Page 83 of Fate of Draga

His scan had been wrong.

There were twelve Neprijat guards with their plasma spears at Kaita and five others’ throats.

He fired without thinking. Varan threw knives faster than he could pull the trigger. And Adelina…she did nothing as she stared at the king without a trace of her humanity.

“Oh my dear, how lovely you’ve become,” the king said, smiling from his throne, a leg crossed at the knee. He took a loud crunching bite from the fruit in his hand and tossed it away. “Welcome, my little queen.”

Nash’s blood went cold.

They were in so much trouble.

KAITA

Her worst nightmare had come to pass.

Everything had gone smoothly for the most part until they’d reached the throne room. She’d walked in on the king, alone.

But he hadn’t been alone.

The king had guards cloaked with some kind of tech she didn’t understand, but they’d appeared out of thin air and disarmed her in moments.

At least they’d had the opportunity to change into their armor. Kaita would have hated to die in those demeaning rags of nothing.

Delphine looked to Kaita as the king ordered them to kneel.

Vivienne was nowhere to be seen and Valdis was losing his mind, shouting at the king, struggling against the guards holding him until the king flicked a finger.

That was all it took for one of the guards to plunge a blade into Valdis’s heart.

Kaita cried out, reaching for him, but the heat of plasma singed the skin of her neck and she pulled back. A guard had a spear pointed at her throat and Kaita knew…whatever the king had planned she wasn’t going to like it.

This would not end well.

She’d given up hope that Adelina would make it inside the palace in time. But as long as the reinforcements saved her people, Kaita couldn’t be mad. They’d done everything they could after all – planned for everything one could imagine.

Except invisible guards – even with the Neprijat tech the rebels had given her, they hadn’t detected them.

It would be her last mistake.

But at least Kaita had tried.

She glanced at Roxy and Delphine. They would die for her people despite the fact that this was the first time they’d ever set foot on Khara Prime. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“This is rather clever, this little attack,” the king said from his throne, not even bothered by the blood soaking the carpet. He grabbed a piece of fruit from the bowl beside his throne. Then another little flick of his fingers and the guards backed off.

Kaita knew he wasn’t releasing them. He didn’t have to. They were unarmed and without allies. Even if those allies reached them, they would burst into the room unprepared.

“I didn’t expect the young queen to find so many to fight for her. For the first time in my life I was wrong,” the king said with that terrifying smile of his. “She really will be the perfect Neprijat queen. After I break her of course.”

Kaita winced. Hearing the way the king spoke those words…he was so blasé. Like he’d broken thousands of females without even a thought. And she knew he slept like a baby at night despite all the lives he’d ruined.

Her growl rippled through the room and the king let out a delighted laugh. “Would you like to take her place then?”

“It would do you no good in Draga,” Roxy spat. That fire inside the female burned bright even now, and it bolstered Kaita.

Adelinawouldmake it in time.

“You’re right,” the king said. “But a harem of queens from every system sounds like something I’d enjoy.”

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