Colliding Worlds Trilogy 02 – Implosion (14 page)

Nalea sighed. “I don’t have that kind of authority.”

His lips curved upward. “You underestimate your authority. You’re a member of a trinity. The Sephians will listen, especially if it’s to save lives.”

We’ll see about that.

After a moment, Otas spoke again. “Do you agree to those terms?”

She lifted her chin. “I’m not finished,” she said. “There will also be no aggressions against the humans.”

He cocked his head, watching her for a moment. “We’ve never attacked the humans before and will not … unless we’re forced. Satisfied?”

She watched him for a bit, and then gave a tight nod. “You have a deal,
father
.”

He smiled, and then tapped something on his wrist-com.

A guardsman entered.

“Release my daughter,” he commanded.

The man walked toward her without questioning the command. How many knew that the Grand Lord was dead? Outside from the few who’d ambushed Roden and her, she suspected Otas was misleading most of this base and likely all the core ships.

The guardsman turned her around, and she bit back the urge to try to fight or flee as he freed her from her hand restraints. As soon as her hands were free, she snapped around to face the two men.

Otas was watching her suspiciously. “Tell me, what do you think of Roden Zyll?”

“I don’t.” The response was swift and hard.

“And yet he’s your
tahren
, and you allowed the bond. I’ve known enough about the man to know the choice was yours.”

“I was going to die.” Either at Roden’s hands or at Hillas’s, it didn’t matter. The result was the same. “I had nothing to lose.”

His lips curled into a grin. “The Puftan blood runs strong in you. A Puftan would always seize a chance. You remind me of him.” He brushed his thumb over his lips. “If you had the opportunity to be released from the bond, would you take it?”

She raised her brows. “I don’t understand.”

“Answer my question first.”

“I have no desire to feel Roden.”
Desire.
The wrong word to think in the same sentence as that man. She inhaled. She desired to be near him plenty, but she didn’t
want
to be near him. “If I’d known I’d be here talking with you at this moment and not in the afterlife with my gods, I never would have bonded with him.”

“What if you could break the bond?”

She watched him closely. “The bond can only be broken through death. If you killed Roden, in time I would die as well.”
A slow, agonizing death by poisoned loneliness.
“So, while I wish I could break the bond, it’s not in my best interest to do so.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Otas pulled out a thick gold chain with a gaudy pendant hanging from it. The front of the pendant was emblazoned with the royal Draeken crest. “This is a portable disjunctor. While you wear it, you won’t feel the bond. You will be safe from his emotions, even from the pain of his death.”

Her eyes widened. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Otas smirked. “We’ve rarely had a need to use it. Most
tahren
want to feel the bond.”

The words stung. Nalea knew she’d never been normal. Every minute she craved to feel the
tahren
bond, but logic told her it would only be torture to do so. Right now, Roden was still unconscious. But when he awoke … what would she feel then? Steeling herself, she looked up. “Why are you offering me this?”

“It’s a gift.”

“
Hillas
,” she scolded.

He held up a hand. “It’s a gift in exchange for your support.” He began to pace. “Roden has tainted his troops. They attacked this base. He has escaped and will likely begin a propaganda campaign. He can reveal the truth about me, but even he cannot dispute your heritage. With you at my side, we can stop this little uprising before the violence bleeds over to hurt your people or the inhabitants of this world.”

She paused, longer than she needed, but she was in no hurry to capitulate to Otas. “If I refuse your ‘gift’?”

“You’ll remain here. Unharmed but within this cell until you see the wisdom of my proposal. You must understand, I cannot allow freedom to someone unwilling to trust me.”

Meaning she wouldn’t get a chance to escape or a shot at killing Hillas … again. Both Roden and Otas must’ve learned their negotiation skills from the Grand Lord, because both gave her the façade of choice without any options. Her chin lifted. “I accept.”

With a smile, Otas held up a pendant. “Allow me.”

She swallowed and nodded. She stood still as he lowered the pendant over her head. The pendant was heavy, its humming metal cold. She bit back the taste of revulsion as his fingers touched her collarbone, then the back of her neck.

