I peered up at the monster.
One of his parents must have been a giant of some description.
The blade behind my back suddenly seemed very flimsy.
Like fighting a mighty warrior armed only with a toothpick.
The blade flickered in my hand for a moment as the giant stepped forward.
“Up, you,” the giant said.
His buddies waited on either side of the door, faces twisted and grim.
I edged further into the corner.
My imagination went haywire, thinking up what I should do next.
What kind of weapon could I use against creatures this size?
I was tiny compared to them.
The giant reached forward, his fingers like bulging sausages.
My mind turned blank, not with fear, but peace.
“Come,” the giant growled. “This don’t need to be bad.”
He leaned forward further and, without thinking, without even a clear thought in my mind, I swung my arm around.
My intuition took over and conjured something that slammed hard against the giant’s skull.
Crack!
He made a strange “Goi!” noise and stumbled to one side.
He lost his balance and peered dazedly first one way and then another.
His head was still within range so I swung again.
Crack!
This time, I caught him at the base of the skull.
His eyes rolled back and he hit the floor, landing in a heap.
The prison guards peered at me, their eyes bulging wide, reflecting my own.
My hands shook.
I peered down at the giant mallet I’d unconsciously formed.
It disintegrated, dissolving into a million flakes of ash that melted back into the shadows before they even reached the floor.
A squat-nosed guard entered the cell.
He wasn’t nearly so big as the giant.
Finding a new reserve of confidence, I left the imagining to my instincts.
I rushed him, leaped, and swung my arm around again.
This time, it wasn’t a mallet that formed—which was what Squat-Nose expected as he raised his beefy arm to block it.
I didn’t know what it was at first either.
It might have been a snake.
Its tail wrapped solidly and tightly around the creature’s beefy neck.
As I fell back to my feet, I realized it was some sort of whip.
I had no idea I could be so creative!
I yanked on it.
The jailer tripped over his fallen buddy’s legs and his chin smashed to the floor, his face landing in the stinky toilet corner.
I ran for the door.
The remaining two creatures were already pulling a weapon from the darkness.
A sinister-looking mace with gigantic spikes arranged like a porcupine’s quills.
He swung it.
I ducked and skidded forward on my knees.
The mace whumped through the air and struck the door frame.
My knees caught a protruding block and I felt the pain instantly.
I flew forward and my face smacked the flagstone hard.
The guard yanked his mace from the door and yelled as he brought his arm around to smash the mace down on me again.
I raised my hand and came out with a pistol.
Exactly the same make and brand I had used against Vai during his training session.
The guard seemed as surprised to see it in my hands.
I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
It spat tiny black bullets that bit into the monster’s chest and neck.
He lost his balance and stumbled back.
His mace swung around and caught him across the face.
He landed in a heap.
Still lying on the floor, my breasts heaving, I peered at the fallen bodies.
I couldn’t believe what’d just happened.
“Hey!” a voice hissed.
I peered up at the cell door beside mine.
A pair of large yellow eyes peered down at me.
“You go!” she said. “You go now!”
She snapped me from my catatonic state and I shoved myself up onto my feet, turned, and ran.
Vai
I crossed into the Shadow Realm.
The place no M’rora ever entered willingly.
The shell of my ship had already morphed into the appearance of a member of the Shadow fleet.
The last thing I wanted was for the Shadow to discover me before I got a chance to get inside the infamous Shadow Citadel.
Without adequate cloaking technology, I had no chance of getting within a thousand leagues of the place.
All M’rora knew where the Citadel was located—the same location on our homeworld, M’yaw.
Still, no one was stupid enough to head there alone.
It was for that reason I thought I might have a chance of slipping through their defenses.
They wouldn’t expect it.
When we arrived, Computer would bring us in shaking, with obvious damage to the outer hull.
The engineers would be forced to fix it.
It was the only way I could have the ship available for the hasty escape I would make with Emma.
At least, that was the idea.
I placed a hand to my chest and felt the pulse of her life force.
She was down there inside the Citadel.
I could feel her.
The signal had been so weak I lost hope a dozen times before we arrived at the Shadow homeworld, W’aym.
It grew stronger the closer we got.
No one deserved to be trapped and held against their will and forced to breed over and over again.
Dark anger rose in me like a wave, threatening to blot out any sense or reason.
I harnessed it, forcing myself to use it as a weapon for fear it might use me.
I was faced with multiple ticking clocks.
First, the mating ceremony.
I had only a rough idea of when Emma’s would be.
There was a twenty-four-hour window after the fake Severing took place before the mating ceremony could happen.
At least, that was what the Surgeon had told me.
Please tell me he wasn’t lying about that too.
And second, there was very real danger in letting the Shadow engineers on board was it was only a matter of time before they discovered my ship was not one of their own.
The morphing technology was good but not perfect.
It could not confuse them forever.
I only hoped it was long enough for me to bring Emma out.
“Set us down over there,” I said, pointing to the nearest Citadel landing pad.
It was a mirror opposite of the Citadel in our capital city.
Where ours was the center of all religion and spirituality, here in the Shadow Realm, it morphed into absolute and total hatred and domination over
