Sandra and I share a brief laugh before her face turns solemn. “Okay, I promise,” she nods.
Good, because I really don’t want to be sold into slavery.
“I promise, too.”
Chapter 22
Dracoth
Remember
Furyseetheswithinmeas I leave the frail, weeping females behind in their cell.
Where they belong.
I march through the metal corridors, driven by a barely contained rage that shakes my body and spills Rush from my molten eyes. Only mere moments ago I was charging down these dingy halls in a desperate attempt to stop the females—I failed. Now, one of them is dead and the other will soon be lost forever. The thought tightens around my heart like a fist as hard and unyielding as a mountain.
Ignixis, the treacherous old coward, dares delay my orders, costing crucial seconds and putting my sacred mission in jeopardy. He, the one who convinced me to undertake thisfoolish quest in the first place, now moves to sabotage it? It makes no sense.
I am the War Chieftain. And I will have my answers, even if I must wring them from his withered, pathetic throat.
The thought sustains me, carrying me towards the command bridge. As the door whooshes open—too slow for the molten fury blazing in my veins—I see the traitor waiting for me. His twisted smile is a mockery of his inaction.
“Hail, young Dracoth—”
“Turn this ship around.Now!” I roar. My voice crashes through the room like a volcanic eruption as my eyes flash crimson wisps that promise violence. Keth and Nexarn stand rigid, their hands dancing over the ship’s glowing blue consoles. Ignixis flinches at my words, his mind not yet grasping the pain I am prepared to inflict upon his frail flesh.
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not—”
I dash toward him like a bolt of red lightning, tossing the prattling old fool to the ground before he even realizes I’ve touched him. He crashes to the black metal floor with a thud, but I barely hear his groan. My attention is already locked on the navigation terminal. My fingers fly over the controls, searching for recent ship movements in the logs—finding nothing.
“You cleared the logs?” I snarl, rounding on the crumpled Ignixis, his hands held up like a pathetic barrier of frailty. “Carmen is lost in space because of you!” My fangs bare as the Rush floods through my veins, tightening my muscles into coiled springs of murder.
Ignixis scrambles away, still on the floor where he belongs like a loathsome vipertail. But his lips curl, twisting his ancient tattooed face into a sneer. “Good,” he spits, “let thehumanwither and die in the void. She was more trouble than she was worth.”
Bitter disappointment cuts through my rage.
Betrayed for such petty revenge.
“Less trouble if you’d helped retrieve her,” I retort, extending my claws, their sharp edges gleaming menacingly in the purple and blue light.
“Wait, wait! You’re making a mistake!” Ignixis pleads. His cowardice on full display now justice comes stalking toward him. He squirms against the wall, shaking his head with frantic disbelief, terror stamped on his face.
“She wasn’t your bonded female! Neither of the two were.”
His words don’t move me. He thinks this excuses his betrayal. That it justifies the dishonor of harming females under my care—he is wrong. Unmoved, I continue my merciless stalking, my face as hard as arcweave.
I wonder if his bones will also prattle endlessly on my belt as he does...
“You need me, Dracoth! I know a way to figure out which of the remaining two females is your bonded mate!” Ignixis offers. He winces as I loom over him, claws twitching to rend him to bloody pieces.
His words give me pause. The females—Princesa and Sandra—have seen too much of me. Both have manipulated me, one even aided in the botched escape. Contempt and anger flare in my chest as I think of them.
Still, perhaps I need Ignixis, if I am ever to select the right female for the Mortakin-Tok. To unlock my power and fulfill my destiny.
I exhale sharply, retracting my claws. “If you betray me again, I will strip the flesh from your bones and add your spine to my belt.”
Assuming the coward even has one.
