Page 86 of Aria's Ascension

Rellik stayed on the flight deck and operated some kind of teleportation beam to free the prisoners, since their cages weren’t designed to open at all.

The first time she watched a cell full of aliens disappear, only to reappear on the sand outside the ship, she almost had a fucking heartattack, but by the twentieth, she was used to it, and the remaining occupants had finally stopped screaming and bellowing in alarm.

They’d emptied about half the cargo hold when the screech of claws on metal signalled Thrasin’s return.

Whirling around from where she was guiding people into one of the runners, she grinned when she spotted him emerging, but her smile quickly faded when she didn’t see anyone on his back.

Squinting, she shaded her eyes and looked for anyone climbing out under or around him. When he was all the way out and still no one appeared, she started toward him and called out, “What happened? Where are Skaa and the others?”

She didn’t really expect an answer while he was a dragon, but he didn’t make any move to transform back, so he could. Instead, his white eyes darted to where Kix was standing a short distance away, directing yet more people to runners.

As though Thrasin had called his name, Kix turned and frowned up at him. Her stomach dropped when Kix’s eyes went wide a second before he ran toward them.

Gritting her teeth to hold in her questions while they stared at each other silently, Aria waited. Impatiently.

Finally, Kix turned to her, but the expression on his face did nothing to ease the dread building in her gut.

“Tell me,” she demanded quietly.

He grimaced. “They have been taken. He searched every tunnel and cave down there. They were nowhere to be found.” Kix cocked his head and nodded. “He is saying there were new smells down there as well as signs of combat. He followed the scent trail back up here.”

Her heart was pounding in her ears and her hands trembled, but her voice was calm when she gazed up at Thrasin and asked, “Do you still have the trail?”

He drew in a breath then dipped his huge head once, his eyes moving to the left in the direction of the breach in the wall.

“Let’s go then.”

“Aessa, wait.”

She jerked back around to glare up at him. “I’m not going to—”

He held up his hands in response and shook his head. “I do not suggest we not search. Only that Thrasin does not need your aid to do so. These people,” he waved to the hundreds of beings standing shell-shocked behind them. “need you. Now. We will do anything you ask of us, my treasure. Yet, this is not a task we can complete. These people needyou. Your leadership, your guidance.”

That was enough to make her pause and glance back at the newly freed beings behind them.

She didn’t want him to be right, but she hadn’t missed the way everyone seemed to be looking to her. Even when one of her men said something to them, they’d glance at her before agreeing or complying, waiting to see if she countermanded the statement. But, her friend was out there somewhere, facing who knew what.

Aria’s first instinct was to drop everything and go after her. It felt wrong to stay behind and send someone else, even when that someone else was Thrasin, who she knew was perfectly capable of searching without her, as Kix said.

Thrasin lowered his head and rubbed his snout against her stomach, drawing her gaze back to him. Moving his head so he could meet her eyes with one of his, he gave a soft, purring rumble.

She didn’t need Kix to translate. She understood what he was saying.

Swallowing hard, she nodded jerkily and rasped, “Bring them back, Sin.” She grabbed his nostril before he could turn away and guided his eye back to her. “And be safe. Come back to me.”

Surprise flashed in his white eye before something both fragile and hungry replaced it. With a final nuzzle, he was gone, running a few steps before leaping into the air.

In a handful of seconds, he was soaring high above, a black spec in a vast purple sky.

* * *

By the timethey got everyone in the main hold back to the complex, it was night. Thrasin hadn’t returned, and every hour that passed sent another frisson of dread and worry spiraling through her.

She blocked it out as best she could and focused on the million different tasks pulling her in every direction.

When they arrived, she had everyone gather on the ground floor, then sent them to the lab level in groups under Kix’s supervision. Some people needed more healing than the rings could provide, and everyone needed translators. She left Tirox with the ones awaiting their turns, directing him to pass out food and water pouches to keep them calm and distracted.

It was going to take hours more before everyone was healed and fitted with translators so, leaving her mates in charge down there, she and Rellik strode to the elevator, his arms laden with dinner-plate-sized disks. He told her they were basically portable electric fences that he planned to use to temporarily seal the breach in the wall.

---