Page 43 of Needed in the Night (The Fortusian Mates, #2)

MIKAS

Pandemonium reigned around us, but it meant nothing to me.

The smell of Isla’s blood overpowered everything else. I raged and bellowed, my spines flaring, fangs bared, claws extended. My beastly fury swallowed my humanity and reduced me to a vicious monster cradling my dying mate as she gurgled her last breaths.

Rage fragmented my thoughts.

A flash of metal. A dagger, driven hilt-deep into my Isla’s back. A gloved hand that withdrew the blade and disappeared into the crowd. Brae screeching in fury as he flew off in pursuit of the assassin.

I had failed to protect my Isla. My life had only one purpose and I had failed catastrophically.

Her blood was everywhere. It spilled from her mouth and poured from her back and covered her clothes, my clothes, and the floor. There was too much blood. She has lost too much blood .

My roars filled the port and sent everyone running out of reach of my claws, fangs, and spines.

I held my torn wrist to Isla’s mouth as I pleaded with her to drink.

My other hand pressed the sleeve of her thermal suit, soaked with my blood, against the wound in her back.

I had no memory of ripping into my own flesh for the blood needed to try to save my mate’s life, but I had sliced myself on both arms nearly to the bone.

Even on the battlefield I had never become this creature, this beast. My humanity had never so fully given way to my darkest, most monstrous rage.

I must save my Isla. My Isla must live. My own life was worth nothing if she did not live.

A male voice cut through the chaos. “Sir—” he said in Fortusian.

I snarled and spun, ready to shred whoever had dared come near us.

The speaker was an enormous Alorisian soldier flanked by medics. One led an antigrav medical stretcher and the other a trolley of emergency triage equipment.

“We are here to help,” the soldier said, still in Fortusian. He spoke calmly and kept a respectful and cautious distance. “You have done what you can by sharing your blood.”

I must not let anyone’s hands touch her but mine. No one could be trusted. Only my blood and other bodily fluids could heal my mate. I growled low in warning.

The medics took a step back, but the soldier held his ground. “We can provide the care she needs to survive, but you must let us reach her. Please, sir.”

Isla let out a garbled, broken sound that cut through my haze of rage like a sword and doused me with ice-cold dread.

Oh, gods—had I frightened her? Please, no. I could not bear to see fear in her eyes.

Her eyelashes fluttered. “ Trava ,” she whispered thickly, the word barely audible. Then her head rolled to the side and rested against my chest.

“Isla?” I rasped.

She did not respond. My mate had lost consciousness.

Rage threatened to sweep over me again, but Isla’s last word to me rang in my ears like bells:

Trava. Stop.

I had sworn that if she said that word, I would cease whatever I was doing immediately and without question. I must know you are safe with me , I had said, and I had meant it with all my hearts and soul.

My love and devotion to Isla was perhaps the only force more powerful than my rage.

For the first time, I saw the soldier and medics with human eyes and a clear mind.

What if my blood and the force of my will were not enough to save my mate? If that were so, then Isla’s death would be not at the hands of her assassin, but mine. There would not be a hell deep enough for me then.

I got to my feet with Isla in my arms. She had swallowed enough of my blood and enough of my blood had gone into the wound in her back for her to lapse into what I hoped was a healing sleep. Her breaths were shallow and gurgling, but as long as she continued to breathe, I could as well.

“She must live,” I told the soldier and the medics. “She is everything to me.”

“She will live, Commandant,” the soldier said, drawing himself up. “I swear it.”

Only then did I recognize him. Morolo. Lieutenant Morolo.

The last time I had seen him was on Ryoxv.

He had been covered in blood and missing his lower right leg below the knee.

I had seen him fall. While others in our cadre ran past him, I had slung him over my shoulder and carried him to a medical transport.

My uniform had remained stained with his blood for days until I had a chance to clean it.

A month later, I was promoted and left Ryoxv for another battle on another world.

He was older now and more scarred than I recalled, but clearly physicians had reconstructed his leg much like they had done for me after my own injury. Our kinship resonated so profoundly that I felt it in my bones.

“Send someone to find me and bring me to her,” I told Morolo as I settled Isla on the stretcher. It activated immediately, scanning her and sending data to the screens on its side and the medics’ wristcomms. Nearly all the indicators immediately turned red.

