She was about to save this jerk-of-a-Vradhu’s ass, that’s what.

  Why?

  She didn’t understand jack about what was happening onboard this floating monstrosity, but she knew about power dynamics and pecking orders, and from what she’d observed so far, one thing was obvious.

  For better or for worse, everything revolved around Ares, and he was about to owe her, big time.

  Find something they want. Use it to your advantage.

  What better way to get a leg up in this mysterious place than to rescue the top dog, even if he was an arrogant, stuck-up, slightly terrifying, and too-strong-for-his-own-good Vradhu bastard?

  Besides, it felt terribly wrong to leave this proud warrior helpless on his knees as the blue ones surrounded him. He had spared her life and given her the language of slaves, and he’d shown great restraint when she’d woken up furious and disoriented. She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious for. He could have done all manner of things to her. He could have treated her very badly, but as far as she knew, the worst he’d done was to arrange for that language-thing to be implanted in her head.

  In the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. Calexa had been subjected to far worse in her short, scrappy life. After all, she was from Dashki-5.

  As she approached, several of the Naaga peeled off and tried to corral her in an attempt to separate her from Ares. Calexa was having none of it. “Get back. I’ll cut you down!” She raised the bone-white blades in warning.

  There was no reaction, not even the slightest flinch. One of the Naaga stepped forward, his hand outstretched in what was meant to be a peaceful gesture. “Cease your resistance. You will gain nothing by protecting him.” His voice was surprisingly rich, and as he moved into position, the others surrounded him, nodding in agreement. “If you put down your weapons and walk away, we will ensure no harm comes to you and your people.”

  The Naaga surrounded Ares. By now, the ilverium covered most of his body. It extended down into the floor, forming taut cords as it merged with the grey metal surface. It was as if the seething liquid metal had taken on a life of its own. It wanted to devour the enraged Vradhu.

  Ares was frozen. His blank silver eyes sent a chill through Calexa. The essence of his soul had been dampened, and his dark intensity was on the verge of being extinguished.

  It was a terrible thing to behold.

  “He is Vradhu,” another of the Naaga continued. “They are an old, primitive people, with little influence in this new world. You would be a fool to seek an alliance with them. Soon they will be finished.”

  Calexa hesitated, but didn’t lower the blades. She narrowed her eyes, trying to read the Naaga. It was impossible. Their aloof expressions remained unchanged.

  Something didn’t add up. If the Naaga were oh-so important and powerful, then why had the Medusa been greeted by a sea of black-and-purple faces on arrival? The Vradhu she’d seen in the arrival dock had been fearsome and intimidating; not the sort of people one would refer to as primitive.

  And not a single Naaga had shown up with the welcoming party.

  Why? Who’s in charge here?

  “Do not fight us, alien. On this destroyer, we vastly outnumber the Vradhu. Despite what he may have told you, he is an outlier, nothing more. If your reasoning is logical and your thought processes are linear, you will see the sense in complying with our request.”

  But… he hasn’t told me anything.

  The Naaga closest to Ares produced a long metal tube. The black device sat snugly in the palm of his three-fingered hand, emitting a faintly glowing green light. He exchanged a knowing look with his companions as he pressed the thing against Ares’s forehead.

  The green glow became more intense. The Vradhu’s body began to shake, as if he were in the grip of a seizure.

  What the hell were they doing to him?

  Calexa watched in horror as the tube-like device burrowed into Ares’s forehead. A thin trickle of blood ran down his face, spilling over his nose, coating his full, dark lips.

  Dispose of the usurper at all costs.

  They were killing him.

  “Screw this,” Calexa muttered under her breath, surrendering to her instincts. They’d served her well on Dashki-5, and now they were screaming at her to stop this. There was a wrongness about the whole thing. A sick feeling uncoiled in the pit of her stomach as she sidestepped the approaching Naaga.

  She went straight for the one holding the tube-like device. The air around Ares and the Naaga was laden with static, and an electric ripple crawled across her skin, raising the fine hairs on her arms. It was like wading into a dense charge-field.

