And knowing that, my triad and I have broken laws to acquire it.
We’ve tricked people. We’ve hurt people. We’ve covered it up.
By now, we have only shreds of our honor left – and if we do what I’m proposing, we’ll lose even that. We’ll be blackened, our hearts covered in tar.
But what happens if we don’t?
If these Orb deposits are as extensive as we believe they are, they’re invaluable – the possession of them could change the power dynamic of the entire universe.
Down in the streets below our penthouse, life continues on Marn – but up here, it’s clear to me the universe is hanging in a strange balance. It’s as if the future is balanced on a knife-edge. The decisions of a single man – such as Carani – might be the tipping point between order and chaos.
And I feel it – deep inside. We are on the brink of something – the entire universe is. Yet most of civilization – such as the people down below – continue to go about their day as normal. It’s as if they can’t feel that same tension that I do – building and building, ready to explode.
Mr. Carani is a smart one. He can sense it, too. He knows a conflict is coming – and that Orbs will explode in value when sides are picked.
But our plan of action? Our one opportunity to secure this Orb-Material for the Empire?
It’s unconscionable.
We wait for Carani’s answer. If he refuses our offer – we leverage the one and only thing that he values more than those damned Orb deposits.
But if we kidnap his daughter, which side of the coming conflict are we really on?
And there’s more…
This was a course of dire action to begin with – but that was ignoring the other factor at play here.
I’d smelt his daughter’s scent. So, too, had my battle brothers.
That now means that our reasons for taking her become more complicated than just leveraging the poor girl against her father.
How much of my desire to break into his daughter’s room and grab her is for the future of my Empire? Against how much my decision is driven by the scent of that perfect woman? The first one who’s ever tasted right…
The woman who’s been driving me mad since I first tasted her?
“Sit down, Otho.”
I motion to the dining room table, where Lazar patiently waits. He is ice to Otho’s fire; but I need both elements of my triad to decide how to proceed.
We’ve been on Marn for three days now, gathering intelligence – but apparently, the information we’d gathered was half or all lies.
I should have known that Mr. Carani had a daughter – but he kept that as much of a secret as the location of his Orb deposits.
I don’t blame him. They’re a nosy lot, those who do business outside the borders of civilized space. We’ve been here three days, and already we’ve been approached by three of Marn’s merchants and two of their upper-noble families; all trying to deduce the reason for our visit – and how they might profit from it.
Aurelians don’t usually visit Marn. If we do, there’s a reason for it. Those with a nose for profit want to know that reason – and on Marn, everyone has a nose for profit.
Otho stops pacing. I’m glad – he was like a caged beast. He takes his seat next to Lazar.
It’s a ridiculous sight. The chairs don’t match the table. They were hurriedly brought up by the hotel staff when we arrived – because this is a world in which most people are built to human dimensions.
Even these chairs are made for someone of our weight, but not our height – and we look ridiculous in them; like children in play furniture.
“If we’re going to do this, we do this clean,” I warn. “There can’t be even a chance in a million that she gets hurt.” I take a deep breath. “My gut tells me Mr. Carani is not going to accept the offer. In fact, I don’t think he’d take forty billion, even if we had authorization for that amount.”
Beyond the windows of this penthouse, the darkness of the city is deep. It’s too deep and tainted to be fully lit by the streetlights down below. They can’t fully pierce the smog, so they just glow; like coals in a dying fire. That’s only exacerbated by the smog of pollution that hangs over the city. Only a thin pane of glass separates us from the darkness seeping through and into us.
It’s not just actual darkness. We’re wrestling with a darkness of another kind in this decision.
If we do this, there’s no going back.
If it was all business, it could be justified more easily – but ever since seeing Carani’s daughter, I don’t know if it is any longer.
Maybe the true reason we’re even contemplating something as craven as kidnapping suggests that our true motivation is more primal – a desire that lurks deep inside my bones. Something so primal that it strips away the rational part of me and turns me into an ancient beast.
The Old Ways are in my blood.
I ache to tame Carani’s daughter. Ever since I saw her, I’ve been overwhelmed by the need to claim her innocence and mold her to my desires – to capture her and train that beautiful girl to be my perfect, submissive little Mate.
The Old Ways are in my blood.
I can force them down – but for how long?
5
Natali
The lights are off. My room is in darkness. I stare up at the ceiling.
Sleep comes easily to me most nights, but not tonight. Tonight, I toss and turn beneath my thin sheet. The AI controlling the house temperature could lower the temperature–but over the years, it calculated that I usually enjoy these warmer summer nights, with the cool breezes running over me.
Not tonight, though.
Tonight, I’m changed. That piercing stare did something to me.
The leader of
