Page 71 of Bound

He grins at me, grasps the thing with two hands, and lets rip. Smoke fills the air and Felia screams into the din, any noise she makes lost in the sounds of destruction.

“Vrex it, Rych!” A voice we both recognize spears through everything.

“Maxym?” Rych ceases fire, lifting the pulsar up to his face.

“The same.” The huge Gryn intones as he looms out of the fog.

“How did you get out of the dome?”

“Some vrexer called Axel freed us. He was lucky Klynn wanted Drahon blood, or he’d have settled for Voltes.” Maxym chuckles, spinning his sword and spearing a Drahon who has somehow escaped the mayhem and is racing at us.

“Yeah, we found him annoying too,” I say.

“And look, your little mate is well again.”

“She can control bots,” Rych says proudly, his arm and wing curling around me.

“The virus has bonded with my DNA, just like the Drahon said, but it didn’t kill me. I don’t understand exactly what’s happened, but I can…speak to tech.” I explain.

“She can control bots.” Rych nods at Maxym with a grin.

“Only you’d end up with a mate who could do such a thing,” Maxym rasps.

Rych turns his high wattage smile on me. “I would, wouldn’t I?” he says with tenderness. “She’ll keep me from the dark, no matter what.”

RYCH

Between us, we’ve made a decent mess of the Drahon. Those who are not dead are unlikely to cause us a problem in the near future. All save the vrexing scientist who twists above us shouting obscenities.

“What do you want me to do with that?” Klynn finishes wiping the goo from his blade on one of the prone Drahon as he looks up, one eye fixed on the swinging female.

“Dispose of her,” I growl.

Klynn raises his sword, but Chrissie catches hold of my arm.

“We can’t.”

“I vrexing can,” Klynn snarls, earning him a box on the side of his head from Maxym, which he hardly responds to.

“If we kill her, we’re as bad as they are.”

“And what do you suggest we do with her?” Maxym says, leaning on his sword pommel. “Given everything else we’ve done.” He looks around at the mayhem in the room. “One more won’t be missed.”

“Just kill the thing and get all this over with. There are games tomorrow,” Klynn rasps. His feathers, gummed up with all manner of fluids, rattle in their positions.

He wants to kill, he always has. He’ll never change.

“She’s unarmed. This is not the dome.” I snarl.

“We can give her to the resistance,” Chrissie says. “She has plenty of information they can use.”

“I’ll never talk,” Felia screeches.

“I think you will. My mate will see to it.” I look at Chrissie. “Won’t you?”

“I’m sure one of her bots can come up with something,” Chrissie says, looking around the ruined lab.

“I’m hungry,” Klynn grumbles. “If I’m not going to get to kill more Drahon, I want to eat.”

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