Page 22 of Xara and the Xenobeast

CHAPTER TWELVE

Blood. Screams. Pain.

The Xenobeast thrashed against the restraints, metal biting into his wrists as the conversion chamber filled with searing light. Every nerve ending burned as they rewrote him cell by cell, turning flesh to weapon.

“Subject displays heightened resistance,” a cold voice observed from beyond the light. “Increase neural suppression.”

He recognized that voice. Commander Vask D’ravak. The architect of his suffering.

The pain doubled, tripled. His body arched against the table.

“You’re our finest creation,” Vask’s voice continued, closer now. “A perfect killing machine. Why fight what you are?”

The scene shifted. Bodies lay strewn across the ground—women, children, their eyes still wide with terror. A village burning. His hands covered in blood that wasn’t his.

“No,” he growled, backing away from the carnage.

“Yes.” Vask appeared beside him, a cold sneer on his face. “It’s what you were made for.”

The tribunal chamber materialized around them. Twelve Zarkari officials staring down at him with calculating eyes.

“Asset K-7 has malfunctioned,” Vask announced. “It refuses direct orders. It questions. It... feels.” He spat the last word like poison.

“The asset is defective,” another voice agreed. “Terminate and recycle.”

“No,” Vask’s eyes gleamed. “I have a better punishment. Let it live with what it is. A monster among monsters.”

The tribunal chamber dissolved into the drop ship. His wrists bound, his body drugged into compliance. Through the viewport, he watched a crimson-hued world grow larger. His prison. His tomb.

“No one survives this place,” Vask whispered as the guards dragged him toward the airlock. “But you’ll try, won’t you? That’s what makes this so perfect. You’ll fight. You’ll suffer. And you’ll die knowing you failed at being the weapon we created—and at being whatever else you thought you could become.”

The airlock hissed open. A final push.

Falling.

He jerked awake, his body rigid, breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. Cold sweat slicked his skin, making the bioluminescent markings along his torso pulse with agitated light. His sensory tendrils writhed, tasting the air for threats that existed only in memory.

He pushed himself upright, fighting the urge to flee into the jungle where he could lose himself in the primal simplicity of the hunt. The darkness called to him—a familiar comfort where he could hide from the ghosts that haunted his dreams.

But the small, warm bodies of the Graxlin pups slept nearby, their tiny chests rising and falling with peaceful breaths. And beyond them, curled on her side with one hand tucked beneath her cheek, lay Xara.

His gaze lingered on her. In sleep, her face softened, the determined set of her jaw relaxed. A dark curl fell across her forehead, and he fought the urge to brush it away with his claw.

The night air felt suddenly too thick, too close. His skin crawled with the memory of restraints, of pain, of everything they’d done to make him what he was.

He needed to run—to hunt and to forget—but he couldn’t leave them unprotected.

The smallest of the pups stirred, sensing his distress. It blinked awake, eyes glowing faintly in the darkness, and chirped a soft question. The sound tugged at something deep in his chest—something that had no place in the weapon they’d tried to forge.

He remembered how Xara had clung to him during her nightmare, how she’d calmed at his touch. How her fear had eased when he’d wrapped her in his arms.

Comfort. She’d found comfort in him—not fear, not submission, comfort.

Could he find the same in her?

Before he could question the impulse, he slid beneath the furs next to her, careful not to wake her. Her scent enveloped himimmediately—warm, sweet, alive. His sensory tendrils reached for her instinctively, drawn to the warmth of her body, and he let them curl gently around her waist.

The moment he settled beside her, something inside him quieted. The frantic pace of his heart slowed. The memories receded, pushed back by her presence. The warmth of her body seeped into his, chasing away the cold sweat of the nightmare. His muscles began to uncoil, tension bleeding out of him with each breath. The comfort was immediate, profound—and entirely unfamiliar.

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