Quinn had not seen herself, but it was not hard to imagine what Sovereign spoke of. The eyes she was born with stared back at him now that the tint had been drained away by the damned medical cuff. He could see her dark limbal ring surrounding irises a limpid shade rare in humans. They were not eyes one could hide, designed and unnatural. They had always set her apart. Where he found pleasure, she felt nothing. Her looks had never held meaning to her outside of their inconvenient noticeability—just like the clothing he’d brought from the empire to knot and wrap and twist around her.

  Another swath of airy fabric was draped across her breast, whatever hooks or ties Sovereign employed to attach it hidden. The forming garment lacked the imperial black the men wore, just shades of blue in a dress so intricate it was pointless in its grandeur.

  A broach was pinned between her breasts to hold the layers snug. Tracing her finger over the jewelry’s needle, a thing long and thick enough to kill a man if used properly, she muttered, “Is all of this to shame me as your tamed conquest?”

  Sovereign gave the final belt a tug, and everything fell into place. The challenge in his eyes did not match the set of Sovereign’s lips. “Considering the trouble you have caused Drinta, I cannot dress you in armor without drawing her suspicion. Seeing you subdued and non-threatening will amuse her and serve my agenda.”

  Quinn would have rather been naked than paraded, used, and ornamented. “Convert women dress this way?”

  Sovereign cracked a hint of a smirk, lifting the final, sleeveless vestment so she might slip her arms into it. “The females have distinct customs this gown reflects—complication, for one. The elite do not dress themselves.”

  Feeling the embroidered birds in flight, the stiffness of something weighty over so many panels of gauzy blues, Quinn asked, “To display rank?”

  “...lineage, taste, power. It is an art beyond itself at court that seems to please a great many of them.”

  She’d never seen such a thing from the Empire. “But you and your brothers only wear black. The soldiers wear black. Irdesian armor is black...”

  Sorrow and matching coldness sat heavy in Sovereign’s gaze. “We have been in mourning. We lost what we loved most.”

  She sensed his deeper feelings, a dark thing inside him hidden by a soldier’s protocol. “You are very angry with me.”

  Sovereign shook his head, but he didn’t touch her to reassure as had been his habit. “My anger is for Commander Dimitri and those who took you from me.”

  No matter what he claimed, he harbored resentment; she could feel it. “You could have been free of me a long time ago. You could have left me in peace.”

  “Abandoning you to indifference was never an option.” He took a step back to survey his work, their line of conversation over. “You look very beautiful.”

  Under so much finery she felt ridiculous.

  “...and unsure.” He reached for her. “Take my hand and I will lead you home.”

  It was so similar to what Arden had said to her...

  Quinn swallowed and the anxious stutter in her heart doubled. Yet hope burned, just enough to make her worry that much stronger. It was a waste of emotion thinking Drinta might actually win, that there might still be some small chance at escape in the ensuing chaos. But that would put Que at risk from one side or another. The empire would hunt him down if given the chance, and should Drinta know his tie to her, she too would reach out her claws and revenge herself upon him for Quinn’s part in her troubles.

  By failing to flee Pax, Quinn had inadvertently created a situation where she had to side with the Empire. Sovereign would take the station and control the byway. She would even help if she had to. She would help for Que, and if all went well, she would see him in a matter of cycles.

  That was how it had to be. Quinn wasn’t a part of Pax any longer; it was too tight, too dry. It had cast her off like a serpent shedding its skin.

  She took Sovereign’s outstretched hand, clammy fingers settled into a firm grip. “Que is my home. Take me anywhere, so long as he is there.”

  Sovereign had the decency to pet her fingers, to bend down and press a soft kiss to nervous lips. “Recognize that I did not chain you. This is your chance to prove yourself honorable to our pact.”

  ***

  The walk—no, the procession—to Swelter was a joke of decorum. As if bleeding from the walls, imperial soldiers formed a cocoon, she the butterfly trapped inside. They were a show, a cavalcade of black, holstered weapons, and pride before the gangs haunting the sprawling club.

