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I’m ready to heat up some guns and get off this rock, but Menace is oddly quiet as Chaos opens a door in the hangar and lets us out. Thruster is apparently still charging, so we’re on our own to get to the ship via an exposed mountain road. I don’t like it.

Fracture hovers our lift out of the doors.

I smile with confidence at Aniah and Celeste as the door closes between us, hoping it’s not goodbye.

“Everyone hang on.”

Fracture speeds up the lift. “Modified it so it would get us there faster. Less time for Solcrue to track us.”

Menace snorts and sits down beside me. “Rogues always know how to maximize engine output or efficiency. I wish we’d been taught that, but we all sort of have one purpose.”

“I thought I had no purpose,”

Sythius remarks as he trains his rifle off the side of the lift. He and Menace have sandwiched me in the middle while Fracture pilots. “But Leah spoke with me again. Fighting for humanity is my purpose now.”

I rest a hand on his arm, relief filling me. “Finally found some others like you?”

He nods and looks at me with hesitation as if I’ll lash out. “I’m sorry, Sef. I was selfish. I hurt you. And I’m so sorry.”

“Promise you won’t punch me in the face, and I promise not to give you a reason for augmented nuts.”

I lift a fist.

Sythius chuckles and bumps my fist. “Deal.”

We soar down the side of the mountain and soon head off the dirt road and through the hills, weaving and threading ourselves deeper into them toward the place where we hid the ship. Of course, because we aren’t cloaked, we set down in a cluster of trees, grab our things, and have to hike the rest of the way.

It’s unusual how quiet the trees are and how empty my mind is of combatants in the surrounding area. We make it within visual range of the BoltBurner before I get my first hint of movement.

“Welvir, northeast ridge,”

I whisper.

We cluster together and hustle through the grass toward the ship. As we get closer, another welvir appears.

“Looks like just one pack with one very big mutant,”

Menace says as Fracture lowers the ramp. “But they’re approaching fast.”

Fracture and Sythius climb onboard as I close my eyes and pull up my visuals, focusing on the light ringing in my temples.

“No. Not this time.”

Menace kisses me, picks me up by the waist, and tosses me onto the ramp as the ship lifts into the air. “Close it Fracture!”

“What? No!”

I run to the edge. “Menace!”

I whip around and look at Fracture. “What the hell is he doing?”

Fracture closes the ramp, glances back at me, shakes his head, and returns his focus to the ship as if he isn’t worried about Menace.

“Fracture, open this damned ramp! He could’ve just joined us! Why didn’t he?”

“I don’t know. He has orders I don’t.”

Fracture’s not helping, and I don’t know why.

“Orders?”

I close my eyes to watch. Two packs approach Menace, then a third. He charges them as Fracture cloaks the ship, and my vision of Menace and the others fades out.

“Damn it!”

I look helplessly at Sythius, wondering if he knows anything. But he shrugs.

“Circling back.”

The ship tilts, and several agonizing minutes later, Fracture brings us down again. The ramp drops as we land. What I see is terrifying.

Menace is covered in fizzling blood, and his new Titan armor is scratched up. But the hundred welvirs before him are all lying down. He’s panting when he turns to look back at us.

Blood drains from his teeth. At his feet lies the biggest welvir I’ve ever seen. It’s not dead like I hope. It looks up at him like Menace has suddenly made himself the alpha of the pack.

I walk slowly out of the ship, down the ramp, and stand beside him. Several of the animals cower away from me.

“They know you,”

he rumbles, red eyes bright with triumph. Menace wipes the blood from his mouth with a hand. “I’ve been thinking about what we really needed, like you said: a way to mess with their heads, to disorient them, to distract them so we can escape.”

“What’s that?”

“A weapon Solcrue can’t control.”

He motions to the massive pack. “I’ve been watching them. They always have a leader, a big mean one. I figured if I could tame it, I could control them.”

“You figured.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, babe. It worked.”

Menace grabs me and crushes me against his body. His rigid cock presses into my belly as he rakes his teeth over my neck. “Let’s get them on board so I can do the other thing I want before this shitstorm starts.”

Sythius opens the secondary ramp into the cargo belly of the ship, and Menace slips himself from me to lead the welvirs below.

“This seems insane,”

I mutter to Fracture as I climb the ramp to the flight deck. He watches in as much shock as I feel.

He shakes his head. “Relics are more primal than us Rogues and CyberGuards. They engage with the terran world in ways I’d never dare to try.”

Menace hikes back up. “I know, boys, but you’ll get your taste of fresh food soon. Ships full of snakes that need a taste of their own medicine.”

Once he’s closed up the cargo doors, Sythius seals the rear ramp. Fracture gets back in the pilot’s seat and lifts us up again.

A communication feed plays over the ship’s speakers. The face of a green-eyed female Titan fills a screen beside Fracture. “I have detected twelve Titan ultros in operation. They’re clustered together in a mud pit down south. They’re going to need to be dug out. You are most able to assist. Please confirm.”

