Page 17 of Surrendering Her Heart (Red Planet Fated Mates #10)

16

AVA

T he room hums with tension. Zmaj warriors line the space, their mates at their sides, forming a wall of bodies and disbelief. The light from the old tech casts harsh angles over their scaled faces, the flickering monitor behind me the only sound beyond the weight of their silence.

“She lies,” Drogor says, his arms folded tight across his chest, wings flexing slightly before settling again. His tail lashes once against the floor, a sharp, irritated snap. “This is another trick. Another deception.”

“It isn’t,” I say, forcing my voice to stay even. Gaius Gutier, the Eye, all of it says there is so much more going on than we understand, but if I am certain of anything, it’s her fear. “She has no reason to lie about this. If she wanted to break us, she would’ve played a longer game.”

Zamis stands close, a quiet anchor in the storm of unease. I feel his presence without looking, the steady force that keeps my pulse from spiraling. He hasn’t spoken. None of the Zmaj have, except Drogor, and that was more denial than anything else.

They’re struggling with the fact that the Eye is a female as much as with the coming invasion.

I see it in their stiffened wings and the restless shifting of their feet. The way some of them keep glancing at the monitor, then away, as if looking too long might make it real. They believed that all the female Zmaj died in the Devastation. Yet she is there, in that room. A ghost of a past they never thought they’d see again.

“If this is true,” he says, voice slow, deliberate, “if… she… is right and they are coming…”

“That is also a lie,” Shukach snarls.

“Why would she lie?” Ziva asks.

She stands near the monitor, arms crossed, watching the replay of the interrogation as if she can find some other explanation hidden in the flickering images.

“She said they’re coming. Who? Who is coming?” Nyanna exhales sharply.

That word shifts the air in the room. Coming.

A low, rumbling growl rolls through the assembled Zmaj, deep and instinctive. A ripple of unease. Wings tighten. Tails flick. Fear, real and raw, replaces the denial. The Eye had said it so plainly. So matter-of-factly. The others are coming. Soon.

“What does she mean those who left returned?” I ask.

Silence stretches thick between us, the weight of the Eye’s words pressing down like the heavy air before a sandstorm.

“She’s playing with us,” Shukach mutters, but there’s no conviction in his voice now. His tail flicks, betraying unease.

“She didn’t make this up,” I say. “Something changed. Something happened to make her act now.”

I glance toward the monitor. Angota remains in the interrogation room, his body coiled, his stance one of barely restrained aggression. The Eye sits bound, her expression a careful mask. But I remember how she said it. How certain she had been.

The others are coming. Soon.

“Who does she mean?” Ziva presses. “Who returned ?”

No one answers. None of us know. We weren’t there when it happened.

“I… might,” a voice clears behind me.

I turn. The speaker is a Zmaj I don’t know, one of the outpost guys. His scales are a pale, dusky gold, his horns short and ridged. He looks uneasy, like he regrets speaking.

“What do you know?” Zamis asks, stepping towards him.

The Zmaj hesitates, then exhales sharply.

“Not long before we broke from the Order, there were rumors. A human and a Zmaj, taken by Zzlo pirates.”

A chill skates down my spine. “Taken?”

“The Order learned of it, but they didn’t care. There was nothing we could have done without revealing more than we ever wanted to, but if they survived…” He shifts uncomfortably. “If they returned … maybe that’s what she meant.”

A stolen glance passes between the Zmaj warriors, their disbelief deepening into something heavier. I feel it too. The weight of a revelation just out of reach. A human and a Zmaj. Captured. Lost. And now, maybe, back.

“If… we knew that the other civilizations survived the war…” Rhaev says, exhaling sharply, his golden scales catching the dim light.

“And? Tajss was devastated, they left us alone,” Thargar says.

“The key word there is was ,” Riley says, quietly, yet it is like a stone thrown into still water. Rippling through the room, causing all of us to pause and consider the possibilities.

“There’s only one force they would send. If it’s true—if the invasion is coming—then it will begin with the Pertinaxians,” Urokol says, his one wing rustling.

A hush falls over the gathered Zmaj. I don’t know who or what the name means, but the weight of it presses like a storm on the horizon, sucking the air from the room.

“Who is that?” Nyanna asks.

Shukach's wings flex and fold again, his tail going still.

“They were shock troops,” he says, his voice rough. “Not soldiers. Not warriors. Destroyers. When the Civil War was being fought, they were the ones sent ahead. To weaken. To burn. To leave nothing but ruin.” His throat works as he swallows. “If the Pertinaxians come, it means the invasion will not be a question of diplomacy or conquest. It will be extermination.”

Ziva stiffens. “You’re saying they don’t take prisoners?”

“If they did, it was never for long,” Shukach says, shaking his head.

A cold shiver races down my spine. I glance at Zamis, at the others. Even those who doubted the Eye’s warning look shaken now.

Drogor clears his throat, his voice lower now, as if speaking too loudly would bring the threat down upon us.

“What would it take to stop them?” Drogor asks.

“More than we have,” Rhaev says without hesitation. Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence. “But, they aren’t here yet. And if we do prepare, if we fortify, if we learn how to fight them, maybe we can hold our ground.”

It’s a fragile sliver of hope. But in the face of what we might be up against, it’s better than no hope at all.