Page 32

Nala

I was swearing and cursing, shouting at the Krektar to let us go.

I’d never even said some of these words before, but I’d heard them in the hallways or on the street.

We’d failed to escape, and now they were manhandling all of us back into the ship and the hold.

I knew Jolene and her brave women had tried to help Artek fight the first Krektar with their slings, but that had proven ineffective against their body armor and hard skin.

Now I was forced to sit next to Artek on the ground beside the ship’s entrance at gunpoint, while they corralled the rest and put them back to work.

Maybe a handful of women had escaped, but I saw that Jolene and Jasmine were still here.

I hoped that was a good thing, that they could continue to rally the spirits of their ragtag group, give them hope now that they had tasted a hint of freedom.

I didn’t see any sign of the handful of men who had tried to escape with us, but there were other men, possibly from the logging crew, cornered to one side.

If the men I was looking for were among them, I wouldn’t recognize them, but I hoped they’d gotten away.

They had tried to help after all, except for one guy.

A soldier-like man had taken charge of the group, barking orders and telling them to fan out and protect us.

He was all right in my book for that, but it didn’t mean we could trust the rest of them.

He had also been one of the French-speaking men we’d heard on the video Levant had sent Artek.

I scooted a little closer to Artek under the watchful gaze of our armed Krektar guard.

He had a working gun, and he was keeping it pointed right at my mate’s head.

“I’m sorry. This is my fault, if we’d run right away instead of placating the others…

” Artek hissed, his golden eyes flashing with a reprimand he did not voice, and, heedless of the guns, tucked me more tightly against his chest.

“No, it is my fault. I rushed to free you when I should have waited for help,” he whispered against my hair.

His hand slid down my back, then he cupped my elbow and pulled out my sore arm to appraise my broken wrist. “Whoever bandaged this did a good job,” he said.

“When we’re not so tightly watched, I’ll heal it. ”

That meant… he must still have a healing device on him.

I hoped they weren’t going to check the pouches hidden beneath the clever folds of his sash.

The knife had been obvious; they’d taken that.

But they had not checked for more—so far.

I crossed the fingers of my good hand for luck and nodded at him.

“Jolene did it, the blonde one, she’s a nurse.

” I faintly nodded in her direction, over by the cooking fires.

They’d forced the women to go back to work, processing the newly brought bodies of their hunt.

They were huge beasts, so three should be enough to feed all of us for a day.

Six-legged, they were like a weird, purple version of a bison.

The ship’s airlock opened with a groan, not swinging smoothly on its hydraulic hinges, but being pushed manually.

Whatever power the ship had before wasn’t working now.

Artek had done something that had quite possibly grounded it permanently.

From the chatter among the Krektar, whom I could now understand, it was obvious how worried they were about that, though their demeanor did not show it.

“That’s the second-in-command,” I whispered to Artek.

The Kertinal stepped out of the airlock slowly, standing on the edge with his hands braced on his hips as he surveyed the state of the camp.

One Krektar hurried over, and the pair began talking, though the Kertinal leaned back as if he could not stand the smell of the Krektar male.

From the way they kept glancing our way, I knew they were talking about us.

“He’s gonna take us to the boss, probably.

This can’t be good… He’s smart; he might insist on searching you again,” I warned.

The Kertinal began walking our way then, boots whispering across the violet grass and silver moss.

His tail was wildly flicking behind his back, and as he passed Krektar guards, he did not temper the motion, striking some of them with the bladed tip so they yelped and leaped out of his way.

He stood over us, hands braced on his hips, his red eyes laser-focused on my face before he twisted to appraise Artek’s appearance.

“You’re a good liar,” he said eventually, the deep subharmonic hum of his voice vibrating through the air between us.

“You really had us thinking you had no allies who’d mount a rescue,” he added, flinging an accusing finger Artek’s way.

“Then who is he? Hmm? Not a rescue, I suppose?” Considering we’d failed to escape, I shrugged and nodded, and that made the male hiss before laughing.

He turned then, his tail sweeping down until the sharp tip drooped against the purple grass.

“The boss wants to see them—bring them!” he ordered at the Krektar pointing their guns at us.

Then he walked away, not waiting for them to comply.

They did hurry to obey, hissing and barking orders.

We rose, doing as they wanted, because the threat of those guns was serious.

Unlike those of the other guards, we knew these still worked.

Maybe they thought Artek wasn’t moving fast enough, or maybe they were just mad about what had happened.

Regardless, when we began moving, one of them growled with fury and struck Artek with the butt of his weapon against the back of his head.

When that made him shift forward rather abruptly, it spooked the others, and then they were all pounding on him, expressing their rage over their failure.

I screamed at them to stop, nearly got backhanded, but I managed to dodge and then leap onto the back of a nearby one, trying to hold him back from striking Artek again.

My Shaman had flung his tail around and bowled over two of his attackers.

I was pretty sure one of them wasn’t going to get up again.

He was giving as good as he got, but unarmed, against such fury piling onto him?

I screamed when one reared back and struck him so hard in the face that blood flew.

The sound of my scream was just petering off when another noise eclipsed all else—a roar that echoed through the camp and had men and women duck low and cover their ears with their hands.

“I said bring them, not kill them!” the Kertinal shouted when the roar died down.

The Krektar, thoroughly chastened, hurried to follow the correct command this time.

I was plucked roughly from the back of the one I had tried to stop, then shoved roughly toward the ship.

They had more trouble with Artek, struggling to haul him upright and forced to drag him by his arms to the airlock.

He hung his head low, long silver-and-gold hair obscuring his blood-streaked face.

His tail hung limp, dragging behind him, long and shimmering opalescent among the grass.

Like this, it was obvious how much there was of him, how long and muscled that tail was.

I couldn’t help but stare over my shoulder, stumbling along in the Krektar’s tight grip on my arm.

That’s why I saw the sudden, sharp lash of the tip, coiling around lightning-fast and catching one of the Krektar around the neck.

If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the one that had struck the first blow.

A sharp crack echoed through the still, silently staring camp, a broken neck.

The tail uncoiled slowly, waving through the air as it settled back against the ground.

The Krektar’s body thudded to its knees first, head crooked, then sprawled face-first to the ground.

Someone cheered; others began clapping. But the Krektar guards began roughly silencing people and ordering them back to work.

In the wake of that act, the Kertinal jabbed his tail my way, but he did not touch me.

A warning look in his eyes, sharp as a razor blade.

“Tell your male if he tries that again, he’s a dead male. Understood?”

Then we were finally dragged or shoved back into the now entirely dark ship.

There was no light—not even emergency lighting—to see by, but the Krektar and the Kertinal still seemed able to find their way.

I stumbled over and over, my broken wrist aching badly, my good hand clutched over my belly protectively.

I was the only one who could not see, but they did not adjust their pace for me.

I knew where they were taking us now, and I dreaded facing the rhino guy again.

He wasn’t going to be pleased to discover that I had tried to fool them.

But as I glanced at Artek’s wounded, disheveled appearance, I wondered.

He wore jewelry and a sash, but no obvious technology was visible.

Everything hinged on whether they tried to search him again and discovered the healing device.

Then I wondered about that too. In my curiosity, I’d studied the appearance of the device, and one could be forgiven for thinking it was just more jewelry.

Rings, gems, and flexible, gold-hued metal that met over a bracelet, it did not look like any healing device I’d ever seen before.