I would strike out with it and aim for that collection of marbles right between his legs.
I didn’t care how big a guy was, a strike like that would make anyone go cross-eyed and limp.
He stopped in front of me, staring openly like I was a piece of meat.
Maybe that was what I’d become in this place.
Something for them to use and enjoy however they saw fit.
I kept my eyes on the floor.
The muscles in my arm tightened, preparing to release and strike at the first sign of distraction or weakness.
He leaned forward and reached out a hand.
“Did they hurt—?” he said.
But before he could grab my shoulder, I released my fist and swung directly for his crown jewels.
His other hand moved so fast it wasn’t even a blur.
One moment it was at his side, the next it caught my fist in midair.
Momentarily surprised my attack had failed, I flew out with my other fist for the same target…
But that was caught too.
Shit!
My feet, then…
I shuffled to get into a good striking position when the figure spoke again:
“Always a scrapper.”
Huh?
My balancing leg crumpled beneath me.
He held my arms by my sides, preventing me from collapsing.
I replayed his voice over in my mind, synced it with the memories I shared with him, and still a part of me refused to believe what I’d just heard.
From who I thought I’d heard it from.
It can’t be…
I slowly raised my head.
My eyes met his and I blinked, hesitating a moment before I accepted what I was seeing.
I instantly melted beneath his golden iris embrace.
It was him.
It was Ras.
Clint!
He no longer wore the human disguise he’d maintained the entire time I’d known him.
But I’d seen what he looked like in reality when Sar, his Shadow, revealed his true self to me.
This was the real Ras, and for that reason, he was the most handsome alien I had ever laid eyes on.
His disguise wasn’t entirely fake.
It drew on elements of his appearance that made it uniquely him.
Had I lost my mind?
Had I finally lost it completely?
I’d hit rock bottom and it was a possibility.
It wasn’t every day you lost your fated mate.
I could tell it was him by the kindness in his eyes, the same look I’d fallen for since the first time I saw him.
The kindness was still there.
There was no way the creature could have faked it.
He didn’t know what kindness was or had any need or inclination to try to fool me.
It was him.
And even if it wasn’t, and I truly had lost my mind and this was the only way for us to be together, then so be it.
I was happy in insanity.
The lone ranger had returned, but I couldn’t understand how.
Tears were in my eyes and I couldn’t prevent them from falling.
“I thought… I thought… I saw the explosion…”
“Computer never ejected my pod,” he said simply.
“He didn’t?”
Ras shook his head.
I leaned forward to wrap my arms around him but he still held my arms restrained in the air.
“The guards are watching,” he said, nodding over his shoulder. “We can’t show them we know each other.”
I nodded and leaned back.
I’d seen the strength he was capable of.
If anyone could spring me from this place, it was him.
“Follow me,” he said.
He led me toward the exit.
Hope had found a new home.
Ras
I took Isabella by the hand and led her from her cell.
This was the easy part, I knew.
What came next, in confronting the prison guards, was the hard part.
I found no difficulty in gaining entrance into the Citadel.
There were no checks or gateways I had to pass through—the same way there weren’t any inside our Citadel back on the M’rora homeworld.
That had been one of the biggest shocks from recovering my memories:
The Shadow empire was a mirror reflection of the M’rora empire.
Over the years, changes developed but not enough to make the Citadel unrecognizable.
We were unique in the galaxy for being the only species to split at birth—the darkness transferring to the Shadow, the light to the M’rora.
Every M’rora was born a twin, each existing in the same galaxy but on adjacent planes.
These days, we occupied a thinly veiled truce, though it was an uneasy one.
When each M’rora came of age, we learned the identity of our fated mates.
The Shadow learned at the same time, and all treaties and peace deals were suspended for those five days where we battled to find our mate first and bring them back to our respective homeworlds to cement the relationship with a traditional ceremony.
The M’rora do not take what is not willingly given, and so we do not marry our fated mates if they don’t wish it.
The Shadow care nothing for their mate’s choices and claim them in an orgy ceremony for them to become breeders.
They’re passed from one male Shadow to another, who fills them with seed in the hope of impregnating them with the next generation of Shadow.
Once they give birth, they’re handed to the males once more and the cycle repeats itself for the life of the breeder, without end.
Just thinking about it sent a shudder through me.
As I wound through the intricate hallways of the Shadow Citadel, I could hear the “cerebration” taking place in the main hall.
That was where, back in the M’rora Citadel, the weddings took place.
It was a holy place with giant festivities marrying thousands, sometimes millions, of M’rora to their fated mates.
Every year it was a celebration and I looked on in wonder as the memories played out before me, from my childhood, all the way up to the modern-day, where I would watch the marriages with awe and hope I would bring my fated mate to that holy spot one day and join in the festivities.
Our lovemaking was done away from prying eyes in private rooms anywhere in the galaxy we chose.
The Shadow desecrated that holy site with their orgies and the mass of onlookers who watched, enrapt, cheering, and wishing to be next to plant their seed in the belly of the newly-initiated mates.
What made it worse, the entire
