Page 25 of Claimed By the Drakarn Warrior Lord

I stepped inside, expecting the worst.

This wasn't where they'd kept us before, and once I was through the door, it wasn'tthatbad. It was brighter, for one, and there was furniture.

The room was carved entirely from stone, the furniture sleek and functional, with chairs and low tables molded from the same obsidian-like material. A larger table in the corner hosted scattered supplies—rations, some clothing, and a few unfamiliar tools. Despite the relative comfort, it was clear that while this wasn’t a dungeon, it wasn’t exactly freedom either.

Hawk was the first to notice me. She rose quickly from her seat at the corner table, her tall frame unmistakable even in the dim light. The sharp intake of her breath was followed by a burst of motion as Kira and Vega turned toward the door. The flickering light cast their expressions in shifting shadows—relief, disbelief, and something sharper beneath the surface.

"Captain," Hawk said, her voice tight with suppressed emotion. She didn't need to call me that, but she must have been shaken if it slipped out. It wasn’t a title we used for familiarity there, but hearing it made my stomach twist into knots. "You’re not dead."

I couldn’t help the smallest, hollowsmile. "Not quite," I said, keeping my tone light to mask the weight beneath it. As I stepped farther into the room, the atmosphere shifted. Where there had been relief, suspicion began to take root. One by one, they straightened, their eyes narrowing as they took me in.

"Where the hell have you been?" Vega's voice broke the silence, a low growl of frustration barely restrained. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her muscular frame rigid with tension. Her eyes shone with accusation as they met mine.

"I wasn't exactly able to move around the city," I said firmly, though their reactions were fair; I would’ve felt the same. My voice was even, commanding, but my own guilt clawed at the edges of my composure. "It’s complicated—the Drakarn don't trust us."

She raised an eyebrow, the faintest smirk lifting one corner of her mouth, but it wasn’t amusement—it was cold calculation. "Complicated? That’s an impressive way to describe leaving your team stranded," she said, her words deliberately measured, barbed just enough to land their hit but not too much to be insubordinate.

My grip tightened on the edge of one of the stone chairs as I stepped fully into the room and allowed the heavy door to close behind me. "Stranded? As if Ihad a choice to leave you! I've been trying to find you guys for two weeks."

"That’s rich," Hawk muttered sharply, coming to stand beside Vega. The two loomed like a united front, their solidarity almost tangible. “We've been dragged around this place like cattle, interrogated repeatedly despite the fact it's clear we don't speak the language, and watched day and night by freaking alien dragon-monsters who act like we’re a zoo exhibit. Where the hell have you been?"

I flinched, my soldier’s mask cracking just a fraction.

"I didn’t have a choice." My reply came softer than I intended, and that was a mistake. Hawk seized on it immediately.

"No choice? Or did you just find a cozy place with a bit less stone and a bit more …" Her words trailed off, her expression darkening. Her gaze flickered to the leather vambrace around my arm.

Vega pounced on Hawk’s unspoken insinuation. “Yeah, you look remarkably … well-fed. Well-rested.” Her eyes flicked between me and the door, as though expecting someone to burst in after me uninvited. "And those clothes …"

My team looked clean enough; clearly, they'd managed to bathe at some point, and theirclothes weren't as ragged as you'd expect after two weeks, so they might have been washed. But they weren't in the borrowed warrior leathers I was wearing.

"Don’t," I snapped sharply, my voice ringing out in a way that silenced them all. The effect was momentary, but the words had done their job. I drew in a slow breath and composed myself before continuing. "This place isn't what we could have expected. Darrokar?—"

A collective groan interrupted me the moment I’d spoken his name. Hawk threw up her hands, and Vega’s smirk turned positively venomous. "Oh, here it is," she muttered. "She's dicknotized."

"I'm not dicknotized!" I said, louder than I should have. My voice momentarily startled even me, echoing faintly against the walls. My cheeks burned with a blush, and I wanted to bury my face in my hands.

Hawk’s jaw dropped slightly, her dark eyes narrowing with something a lot like realization—and betrayal. "Oh my God," she said flatly. "Are you really … How do you even with the claws?"

Heat bloomed in my chest. "Carefully. Guys, it's not what it sounds like. Darrokar is?—"

"Different?"Vega scoffed. Her cold, gray eyes sparkled with disbelief. "You’ve got to be kidding me, Terra."

"You don’t understand," I snapped, rounding on her sharply enough that even Vega seemed taken aback. "I've been learning all I can about this place. It's not like we have any other place to go. We need to figure out how to make a life here."

"So are we all shacking up with scary aliens?" Kira muttered from her seat near the window. Unlike the others, her tone lacked venom, but her quiet detachment was worse.

I turned to her sharply, hoping for an opening to better understand her uncharacteristic demeanor, but the rest of the team wasn’t about to let the conversation die.

"Men don't just help powerless women for free, Captain. I don't think it matters what planet you're on," Hawk said evenly, pointedly using the title again with all the weight of an accusation.

I couldn’t respond—not the way they wanted me to. The truth was too tangled, too raw to share without unraveling it completely. "We’re alive," I said flatly. "That’s what matters."

The tension in the room thickened with every second of silence that followed. They didn’t trust me—not completely. I couldn’t blame them, but thatdidn’t mean I had the luxury of indulging their doubts. We didn’t have time for division.

"We need a plan," Vega said suddenly, breaking the stalemate with her usual pragmatism. She straightened, stepping forward just enough to draw attention back to her. "This situation, whatever arrangement you think you’ve made—it’s a temporary solution at best. We need to take control of our circumstances before we lose any chance."

Hawk nodded in agreement, but Kira remained silent. Her focus seemed fixed on some invisible point beyond the barred window, her body language distant and closed. I filed it away for later—something was definitely off.

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