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But if we failed this test, I would die right when I most wished to live.
Every pass of the wand proved excruciating, a part of me bracing for a warning noise to come from the machine.
Slev muttered something under her breath and reached down to change something on the controls.
My heart kicked, racing as adrenaline flooded my veins.
“What the hell is taking so long?” Vivv gritted out.
I had no answer, so I clasped her hand in mine, and she squeezed back, hanging on as if her force of will would be enough to keep me here beside her.
The scanner finally emitted a string of beeps, and Glovar snapped, “Well, what is it?”
Slev looked up from the display to eye first me, then my mate. Cold calculation filled her gaze, her lips pressed into a thin line.
Vivv’s hand trembled in mine, and a leaden weight settled in my stomach, even as my mind raced. They’d taken my blaster before leaving the valoree grove. I’d pull my wrin dagger. One quick slash, and the doctor would never touch my mate again. At the end of the arc, I’d bury the blade in Glovar’s throat.
How perfect to use my namesake blade to take out both of the biggest threats to my mate before the guards could shoot me.
The doctor opened her mouth, and the fingers of my free hand flexed.
“They’re mate bonded.”
Shock rooted me to the spot for an instant. Her expression had prepared me to hear the worst. Then it hit me—Slev’s face looked so displeasedbecausethis meant she wouldn’t be able to experiment on my Vivv.
A growl rumbled from my chest, and I took a half step forward.
“You must be wrong,” Glovar said. “Check again.”
“Trust me. I ran it multiple times,” Slev said.
“My son is no longer banished. He has committed no crime,” my mother said to the guards. Then she pointed at Slev. “But this woman kidnapped, imprisoned, and experimented on my son’s mate illegally. Arrest her and Senator Glovar for paying her to do so.”
As the guards closed in, Glovar’s mouth open and shut as he sputtered. “You can’t do this! I’m a senator!”
Slev ignored him, bending over to type something into the controls of the medical scanner. As one of the guards pulled her away to cuff her, she cried out, “My results! Everything about the alien is on there!”
Vivv dropped my hand and pulled out the wrin dagger I’d given her. Gripping the hilt with both hands, she plunged it into the device’s display. The computer screen shattered with the crunch of breaking glass. She ground the tip down into the guts of the machine.
I crouched beside her and ripped open the damaged top to expose the hard drive. Pointing to the black block, I said, “This is what you need to destroy.”
“No!” Slev wailed, fighting against the guards who held her.
Vivv hacked at the hard drive again and again until it cracked, her grin a fierce snarl. Her actions ruined the blade, but I didn’t care. I’d forge a thousand knives to give her this retribution.
When she finished, she sat back on her heels, panting. “There. No more creepy doctor shit.”
I clapped a hand to her shoulder and said in agreement, “No more creepy doctor shit.”
Her answering smile was radiant and fierce and beautiful, just like her.
Frek, I loved her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vivian
Things moved really quickly after Glovar and Slev’s arrest. Senator Devalia had a shuttle at the cabin in only a few minutes, and soon we sat in its comfortable passenger cabin, headed to orbit.
