has already been loaded.”
“But Ella isn’t going to be up for sale until the end of the auction,” Warden says.
Scizzor’s smile widens, sharp with fury and glee. “That’s what I paid the murketeers to tell you. I knew you’d be coming. I knew you’d be late. I knew everything. Warden, you have to work on your predictability. I told them to bring you into this room so I could see the looks on your faces when you realized you lost.”
Warden
We’ve been outplayed. We’ve been outwitted. We have been outgunned. Even through the mask, I can see the despair on Silver’s face. But there is little to be done. If I attack Scizzor, I put her at risk, and I bring down the auction house’s security forces. I have to give Scizzor credit. He has planned this exquisitely.
“I underestimated you,” I tell him.
“Yes, you have. My entire life, in fact. Because I wasn’t hatched from the same laid eggs, you always thought less of me, and Saya. But I have been watching, Warden, and I have been waiting. And now… I have won.” He smiles with a dark and dangerous smirk.
“You’ve won. Yes. Isn’t that enough? You don’t want a human pet.”
“No, I don’t. But that doesn’t matter. I’m taking her regardless. Maybe I’ll sell her later on at a profit. Maybe I’ll use her myself. The one thing I will absolutely not do, is let your mate ever see her again. Be satisfied that she is alive, and that she will live.”
“That's not enough.”
“It will have to be.” Scizzor looks at Silver with unbridled disgust in his gaze. “She doesn’t deserve the girl.”
“He’s right. I don’t.” Silver’s voice emerges from the scythkin suit, a tragic sound made even more tragic when she pulls the head of the suit off and reveals her face, twisted with grief. She is giving Scizzor all the satisfaction he could possibly want.
I don’t know if Silver is making this better or worse by rolling over for him. It might help if he cared about her contrition, but he doesn’t care about her feelings. He doesn’t care about anything besides making her hurt.
And that’s why he says what he says next.
“She doesn’t know who you are, Silver. She doesn’t remember you. They’ve wiped her mind, the same way the IHPZ wipes the minds of humans stuck in the simulation. And you know what? She’ll never know who you are. I’m going to take her so far away you’ll never find her. I’m going to make her mine. And I’m going to raise the human brood in her belly as my own.”
“Ella’s pregnant?” Silver’s eyes well with tears.
“Goodbye, traitor. Goodbye human. You will both suffer for the rest of your lives. Warden, you have been cast out of the brood. You are no longer recognized as first hatched. And human, you have forever lost your child. She will never know you, and you will never know her.”
* * *
Silver
Safely back in our ship, I collapse in tears. From the moment Scizzor told me that he had my daughter, my world has been a blur. There is no way to stop him, not without bringing down the whole force of the illicit auction house on our heads.
We have achieved nothing. We were too late. Too late to save Ella. Too late to do anything but watch Scizzor walk away with everything I have ever cared about.
“He’s not going to hurt her,” Warden tells me, wrapping me in his arms and holding me as tightly as he dares. “I know that look in his eyes. The moment he saw her, he bonded with her. No matter how angry he is at you, he won’t harm her.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do know that. I know it because I know him better than he knows himself. I saved him a long time ago. You have to trust me when I tell you that your daughter is no longer a captive…”
“She’s HIS captive,” I weep. “And he’s going to keep her in a new kind of hell.”
“No,” Warden says. “He’s not.”
His determination gives me hope. “You're so much more than I deserve,” I tell him.
“I am everything you deserve,” he says, caressing my cheek tenderly. “And I am more sorry than I can say that we did not prevail today, but I promise you that I will never leave your side. I will be with you from this day until the end of mine. And one day, perhaps a very long time