was just a trick of the light, bouncing off whatever technology the Jetutians had placed there.
Ascending the ramp had once again winded her and her knees trembled, unused to the physical exertion. Tavar jerked her forward and she stumbled, falling to the floor of the ship.
“Get up,” Tavar hissed, but he pulled her up anyways without waiting. Erin scrambled to regain her footing, walking quickly, and then a moment later, they were before a door flanked by two Jetutians.
Seeing them brought a wave of fear. She hadn’t seen one since the Pit. But she saw their mottled grey and green skin, their feet ending in clawed talons, long reptilian tails dragging across the floor. They looked similar to Krevorags, but the difference was in their size. They were much larger and their textured flesh looked thick, like a crocodile’s.
Yet, these two Jetutian guards had blue eyes, like most Luxirians she’d seen. They allowed them entry with narrowed gazes and behind the door were more Jetutians. Three of them.
Erin wanted to flee. Her heart was pounding so fast in her chest now, panicked, her instinct for survival beginning to kick in. There were in a sterile, mostly empty room. Like a lab. Or a medical bay. Again, Erin couldn’t help but glance over the Luxirian female that accompanied them. Her blue eyes were wide, greedily drinking in the room.
The Jetutian dressed in green, with plates of gold armor covering his chest and the front of his thighs, looked at her and rasped out words that slithered across her skin. He looked annoyed or angry, gesturing to her before glaring at Tavar. By the way the other two Jetutians sunk back, it was obvious that this was the male in charge of the spaceship, the one with whom Tavar had been making deals.
Tavar spoke something back in the same language. He’d seemed to have received the Jetutian language implant as well as the English one.
The Jetutian made a chuffing sound and then his eyes were back on her. Those blue eyes that seemed to crawl over. He asked her, in strangely accented English, “Where are the others?”
Erin’s chin lifted slightly, but she said nothing.
Pain exploded across her cheek as the Jetutian struck her and Erin fell from Tavar’s grip, onto the floor of the medical bay.
“Where are the others?” the Jetutian hissed.
Her head swam, dizzy, and she tasted blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her cheek when he struck her. As her gaze refocused, she saw a familiar pattern etched into the floor. The one Kossira had drawn in the dirt of her cell. The pattern ran across the room, but stopped at a closed door to the left, not the one they’d come in from.
Tavar dragged her back up. The Jetutian’s gaze was still leveled at her and she said, her voice husky, “They are mated to Ambassadors of Luxiria. I doubt you can reach them now. There is only me.”
A half-truth. Crystal and Bianca still remained, though Crystal had disappeared with Cruxan into the wild lands shortly after Jaxor had taken her.
The Jetutian seemed impatient and easily angered.
The Luxirian female spoke for the first time, in English.
“She is here now. A human female for one Luxirian female healed. That was the agreement, Po’grak,” the female said.
“Laccara,” Tavar warned quietly, but the female never looked away from the Jetutian, whose name she now knew was Po’grak.
The one who’d unleashed the virus on Luxiria? The one who’d killed Jaxor’s mother? The one he’d been willing to trade Erin to, in order to get his revenge?
His eyes were narrowed. Erin thought that he might strike Laccara as well, but he seemed to restrain himself, as if striking a Luxirian female was much worse than striking a human one.
“That agreement was made when we were promised at least two human females,” Po’grak hissed. “You bring one. Therefore, you will need to pay for the other human in crystals if you cannot bring her here.”
She was being bargained over like a commodity, like a roll of silk in the marketplace. Tavar’s fists squeezed into Erin’s arm and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. The Mevirax leader didn’t even seem to realize he was hurting her.
But when he said, “Very well, Po’grak,” his voice was steady and even sounded…apologetic.
Po’grak’s back straightened, his tail slapping loudly on the floor. “Good.”
“I will send my guard for the crystals. A vonne.”
Po’grak’s eyes narrowed, “Two vonnes of crystals.”
Dread shot through Erin. How many times could they travel