Assuming Khour is watching, Willa and I can’t bid each other a proper goodbye. He’d catch in a minute that something is amiss. Why would we be kissing, why would my female be crying if we were both about to board the same vessel?
She knows my feelings—I told her. She knows she owns my heart. And I know my feelings are returned—like a mated pair.
“Willa. When I see you again . . .” I purposely don’t say the word ‘if’. “When I see you again, will you be my mate?” I said this in a husky whisper directly into her ear.
Her eyes catch mine and she tries with all her might to smile at me, but sadness is etched on her features. “I don’t know what that means, Bayne. But if it means I get to have you and perhaps your canine around all the time, then yes. Yes, I’ll be your mate. It would make me happier than just about anything in the galaxy.”
She doesn’t have to say what would make her even happier—for me to leave with her on the Fool’s Errand right now.
We walk in a group to the empty field between the front door and the treeline. In all the chaos, I make my way to the trees as the group board the Devil’s Playground or beam aboard the Fool.
As the sun sets, I realize that although I’m armed with lasers now, if the tarantu-scorps, as Willa calls them, attack me, I’ll either be cut to bits by their sharp pincers or will have to use my laser. If so, my cover will be blown and I might as well beam up to the Fool, Khour will never appear if he knows I’m out here waiting for him.
I climb a tree, lodge my back against the bark, my ass in the crotch between a limb and the trunk, and watch my comm.
I turn my volume all the way up, having placed bugs that transmit audio and video in what was left of his room. If that panel slides open, I’ll hear it and sneak back to the house.
Realistically, I know I might have to wait days. I believe males like Khour, full of power and bluster when they have a phalanx of armed males around them, are often fearful when they’re left to their own devices. He might be cowering in his panic room. But somehow I doubt that.
I’m shocked when I’m awakened in the middle of the night by the screech of metal on metal. My eyes fly open and I watch as the hidden panel in Khour’s room slides open and the lavender male himself strides out.
A picture of him as a younger male flashes into my mind. He may have been younger, but he was full of self-importance even back then. No, self-importance isn't the correct word. He was cocky. Even then his eyes were dead.
But I recall he was handsome. Once I got over my astonishment at seeing an alien for the first time, I could appreciate his looks. Straight nose, compelling yellow eyes, strong physique—females would be attracted until his eyes revealed he had no soul.
He’s nothing like that now, though. Ruined. It’s the only word that can describe what I see on his face. It’s so repulsive I’m fascinated. I watch him from different angles as he walks from one camera’s frame to another. His skin has the consistency of clotted milk in some places and dripping wax in others.
They said the pirate Sextus carved initials into his face then threw acid on it. I can’t read the writing, but I can see someone wrote something there. How that must enrage him every time he looks in the mirror! Although with that face, I doubt he looks into the mirror much.
“I’m going in,” I speak into my comm, then climb to the ground and watch Khour’s vid stream, waiting until he makes his way through the carnage. He travels from room to room, seeing the remains of his males, noticing his precious items either smashed or stolen. I hope he feels the loss of his things as much as I felt the loss of the people I loved.
Don’t worry, dracker, you won't feel miserable for long. You’ll be in hell soon enough.
Kill, WarDog says on a deep growl.
Khour is in his living room now. Although it’s hard to read emotions on his ravaged face, I can tell he’s not happy by the way his lavender skin has turned deep purple. This gives me a shred of satisfaction.
From what I know of this male, I doubt his distress is about the people who used to work for him who are now lying dead on his floor. I imagine it’s more about the destruction of his property, or the fact that no one is left in his compound to clean up his mess.
He’s distracted and near the front door. Now is the perfect time to strike. I bound across the open space between the tree line and the front door. My muscles strain to get there quickly. WarDog is close to the surface, urging me to go faster. He wants this as much as I do.
My laser pistols are in my hand, fully charged. It would be the work of a moment to barge through the front door and slice him in half with a long laser burst, but I can’t force myself to do that. I’ve yearned for revenge for too long. I want to make him hurt, to make him pay for what he did to me and every other being he has killed, enslaved, and tortured without a shred of conscience. Not to mention all the families he has destroyed. I am doing this for all of us.
The door was decimated upon our entry earlier; Justus’s explosive
