had other ideas. “I want to show you something interesting. There’s an abandoned welf’s nest ahead.”
I liked Luna, the welf Reba had adopted when she’d found her as a pet next to her dead parent, so I got over my dislike of Crius. “Sure, I’d like that. Should we yell to Gar?”
He shook his head. “We’ll only be a moment. I saw it recently, so I know right where it is.”
“Okay,” I tried to squint in Gar’s direction, but I couldn’t see him, so I followed Crius as we took a detour to check out the welf’s nest. Luna wasn’t even full grown yet, but she seemed like a direwolf out of Game of Thrones. Best of all, she was ridiculously loyal to Reba and had seemed to adopt the rest of us human women into her circle.
“Right up there,” Crius pointed and nudged me ahead of him. “See it?”
I didn’t, of course, but I refused to show weakness around Crius of all people. “Yeah, I think so,” I answered vaguely.
We walked further, and while I had no way to track time here—my Apple Watch having long died—our trek seemed far. My inner alarm blared. I knew I was supposed to trust all Drixonians as their creed was She is All, but I judged everyone individually. I stopped and let out an annoyed sigh.
“Crius, are you sure we shouldn’t have told Gar where we were going?”
No answer.
I turned to find myself alone. Completely and utterly alone. “Crius?” I called. Maybe he stopped to take a whiz. But he should have told me. And why didn’t I hear him walk away? I could have sworn he was right behind me.
My heart started pounding as the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Immediately my mind raced with the all the things in this forest which could kill me in bloody, painful ways.
“Gar?” I cried out as footsteps crashed toward me.
I exhaled in relief. Good, one of the blue bastards had found me. I was going to give Crius a swift kick in the balls for this…
Except the creatures coming toward me were not Drixonians. They were Kulks, the armored soldiers who did the Uldani’s bidding. Three of them stood in front of me, peering at me with their yellow eyes through the slits in the helmets. Fear slammed into me like a punch.
I opened my mouth and got a split-second of a scream out before they lunged. One clocked me in the jaw, and blood filled my mouth before another clapped his hand over my lips. He effectively cut off any more of my verbal protests with a forearm to my throat. I kicked and flailed, but these guys were seven-foot-tall behemoths. One grabbed my hands and slapped a set of manacles on them. I went into a crocodile roll. No way would they take me to the Uldani who wanted to use me in their fucked-up breeder program. No way in hell.
I tried to bite, but the gloves the Kulks wore prevented my teeth from doing any damage. I lashed out with my feet, the only weapons I had left. One slammed right into the chest plate of one of the Kulks. A sickening crack followed, and for a moment, I thought I hurt him until pain streaked up my leg like wildfire. I screamed behind his hand holding my mouth as I stared down at my ankle which now hung at an odd angle. Tears streamed from the corners of my eyes as despair swamped me. No, no, no. I couldn’t be away from my girls.
Dizzy with pain, I tried one more effort at bucking the hands off me, but it was no use. They were moving me now, carrying me away from the only safety I had felt on this planet. I cried for Gar, who lost his sister and would now lose me, for the girls who’d have to mourn me. I cried for myself, because fuck, my ankle hurt, and I didn’t want to be used for my womb by some cracked-out aliens.
I slumped in the Kulks hold as they spoke of victory to each other. My whole leg throbbed, I could barely breathe behind the crushing hold the Kulks had on my neck and chest.
“I didn’t think it would be this easy,” one said.
“She was right where he said she’d be.”
“Yeah, but—”
A whistling sound cut through the air and the Kulk’s words cut off on a gurgle. I opened my eyes and