Page 40 of Orange Tundra
Then Trill was on me.
He struck clean. Blunt edge to the side of my skull. I dropped.
The world tilted. Tunnels of light and darkness danced.
Above me, Nialla clutched her wounded arm. Trill stood over me, his breathing hard.
“Bind him,” she said.
He hesitated. Just a blink. Just enough.
“You smell likehim,” I rasped, low enough only he could hear me.
Roqs.
This manasty—this enemy—carried Roqs' scent on him. It was faint, but Roqs and I have known each other since we first could speak.
Confusion crashed through my rage. The Silver Beast faltered, momentarily bewildered. This was the stranger Roqs chose to mate with?
Trill's eyes widened slightly, suggesting he'd noticed my reaction. But he said nothing, completing his task with methodical precision.
His jaw clenched. Then he stepped forward and snapped cold cuffs around my wrists.
Chains again.
"Remarkable resistance," Nialla observed, stepping closer. She adjusted the Shura, its crystal core pulsing with malevolent energy. "Most would be fully petrified by now."
I snarled, struggling to move as my body betrayed me. The Silver Beast thrashed within our shared consciousness, howling in impotent fury.
Axad was gone. Dragged off by someone I hadn’t seen. Cruuvex lay twitching. His limbs jerked involuntarily—whatever the Shura had done to him wasn’t clean.
They’d planned this. Every beat. Every blow.
The ground welcomed me like a grave.
I couldn’t move.
Not because of the chains. Because the Shura had twisted something deep. I could stillfeelthe beast inside—but it was trapped beneath a crust of crystal. This was new. We haven't heard of the Shura trapping our beast.
Then I saw in my peripheral vision, Cruuvex, battered but still fighting, hurled a crystal charge toward Nialla. It fizzled harmlessly against an energy barrier surrounding her.
"Run!" I roared at him, forcing the words through a throat half-frozen with calcification. "Find them!"
Cruuvex hesitated, torn between loyalty and survival. Then, with a final anguished look, he turned and fled, disappearing into a narrow crevice as Kilo's forces fired after him.
"A pest," Nialla dismissed Cruuvex and approached, the deactivated Shura hanging from her belt. "Kilo will be pleased," she repeated, surveying me with cold satisfaction. "The great Silver Beast, brought low at last. This time, you would not escape me."
I tried to speak, to demand answers about Roqs, but my voice had abandoned me. The Shura's residue clung to my bones, leaving half my body numb and unresponsive.
The world narrowed to scent and pain.
Trill’s gloves stank of iron and smoke. Nialla reeked of arousal—battle-lust, sharp and sick.
I wanted to rip her throat out.
But all I could do was twitch.
The last sound I heard was her laugh. Gleeful. Triumphant.