  Karhl walked before them like a banner. No less than twenty of Sovereign’s elite-convert humans finalized the ranks—ten thousand of the worse spacer-scum all around them.

  They had the attention of the entire hive, save one lone female sheltered at the center of the grouping. Quinn found her attention pulled elsewhere, staring at the distant red swath of silk she’d twisted in for the last ten years. Already another slave performed in her place, as if she’d never been there.

  Pax would have already forgotten about the plum-haired slave, her replacement beautiful and drawing a crowd. And all those looking her way now, the species watching her in the rainbow of blues whispering around her legs, would not have known she’d ever been one of them.

  It hurt.

  Sovereign handed her up to the final platform. Karhl at her back, his hand on her shoulder before the large floor elevated the party to Drinta’s balcony. The bitch-queen stood, beautiful and deadly, a mismatched collection of the universe’s most vicious mercenaries at her back.

  Had Quinn any interest in watching the proceedings, she would have laughed at the show, wondering at the money and promises it had taken to get the thug, Lhhuy, to stand beside the rival gang leader, Ved.

  Sovereign brushed her cheek, showing her the liquid gathered on his fingers. “It’s almost over, Sigil.”

  She didn’t acknowledge his words, her eyes remained tripping over the club, glaring as if it were an unfaithful lover.

  He pressed a kiss to her temple, but Sovereign’s eyes were full of something dark, locked straight on Drinta, who grinned insanely as he fawned obnoxiously over his pet.

  Arden stood beside the Mistress of Pax, greeting his liege. “Emperor Sovereign, Imperial Consort Sigil, Lord Commander Karhl. Welcome.”

  The balcony was cramped and ripe for quite a mess. There was hardly a reason for Quinn to admit what she sensed, any creature wise enough to know fire was hot could see it. Still, she did her part to prove herself. “Drinta is going to try to kill you, Sovereign.”

  The emperor laughed, bowing to the Mistress of Pax. “You give her too little credit, Sigil.”

  “Sovereign.” The black lidless eyes darted towards the unsmiling Sigil and began to glitter. Drinta looked as if she might reach out and touch the wayward slave. “Your reluctant queen... cowed I see. But not chained as Arden claimed she would be.”

  “Oh, do not doubt it. Sigil is dangerous. Lord Commander Karhl has leave to execute her should she move.” Releasing Quinn’s hand, Sovereign bowed so deep it was almost insulting. “But that is not my greatest concern. I understand you have charmed my favorite Herald from me.”

  Drinta swept her hands from shoulder to shoulder in her species most respectful greeting. “He lies. But he does so with such a pretty mouth.”

  Sovereign conceded her point. “He is quite popular...”

  Needle sharp teeth exposed, Drinta looked to Quinn, still finding no more than a profile offered for her perusal. “Quinn, former Pax slave, now Consort of the Irdesian Empire. Seeing you like this, I almost regret I did not give you what you wanted.”

  Liar. Drinta’s motivations were so easy to sense it was a joke. Scoffing, Quinn looked away from the club to sneer at the green Tessan. “Not nearly so much as I do, bitch-queen.”

  “I do believe she threatened me.”

  “Mistress Drinta,” Sovereign stepped in front of Quinn as if to shield the Mistress of Pax from his prisoner. “She did.”

  “Am I allowed to enjoy her for it?” Drinta purred, tail languidly moving like a serpent at her back.

  “Pax is yours. You are allowed to do whatever you please.”

  Tuning out the verbal sparring, thick complements, and general disgusting back and forth, Quinn turned her back to their politics and leaned just enough on Karhl so he would not suspect she was considering breaking the energy barrier separating the balcony from the club to flee. Immediately, the Lord Commander set a hand to her hip, fingers enveloping the bone. He pulled her flush, his chin resting atop her head.

  Quinn hardly noticed, too keen on the fact her hand skimmed a weapon holstered at the Lord Commander’s thigh. It was all she could do to focus on the pulsing music and restrain herself from fingering the deadly piece. Imaginings of pulling it free, of shooting Sovereign, Karhl, Arden, and all the others so pretty and so nauseating in their current invincibility, distracting.

