Page 82 of The Alien Warlord's Fated Mate

She tugged on his hand until he crawled across the bed and carefully lowered himself onto her. “There’s just one thing missing.”

“Name it and I shall endeavor to fulfill the lack.”

Her smile carried all of the love in her heart. “Let’s make a baby.”

“From your mouth to the Fates’ loom,” he whispered, then she drew him into a kiss, and they forgot about the world outside their doors until the dawn’s light blessed the union of their souls in a dance as eternal as time.

Epilogue

A week later, Zoran slipped away from his beloved mate and journeyed across the solar system to the fourth planet from their star, home of the extinguished Var’Kol civilization. Three warlords traveled with him: Nyklan Zikri, the mate of Zoran’s deceased sister; Lorik Voss, mate to one of Mia’s good friends; and Kaelen Drexus, representing the fractious northern clans.

Their shuttle touched down first near the ruins of the largest city, on the spaceport’s broken landing pad. To the best of Zoran’s knowledge, no Xeruvian had set foot on the planet since the last Var’Kolite War ended, when Zoran’s father was himself a newly ranked warrior.

Years before his own birth, Zoran mused, for his father had been well into adulthood before the Fates directed him to his mate.

The four warriors spread out, searching the vast ruins for an impossibility: signs of an extinction magically reversed.

But the spaceport was empty, its machinery ravaged by time and the might of the Xeruvian armies. They found nothing to indicate anyone had recently visited, let alone the revival of an entire civilization.

Zoran wandered among the ruins, surveying what was left of their ancient enemy. Vegetation encroached upon the ruins, consuming the devastation as if to erase a great blight. He had expected to smell death upon the winds, yet the only scent filling his nostrils was that of the planet itself, the scent of life moving ever forward, with or without the people that had once dwelt here.

It was an eerie smell, that green emptiness. Zoran raised his hands to the Fates in thanks for sparing his own people from the universe’s implacable grind.

The planet’s two other spaceports were as hollow of life as the first. Nyklan suggested flying over the cities and running infrared and other scans. Zoran acted as pilot, going wherever the others thought best as his thoughts roamed freely. Had thevyirkolenattacks been a mere coincidence? Did they now search for life among a land occupied by ghosts?

Nyklan grunted.

Lorik twisted around in the co-pilot’s seat, facing the other warlord. “You found something?”

“I found the possibility of something, though perhaps not the something we seek.” Nyklan rattled off a set of coordinates. “Set us down there.”

Zoran input the coordinates and guided the shuttle toward the planet’s surface. Once on the ground, the four warlords ranged out, their backs to the shuttle. Nyklan had directed them to a barren wasteland, where even the wind feared to blow. The sun shone small and bright overhead, its light too weak to impart true warmth to the atmosphere.

Zoran was glad for his skinsuit and sturdy boots. Though the atmosphere was breathable—barely—the air held a briskness that chilled his horns and numbed his lips.

Kaelen’s gaze slowly scanned the horizon. “What are we looking for?”

Nyklan paced away from the shuttle, his own gaze fixed on the sensor in his hand. He stopped two shuttle lengths away, scuffed his boots in the hardpack, then circled around and tried again. His boot hit something with a dull thud.

Nyklan knelt beside it, using his gloved hand to push back the bone-dry dust. “This,” he said. “A live cable.”

“Live?” Lorik asked.

“Power runs through it. It could be nothing. The Var’Kol possessed some self-maintaining technology.”

Nyklan stood, brushed his hand off against his thigh, and set off. Presently, he stopped again and kicked his toe into the ground. Another clang rang out. The warlords crouched around the object he’d uncovered, a square metal plate set flush with the ground save for the hinges along one side and an inset handle on the opposite.

“What is it?” Zoran said.

“Access to—” Nyklan cocked his head and ran his scanner over the metal plate. “It appears to be an access point for a power relay. There may be a tunnel beneath it.”

Lorik shifted his balance and ran gloved fingers over the handle. “Should we investigate?”

“It is dead,” Nyklan said flatly. “Nothing is down there.”

Zoran exchanged a glance with Lorik. “Still. We are here.”

“I would volunteer to explore this dead space,” Kaelen said, smirking, “but for the Var’Kol blood running through my veins.”

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