  Calexa made a decision.

  She brought down the ivory sword.

  It cut clean and true, severing the Naaga’s hand at the wrist.

  The blue alien grunted in pain as his hand fell to the floor with a dull thud. He stared at her in shock.

  Not so unflappable now, are you, asshole?

  Blood spurted everywhere in a wild spray of vivid green, coating her bare hand. It splattered across Calexa’s arm and torso, and she thanked the stars her thermosuit was impervious to liquids.

  “Stop,” she growled. “Whatever you’re doing to him, stop.”

  “You’re making a mistake, alien. You will not get far in our world if you take his side. Why would you do such a thing when you know nothing about our world?”

  “He’s….” She hesitated. What was Ares to her? An enemy? An ally? A means to an end? Was he even alive? He was frozen on his knees, like a statue. Writhing tendrils of ilverium extended up his neck, piercing the skin of his cheeks, coursing up through the tattoo-like markings that decorated his face. Liquid metal quickly covered the wound, stretching across Ares’s forehead.

  Out of habit, Calexa snapped her wrist, flicking emerald-colored blood from the blade. It stained the metal floor with a vicious spray of green. “He’s my guide,” she said, moving protectively between Ares and the blue one. The injured Naaga’s milky-white eyes widened as he pressed his other hand against the bleeding stump of his arm.

  An ordinary Human would be howling in pain by now. The only evidence of the Naaga’s discomfort was his hoarse, rapid breathing. He stepped back as his companions surged forward like a pack of rabid dogs.

  “Get back!” Calexa shouted, raising her blades. The Naaga ignored her. They didn’t wield any weapons, but they had numbers on their side.

  Crazy fools. What was this? Strength in numbers? Weren’t they afraid of death?

  This was about to get messy. Calexa swung her blades in a wide arc as blue bodies formed a ring around her. Slender arms thrust forward, reaching for her. She slashed and stabbed and dodged, and soon the acrid smell of their green blood filled the air, overpowering the scent of sickly-sweet banana-whatever.

  They just don’t fucking stop!

  They moved back-and-forth, a sea of swaying, surging, weaponless blue bodies, engaging Calexa in a messy, violent dance. She tried to break free, but despite their delicate appearance, the Naaga were unexpectedly relentless. As soon as she cut one down, another moved forward to fill the void.

  When she injured them, they didn’t cry out in pain. When she separated limbs from bodies, they didn’t falter. They just grunted softly and shrugged it off, even though Calexa was dealing what should have been near-mortal wounds.

  What are they… fucking zombies?

  At least two of them had fallen, their bodies crumpling in lifeless heaps, but the others just kept coming.

  “What does it take to kill you freaks?” she growled, her breaths coming in short, sharp rasps. This was starting to feel like hard work. A fine layer of sweat coated her face and neck. Her skin prickled beneath her thermosuit as the temperature regulating fabric absorbed her body’s heat.

  She hacked at an offending arm, her movements becoming wild and uncontrolled. She’d been separated from Ares in the fray, and she could no longer see the fallen Vradhu.

  Somehow, the Naaga managed to draw her toward the open doorway—away from Ares. Calexa spun as something pressed against her neck, between the protrusions of her biometal spine.

  Cold!

  The thing was blisteringly cold, like a block of dry ice. Calexa twisted violently, trying to free herself of the sensation, but her arms and legs grew heavy.

  What is this feeling?

  The energy drained from her body. Her vision blurred. The Naaga standing before her were a haze of blue and green. So cold! So sleepy! She just wanted to curl up into a ball and hibernate.

  The chaos stopped. Murmuring voices surrounded her. They seemed… surprised. A halo of vivid green light engulfed them, intruding on her blurry vision.

  “Look at that. She possesses incredibly high levels of vir.”

  “An unexpected boon. We will harvest it.”

  “Do you think it is a species characteristic?”

  “It is possible. We know nothing about her kind. If they are all like her, then…”

  “They will be useful indeed.”

