Page 6 of Victoria's Embrace

Seeing that, rage bubbled up. Vee was right. They couldn’t leave these people to die.

Bending, he whispered in her ear, “Stay here.”

She turned enough to meet his gaze, her own fiery with anger, horror, and determination, and shook her head. Before he could realize what she was about to do, she tested the balance of the length of metal in her hands, pinched the wide end between thumb and forefinger, then stepped out of the shadows with no warning. His fingers brushed the back of her shirt, missing her by a hair.

“Hey!”

Thegan’s heart stopped in his chest. Time slowed to a crawl as he watched his Vee, chin raised, shoulders set, step into the sickly yellowish-green light cast by the lamps and yell for the slavers to stop.

He had a split second to feel such fierce pride in her it made his cock harden, mindless, ill-timed thing that it was.

Gods’ tears, she is magnificent. And is going to be the death of me.

The slavers whipped around to face her, took in her diminutive stature, and shared a growling laugh. In answer, his soft-hearted, sweet little mate raised the length of metal, took aim, then hurled it through the air at the furred bastard standing over the downed slave.

To everyone’s shock, his own included, it sunk deep into the being’s throat, low and to the right, telling him her aim hadn’t been perfect, but neither had she missed.

There was a moment of shocked stillness where the guards just stared at the protruding metal in their fellow’s throat blankly while he clutched at it, choking on blood. Taking advantage, Thegan launched himself into a run, hearing Thorn and Vi’kail rush forward with him.

Seeing Thorn heading for the one Vee had injured, he and Vi’kail charged the other four while she called to the slaves to run to her.

Soft gunshots sounded as Vi’kail, three paces behind him, shot the two on the right. Perfectly placed holes appeared in their foreheads almost simultaneously. Seeing them fall dead, Thegan switched his trajectory to the pair still standing before the two who’d been shot had even hit the ground.

Using his momentum to put more force behind the blow, Thegan slammed his fist into one’s face hard enough to send him crumbling. At the same time, he twisted his other arm, looping it around the front of the reptilian guard’s throat, bowed him backward, then snapped his neck with a hard upward jerk.

Dropping his lifeless body to the ground, Thegan lunged for the one on the ground before he could push to his feet. Raising a foot, he stomped on the male’s chest. The crack of bones was audible. Bending quickly, he gripped his head and twisted sharply, breaking his neck and extinguishing the light in his cold eyes.

The fight was over in a matter of seconds. Seeing that Vi’kail was inside the building, he quickly checked on Vee, saw Thorn was already headed back to her, then ran into the building to help.

What he found almost had him tripping over his own feet. The stench of unwashed bodies, the iron tang of blood, and burned hair was unpleasant, but it was the half-a-dozen beings dangling from the ceiling, twitching and flailing, slowly strangling to death that sent horror slithering through him. The collars around their throats were chained to a metal conveyor in the ceiling, ratcheting them forward into a machine. On the other side emerged iridescent cubes.

It took a full second for it to click that the blocks were all that remained of the beings going into the machine. But when it did, he damned near lost the meager contents of his stomach. No wonder Vee had looked so horrified. He hadn’t understood what Vi’kail had said, but Gods, he understood now and wished like hells he didn’t.

Thegan had seen horrors. He’d seen battle, death, torture, creatures from the Gods’ darkest nightmares. Nothing compared to the cold, dispassionate scene in front of him. To see thinking, living beings treated with no more regard than… than… Gods, he could not think of anything his people treated with such indifference. Not even their godsdamned dishes, because someone had taken the time to craft the metal, put care and thought into the design.

Thegan blinked free of his horrified stupor when he caught movement and spotted Vi’kail running for a lighted panel set in the back wall. He could see from Vi’kail’s expression what they both knew. He was not going to make it in time. The last two beings were a bare second from going into the machine.

Unable to stop himself from trying, Thegan ran forward, desperate to reach them before they disappeared, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it.

Feeling his heart sink to his boots, he skidded to a stop just as the doors shut, the hanging beings on the other side.

Feeling sick with helplessness and rage, he met Vi’kail’s gaze. They exchanged a glance then turned on their heels and ran back out, hurrying so Vee was not tempted to come looking for them.

She could not see this. They could not allow her to know what horrors this building hid. She was strong and brave, his little mate, but this would hurt her in a way from which she might never recover.

* * *

While Veeand Thorn stayed with the slaves, Thegan and Vi’kail cleaned up the scene. They collected the guards’ weapons, fed their bodies into the nightmarish machine, then parked the transport inside the warehouse. A thorough search of the cargo runner did not reveal a scanner for the tags in their arms, much to his frustrated disappointment, but they did find a small supply of water and packaged food rations as well as a single healing ring.

When they were done, they came back out to see Vee among the group of slaves, checking them over, her beautiful face contorting at their numerous injuries.

Thegan sighed. “She is going to want to bring them with us.”

“Mmhm. She’s got a thing about collectin’ strays,” he muttered, half amused, half resigned. “Crik, she’d probably take in a mange-riddenhalaqurif it’d let her snatch it up.”

Chapter 4

Victoria scanned the dilapidated, two-story building where they’d taken shelter. It looked like it was once a clothing boutique of some kind. It had been picked over heavily, but there were still piles of dirty garments and some shoes littering the floor along with odd mannequin-looking things scattered about.

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