Page 40 of Dreikx

“I don’t tell jokes.”

“Are you reading mine?” Raven leans forward and smiles. “I dare you, motherfucker.”

Tamey lifts her head. “Dreikx is a telepath. I’m now a… a…”

“An empath,” I say. “Raven, dear, I know this is very difficult for you to process, but please try to wrap your head around strength growth.”

“A what?”

“I’m calling it strength growth. Bonded Regha males receive stronger armor. A bonded Telean male receives a stronger mind. It is nature. We improve in what we work on the most.”

“I did not realize you were bonded or even that you could bond.”

“That is because we can’t.”

Raven fists his hands. “Don’t make me drag words out of you.”

“In preparation for my mating hour, I developed a way to bond Tamey. Mentally. I wanted her to have something special too and not covet Alpha bonding.”

“Awww,” Tamey says. “I’m gonna cry again.”

“Please don’t,” I say. “You might dehydrate.”

Raven scrubs his jaw. “I don’t even know what to do about you now.”

“What do you mean?” Tamey sits up. “You will thank him for finding that awful king and send Seer after the male.”

“I’ll go after him myself.”

I roll my eyes and exhale a long, tired breath. “Must I always explain everything slowly for you?”

“I swear to the Serpent, Dreikx, I’ll—”

Tamey hisses.

Raven blinks. I snap my head her way.

“Stop it, the two of you.” Tamey leaves my lap and sits on the other side of the couch.

Chastised, I fold my arms over my chest.

Raven does the same.

We are now toddlers, and she beat us over the head with a toy truck.

For a while, nobody speaks. The lights dim, and Anna’s soft snoring soothes me. I rest my head on the back of the couch, close my eyes for a second, and fall asleep.

The courtyard smelled putrid, as if thousands of humans vomited inside my nose. Blood stained the floor, body parts thrown every which way. The Horde was savage. I moved through the dead Swarm males and reached Melanie, former mayor of San Diego, whose brain lay spattered all over the ground. I stepped into the puddle of blood and dug inside her ear, got her com unit, and searched her pockets, looking around for anyone who saw me.

The Horde was busy killing the leftover Swarm males. Dreikx had left the Stronghold with one male. The Regha prince with his cousins was upstairs. The fact that I, a Telean male, reported to a male who has half my brain capacity was tiring, and I abhorred it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a way out, and I had to secure my position on Earth before I did. The king of Earth offered a perfect escape. He was a full-blooded Regha male, not a half-human breed like the Little Prince who thought he could take on the world.

The Swarm, though weaker, outnumbered the Regha forces, and their king was clearly using technology. In secret, I’d tracked the former mayor’s communications for the past year, and I’d acquired enough intelligence on the rebellion to understand the current Regha regime couldn’t defeat them.

I took the com unit from Melanie’s ear and slipped it into my pocket. She carried a phone. I pocketed it and slipped an identical one into her pocket. Sooner or later Raven would ask me to unpack the phone’s communications, and I would. It would just be the wrong phone. Though phones were useless during Silence, they’d become relevant once the Silence ceased. If not Dreikx, the humans would press the Little Prince for technology. We couldn’t live in the Dark Ages forever.

I patted her pockets for other trinkets, and when I found none, I moved away and exited the courtyard.

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