Page 5 of The Ozar Triad

She spied a door through watery vision and stumbled over to it. She cracked the door open, peering inside. The room beyond seemed to be a living area of some sort, almost homey if she could ignore the not-quite-rightness of the furniture and metallic material of the walls.

She crept inside, closing the door behind her. Quickly and silently, she made her way through the living area and through a meal prep area until she came to another door leading out into a much quieter back alley. So quiet, in fact, no one seemed to be in here with her.

Large, black bins lined the walls, as big as back-alley bins in her home city. The aroma of garbage seemed to be universal. She knew bad smells would be a deterrent to anyone looking for her. She hoped these bins would be a perfect place to hide. She couldn’t risk being found while she slept, not by the reptile creatures, and not by the men looking for her. Why they were so persistent, she couldn’t understand. Not for anything good, if she knew how people worked, and she’d seen them at their very worst.

A flutter in the pit of her stomach was the only warning that she might be wrong.

She stumbled to the closest bin. With her remaining strength, she lifted the lid and, ignoring the waft of rotted food and the scream of white-hot agony in her shoulder, slid under the lip and toppled inside. She surrendered to the blackness before the lid slammed closed.

Chapter Three

Setzan

Setzan stalked close behind his brother, gripping and regripping his sword. If anyone could find a missing person, it was Klaej. After ingesting her blood, Klaej’s body would assimilate with her essence and he’d be able to smell her wherever she might be. He’d be able to detect her when they were close enough, but by the gods, the agony of not being able to find her in this crowded hellshole set his teeth on edge.

That she was also injured and frightened was untenable. His nostril flared as heat seared his bones. His ears twitched with every sound, the light bright enough to sear the back of his skull. His whole body was on full alert. Every sight, every touch, every sound had him twitching with the need to find her. Even the theft of the Ozar Crystal was nothing compared to every second their mate wasn’t close by and in their arms.

“Where can one small female possibly have got to?”

“If anyone has taken her…” Rujali’s words dissolved into a growl.

Species surrounding them scuttled away, their fright clear on their faces. Even the most hardened amongst the crowd gave them a wide berth. They had due cause to be scared. Nobody stood between a Negari and their mate. That was a well-known fact, galaxywide.

That they had just found her yet were unable to hold her and touch her made him bare his teeth at anyone unlucky enough to look at him. From now on, only their mate’s touch could soothe the slow burn than ran through their veins. He felt his brothers’ burn as much as his own.

He clenched his teeth, forcibly stemming his aggression. His baser emotions would do nothing to find their mate.

“If she is taken, they will not get to live a second more from the moment we find them,” Klaej said.

The gold threads in his skin glowed, his skin turning more crimson than emerald. He was usually emerald and was the calmest of all of them. It was his soothing influence that both he and Rujali relied on when emotions ran high.

Each of them balanced the other. Klaej was placid—normally. Rujali was level-headed, a clear leader, able to cut through the crap and find the best path of action to take.

Setzan was—he didn’t actually know. He was hot-headed in battle, quick to anger, quick to laugh, quick to find fault. He truly didn’t know how that balanced anything out, but he vowed to make amends now, to become a better person for their female. Their mate.

They would protect her with their lives, which brought about the puzzle of why she’d run. Any female who felt the mate-sync came to her mates without question. It was never an issue back in their Homeland.

“Do you think it’s possible she doesn’t know how important she is?” Setzan said.

That she didn’t know was deeply unsettling. Unacceptable.

“Undoubtedly, judging by her fear. I can taste her confusion. Her terror,” Klaej said. His skin bristled with more crimson.

“She also isn’t one of our species,” Rujali shoved a slow-moving Antonine out of the way. The voluminous creature moved away with a gurgling sound, probably not even aware that Rujali had pushed at it. The layers of glutinous fat surrounding its muscle made it slow, but well-protected its innards from projectiles. Its scarred skin told of its many run ins and was most probably employed as a guard of some sort. Most of them were employed in similar roles the universe wide.

“How can our mate be of another species? There has never been an inter-species mate before,” Setzan said.

“The crystal has ever been stolen before either.” Rujali’s frown grew deeper

“No. It hasn’t.”

Rujali’s thoughts churned. Somehow, the crystal had been stolen from its protected position, deep with the Ozar Crystal tower. They only knew of its disappearance when the tower had lost its glow.

“Is the Ozar Crystal still here?’ Rujali asked.

Setzan tugged a crystal chip from his pocket. They’d taken a part of the tower with them, despite it being a travesty to have damaged its crystal walls. It was the only way they could locate the Ozar Crystal that powered it, though.

Rujali had cleaved the chip off, the only person capable of doing something like that. The tower was virtually indestructible and had existed since the beginning of time, certainly since the inception of the Negari. It was what allowed their species to live. To love. To provide generation after generation. The crystal glowed with life when a new soul was brought into the Homeland, one dependent on the other.

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