Spreading his feet wide to afford himself better balance, he reached up and touched the forearm of his prosthesis. A holographic control screen appeared in the air.
He unmuted the holocom, opened his contacts list, and called Arcanthus. The call connected almost instantly, and the control screen changed to a three-dimensional holo of Arc’s head and face.
“Drak! Everything okay? You’ve been gone—” Arcanthus’s eyes widened. “You look like shit. What the hell happened?”
Drakkal turned his head and spat. His saliva still tasted ofblood. “Vanya. Murgen Foltham hired her to capture me, Shay, and Leah.”
Arc’s features darkened instantly. “Where are they? Are Shay and Leah okay?”
Drakkal opened his mouth to reply, but the words, hot as molten metal, lodged in his throat. He pressed his lips together and flared his nostrils with a heavy exhalation.
“No, Drak.No. Tell me they’re okay.”
“Murgen has them,” Drakkal finally grated. Getting those words out was like blasting apart a dam, releasing the bitter, fiery rage that had built up behind it. “Bring the crew and every fucking gun we own. I’ll send you coordinates to meet me.”
In the back of his mind, he knew the things that Arcanthus should’ve said.Murgen Foltham is well-connected and powerful. This will garner a lot of dangerous attention. The Gilded Sector is crawling with peacekeepers. We should stop and really think about this before we do anything; there must be another way.
But Arc said the only thing Drakkal wanted to hear—therightthing. “On our way.”
“Bring my arm,” Drakkal said.
“Your arm?”
Drakkal nodded. The nonexistent fingers of his left hand flexed and stretched restlessly; they weren’t tired, and they shared his desire for bloodshed. “The one Sam designed. The armored one. I want that hand to be the one that rips out Murgen Foltham’s throat.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Shay snapped her legs together as soon as the guards released her ankles from the straps on the exam table. It wasn’t anything new; Murgen’s medical aids had examined her a few times during her last stay. But that didn’t make it any less degrading, any less violating. She took comfort only in the fact that they treated her like an animal. Their hands—and eyes—were always cold and clinical. There’d been no sense in fighting during the process—her captors had made clear they wouldn’t hesitate to use the shock collar to incapacitate her. And she needed to remain clearheaded for Leah.
As soon as her arms were free of the table’s restraints—though the manacles were still locked around her wrists—Shay sat up, covered her chest, and sought Leah. Her daughter was on an exam table on the other side of the room, unconscious and surrounded by four examiners who were conversing and taking notes as they touched her like she was nothing more than a test subject. The fury roiling within Shay burned hotter.
Murgen was standing with the examiners, nodding and grinning that stupid fucking grin of his.
“We’re done here,” said the pink-skinned female volturian beside Shay’s table without looking up from her tablet.
Her voice caught Murgen’s attention. He walked over, stroking a finger thoughtfully over one of his yellowed tusks. “And?”
“Healthy, Master Foltham,” the female volturian said, “apart from some contusions and a cut. She should be healed within a couple weeks, even without treatment. As requested, we’ve removed and destroyed her ID chip.”
“Excellent. I want that custom tracker implanted in her the moment it arrives. Is she ready to breed?” Murgen asked, running his eyes over Shay’s naked body.
Shay glared at him, bit her tongue, and pressed her lips into a tight line. It was the only way to hold in the harsh words welling in her throat. She longed for Drakkal, for his steady, strong presence, to be away from this place and these people. She longed to be with her mate and daughter.
“This terran is in even better shape than she was before escaping, sir. No damage to her reproductive organs…though she did have a birth control compound present in her system. Now that we’ve neutralized the compound, she will be ready to breed and is more than healthy enough to carry offspring to term.”
Murgen frowned and let out a huff. “Unfortunate. I was hoping she’d been impregnated by that azhera.Thatwould be a child I’d like to see. Can you imagine?”
Shay would’ve liked that, too—but not now, andnotfor Murgen’s benefit.
“There are traces of semen inside the terran,” the volturian said. “There’s a chance it will take. Or, if you’d like, we can extract some of the samples and artificially inseminate her when she’s ovulating.”
Throat swelling with a thoughtful hum, Murgen folded hishands over his gut. “Take the samples and store them. I’ll have to decide how I want to proceed…there are so many possibilities, after all, and I’ve had little opportunity over these last few months to consider them all accordingly.”
“Of course, sir.”
The guards stepped forward at Murgen’s instruction and forced Shay to lie back down as the volturian woman took her samples. Shay stared up at the ceiling, trying to turn her mind away as the volturian worked, but the cold, hard, invasive instruments were difficult to ignore.
“All finished, sir,” the volturian finally said.