  She thought of Que, looking to their favorite places to enjoy one another in the club’s cleaner corners.

  “...as I mentioned to your enjoyably duplicitous Herald—”

  Arden was only happy to speak over her. “Your compliments are too elegant, Drinta.”

  “—I have a gift I am eager to offer. First it was intended to please Arden. A fruit plucked for offering almost the very day we met. However, I have since learned that your Herald is disgustingly loyal. What he desired was not for himself, it was for you, Sovereign. And so I give it with all my heart.” Drinta turned wistful, her voice blending with the sluggish susurration of cloth being pulled. “Now I see how much more valuable this trophy is. The conversations we had after he denied my incredibly generous offer for one pleasure slave’s purchase... Would you believe he even tried to warn me? He called your pretty terrorist an abomination. I believe he told her his name was Que.”

  “No!”

  At the sound of that name, Quinn’s head darted up, her icy eyes locked right on the prepared gift. Like a whore raising her skirts, the final bit of cloth dragged over a cube shaped object displayed between the two parties, falling away until all Quinn could hear was a scream so shrill she was certain her ears bled.

  Even if she had not seen, she would have felt it in the dread of the minds of the three sheep—the men already responding, already trying to intervene... because they too had seen and they were ripe with fear.

  The passage of time slowed down to a drip. Quinn heard Sovereign as if he stood across a sea, shouting, “Calm yourself, Sigil!”

  Calm? She was calm.

  Feeling the slickness of ocular tissue shift in their sockets, the slow drag of eyeball against lid, Sigil looked over a horror: her lovely Que’s head displayed battered in a box—staring forward, eyes flat, lids uneven. His familiar mouth was slightly agape, and Que was lovely no more.

  A distant screech of wailing, a furious storm of grief, groaning metal moaned where it was twisted, the sound mournful.

  “SIGIL, STOP YOURSELF!”

  But it was too late...

  In the end, no one was as strong as she, and she proved it in a flick of the wrist and another irrepressible burst of dangerous psionics. The tremors grew, Swelter alight with sparks of blue energy she ripped from atoms, throwing everyone in that alcove so ferociously the human converts and Drinta’s gang were killed on impact.

  Only one lifeform had been left standing in the maelstrom. The Tessan female, Drinta, her muzzle one of shock, looked upon what Quinn really was.

  “Where is the rest of my Que?” That voice, it was the voice of nightmares—a broken voice.

  Entire portions of Swelter were ripped away from their supports to fall, crashing against twisting artificial gravity. Drinta was impressed. “Look at them behind you. How frantic they are, and how easily broken by one barren human. Sovereign, even Karhl, cannot break through your barrier, can they?”

  “WHERE. IS. HE?”

  Below them the mob surged, madness broke out as slaves and mercenary alike screamed and tried to flee the destruction. The station’s walls were opening to space, atmosphere leaking away, lifeforms sucked out into the vacuum.

  Haughty, looking into eyes vacant of control, Drinta faced death with a sneer. “Ask the right question... but you can’t, can you?” The Tessan grinned. “Ask why.”

  Why? Because Arden had recognized her in the club and Drinta had noticed. Que had never left Pax... his altered exit schedule nothing but an easy trap to draw him aside the second he seemed relatively useful. And all that time Quinn had sought him, he’d been right there. She could have saved him, and failed. The Tessan had already hinted as much. “Why?”

  “Because I could. Because he and my Kilactarin both warned me to kill you. But I will offer you your life if you kill Sovereign. We could align ourselves, you and I, delightful human. I will get you another pet, a more loyal Axirlan, if you desire it.”

  Movement almost lazy, Quinn’s hand stretched through the electric storm. Drinta twitched, unable to move from the psionic restraint the human manifested. Not that the Tessan didn’t try. She thrashed until her arm broke, bone jutting grossly from the limb.

  Brushing the center of Drinta’s chest, Quinn’s fingers rent flesh, the reptile struggling for the strength to hiss. “You would dare deny me?”

