Page 71 of Fated to the Dragon Warlord

“You are the last creature in the universe I’d choose to assist me,” I growl.

“What if I have some information which might be of use?” Dante suggests.

He’s not quick enough this time. I have him pinned against the wall, my claws at his throat. All he does is snort out a stream of smoke.

Dante doesn’t even struggle. He simply gives me a dead-eyed stare.

“You want to know where your brother went? I know,” he says, his voice not changed at all by my grip on him. Dante grins. He also drools a little because regardless of his indifference, I am holding him tightly. It drips onto my hand.

I let him go.

“You are foul, Dante. You know that don’t you?” I grab a rag and wipe my hand clean.

“It’s why you tolerate me, Darax,” he says.

“Tell me where my brother is.”

“You’re not going to like it,” Dante says, his voice weirdly melodious.

“Nev it, why can’t you keep off the narcotics?”

He simply grins at me, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth while he massages his neck with the other. Smoke streams from his nostrils and his tail twitches in agitation.

“Where is he?”

“The lost sector. He has a place there. It’s where he put her body.”

I hang my head, far too many violent thoughts running through it, all of which I have to gain control of before I do anything.

“It’s why you need me,” he continues. “I’m the only one authorized to enter.”

I do not want to have to rely on anyone to save my mate, least of all Dante. He’s a loose pulsar cannon at best. At worst he’ll get me killed, he’ll get Kerra killed, and he’ll somehow, because Dante always finds a way, make things explode.

Throwing my lot in with him will be suicide.

But what other choice do I have?

KERRA

Deus doesn’t sleep. It means, even though I’m exhausted, my own sleep is fitful, regularly jerked awake by either his mutterings and occasional outbursts or the things outside the cave. In particular there is something which screams like a human, only it is not human.

I hate it.

I want to hate Deus, but I don’t.

I want to hate Darax, but I can’t. I can, however, hate myself for allowing him to somehow worm his way into my heart. For me to somehow have fallen for the big, bad, beastly Sarkarnii.

I’d give anything to see his face again.

It’s totally stupid. I don’t want to be the damsel in distress. I want to understand the dynamic between the two brothers, how it has come to this situation. Why would Deus harm another in order to hurt his brother?

Only he hasn’t hurt me, other than shaking me around a little. He could have killed me back in Vorostor Central, but he didn’t.

Darax decided not to tell me the whole truth, not to be clear about what happened to Deus, what happened to all the Sarkarnii, other than their females died.

Then I didn’t ask. I was too busy being outraged about what the Sarkarnii did to stay alive. That they were some simple ‘money with menaces’ organization who had this galaxy in their claws.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

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