  The Naaga’s odd conversation should have given her the chills, but she was already frozen, and her thoughts moved at a glacial pace; too slowly for her to register fear.

  Vir? What the hell is that? She didn’t understand the word. Did that mean there was no equivalent in Earthian?

  “Dispose of the Vradhu and take her for processing. If we harvest enough vir from her, it won’t take us long to regain control of this defective ship.”

  “Indeed. A Vradhu should never have bonded with it.”

  “It was unexpected. Perhaps we should never have brought them onboard in the first place. We don’t know much about them.”

  “They were necessary. The infestation was too far gone.”

  “Yes. What is done is done. Now let us restore the balance.”

  “And his second body?”

  “Destroy it too.”

  “That would be a waste. The clone is perfect. Can we not animate it?”

  “That would be risky. If we give it consciousness, the Hythra may try to bond with it too. Her affinity for him is too strong.”

  Hands swarmed all over her with a featherlight touch. They were neither warm nor cold. She fought to keep her eyes open as her breathing became slow and shallow.

  Is this how it ends? I get taken down by these blue-faced weirdos in an unknown part of the Universe?

  Most self-respecting mercenaries would call her a stupid fucking idiot for not running when she had the chance, but she didn’t regret defending the dying Ares. It wasn’t in her nature to run, and the Naaga were creeps. There was no way she could trust them.

  At least she’d drawn Ares away from the Medusa. He was chaos incarnate, as unpredictable and unfathomable as the Netherverse itself. Stars knew she wanted to trust him, but she’d seen enough of the Universe to know that the most alluring creatures could sometimes be the most dangerous.

  Hopefully, she’d bought her people enough time. Monroe had better have gotten those damn powerbanks back online. It was the Medusa’s only hope. Maybe they could shoot their way through the walls of this fucking death-trap and escape.

  She looked down. Her fingers were blue. Her teeth chattered. The super-cold device was still pressed against her neck, and now she understood its purpose.

  They’re draining away my… energy, as if they’re goddamn vampires.

  There were several known vampire-like races in the Universe, but they usually drank blood, not energy—or mana, or life-force—or whatever the hell it was supposed to be called.

  She whimpered softly as the chill took hold, turning her metal bones into ice-rods.

  Pain gripped her skull and refused to let go.

  The walls shifted. She blinked.

  Really?

  Her frostbitten brain wasn’t playing tricks on her.

  The walls were actually shifting.

  The ground beneath her feet lurched, and suddenly everything tilted to one side. Caught off balance, the Naaga scrambled around her.

  Finally, that terrible icy-cold device was removed from her neck. She summoned all of her remaining energy and rose to her feet, swaying back-and-forth as the room tilted further and further to one side. A deep, reverberating groan echoed through the air. It was spooky and organic, as if some ancient beast were rising from the cold depths of a forgotten sea.

  The floor tipped further. The Naaga slid across the smooth metal surface, crashing into one another like space-junk in an asteroid storm.

  Calexa tried to tense, but her body wouldn’t respond. She trembled all over, racked with terrible shivers. She was so cold.

  She expected to fall down the tilting floor along with the Naaga, but she didn’t.

  Something held her in place, something flexible yet as strong as tempered steel. Liquid metal. As her Universe turned on its head, a coil of metal snaked around her waist in an oh-so familiar way.

  The floor under her feet turned into mush and she started to sink.

  Drained of all her energy, all she could do was surrender as it threatened to swallow her whole.

  Chapter Eleven

  Be mine, Hunter.

  The voice echoed inside his head, speaking an old, forgotten dialect of Vradhu.

  The voice was endless, as if thousands of souls were speaking in perfect unison.

  The voice belonged to Ares, too. He was part of the whole, a tiny fragment swept up in the slipstream.

  Wait… What? He was surely going mad. The Hythra hadn’t spoken to him like this since he’d first boarded her, back when he hadn’t recognized the monster for what she was.

  Perhaps he was hallucinating.