“There. That’s it.”

Nalea turned around to face Otas. She brought her fingers up to feel the pendant with a strange hum radiating from it. The chain was thick, like choke chains used on canines, and she imagined not easily broken, but it could be done. It was too short to pull over her head. She frowned before looking back up. “All I had to do was accept your gift, and now you’re willing to trust me?”

“That’s all there is to it.” He smiled coldly as he stepped away from her and toward the door. “Because if you remove it or if I’m killed, the disjunctor will be deactivated. If you betray me, I’ll deactivate it.” He opened the door. “Oh, and if it deactivates, it detonates, killing you and anyone within several feet of you.”

Furious, Roden steamed. Bracing his arms against the soft mattress, he pushed himself up and fell back with a groan.
Fyet!
He was as weak as a
fregee
. He was panting by the time he found himself on his feet. Every muscle protested. He rolled his shoulders. Fortunately, someone had put his shoulder back into place. As for his laser wound, a thick balm covered light pink skin. While it throbbed worse than all twelve hells, he’d heal. Just another scar to add to his collection.

Inch by excruciating inch, he stretched his wings. The agonizing burn of healing tendons and muscle was a welcome feeling. He only worried if he had felt nothing. That would’ve meant the nerve damage had been so severe that he might never fly again. If only he had full Draeken medical facilities at his disposal, he’d be completely healed by now. As it stood, with the extent of his healing, he suspected they’d kept him in a coma for days. Most of the time was black, but he did dream. And each and every one of those dreams starred a wingless, gold-skinned woman with short hair.

I’m too late.

Nalea was dead. One sign that she’d been killed was that he could no longer feel her. There were other reasons for that. Perhaps she was within a disjunctor, perhaps the distance between them was too far, or perhaps she was unconscious. As a Draeken, he’d only be able sense her strongest emotions. But Nalea was a prisoner. Her emotions would be running high … if she still lived.

If “Hillas” planned to kill Roden, he likely would have executed Nalea alongside him. It was an ancient Sephian tradition to give mates
ulren
— the
tahren’s
death. Choosing death alongside one’s mate was honorable. Otherwise, the surviving mate would be the one to suffer more.

Somehow, though, he suspected Nalea wasn’t the sort to choose
uhlren.
His Nalea would fight death with every fiber of her being, which meant that her last moments couldn’t have been easy. And he hadn’t been there for her.

He walked toward the small window. The sunlight was bright. He shaded his eyes with a hand. A mossy well sat under the shade of lush maples. Movement caught his eye. Off in the distance, a guardsman on patrol glided by, his wings outstretched. It was a calm day with how smoothly he flew. Not a single thermal to buffet the flight. He craved to fly again himself, and craved even more to take Nalea with him.

No longer able to watch, his gaze moved from outside to the window. From what he could make out, he was in a quaint human house far from any city. Ivy invaded the edges of the glass. It was idyllic, and he wanted to destroy it.

“Lord Commander?”

Roden turned to find a haggard Draeken female. She’d always slouched, and her wings drooped. Not an attractive woman, that one.

“Can I get you anything, sir?”

He motioned. “Come in, Gix.”

She nodded slightly and stepped inside the room. Taking a spot in the corner, her eyes flitted everywhere but on him. She was a small female but valuable to his race as there were far too few females remaining. Most were being coddled and protected. He refused to do that to Gix. He’d been amazed she survived the war, let alone the trip to Earth. She was classic prey, but yet somehow, in the moments that demanded it, she displayed more courage than men nearly twice her size. She needed those moments to feel strong. If she were tucked away into a protective shelter, the spark within Gix would fade. Hells if Roden would ever allow that to happen now that she was just discovering her potential.

She was also one of the few people whose loyalty he never doubted.

“It’s good to see you up on your feet, sir.”

“Bring me up to speed.”

She fidgeted. “Well, sir, you’ve been out for fourteen days.”

Fourteen days!
He brought a hand to his forehead. The entire time was a chasm.

