“I’m not like my father!” Wyck shoved Nocc aside. “I choose not to be like him.”
“Then you’re no good to me, boy,” Nocc spat through his teeth, charging Wyck.
The rod entered through Wyck’s chest, like a spear.
A scream of horror lodged in my throat, blocking my next inhale.
Shock registered on Wyck’s face—an utter disbelief at the betrayal. He clamped his large hands around the rod then yanked it out of his flesh and from Nocc’s grip. Dark blood gushed in pulsing spurts from his chest. In one powerful movement, he speared the rod through Nocc’s throat, then collapsed to his knees.
Everything inside me froze in terror. The world around me seemed to slow down, shrouded in thick fog.
I was only half aware of Svetlana holding back the feral crowd of males, drunk on blood, lust, and violence.
Of Nocc writhing on the floor in the last convulsions before stilling for good in the puddle of dark blood.
Of Vrateus suddenly rushing down the corridor, his guns drawn and firing.
Of the only damirian on the Dark Anomaly, Malahki, running with the captain, then skidding to a stop at the entrance to the gardens.
My vision shrunk, obscuring the view of all of them completely. My mind, my thoughts, the focus of my entire being at that moment narrowed on the hulking figure of my beloved giant tipping over to the floor. Cut down and crashed, like a hundred-year-old oak tree, he lay on his side. Without Wyck, existence on the Dark Anomaly suddenly made no sense to me. The entire world turned cold and lonely without him.
“Wyck!” Climbing over Nocc’s motionless body, I scurried to Wyck’s side.
I pressed both my hands against the deep wound in his chest. The stream of his hot blood pulsed through my fingers, uncontainable.
“My sweetness...” he whispered. His golden eyes glossed over before closing completely.
Svetlana’s slender hand came into view as she pressed it to the side of his neck then to his chest over his heart.
“Let’s go, Nadia.” She tried to drag me away.
“No.” I clung to his arm, my hands bathed in his blood.
“He is...dead, sweetie.” Her voice broke, and my heart shuttered. “We can’t help him.”
“No...” I doubled over in horror, pressing his hand to my forehead. The hard ridges of his knuckles dug into my skin. The pain of that was nothing compared to the burning agony of loss in my chest.
“Quickly!” Vrateus rushed to us, urging both of us toward the ship. “There’re more coming, and they’re armed.”
“Armed?” Svetlana gasped, her voice brittle with fear. “With guns, you mean?”
“Krakhil discovered the storage in our old room. They took the weapons that I’d left there. Come, Nadia. Or we’ll all die.”
“No!” I shifted closer to Wyck. My hands under his arms, I tried to drag him to the ship. “I’m not leaving him here.”
It was like trying to move a mountain. Wyck’s massive body wouldn’t budge.
“We don’t have much time,” Vrateus’s voice rang with urgency.
I dug my heels into the floor and kept trying to pull, afraid he would make me leave Wyck out here, in the corridor, at the mercy of the wild beings who could hardly be called “people” at all.
Nervously glancing down the corridor, Svetlana lifted Wyck’s legs. “Nadia is right. We can’t leave his body for them to desecrate.”
Dragging the remainder of the broken chain behind him, Lesh limped our way. He whistled and hissed wistfully at Wyck’s side then got hold of his master’s pants on the side, helping us pull him along.
“Quickly then.” Stepping over a few dead aliens, Vrateus came to my side and grabbed on to Wyck with me.
My vision blurred as we dragged Wyck over to the opening to our ship. Tears dripped down onto my arms, washing paths through the layer of blood—Wyck’s blood. There was so much of it...
“Close the door,” Vrateus told Svetlana as soon as all of us were finally inside the ship.
She dropped Wyck’s legs and slid the heavy door back into place. Vrateus rushed to help her engage all the locks.
“Nadia, sweetie...” Svetlana returned to my side, compassion warming her voice.
I wouldn’t have it, though. Evading her embrace, I stumbled to the niche in the wall opposite of our cabins and activated the flat screen mounted there. A long, padded panel slid out of the wall.
“What’s that?” Both Svetlana and Vrateus stared at it in confusion.
“Medical capsule,” I sniffed, whipping the tears out of my eyes with my shoulder. “Help me get him up here.”