“You are my captive.” Deus’s eyebrows are drawn together. “You are not supposed to like it.”
“Then why bring me here?”
He shakes his head and looks down at the remnants of the meat.
“I was hungry,” he says. “You were right.”
He gets up in one fluid movement I feel I could only long to be able to do. He leaves the platter on the floor.
“There is nowhere to run, little ember,” he growls. “This is my sector. I know every part of it.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
“If you run, and I don’t catch you”—he levels his gaze at me as if to say he would always catch me—“then something else out there will, and as my word is my bond, you will not want to be caught by anything other than me.”
He stomps to the window, which opens like a camera lens to allow him to exit before closing again and becoming completely clear.
I still hear his footsteps for a few seconds more before I am left in silence.
Perhaps my friends would have been up on their feet, checking every square inch of this place for a way out, for a means of escape, but I don’t move. I finish up the remaining scraps Deus has left before I return the platter to the dispenser, which sucks it in almost lovingly to be recycled somehow.
I suppose I could check the exit Deus used. Instead I wander slowly around the place. All of it is made so it looks out over the valley. I find a bedroom, with a deep depression filled with comfortable cushioning, of the type the Sarkarnii prefer. It has a separate sanitation area with a deep pool rolling with the hot water I’m used to seeing on the Sarkarnii ships, the moisture cleverly filtered out of the air.
This place has been created with love.
I return to the main area which has more seating than I’ve come to expect from my Sarkarnii hosts. I take a seat and look out over the valley where the twin suns of Vorostor are starting to set.
There’s still no sign of Deus as they put on a tremendous display for me, nor when darkness falls and lights come on in the vegetation outside and inside where I am sitting.
Eventually, I lie down where I am and the silence lulls me to sleep.
DEUS
I didn’t mean to think of Dylia. I didn’t mean to bring her into my current existence. I already know she would be disappointed in me. Not just because of the Ulep, but because of the way I’m treating the tiny, delicate female.
She would scold me. She would threaten to envenomate me.
Not for the first time.
And she would be right, of course.
Females are always right.
I make my way through the overgrown path in the vegetation, away from the dwelling, and up to the comm center where I can plot what I need to do next in order to get what I need.
The Sarkarnii seem relatively settled, and what I will need to do is unsettle them, create some conflict, bring some warriors over to my cause. I’ll likely start with Dante’s. The nevver has always been lax with their discipline.
A light blinks on my comm console as I slide into my seat. It means someone has been attempting to get into my sector and failed. I pull up the feed I have from the entrance. It’s Darax, naturally.
My fingers flick over to comm him. It chimes until finally there is an answer.
“Deus, what have you done with the female?”he fires at me.
“Is she precious to you?” I snarl back.
“She is precious to my mate. That’s all you need to know,” he responds.
“If you hurt her…” A female voice booms down the comm. “I won’t be responsible for what happens to you.”
