Page 29

NATALIE

T he crisp white marble floor of our master bathroom shifted to sterile, shiny silver metal.

In the center of the room sat a long table with a clear, glassy top.

Its silver base flowed in elegant curves to meld seamlessly into the floor.

I wasn’t sure if it was the same table I’d seen in the laboratory room before.

It seemed longer, more like a conference than an exam table, but I couldn’t be sure.

Remembering Axxol in pain, bound to the table with blue arcs around his limbs, while the man removed his Sirian cells made me shudder. Eyes squeezed shut, I fought down a surge of panic. My heart thudded so hard I couldn’t hear anything else. Couldn’t feel anything.

Lost. I’m lost in the infinite expanse of space. Alone.

Kroktl will never be able to find me.

Pain cramped my biceps, bringing me back into my body. Lohr’s bite. The taste of his blood on my tongue. Earthy and metallic yet wholly unique, carrying a hint of his brilliant mind and extensive knowledge.

Centered, I concentrated on slowing my breathing and opened my eyes.

Lohr and Snryx both pressed against me in their humanoid forms. I hadn’t felt them shift. But they were still here. Still with me. My arm still hurt but it was more like muscular pain, telling me the medic must have already done something to help heal the wounds.

:We had no choice.: Snryx’s voice whispered through my head, different than before. Not the grid, but more organic though muted. :Dyni can’t hold their beasts in HQ.:

Relief tightened my throat. I’m not alone. We’ll figure this out. :We’re in HQ?:

:Not exactly,: Lohr’s familiar voice made tears burn my eyes, though he sounded light years away. :This is a construct made to appear as if we’re in HQ.:

:I misspoke,: Snryx said. :This place is made to look like HQ but I don’t believe we’re actually in the Draco-Sirius system at all.:

I could hear them both—but I didn’t think they could hear each other. Which made sense if we were only communicating through the mating marks. Still, it was better than being stuck alone in my head without being able to ask them what was going on.

:Does Lohr know our location?: Snryx asked. :The humans passed in the jump with us.:

:He says it’s a construct.:

:Agreed. No true HQ lab would be so empty of equipment.:

:The alpha isn’t physically here.: Lohr’s tongue touched the silvery floor. :Though this is tungsten made to contain dyni.:

:He says the floor is tungsten,: I told Snryx, shifting between them so I could see more of our location. I forgot exactly how big they both were—until I wanted to see around them.

Crying softly, Holly met my gaze and gave me a tremulous smile. She wore a light cotton sleep tank and shorts, and her usually perfect hair was messy from sleep. Snyder tried to put his arm around her, and she jerked away, moving quickly to come closer to me. Despite two very large—and naked—dyni.

I held out my hand and she clamped her fingers around mine.

She whispered, “Where are we?”

“Not sure,” I whispered back.

“Don’t worry, girls,” the man in a military uniform said. “I’ve seen this place before.”

I rolled my eyes, trying not to smart off about how being called a girl when I was a full-grown woman—with a baby, no less—was demeaning and dismissive. A lesson in misogyny could wait until we were safe.

:How interesting,: Lohr said. :I had no idea DSC had direct interaction in human affairs. Officially, Earth isn’t acknowledged as being technologically advanced or intelligent enough to interact with the syndicate directly. No offense, Natalie.:

:None taken,: I assured him. Though it wouldn’t hurt to play along with pretending to be dumb. It sure had worked with Snyder in the past. I shot him a glare. “We had an agreement. Who’re these men?”

“I’m General Waverley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the military man said. “It’s not often I get to travel so far from home, young lady. But I made a special exception just for you.”

Ugh. I crossed my arms over my breasts and made sure most of my body was hidden behind Snryx. The man gave me serious icky vibes despite his attempt at being grandfatherly. I hadn’t heard of the man and didn’t follow American politics enough to know if he was who he said he was or not.

I turned my attention to the other man, trusting him even less.

He wore an expensive-looking suit with slicked back dark hair and an overly charming, oily smile.

He carried a slim black briefcase and wore a chunky gold watch around his wrist that I could probably sell and use to buy a brand-new car. Maybe a house.

He looked back and forth between me and Holly as if trying to decide which slab of meat he wanted to cut into and sample first. “You can call me Mr. Smith.”

An innocuous, generic name—for a man with such skeevy vibes.

I glanced over at Snyder, and he flashed his Hollywood white smile. “I’m Dr. James Snyder.”

Even the other two men looked at him suspiciously. They’d been working with him, or at least pumping him for information on us. How much had he told them? I had to assume everything he knew, which made me frantically run through every conversation I could remember with the man.

He knew about Akylla. How fast she was growing. Did he know she’d managed to shift into her dynos for the first time tonight? Would that matter to him—or DSC?

She’s just a baby , my heart cried. My baby. I have to keep her away from them.

“I see introductions have been made,” a voice said, one I remembered all too well from my brief visit to free Axxol from the trap. Weirdly jovial and brightly happy—while knowingly causing pain to another living creature.

The man suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the table, complete with white scientist coat, distinguished silvery hair, pink cheeks, and a smile too wide for his very boomer face. “On behalf of Draco Sirius Command, allow me to welcome our distinguished visitors to Gamma Ladon.”