“Yes, sir.” Morolo did not salute, but he dipped his head to me. “Where will you be?”

I caressed Isla’s face. She was terribly cold. The stretcher had already sensed her condition and begun to radiate heat. “I have another duty I must see to,” I grated. “I must find the one who did this.”

“We will be in the medical wing. Third ring, port side.” And they were off at a run.

My guts wrenched to watch Isla taken away, but it had to be done. I tilted my head back and bellowed, “ brAE! ”

In the distance, in the opposite direction of where Morolo was taking my Isla, a familiar screech split the air. I ran. Everything and everyone around me blurred as travelers cleared a path.

Brae’s screeches led me past a dozen gates, up a ramp, and down a short corridor to its end, where a half-dozen uniformed and armed soldiers had gathered just short of an airlock.

I smelled blood long before I reached the group: unfamiliar blood I thought might belong to Brae, which made my stomach churn, and another scent I recognized on a visceral level before my brain registered whose it was. My snarl felt and sounded as if it had risen from the darkest part of my soul .

I might have plowed straight through the soldiers to get to their prisoner if three of them—two larger than myself, and one just as large—had not turned to face me, using their long staff-like energy weapons to bar my way.

Even my white-hot rage did not blind me to the fact those weapons would bring me down and leave me if not unconscious, at least incapacitated.

And I could not be incapacitated when Isla counted on me.

I stopped a meter from the soldiers, my chest heaving and blood dripping from my fingers.

“Does this shadowbat belong to you?” one of the soldiers demanded. The insignia on his collar indicated he held the highest rank of the group.

“He belongs to my mate,” I grated. “Whom the female behind you just tried to murder in cold blood. Lieutenant Morolo has taken my mate into protective custody.”

I had not intended to use Morolo’s Corps rank, but in my distracted state, old habits had kicked in. The soldier straightened. “You know Protectorate Morolo?”

I nodded once. “We served together.”

My words had a seismic effect on the soldiers’ expressions and body language. The three with weapons stood down but did not step aside, and almost as one they came to attention. Perhaps they too had served in the Corps.

“I want to see her,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the female they had cornered. When they did not move, I added, “You have my word of honor I will not touch your prisoner.”

A rough, garbled chuckle came from behind the soldiers. My spines, already stiff, flared with the force of my rage.

The soldiers stepped aside.

Kona had slumped to her knees against the wall, bleeding profusely from a dozen deep gashes and talon marks—including a severe set of lacerations on her neck that had cut down to the bone.

Brae was a predator as much as I, and nothing made that more evident than the shredded mess he had made of Kona’s flesh.

He had obviously not been satisfied with those wounds, because he had also buried his fangs into the back of her neck.

Shadowbats produced a paralytic venom that could prove fatal to some species, especially if a large quantity was pumped into the wound.

And it appeared Brae was determined to do just that, regardless of what the soldiers wanted him to do.

His wings trembling and eyes glowing with rage, he had wedged his body between Kona and the wall, making himself almost impossible for them to reach even with their weapons without going through Kona.

My gut contracted. Kona wore the same full-body thermal gear we had donned for our excursion. She had been with us on the trip to the glacier, hidden under a helmet and coverall, only feet away from Isla and me.

“Why?” I asked, my voice like gravel. “We saved your life.”

Kona’s laugh gurgled. Black blood dripped from her mouth. “Do you think Nubo is so stupid that he didn’t know about your spy?” she scoffed and coughed thickly. “It was a sham. You’re pathetic.”

A wave of cold washed through me, turning my rage from volcanic to ice.

Nubo had never intended to kill Kona. The entire incident had been orchestrated to manipulate us—to manipulate Isla , whose kind heart had influenced mine and persuaded me to venture out of the wine shop to warn Kona of a nonexistent threat.

“So he sent you to hunt us down?” I asked. My voice was deceptively calm. All the soldiers watched me uneasily. I gestured at my medallion. “In violation of interplanetary laws prohibiting violence against diplomatic envoys? Is he that desperate to end up in the prison colony on Ymar II? Are you?”

“It’s not as if I planned to be caught.” She spat out blood and glared up at me. “And he didn’t send me. This was my mission. ”

Was that the truth, or a lie to cover up Nubo’s involvement? Both seemed equally likely.

“I know you despise me, but you have no reason to hate Isla,” I said. “Our former employer, however?—”