AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I touch them and feel the imprint of the person who left them. These divots mean my family has not forgotten me or given up on me. I take strength from them.
The symbols indicate that there is a location where I can leave a message and get picked up. Only problem is that it is on the other side of Megaris and at least three different scum territories away. Getting there without getting caught is going to be the challenge of a lifetime.
Ten
Krush
It is almost over.
I am lying in wait at the very same coordinates Jax found at her den. They did not lead where I thought they would. I was expecting them to correspond to some henceforth unknown place of security weakness. But they don’t. They lead to the old human entrance to Megaris. The gates have been shut for decades, but I am certain that today they will open.
Sure enough, at the appointed hour, an aperture in the lower part of the great doors creaks open. I feel blood thundering through my veins in anticipation. Another minute and he will be mine.
He is taking a long time to enter. Probably scanning the surrounding area. Attempting to tell if he has managed to slip under my nose yet again. I let him think that he has. I want him all the way inside the walls before I engage him. I want him fully on my territory, and at my mercy. I have waited a very long time for this moment. I can wait a few minutes more.
I can hear a low growling emitting nearby. It takes me longer than it should to realize that I am the one making the noise. In my anticipation of revenge, I am filled with the animal spirit of the korabi. My ancestors were wild and terrible things. Today, I am one of them. I care for nothing besides revenge. My entire being is focused on that simple goal.
He steps through the door, large as life and twice as ugly with his augmented body. Once shattered, he was rebuilt into a thing capable of more treachery than I, or anybody else could ever imagine.
Rath K’zar. The big purple traitor.
He stands in the open so proud of himself, gleaming with royal augmentations he never deserved to have. I thought he would at least have the decency to skulk into the city. But no. He came right through the main gates. He came as if he knew it was his time to die.
“Hello, Rath.”
I saunter out of the place I chose to hide, putting myself at an easy distance from him. My weapon is drawn.
“Hello, Krush.”
He doesn’t seem surprised to see me. He always was a cool bastard, though. Nothing rattles Rath. I think he might be a true sociopath. That’s usually a human term, but it applies to our species too. Any social being who has no remorse or capability for guilt is a problem.
“I was hoping to see you," he continues in a casual drawl.
“Is that right?” My hands tighten on my weapon. I want so badly to fire it, but not yet. I want satisfaction. His death isn’t enough. I want his pain and his groveling. I want to see him emotionally broken. It is the little things, like tear-filled begging, that really make an execution feel like an execution.
But Rath, as usual, is subverting my expectations.
“You have been sending drones out into the forest, Krush. You have been destroying acres of woods and wildlife attempting to catch us. This has to end.”
He dares speak that way to me? His tone borders on lecturing as if he is tired of me. As if he has some authority and I am nothing. His attitude lights the fuse on my rage. I can feel myself losing control, and there is no way to stop it.
“Today you die, Rath.”
I am going to have the immense satisfaction of shooting him myself. I am going to see the blood flow from the wound in his chest, and I am going to watch the life leach from him until his skin is dim and the light in his augmented eye flickers and goes out forever.
“No! Please, my king! No!”
I should have known she would not be far away. Jax is not one to stand in plain sight. She crouches and hides in the shadows. Usually.
Now she is standing between the traitor and me, screaming and begging in a display of emotion she has never shown me before. Tears are coursing from the one eye which remains after the brutality of this world. Her face is contorted with misery. The guilt I feel seeing her like this is like being hit in the gut with a very large, blunt weapon. I wanted tears today, but not hers.
“Please. They are all I have left. The last of my family.”
