Page 48 of Stars in Umbra (The Sable Riders #8)

Lucian cocked his head. ‘You are poetry in brutal motion, Molan. A god in armor. Fearless. Precise. The flawless killer. Caidan was thrilled to have you do his dirty work because you brought pure deific grace and beauty to it.’

Rina raised a hand before Mo’s rage boiled over, but her eyes never left Lucian. ‘You are the embodiment of what Cicero meant when he said: ‘Revenge is barren of itself. It is the dreadful food it feeds on. Its delight is murder, and its end is despair.’ ’

Lucian rolled his eyes. ‘I always loathed the classics at private school.’

‘Of course you would, irony tends to roll over you privileged ass types.’

Mo’s lips curled.

He said nothing.

However, the next second, Lucian Makori was eating the wall.

Mo spoke through his fist, in one brutal and swift strike.

It sent Lucian bouncing on the panels behind him, before he finished up sprawling on the floor in a heap with a grunt.

The Makori scion lay slumped, blood trailing from his lip, smearing the polished obsidian surface.

Mo’s chest heaved once, taking in oxygen in slow deliberation, hands still trembling from the restraint it had taken not to kill the man outright.

Then everything shifted.

A whisper of movement. A flicker of shadow.

A figure emerged from the dark beyond the shattered command deck, cloaked, hooded, silent as breath.

Mo’s eyes widened behind his helmet.

He recognized the kinai .

He went by the moniker ‘ Apex Wraith, ’ distinguishable by the vertex-shaped headgear he always wore.

His was a name whispered in mercenary circles with both awe and caution.

He was a former Stygian contractor. A ghost-killer and hitman that Mo had once worked beside in the blood-drenched alleys of the Rhesian gang hood during a Six Flaco mercenary contract.

He had never met the man, nor seen his face, ever, for Apex Wraith had always shielded his identity and worn masks and helmets at all times.

The infamous executioner didn’t utter a word as he surged, straight for Rina.

By the time Mo registered, the man had her, his arm locked across her collarbone, the barrel of his firearm pressed beneath her jaw.

‘Let her go,’ Mo growled, his voice thick with rage, every syllable vibrating with the threat of imminent annihilation.

Apex Wraith raised his helmeted chin.

‘Come after me,’ he uttered in a flat, chilling tone, ‘and she’ll light up Eden II. Along with the fireworks I’ve all planned for the famous moon planet and its guardians, the Riders.’

Mo stilled, his entire frame a silent tremor of fury just contained. He took one step forward. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

Apex Wraith bowed. ‘Ask Lucian.’

Without warning, he twisted his wrist and fired a round into Lucian’s gut.

The blast echoed like a thunderclap in the chamber.

Lucian jerked, gasping in shock as the bullet tore through flesh and organs.

Blood bloomed across his expensive suit in a spreading crimson starburst. His mouth opened, gurgling in a wet breath, and he slumped sideways, clutching his stomach.

Apex Wraith leaned towards Lucian, his helmet parsed vox a whisper.

‘No bad feelings,’ he murmured. ‘However, I can’t risk any loose ends, my friend.’

Then they were gone.

The assassin moved in a blur, as tech woven into his cloak shimmered into a teleporting vortex, folding light and sound around them.

Rina disappeared with him, tensed in resistance.

Her eyes caught Mo’s in that final instant; narrowed, defiant, yet glimmering with a touch of terror.

In a millisecond, they vanished.

‘RINA!’ Mo thundered.

He lunged forward, divine fire leaping to the surface of his skin, ready to burn through time and space if that’s what it took.

A broken voice halted him.

‘Molan.’

The weak whisper came from Lucian.

Mo whirled, fury tangled in hesitation.

Lucian’s blood dripped onto the black deck.

He was fading, but his mouth twisted into a fragile, cracked smile. ‘ Fokk , shit went sideways so fast.’

Mo’s vision bled red.

He let out his runed Sacran power, and he glowed so bright that the man on the ground raised his hand to shield his sight from it.

Mo strode to him, grabbed the man by his collar, lifting him to keep him from choking on his fluids.

He growled, his thunderous potency shaking the entire floor.

Lucian’s eyes flew open, terror written all over his face as he took in the vicious anger on Mo’s face.

‘Talk.’

Lucian coughed, his face ghost-pale, and forced the words out through his agony. ‘Apex Wraith and Caidan Thrall are the same person.’

The revelation hit Mo like a blow to the temple.

‘He’s not just been manipulating shit behind the scenes,’ Lucian rasped. ‘He is Apex Wraith. He’s been living under that alias for years, hidden in the shadows. Apex was always just a shell. A myth built for this moment, so he’d have enough power to overcome you when it came to it.’

Mo’s heartbeat slammed in his ears.

Lucian’s eyes fluttered, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth as he gave one final push. ‘He’s armed a stolen fighter-bomber and programmed it for a kamikaze run.’

‘What is the fokkin ’ destination?’ Mo growled, fighting the god level rage threatening to consume him.

‘Eden II. He’s going to make the Sable Riders and that entire moon city bleed.’

Mo’s hands tightened. ‘Why?’

Lucian coughed, lungs rattling.

When he gazed up again, his eyes were rimmed in red, his utterance a rattle of death.

‘Because he doesn’t care about revenge anymore.

He wants annihilation, especially since the Riders just destroyed all Stygian Corps operations and locations.

Also, his father died disgraced. His legacy was ripped from him and mocked. So now, he craves to write his own.’

His last breath rattled from his thorax.

Lucian Makori went still, eyes open, lips parted in final confession.

Mo lowered him to the ground with slow, grim reverence.

The air trembled, not from the failing energy grid of the structure around him or the blaring alarms that blasted his eardrums, but from him.

From the rage building inside his divine core. From the singular, devastating fact that a madman had kidnapped Rina, and Eden II now faced obliteration.

Mo stood, his armor humming with power.

Caidan Thrall had crossed a line he’d never return from, and Mo would burn through the entire firmament to end him.