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36
The vision of destruction squeezed the air from Aidan’s lungs.Dragoonwas littered with signs of vandalism, with shattered glass and granular trails of something that looked like flour leading throughout.
In the mess hall, his airway constricted further. His hands began to shake. Their supplies had been either plundered or strewn about. What hadn’t been stolen had been destroyed. The galley wasn’t just ravaged; it was demolished.
The edges of his mind warped, and he was taken back to that terrible day when he’d returned to his village just after his first victory in Phase Nine, to discover his family’s violent end, their bodies decomposing where their callous murderers had dropped them.
Aidan had hoped to be welcomed home with the sound his child’s excited squeals and his wife’s sweet embrace. Instead he’d dropped to his knees and met the overwhelming desire to claw out his dying heart.
He gnashed his eyes closed. A bead of sweat left a chilly wet path down his temple. After a grief-stricken moment, he forced his eyes back open. Behind him, his crew quietly took in the shocking sight.
Would Onnika have done this? The thought sliced a hot fissure through his chest.
Down the hall, someone cried out Zeek’s name. He thought it was Priya, but the sound was so gut-wrenchingly anguished that he hardly recognized her voice.
He and the others raced toward her location. They found her kneeling beside Zeek, his body badly beaten. She felt for a pulse, and then, with a voice teetering on the edge of relief, she informed them, “He’s breathing. He’s still breathing.”
Those words were a small bandage on Aidan’s fractured world. By the looks of Zeek and the spatter of red all around him, he’d lost quite a bit of blood. “Vin,” Aidan ordered, “run and get a doctor.”
Not hesitating, Vin sprinted away.
The hatch to Onnika and Caryn’s room was open. Aidan burst inside with a snarl, even knowing he’d find it empty.
Was Onnika capable of such brutality? Her sexy grin flashed in his mind, and he instantly rejected the notion. He suddenly recalled Tag’s ominous words.You can’t control Onnika unless you have her on a tight leash. By my side is where she belongs. She’ll figure that out soon enough.Because she would go to him willingly, or because she’d have no choice?
Terror zipped straight to his gut.
“Uhhnnn,” Zeek moaned. His hand inched over the blood-slicked floor.
“We’re here,” Priya crooned. “We’re here. You’ll be okay.”
Zeek made another sound. One swollen eye cracked open.
“Try to relax, Zeek. Help’s coming,” Aidan assured, his own voice wobbling and unrecognizable.
“Helpthem.” The words came out as a wet gurgling sound. Aidan worried blood was filling his lungs. “He t-took them.”
“Who?” Aidan demanded, though he suspected he knew. “Was it Tag?”
“Dunno. Too many. Took them away.”
“Took them where?” He felt his dragon riot within, wanting to be free to sniff out his enemies and take revenge.
Zeek’s body went limp.
“Took them where…? Took themwhere!?”Aidan demanded, but Zeek had lost consciousness and couldn’t respond. Nor would he likely know the answer, but Aidan was beyond reason. His shook with rage and fear and a burgeoning mania.
Then came the foreboding sound of engines firing up from somewhere in the hangar. Instinctively Aidan knew what that sound meant. One of the ships was preparing to take off. He’d bet his eyeteeth it wasVaga.
The sharp tang of terror roiled in his gut. He was about to lose Onnika forever.
He sprinted to the bridge, planning to follow. He nearly doubled over when he found the destruction spread throughout. The controls had been pummeled into warped shapes, metal flayed, the ship’s wirey guts exposed.
Dragoonwas grounded.
But I’m not.
Adrenaline hammered his veins. He dashed out to the hangar, emerging just in time to watch the enemy ship hover past him toward the exit. He tore after it, boots pounding against the pavement, muscles straining for speed, all tuned to one goal. With a running jump, he shifted midair, the transformation completing faster than it ever had before. Great wings expanded, arduously pumping. The confined space somewhat stifled his movements, but only until he exploded from the hangar into the open, close behindVaga’sburning thrusters.
