Page 48 of Victoria's Embrace

Victoria felt her jaw drop and was sure the shock on Aria’s face was reflected on her own. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Vi’kail’s expression softened. “As appalling as it can be, it’s necessary. Not for livin’ beings, but for dead bodies and broken items.” Leaning closer, he whispered, “I was tryin’ to spare you the nightmares, little flower.”

“Okay, so you saved some people, and made it to the slave market. What else?”

Still frowning, Victoria focused on Aria. “When we got there, the guy Salesh sold us to, Rukeel, found us, but Snitch and the lupka pack got there in the nick of time and saved our butts. Fast forward a little, we found a bunch of slaves in cages in the market, so we freed them and took the place over. We had the idea—”

“You,” Thorn corrected, his bi-colored eyes locked on her and shining with pride. “My Vee had the idea to make it appear functional so when new buyers or sellers come in, the volunteers running it capture them and free their slaves.”

Victoria blushed under the impressed look Aria sent her way.

“Holy shit, kid. That’s genius. Five points to Gryffindor.”

Blinking at the nerdy reference, she huffed a surprised laugh. “I, uh, I’m actually a Hufflepuff.”

Aria smirked. “No. You’re not.”

Ridiculously enough, that had her nose tingling with the threat of tears and her chest swelling with pride.

Feeling more confident, she revealed the idea she’d had at the market. “I had another thought. There’s a bunch of spaceships at the market. We can use them to take people back to their homes, of course, but I thought we might also use them to get rid of the bad guys, so we’re not stuck housing them. If we wiped their memories and tranqed them, we could load them up on a ship, fly it into Federation space, call in the cops, then leave on a follow ship. We’d have to wipe the flight log so they couldn’t trace it back to us, and we’d be sacrificing a ship… ” She trailed off when she realized everyone was staring at her wide-eyed. “No? Bad idea?”

“If I was into women, I’d kiss the fuck out of you,” Aria murmured, grinning widely.

Thorn made a choked sound and leveled narrowed eyes on Aria.

“Settle down, giant. I’m not going to steal your mate. Keep going, kid.”

“So we came back, snuck in, and discovered Bree had managed to save almost one hundred people. She hid them in the dungeon.”

“Wait, Bree? Snarky, bitchy Bree?”

“Right? That’s what I thought, but she's actually… kind of awesome under all that prickle.”

“Huh. Never would’ve guessed.”

“We got cloned, then attacked, but Salesh had the stasis tubes rigged to explode and a dead man's switch. Thegan tried to sneak up with his invisibility powers—”

“I’m sorry? Invisibility powers?”

Thorn purred, “Another example of my mate’s brilliance. Her pet beast can disappear from sight.” He revealed, tipping his chin to Snitch, curled up and sleeping on the table in front of Victoria. “She thought to ask the Gaelli to add that ability to our clones.”

At Aria's shocked look, Victoria shrugged. “Seemed silly to pass up on it if it was possible.”

“Gonna have to talk with Lilac about getting an upgrade,” Aria muttered.

“So Thegan tried to sneak up on her, but she bit him.” She swallowed hard, worry for her giant making her chest tight. “Thorn killed her while she was distracted, then y’all arrived, and here we are. So, what happened with you? Salesh didn’t have much security set up outside the complex. We feared that meant she wasn’t worried about you coming back.”

“Yeah, we were attacked. I guess we have the answer as to how a squad of werewolf mercenaries found out we were attacking that arena.”

“It was successful, though? The mission?”

“Yep. It got hairy for a second there, but Spar went undercover and did her thing.” Aria smirked, eyeing Spar’s blood-splattered, leather-clad, skimpiness. “We killed or imprisoned all the bad guys and put the Gaelli there in charge of waking up the gladiators that aren’t too batshit crazy or homicidal to trust. We’ll start transferring the aquatic beings we’ve got here over there in the coming weeks, so they’ve got more living space, and the land-based beings from there to here. Skaa mentioned Braxton was off saving people,” she prompted, apparently finished with her tale.

“Yeah, he and a team went to take over the pleasure lounge next door to the slave market. One of the slaves we freed, his mate had been sold to that place. I tried to convince him to come here first, so Lilac could at least attempt to separate him and Ti’vek, but he refused. He didn’t want to take the time to fix himself when people were in danger. I’m sorry.”

Aria nodded. “It’s alright, kid. You wouldn’t have been able to change his mind. I knew the second I met him there was a knight in shining armor hidden under all that pissiness.” Blowing out a breath, she tapped the table. “Alright. I need sleep. And a shower. I think I’ve still got brains in my hair,” she grimaced, brushing a hand over her head. “I’ll check security, find out what all Salesh messed with, set the octoflies on patrol, and see if I can’t scrounge us some scouts to keep watch. Meeting dismissed. Go get some rest. We’ll get this place back in order tomorrow.”

With that, she stood and left, everyone following out behind her, but Victoria didn’t get up right away.

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