Dread bled through both of my mating marks, but it was Lohr who explained.

:Gamma Ladon is a facility on Nyan Station.:

The place where squads were sent for termination.

SNRYX

Without Rizan’s help, I couldn’t get the grid fully functioning again. Maybe Lohr would know his way around comms enough to re-establish connection with the rest of the squad. All of my medical systems were up and functioning at normal capacity after the EMP surge.

I readied every single one of my implements, primarily for life support to ensure Natalie’s survival, but I had a few surprises tucked inside my coils. Even if our squad hadn’t found our mate on Earth, at the very least our stint on this backward planet had taught me to be inventive.

Many of my medical instruments could be used with devastating consequences. Especially for fragile, despicable humans who betrayed her trust. Regardless of what happened here in this holding cell, I’d ensure the three human males all met painful deaths.

Natalie’s friend stepped closer to her, her bare arm brushing my implement. I was tempted to deposit a medbot inside her and to take a small sample of her blood, but Natalie hadn’t spoken to her about our desire to run blood comparisons yet.

:My systems are functioning again,: I told Natalie through our bond. :See if your mrions are back online and what powers may be available to you.:

Relief surged through her, followed by a thick cloud of guilt. :All of the fragments and drones in the space whales were destroyed.:

:I highly doubt all of them were extinguished.

Mrions are nanoscopic and extremely difficult to detect.

Unless every inch of soil and organic matter is destroyed, and every molecule of air exposed to radiation, some will survive, even damaged and fragmented.

I doubt the attack squad has had enough time for a complete extermination. :

My most important lifesaving implements were coiled around her core to shield her delicate organs, so I felt the energetic surge in her body. Fine hairs prickled along her skin.

The DSC agent laughed, shaking his head with an indulgent smile. “There’s a reason we brought you here to Gamma Ladon, Mother . Nothing can penetrate this amount of tungsten, and your precious Tri-R is far, far away.”

A soft, broken sound escaped her throat. I bristled at that horrible sound, my primary weaponry arched like a cobra to strike. Though her mating bond conveyed a torrent of fierce determination. :He’s lying. I can feel Kroktl as if he’s just outside.:

:The mating mark will never lie,: I replied. :They want us to believe this is Nyan Station, but I don’t think we’ve left Earth. Not entirely, at least.:

:Axxol can blend realities together, like in the special cave. It’s here on Earth, buried beneath all that protective lead and rock, but it’s also a piece of Gioiello. He doesn’t even have to be physically present to hold the two realities together.:

:He’s a BGR+,: I reminded her. :They stopped making them for a reason. My guess is he’s developed skills they never intended him to have. They may not even be aware of all his capabilities.:

“What do you want?” Her voice trembled, soft and fragile. So unlike the shining core of fury I felt within her. “Why are we here?”

The DSC agent shrugged. “Ask your human friends.”

“They’re no friends of mine,” she spat out.

“We delivered her as promised,” the man with the briefcase said. “Unharmed and alive. We even brought you another female as a bonus.”

The agent smiled benevolently. “And her offspring? Where might it be?”

The general turned to Snyder. “Well?”

“She wasn’t in the nursery,” Snyder said defensively. “I checked.”

:The bastard,: Natalie growled. :I want him dead.:

:Done. As soon as you’re safe.:

“She,” the agent drawled out, turning his attention back to Natalie. “How fascinating. What does she look like, Mother ? Has she sprouted Myrm wings yet?”

I couldn’t see Natalie’s face, but the man smiled wider, nodding.

“Ah, yes, quite a shock, aren’t they? Wait until you discover what happens to you during the pupa stage.

You have so much to look forward to. We’ll study you and your offspring extensively, but we must be very careful and deliberate with such fascinating specimens. ”

“Naturally you wouldn’t want to risk mrion contamination,” Lohr said.

“Once in the wild, they tend to evolve in extremely unique and frighteningly rapid ways. For instance, the fastest known speed of an adult Balaenoptera was roughly five times the speed of light. Yet I recorded an entire pod traveling across this solar system only hours ago, and it already entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Since they were carrying mrion contamination, it’s only logical that they’ve been biologically enhanced in a matter of hours to travel so far without employing a jump through the space-time continuum. Furthermore?—”

The agent waved his hand and Lohr’s voice shut off. “I forgot how tedious our xeno-specialists can be.”

:He bought me some time,: Natalie whispered in my head. :He’s also right about the contamination fears. That’s why we’re not physically off Earth.:

Dread crystalized like solid ice in my core. :They plan to exterminate the planet to ensure all mrion contamination is contained. That’s why they waited until the pod was so close. They want to kill everything in one blast.:

:Exactly. Only a remnant would survive. They knew. They kept telling me to use them.: Her breath caught in a soft gasp. :Of course. I can still feel them, the same as I can feel Kroktl.:

Her excitement burned brighter, heating away some of the foreboding chilling my chest.

The agent waved his hand again, and my implements went slack. “All specialists, in fact. There. That’s better, isn’t it?”

I tried to open my mouth. Move my arm. Breathe.

But my body was no longer mine to control.

Panicked, I rolled my eyes, trying to get Natalie’s attention. Wriggle a finger. Something. I have to warn her.

The agent’s finger swiped in the air, and everything shut off into darkness.