“Confirmed. Please send coordinates,”

Fracture replies.

A map ping lights on our navigation.

“Please save them and search for others who might be powered down.”

The voice sounds worried.

“What’s got Clover so worked up?”

Menace asks. Fracture relays Menace’s question.

“They’re my charges from the BlazeStar,”

Clover replies. “They’ve been out of commission for as long as I was. You’ll have to be fast. Solcrue are increasing patrols. Mothership Torskus arrives in eight hours. And they’re bringing their whole armada. Another thirty ships from berserkers to battledaggers. That’s another five to six hundred Skysprinters inside.”

“That’s bad,”

Sythius says what I think is on all our minds. “There’s no way we’re getting off-world if we have to confront that level of an assault.”

“All the more reason to get as many Titans back up and operational as possible,”

Clover says. “If my legs were worth a damn, I’d hike out there and help. But I’ve got to do the final pre-flight checks for the BlazeStar. Savage is training crews.”

“We’ll make sure they’re with us for departure,”

Menace tells her. “Whatever it takes. We’re going to need all the help we can get for the distraction plan I’m working on with Savage.”

“Thank you. Keep coms live. Initiate final stage of Echo Papa FlareDust.”

Menace and Fracture’s eyes flash. “Confirmed,”

they say in unison.

“What’s that?”

Sythius asks.

“Escape Plan Flaredust.”

Menace jabs a finger at him. When Sythius cringes, Menace smiles. “Thank you for your help getting the range extender. But do not put my mate in danger ever again, even if your hide is threatened. I will forfeit leaving this hellhole to put you through the most pain you’ve ever been in, in your whole life if you harm a hair on her beautiful head.”

Sythius lifts his hands in innocence. “Understood.”

“How about we work on getting the other Titans dug out?”

I ask. “Something good we can do together.”

Fracture’s fingers fly over the ship’s screens. He gets us moving toward the mud pits quicker than I anticipated.

Menace leans close to me and grazes his teeth over my ear. “I’d much rather take you in the back and get that kind of dirty than dig in the mud.”

I turn to him and savor the heat of his breath on my lips. “I like this animal you’ve become.”

He laughs softly. “I never thought anyone would understand me until I met you. But you still had to choose not to run from me. Why didn’t you?”

“Because you’re fucking hot.”

He grins. “Seriously.”

“Maybe because you have it backward, and I felt like the monster no one wanted. Females are supposed to be sweet and caring, smooth and curvy, not pissy and violent, scarred and broken.”

Menace grazes his lips over mine. “You didn’t give up on me. There’s more power in your perfect body than you realize.”

Sythius groans. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Don’t make me watch this. Just fucking kiss already. You’re killing me.”

Menace rumbles a hungry noise, kisses me hard, and rips me out of my seat. He hauls me up to him and holds me by the hips. “Fracture, ETA?”

“Thirteen minutes.”

“Enough time?”

Menace asks me.

I nip at his bottom lip. “I probably only need one.”

“Stars, I love you,”

Menace growls as he carries me into the nearby room, shuts the door, and then presses me up against it.

In seconds, he’s torn off my pants and freed his virile cock. As he buries it with force into me, I arch in his arms, every memory of past torture burning away.

“Can’t believe I used to hate you when you feel so good,”

I gasp, my heart beating wildly in my chest.

He kisses my neck and pushes deeper. My high climbs fast. “Just didn’t understand me like I didn’t understand you.”

I’m already breathless from the sweet agony of taking him. “Glad we sorted that out.”

He thrusts into me again. His swollen length flexes inside of me, and I lose myself in the tingling rush. I can’t slow the climb as the quivers of release blend.

Menace pumps into me the moment my climax begins, like he’s sensed it. We pant as our sweaty bodies move as one.

“That’s it, babe,”

he rumbles in my ear.

My pussy grips him as scintillating waves of ecstasy spread through my hips.

Menace drags his teeth down my neck. “Nothing will ever feel as good as you.”

As we calm, he rests his forehead against mine and rasps a breath like he’s holding back pain. “I can’t lose you, Sefina. Promise me you’ll fight to stay alive, stay with me, forever.”

I think he’s afraid I’m going to end up like my mother, sacrificing myself for him. I brace his jaw in my hands and find his eyes. “If you make the same promise.”

Menace hugs me tighter with an arm and reaches a hand to my face, swiping a few flyaway strands of hair from my eyes. “To the end of my operation, I will fight for us.”

Light flashes in his eyes. I read the code in reverse and see him writing it permanently into his programming. But behind the synthetic code, I see a man desperate for hope, love, and a sense of home. I see Sergeant Rigel inside of Menace.

He closes his eyes and nuzzles my cheek with his in a tender gesture that lets me know he’s going to be okay.

I guide his lips to mine. “To my last breath, I will fight for us.”

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