  Quinn’s fingertips slipped forward, crushing through bone, breaching a reptilian chest cavity in search of a thumping organ similar to a human heart. Her fist closed on that erratically beating mass and tore it straight from Drinta’s chest—holding it up so the bitch-queen might see it.

  The gelatinous tissue was crushed before Drinta’s eyes.

  As the bitch-queen’s life ended, Quinn wrapped her grip around the Tessan’s jaw. With a burst of inhuman power, Quinn ripped Drinta’s pretty head off its pretty, glittering shoulders. And then she kept ripping.

  “SIGIL, YOU MUST CALM DOWN!”

  There was that pesky negation again, that sad attempt to bend her psionics and tug her back. But Quinn was too busy stomping the fresh corpse into a pulp under her feet.

  Walls warped, the energy barriers on Drinta’s balcony failed. Protective shutters fell, some broken. Even with backup canisters of gas releasing new air to counter the loss of atmosphere, breath was hard to find.

  Death was coming, Quinn’s rage the reaper of them all.

  Sobbing, she left the gooey mass of green fluid and shattered bone, tripping to fall atop her friend. Wrapping her arms around the cryobox, she screamed and screamed, tearing what little remained of Pax apart in an unadulterated surge of violent psionics. There was no stopping it. Her mind stretched a thousand places at once, damaging her as it ravaged the station. Whole pieces broke off in the tumult of energy flares, thousands of lives lost in a blink as the vacuum of space claimed the rubble.

  Draped over her friend’s skull, blood dripped from her ears, her nose. Sovereign was shouting for her, the man trapped, trying to break through her barrier.

  But it was too late.

  Atmosphere leaked from the fragmented remains of Swelter, the fortified alcove’s shields failing from her assault. Gravity disappeared, and still she sobbed.

  It would be over soon. Quinn could already feel the lack of air bringing with it a dimness of consciousness to ease so much pain.

  In one sad shuddering exhale, breath left her body, the dark overcoming a brain already hemorrhaging and a heart that hurt so badly she would have ripped it out of her own chest had she any strength left.

  Chapter 13

  Alarms blared. The shielded alcove of a dead felon-queen hissed with the escape of necessary air. In the chaos, Sovereign reached for Sigil, the female having finally blacked out. Her psionics failed, and the third set of backup tanks kicked in. Lost atmosphere was replaced in the disintegrating balcony, Karhl and Arden systematically creating their own psionic barriers to keep what little air remained inside.

  Pax was lost, had burst apart like a wasps nest fallen from a tree. The byway, however, had come online the instant Sovereign had given the command—the instant Que’s severed head had come on display.

  The station was in ruins. From their shielded alcove all around them open space was visible. The space station’s implosion had caused a panic at the docks; ships could be seen dodging chunks of debris, trying to flee through the gate even as the Imperial fleet invaded. Every foreign shuttle was obliterated without question or offer of surrender by the human forces.

  Sovereign shouted, “How did intel of this level slip through your fingers?”

  The rage in Sovereign as he held Sigil’s blood-soaked, limp form was beyond anything Arden had witnessed. The Herald looked at the female, took in the red drips running from her ears, nose, and mouth, and confessed, “I knew Drinta had detained the Axirlan the moment it happened.”

  Karhl struck him first, breaking the weaker brother’s jaw in one hard crack. “You forget your place!”

  His reply was muddled, Arden holding the bones of his jaw in place so he might defend his action. “It had to be done this way. You had to be innocent of any part in it. Sigil could never be allowed to keep him. It would tempt her to run or divide her loyalty as time wore on.”

  Had Sigil not been in his grip, Sovereign would have ended one of his most trusted brothers in that very moment. “So you took it upon yourself to damage her?”

  Tears leaked from golden eyes. A grimace on his face, the Herald looked upon the woman he loved. “She will survive it. Pax had to be cleansed. No one could know where she’d come from or what she’d been. Considering how impaired she already was, a clean start is in our power now. I willingly sacrifice myself for such a boon to our people. I did this for you—for her.”

  There was no question of punishment. Incapacitated as Arden was, having been brought to his knees by Karhl’s greater strength, the Herald looked only to the bleeding woman.