Page 130 of Taken By the Aurelian Warriors

I crouch down on the floor of the brig, squatting. My legs aren’t tired. They’re stronger now, even – every muscle able to exert even more control and endurance than they could before the Bond took hold.

Our cell is empty – void except for a toilet and washbasin. Through the bars, I see another cell across from us; a mirror image for ours except that it’s empty.

It’s been hours since Natali put the Bond Disrupter on. I hate that thing, even though I don’t even know what it looks like. I predict it’s in the form of a necklace, or a ring. The device requires only a small shard of Orb to power it, so it could take any form imaginable.

The Bond disruptor is what poses the biggest question.

If Natali isn’t planning to betray us – then why wouldn’t she take it off? Even if just for a second?

Why wouldn’t she have reached into our auras by now? If only to make sure we hadn’t been injured, or even killed in the process of being apprehended by Aurelian Law Enforcement?

Even if Natali is making a tough decision – perhaps the toughest in her life – I still thought she might have enough consideration for us to find out firsthand whether or not we’re even still alive.

Perhaps I misjudged my mate.

Only Otho maintains complete faith in her. I don’t want to think of him as naïve – after all, he’s trusted me in situations from which we barely escaped with our lives. His faith in me has helped us through tough times and near scrapes. Now, it’s his faith in Natali that’s keeping away the hopelessness that threatens my psyche.

I am the leader. I should be the one emanating stability. Instead, I’m drawing on the strength of my triad.

There’s a thud as the ship rocks.

We’ve docked. Where, I don’t know.

Five minutes later, I hear the heavy bootsteps of our captors. The stern-looking, young Aurelians are confident and capable as they approach the brig. It’s a triad of them – and all three have a haunted look in their eyes. I imagine they’re fresh out of their hundred years of service to the Aurelian Empire – and instead of settling down with the reward of a harem on Colossus, they chose to do the same as us; to go out and serve the Empire.

Those hundred years of service leave a mark. I can see it in their faces. They don’t say a word as one of the agents presses the button to open the cell doors, and the other two lead us out.

I stand to my full height as I emerge, and I follow the officers toward the hatch of the Reaver – leading my triad out into the huge bay of a bustling spaceport.

Ships both large and small fill the looming bay of this spaceport – with traders, merchants, soldiers and mercenaries rushing around between hangar bays, dodging each other as they dart to their destinations.

Children gawk at us as we pass. I notice more Reavers docked here – pure white and powerful between the scruffy looking human ships.

There may be other Aurelians in this spaceport, but my triad and I are still an unusual sight for the humans traveling through here.

So, this is where all this will be decided: A neutral spaceport, complete with the proper facilities needed for a military or police trial. In a spaceport this size, there’ll always be disagreements to mitigate – ranging from petty disturbances to murder. That means there’ll be multiple courtrooms that an Aurelian officer could hire.

As we’re led through the crowd, I spot one of the activities these courtrooms are here for. My keen, Bond-enhanced eyes catch a pickpocket snagging a prize and disappearing into the crowd.

He escaped. We’re not so lucky.

As we’re led through the spaceport, I ponder what will happen next. We’ll be tried by Lieutenant Taggar himself.

In the best case scenario, Natali has worked a miracle. We’ll have the charges dropped. We’ll fly out of this spaceport with our Fated Mate at our side, victorious in our Reaver.

The thought sours in my mind as reality hits me.

More likely, we’ll be flying out of this spaceport with nothing but our clothes to protect us from the vastness of space.

An Aurelian can survive around twenty seconds in the vacuum of space. I know that because I’ve seen it happen myself. I was forced to watch a mutineer suffer such a fate during my hundred years of service – when he was tried, found guilty, and cast out into space from an airlock.

We watched as he died – condemned to float as a frozen warning through the endless galaxy, until he’s finally sucked up by some black hole, or crushed by a meteor.

Those hundred years leave their mark.

The three members of the Enforcement agency who’d captured us start walking, and we follow. They aren’t worried we’ll try to escape. Our hands are firmly secured – and, besides,wewere the ones who’d turned ourselves in.

The officers lead us down busy hallways, then through several sets of doors and corridors, until we’re finally the only ones walking down the well-lit hallway we’d been led to.

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