“For the first couple days, we weren’t sure you’d pull through. You kept shouting incoherently, mostly about a woman.” She scuffed at the floor with the toe of her boot. “You tried to get out of bed. After you broke three more bones in your left wing, we were forced to sedate you.”

As he suspected, they’d drugged him. He stared out the window, remembering back when he’d been no more than a man-child, just coming into his body. Women had begun to notice him. No, more than
notice
him, they’d flocked to him, like lightning to Sephia’s red, iron-laden clouds.

Lightning filled the clouds that night, turning the red skies to passionate iridescence. He’d kissed her, in the orchard. She was married, but she hadn’t cared. She came to him. He was young and too proud. Her husband had refused to hire him and Apolo that very morning, and so Roden would gain vengeance by taking his wife to bed.

As the most generous couple in town, they often threw parties to raise funds. He no longer remembered which charity was the focus that night. It hadn’t mattered. Roden had come to take, not give, at this particular party. It only took a hungry look, a careful brush against her wings. She’d followed him out to the orchard.

She was zealous, and he’d no problem enjoying himself. She was lithe and beautiful and clearly experienced. As he pressed himself against her, he’d felt the injection. “What is this?” he asked as he collapsed to the ground.

He was still fully conscious, yet he lacked motor ability. He could feel but could not move his limbs. As she undressed him, he cursed her through muffled lips. She responded by covering his mouth with tape. Then, he realized how zealous the depraved woman was. She lifted her skirts and straddled him. She’d grabbed onto his wings as she slammed down onto him. He’d always been told that sex was pleasurable. This was anything but, and he tried to will his hands to move, to grab her by the throat and strangle the life from her. Instead, he could do nothing as she violated him. Over and over.

She redressed when she’d finished with him, left him lying on the damp ground as though he was nothing but garbage.

Roden couldn’t even wipe away the tear that had betrayed him.

She’d smiled then. “I’ll always be your first,” she whispered, the soft words contained no sensuality like a lover’s caress. Instead, it was taunting like a conqueror’s jest.

A man stepped from the shadows and helped her to her feet. The man looked down upon Roden as his wife straightened her skirts. At that moment, he realized that he’d been their prey all along. That she’d chosen him, and her husband orchestrated everything.

The rains came and went before he could move his limbs again. As he lay on the cold, wet ground, he thought through how they tricked him so easily, clearly done with experience. When he could, he moved slowly, his body shivering nearly uncontrollably. Ripping the tape free from his mouth, he pulled his soaked clothes back on, and walked through the woods with dark plans formulating in his mind. That night had been his most valuable lesson. That night he became Roden Zyll.

Without looking at Gix, he spoke finally. “Don’t ever drug me again. Never again, do you understand?”

The cutting edge to his voice must’ve been clear, because she stuttered in her response. “We were only trying to help.”

“Gix,” he cautioned.

“Yes, my lord. Never again.”

“Good. Now that that’s settled, give me an update.”

“When we heard Hillas had imprisoned you, Wync spread the word as quickly as possible. Everyone supportive to you abandoned the base to set up a temporary base at the backup coordinate and at this rendezvous point when Wync and I went for you.”

“And, pray tell, you took everything you could from the base.”

“Not exactly,” she said, her voice hitching with uncertainty. “The Grand Lord sent attack squads to the base the moment you were taken. Everyone grabbed what they could, but we had to get out of there fast. We have all our ships, but only the weapons and medical supplies we could carry.” She sighed. “He continues to send out search parties, but has had no success. The Sephians and humans have the Grand Lord’s base surrounded and are watching his every move. With them restricting his movements, the risk of him finding both this location as well as our interim Earthside base are nil. Using force to quell unrest was a strong reminder that Hillas Puftan is no longer fit to lead our people.”

Roden chuckled. “The Grand Lord is dead.” Then he quickly sobered.
Hillas is gone and my people are no closer to safety.

Gix looked confused. “My Lord Commander?”

“Hillas Puftan is dead. The man in charge now is his doppelganger. And he plans to continue the Puftan legacy, though he carries no Puftan blood in his veins.”