Page 82 of The Commander

Only one person would use it. The doors opened, and twelve perfectly brushed and uniformed red hats marched out in three rows, their noses twitching.

Behind them, the crimson and purple robes of the self-proclaimed goddess’s daughter. This preening, self-absorbed woman was responsible for thousands of deaths. He didn’t see her bodyguard, though she wouldn’t travel unprotected. He was here.

Somewhere. Waiting for her call. Bastian could smell the battler’s oiled skin.

“Do you have a spark yet, Kitten?” Bastian asked without looking behind him.

“I’m not sure these ones work,” she called back.

“Cara, what’s going on? Are you going to help me? What are you doing?” Brenda yelled out from Andy’s side. The other humans said nothing.

Bastian ignored that female. He’d kill her just to silence her if he didn’t think it would bother his mate.

“Keep trying. Be ready. Get the spark. Connect the margin cell, then get in the truck,” Bastian instructed. Kitten was his weakness and therefore would be his people’s target. His muscles twitched with a need to get her to safety.

Instead, he walked to the back of the truck and opened his arms wide, drawing the newcomers’ attention to himself.

“To what do we owe this honor, holy one? Why do you grace these pigs with the sight of your brilliance?” His voice boomed, making the humans watching shuffle in discomfort. None of them knew what to do.

“We wished to see this situation for ourselves.” Debtrocid Nectuis Eld slid forward as if riding the waves of a babbling brook, her hover plate tuned to make gentle liquid sounds.

Four house badges followed her. Three of them were stunted battlers, house males without balls or their full potential. Clip board toting butt pimples. They met Bastian in height but not build, with exoskeletons as easily crushable as human bones.

The fourth was a short Sarrian gray-skin, his brain implant doubling the size of his little cement-colored head. Connected to the ship in space, Eld could order the gray-skin to shoot a blast of power that would crater where Bastian and Kitten stood.

“There is no situation here. What are you talking about? Things are fine and dandy here.Copesetic.It is a marvelous day,” Bastian announced, loud and rude.

“Copesetic? Such strange words.”

“The product of too much television, I’m afraid.” Bastian bowed to her.

She didn’t flinch, but the putrid meat scent of old hate rolled off her in waves, all towards him. He’d thwarted many of her plans. Her presence felt like confirmation of all his suspicions. She’d usedhis own men against him, manipulating from her throne in space all along. “This situation is unstable. The taxes are threatened. You are being recalled. You and your mate.”

“Who told you the situation was unstable?”

“I will not litigate the case against a Sarrian Commander in front of them.” She pointed in the general direction of the humans.

He didn’t know why not. She was conveniently speaking a language he knew they all understood. “I should be told what evidence has been collected against me, Arch Prima. Does it have anything to do with this?” He grabbed the lost name day blade from the back of the truck and threw it between the grunts towards her feet.

The grunts scattered, lifting weapons at him. The three badges drew theirs as well. “He was one of your house battlers, a relative maybe?” Bastian asked pointedly.

“That tiresome animal.” Her gaze shifted down to the blade and away with a sneer on her lips.

“He didn’t go back to the breeding maze when you told him to, eh?”

“We do not understand why all of you have not learned to stay in your proper place.” The sun caught the light of her silver, clawed fingernails when she jabbed a pointed finger at him, admitting nothing and everything at the same time.

Given the current political climate, a priestess who lost control of her own household risked losing her position as prima. There was a good chance the blade’s missing owner came from her house. Bastian would bet that she’d tried to cover it up rather than provoke negative attention and hunt the rogue prime battler and his new mate down.

“You don’t understand, do you, Eld? That’s because you never were very smart.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kitten bend over the power cells.

“You will come with us. You have failed in your post. Failed as Commander. It is time to return to the ship with your mate. We’re so eager to meet her and find a place in our house for her.”

Bastian sensed a prime approaching on his far right at the same time six of the red hats split toward his mate, circling but not closing in.

“Don’t touch my pet,” he warned. It would be the only warning anyone would get.

Anything, anyone that got near her would die.

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