all I cared.

"We should bring some food and drink and leave it here for when he wakes up," Hannah suggested.

"We'll do that later. I need to check on our status."

The fact that Darlam was surrounded by a forcefield changed things dramatically. My initial plan was to fly there unless I met Zaarek and Nock on UX938, but if they were already on their way and attempted to land, they would face certain death.

I couldn't let that happen .

I rushed to the bridge, closely followed by Hannah, and filled her in on my thoughts.

"Shit," she cursed.

"Yeah, shit indeed," I agreed.

I opened my messages, but just as I had anticipated, there was nothing there. My comm would have already notified me if Nock had responded. I cursed again.

"Now what?" Hannah asked.

"There's nothing we can do. We're still on course to UX938. Hopefully, Zaarek's group hasn't left there yet, or maybe we run into others like us." I looked at her. Others like us , repeated in my mind. Other Space Guardians with mating marks. Others who had heard and understood Nock's message. The idea exhilarated me. We wouldn't have to fight the Ohrurs alone. That we would have to fight and destroy them was as clear as daylight to me, had been from the moment I had laid eyes on the actual Possedion and not his holovid persona. While he had hidden his evilness with technology, in person, it was unmistakable.

"You said there were a thousand Space Guardians in the universe at any given time," Hannah interrupted my dark musings. "Your kind has existed for tens of thousands of years, right?"

I nodded, not understanding where she was going with this. Not until she added, "So mating marks must have popped up before, considering how long the Ohrurs have been using your kind."

I finally grasped her point. Even Poseidon had admitted to it. "You're right."

"So what happened to them?"

I logged back into the Ohrur database, digging out what I could about Soulweb Glyphs.

"They were unique to the Darlams," I read and summarized for Hannah, who had once again placed herself on my lap, a position I truly enjoyed. "They would appear on a couple predestined to be together, announcing their status to the town."

"Were they as painful as ours?" Hannah wanted to know, mindlessly rubbing her arm and scrunching her face as if she were mad at her marks.

"Hmm, interesting…"

"What?" She hit my arm.

I laughed. "So impatient. Give me a moment." When I thought she would squirm off my lap in anticipation, I had mercy on her and finished. "No. They weren't painful at all, and it took several days for them to appear on the Darlams before they were finished."

"Great…" Hannah mumbled. "Thanks a lot to whoever or whyever we had to suffer. It's like Adam and Eve all over."

"What are you talking about?" I asked curiously.

"Oh"—she waved her hand—"just an old religious story."

"I like old religious stories," I probed.

"It's nothing, really, it's just… it's called the original sin. According to the story, Eve seduced Adam with an apple, and because they lost their innocence, God punished Eve by making having babies painful for her."

My brows drew together. "Giving birth is painful for your species?"

"Very." She shuddered. "I mean, we have drugs now and…" she broke off.

"What?"

"Do you think you and I could have a baby?" Hannah asked.

That idea intrigued me. "I would love to have a baby Hannah running around." I might not have considered or wanted a family before, but with Hannah? Once she said those words, I knew with absolute certainty that this was what I wanted.

She slapped my arm. "That's not what I mean. I mean, do you think it's biologically possible?"

"I don't see why not? I can run some tests if you want me to. "

"You should." She nodded vigorously.

"Why?"

"Because every three months, I get a shot to stop me from having babies," she explained.

Hearing how painful childbirth was for humans, I understood why. The thought of her enduring any kind of pain to bring my son or daughter into the universe didn't sit well with me at all.

"I got one about three weeks before I was taken, so I should be good for another month… but I don't know how your stupid universe time works, so I don't know if it has been three Earth months yet or not. So, let's run this test." She was ready to jump off the chair.

"Wait, let me finish searching for what the Ohrurs did to the Space Guardians who found their Soulweb mates." I stopped her.

She settled back down, but I could tell she was antsy. Needing to find out about our compatibility. It had to be indeed extremely painful for human females if the very thought of having babies terrified her like this. But if it was that bad, how did her species procreate? From what I had gathered, there were a few billions of humans or had been.

She had mentioned that there were drugs now, so that had to be why. Still… it was confusing.

Then my mind veered as I began reading about the Ohrurs atrocities. I slammed my hand against the armrest, startling Hannah, whose mind must have drifted because she wasn't looking at the screen.

"What?" she screeched, startled. "Is it your head? Is it hurting?"

For a moment, she distracted my anger enough to think about it. Strangely, the headaches only seemed to appear when I remembered things or dreamed about them, but not when I read about my ancestor's pasts .

"No," I answered her, but I didn't elaborate on my thoughts because my outrage was too much.

"They killed them." Undiluted fury rushed through my veins.

"Who killed who?" Her forehead creased.

"The Ohrurs killed every Space Guardian and every mate they ever found. They lured them in whenever suspicion arose that they might have been compromised, and if they had the markings, they were terminated."

"Oh no." Tears pooled in Hannah's eyes. "That's terrible."

My blood ran cold when I read the next sentence. "Space Guardians are to be retired between twenty and thirty years of service. That's how long it seems to take for them to fully mature to where the possibility of mating marks becomes an issue, and during this time, they also start to develop a profound awareness of their deeper selves and their place in the universe ."

"When you say retire…" Hannah asked apprehensively.

I nodded. "Terminated. Yes."

I leaned back in the chair and felt her hand on my arm, gently stroking it. "I'm so sorry, Thrax."

I had worked for those people. For over twenty years, I had worked for them. I had been happy doing so. And what would the reward for this have been? A quick death?

Frygg!

I slammed my hand on the armrest once more, shaking my head in disbelief at my own naivety. You and thousands, maybe millions of others , my mind whispered. That was when my hot, burning fury turned cold. Ice cold. A thousand Space Guardians at any given year for tens of thousands of years. My mind was right. The number had to go into the millions.