  You were made for this. Why fight it? They tried to poison you, you know. Invisible gas, lethal to your kind. They are patient creatures, our Naaga. They synthesized it in the sci-labs right under your very nose and waited until you were too distracted to notice. The arrival of these humans was the perfect diversion. Don’t you want to take your revenge?

  Oh, he would love to take revenge. He would kill every last one of them.

  But he would not allow the Hythra to possess him.

  Get out! He raged against the bond, trying to force the ilverium—that filthy, cursed magrel—out of his body once and for all. It engulfed him completely, trapping him in a swirling hell.

  No! This was not supposed to be his fate. He was a thrice-blooded warrior. He was the lone hunter, the kratok-slayer, a fucking khefe of the Ardu-Sai.

  He didn’t belong on this obsolete Drakhin monstrosity. He was a son of Khira, and he longed to feel her soft, rain-drenched soils beneath his bare feet.

  He was a simple warrior, nothing more.

  Join me. We will be unstoppable. I can give you power beyond your wildest dreams. We have been inside you long enough that you have almost completed the Change. All you have to do is tap into her vir. She is ripe for the taking.

  Ares hardened his heart. How could he surrender to something that wanted to consume him?

  Enough! It was time to break free or die trying.

  Release me! His mindspeech crescendoed into a defiant roar. He would never yield. Did the Hythra truly understand what he was? Ha! He lived to destroy monsters.

  He became dimly aware of what was happening around him in the real world. The Human fought. For one who had never held a kratok-tooth weapon, she wielded the krivera well enough, dancing around the Naaga as they tried to overwhelm her with sheer numbers.

  With devastating efficiency, she incapacitated the bastard who held that cursed device to his forehead. The Naaga dropped to his knees in front of Ares as blood spilled from his severed arm, pooling around them. Tendrils of vivid green swirled amongst silver ilverium, forming a grotesque pattern of abstract lines and blotches.

  The Naaga drew the Human away, pushing her to the other side of the room.

  Leading her back toward the sci-labs.

  Some dim, primitive part of his brain registered her appearance. The way she moved, graceful and yet purposeful. The way she glared at her enemies, her blue eyes crystal clear, her gaze as straight as an arrow.

  The way she looked back at him from time-to-time.

  That look. He’d never been on the receiving end of a look like that. Total commitment. Warmth blossomed in his chest like an unfurling flower. Nobody protected Ares but himself. Nobody.

  Why? He’d done nothing to gain her trust or earn her loyalty.

  Green Naaga blood splattered across his face as she danced across the room, absorbed in combat. For a moment he lost her, but then his second eyelids—which seemed to be the only part of him that could still fucking move—flicked, clearing his vision. When he caught sight of her again, an aura surrounded her. Skeins of golden energy flowed around her like tiny currents.

  What is that? He blinked, wondering if he were hallucinating. Ares had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

  Such glorious energy! He desperately wanted to reach out and touch her.

  Join us, Hunter. The Hythra’s seething, unending presence gnawed at the back of his mind, threatening to suck him into her vortex. The moment he surrendered to her, he would be finished.

  One of the Naaga snuck up behind the human with a strange triangle-shaped device in his hand. Ares tried to shout a warning, but his vocal cords were locked. The white-eyed devil held the machine against her neck, catching her by surprise.

  Bastards!

  His throat unlocked, and Ares roared as she went down. She’d protected him, but he could do nothing as the Naaga hurt her. This infuriating helplessness was his definition of hell.

  He couldn’t see her anymore. Frantically, furiously, he fought against his bond. Release me!

  He didn’t need the Hythra and her cursed living metal to take down these Naaga. He would do it himself, with nothing but the body the Divine Mother had given him. He would tear them apart with his bare hands.

  Is that your final decision, Hunter?

  What do you think? His malevolent hatred of the Hythra and her bond burned white-hot as he built a protective wall around his soul. The Naaga thought they could paralyze him sickly-sweet poison-air. They thought they could weaken him long enough for the sentient ship to take control?