She coughs and groans.
Come on, serum. I really need you right now.
We enter a stone tunnel, and the light vanishes in a blink. The men have taken us through a portal to another world. They are not Aurelius’s people. These men are from an underground organization, dressed in black Terran armor. They’rehuman.
I’m terrified of what they want with my mate. But as I drool on the floor, helpless to save her, I connect pieces.Lingon, Crolis, the ghost fleet, portals, angry racers, Ominous Artifacts.We’re here because someone wants her father’s treasure.
29: Zariah
I wrestle in the arms of the guards, but they’re painfully strong in a familiar way. Dread rushes into me with sickening effectiveness. “What did you do to him?”
They don’t answer me. I don’t expect they ever will. The insignia on their uniforms says ABR, but I can’t imagine that company would escort troublesome players into stone tunnels through an illegal portal.
Elix staggers to his feet and manages to get a bloodied hand around my waist. The guards don’t seem to care we’re walking together. He leans on me and tries to put himself upright on his own.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “Lean on me.”
He rests his head on my shoulder. “Drug.”
My lip stings with a fresh split from a guard’s fist. His eyes find it, and tears form.
“I’m alright, for now. I’m more worried about you.”
“Silicon.” He licks his lips. “Magnesium. Titanium— Moon.”
Elix’s eyes roll back. His nostrils flare. “Hyperjet engine fuel.”
The lights up ahead blaze bright enough that I have to squint, even in the dimly lit tunnels.
“I love you,” he mumbles. “Can’t feel my legs.”
A ramp drops from the back of a stealth ship, and my worst suspicion is solidified. Atop the deck stands someone I never wanted to see again.
“No.” I slow, and resist the guards that pull me toward him. “Fuck you!”
“Love you too, sis. Welcome home.”
Cazir stands aboard the ship, dressed in furs with no honor badge. Beneath his misleadingly soft exterior is a high-tech suit for spacewalks. I can see the shield shimmering over his body.
My stomach clenches, and I’m suddenly thankful I didn’t have time to eat between mating with Elix and joining the laser tag game.
Elix looks from me to the man atop the platform before he stumbles and collapses on the ramp.
I try to stop and help him, but the guards separate us. Two drag him up the ramp. I kick the closest to me in the shin and bite the second in the wrist. But they don’t drop me. Instead, they grip me harder and cart me into a seat, where they strap me in with security belts that won’t respond to me if I fight them. The guards wear gloves that must contact the locks to permit them to open. I remember father’s security well enough.
The ramp closes as they sit Elix across the fuselage from me, a guard to each side. They belt him in, and he doesn’t fight it. Elix hugs himself in the dim yellow light of my brother’s black chrome ship and rests his head against a support rail.
I glare at my brother as guards bind my wrists. He saunters by me, gold in his teeth, a diamond in his ear. Red tracework frames his eyes like that of Lingon, and suddenly everything starts to make sense. This whole time, I think he’s known right where I was.
“What do you need me to find this time, prick?” I sneer.
He sucks on his gold teeth and sneers at me. “After Dad died—”
“He was never my father.”
His upper lip curls. “Our family vault is behind a puzzle wall. It requires someone who knows the language to open it.”
“Get a translator.”
