Page 164 of Star Marked Warriors

I hit the panel to tell the inhabitants someone was there, prepared to simply manifest my plasma spikes and break through the door. A moment later, though, the door was answered by what must have been a servant, as placid and neutral-faced as he was. Still, the moment his eyes focused on me, his nose twitched in something that looked like disgust, almost too slight and subtle for even me to notice.

Whether the problem was hybrids or me specifically... well, I did not much care.

“We’re here for my father,” I told him, and without waiting for a lie in answer, I pushed past into the front corridor.

He turned, now scowling openly. “I have no idea where—”

I didn’t listen to the rest, because the lies of Vipha’s servants did not affect me. No, only Crux mattered now.

And that was when I remembered. My fourth mark, the one that gave me Crux’s own ability to touch minds, that I’d been avoiding using for over ten years... it could find Crux if he was hiding here.

It could find Crux anywhere, quite possibly, since Crux’s power seemed to work from an impressive distance.

I hadn’t ever deliberately used it to read people, but I would never forget the days before I had gotten it under control, and the feel of Crux’s cold, brittle consciousness rubbing against my own whenever I spoke to him. Like a knife made of ice, trying to force its way past my burgeoning defenses and failing again and again, but leaving shards of itself behind to rub me raw.

I closed my eyes and touched the mark with my mind, then reached out, looking—

There. Beneath us.

The servant had clambered after us, and reached to grab Beau, so I shoved him away from us. “Do not touch my mate without his permission, servant of Vipha. I do not wish to kill you.”

And that, finally, made him step back and hold up his hands in supplication. Perhaps he did not like or respect me, but he knew that I could end him.

I led Beau to the central lift in the house, and stepped onto the platform, turning to find him biting his lip, flushed slightly pink as we sank beneath the top floor. Was that embarrassment? Amusement? His eyes still sparkled that unique shade of green, so he wasn’t upset with me, but—

And then there it was. We were in Vipha’s home’s lower level, and there was the traitor himself. And next to him, my serpent of a father.

CHAPTER31

BEAU

His mate.

Vorian had called me his mate.

And sure, okay, we were stalking a traitor and on a dangerous mission and all that. And I definitely had my own issues with commitment—as in I did it too damn fast and had jumped in with both feet already.

But did you hear that? It didn’t matter how carelessly I’d jumped in this time, because Vorian was there to catch me.

The whole way down the lift, I was glowing.

As soon as the pad hit the floor, all those warm, floaty feelings dropped like rocks. Crux was there in the center of the room, standing near his companion—the man who’d visited Vorian in the palace earlier—with a scowl on his face and his voice lowered.

On this floor, the Thorzi home opened up on a garden, filled with luscious plants in shades of bright red and purple. It was the same sort of garden the queen had told me to steer clear of, the plants Vorian had warned me were dangerous.

But here they were, in a Thorzi’s home. As what? A show of power? Was it like arrogant rich people keeping lions as pets, and assuming they would never be bitten?

When we landed, the two Thorzi’s heads popped up, all that black hair standing out in a stark frame between the blue of their faces and the brilliant colors of the plants behind them.

Sunlight slanted through a hole that cut clear through the roof of the dwelling all the way to this level.

“How dare you barge into my home—” the thinner Thorzi began, his teeth bared and startlingly sharp in this dim light.

Crux put a hand on his companion’s shoulder and stepped forward. His cold blue gaze took us both in, and Vorian’s palm settled on my stomach, edging me back behind the safety of his massive form.

“Vorian,” Crux said smoothly, stepping in front of his friend, “Vipha tells me that you’ve been tasked with bringing me before the king. I told him you would never betray me, that you would return to my side, and we would fight together to take what is ours.”

I scoffed. Sure, having Vorian’s strong arm around me was a real confidence boost, but still—

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