Horos fetched a cargo-grade antigravity cart and, with no gentleness at all, rolled her onto it.
“Damn high-gravity dwellers,” he muttered. “A Corvus would think you would be lighter in moments like this. You never are.”
A hundred sharp retorts flared through Lily’s mind, but she could not even lift her head.
Horos noticed.
Concern flickered across his face.
He pushed the cart quickly to Suite B and dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor. He pressed a rounded device against the wall near the entrance, never once taking his glittering eyes off her.
As soon as the cart released her, Lily tried to rise.
She failed.
She collapsed forward, then forced herself up again, managing to get one knee under her.
Every movement cost her.
“Your end… is coming… Horos.”
She lunged toward him, swinging her arm with everything she had left.
If she missed, she would grab him. If she grabbed him, she would bite. Or claw out his eyes. Anything.
She was slower than usual, but it should have been enough.
It was not.
Horos pressed a button.
The metal bands on her wrists and ankles snapped together instantly, slamming her into the floor beside him. The restraints were magnetic, locking her immovably to the metal deck.
Horos knelt again, smiling.
Only now did Lily truly see him.
The parchment-thin skin. The black, pupil-less eyes. The long, sharp beak-nose. The fetid breath behind razor teeth.
How had she ever thought he was harmless?
He was not a predator. Predators confronted strength. Horos hid until the last moment, fearful of those stronger than him, but he struck without fail when he scented weakness.
An alien vulture.
An anthropomorphic scavenger.
A medieval plague doctor who claimed benevolence while delivering death.
He brushed her dark hair from her face.
“We are leaving, my sweet.”
The sickly sweetness of his voice clashed violently with reality.
Then he rose and left her alone.
Alone in the suite where she had once been trapped for galactic days with Khar.
