Page 31 of Breed

“No, you weren’t. You were perfect.”

“I wasn’t perfect,” she laughs. “I was a terrible captain.”

I don’t like hearing that.

“We need you,” I tell her. “The ship is in fucking chaos and we’re all at risk of getting caught. They can see the ship. They can see us. We need you and Raine back, and we need to do it now. I’m going to go get Raine. And we’re all going to go back to the ship and you guys are going to be in charge again, and everything is going to be okay.”

With that, I jump out the window. Sometimes, you gotta make an exit.

I slide down the side of the building way too fast to be safe, but land safely in a big pile of trash which is there because that’s the sort of luck I have. There’s piles-of-trash people, and there’s sharp-spikes-at-the-bottom-of-a-window-leap people. I’m a proud garbage person. Also, I saw it on the way in.

I scramble out of the trash and head off to the bone place with a real sense of urgency and renewed excitement. I’ve achieved something. I found Sullivan, and now I’m going to find Raine.

The building is easy to find, being a massive monolith of bones upon which I’ve seen a sexy saurian interlude. At this point, I’ve seen more filthy saurian sex than I’ve actually had, but it does make me feel as though I’m part of a very select club. Gives me something in common with Raine and Sullivan, both of whom I look up to.

Arriving at the temple of bones, I slip inside the doors which have been left slightly ajar. There is a hideous screaming coming from the interior, but I don’t let that stop me. I have a mission. Fortunately, doesn’t sound like Raine. It sounds like a saurian in a whole lot of pain.

The reason for that becomes immediately clear the second I enter the temple. Avel is standing on a dais with an electric-yellow rod in his hand. There is another saurian bent over a bench in front of him.

I watch, horrified, as that yellow rod sweeps through the air, making a bright arc that is quite dramatic to behold. The sound that the rod makes when it contacts the unfortunate flesh of Avel’s victim is astonishing. There is a loud crack, almost as loud as a thunderclap, followed by a yowl of agony.

“Holy shit!” I gasp and draw back into the shadows, but a pair of eyes have spotted me. They belong to none other than Captain Raine, who was leaning against a pillar near the stage, her arms folded over her chest, and an expression of satisfaction on her face. Upon hearing my all too human sound, she whips around to stare into the darkness. I know she’s seen me. I can feel it in the trickle of fear and adrenaline running through my body.

I’ve always been scared of Raine. She’s much more serious than Sullivan, and much more dangerous. Raine is the sort to kill a man without so much as looking at him. The severity of her expression worries me. Obviously, her hearing me should be good. But it does not feel that way.

“CRACK!” Another gunshot-like stroke lands, followed by another agonized cry, and I am jolted back to a more present situation. This is a place where unfortunate creatures who don’t follow rules are beaten. It has just occurred to me that technically, I am also an unfortunate creature who does not follow rules.

Raine starts making her way back through the temple. Avel is focused on the saurian he is beating, and the audience is likewise entranced and disturbed. Neither Raine nor I draw much in the way of attention as she comes back to see me.

She does not look pleased. She looks pissed. I am almost tempted to sneak back out, but I can’t risk being detected by everyone else as well. I stay still, tucked away from saurian eyes which are universally focused on the one they address as Enforcer Avel.

Raine is taller than me, which makes it very easy for her to look down her nose at me with a haughty, all too disapproving stare as we make contact in the shadow behind the pillars while the sounds of rough discipline ring out all around us.

“What the hell are you doing here, Lettie?”

“I came down…”

“I gave orders to you all to stay on the ship,” she interrupts me. “Remember? The last part of the briefing before we went to get Sullivan?”

“Right. But…”

“Have you forgotten what an order is, Lettie?” She interrupts me again, snapping every word. I’ve missed her so much. Not as much as Sullivan, or at least not in as much of a cozy sense, because she’s fucking terrifying, but I’m still excited to see her.

“No, but….”

“Get back to the ship, now.”

“I can’t! They took my suit, and there’s chaos on the ship, and the saurians are hunting us, and I tried to come and find the captains, and I found Sullivan, and she wants you to get Avel to take you to the house so we can all talk because the saurians can see the ship, and they’re trying to capture us and breed us.”

I babble the words as quickly as possible, before she can interrupt me again with another order I am going to have to disobey.

She takes a deep breath, her eyes darting back toward her mate.

“Tell Sullivan to get Thorn to invite Avel and me, and I’ll come,” she says. “And be careful on your way back. This is not over between you and me. You were given an order to stay on the ship. I don’t give orders lightly.”

“Raine!”

Her name is called in sharp tones by the disciplinary saurian who we both just watched whip the hell out of some unfortunate criminal. He has noticed her missing from her post, and he does not sound pleased about it.

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