Page 42 of Vindicated

I made myself walk, if only because standing still felt like waiting for something to happen to me, and moving felt like I still had some measure of control. I circled the edge of the room, keeping my eyes on the weapons rather than on him, though I could feel his gaze tracking me with every step.

"I told your brother the truth," I said, telling myself to stay calm even as my voice fractured at the edges. "I didn't know about my father. I don't remember him. I was a child when he left."

"You didn't have to grow up with him to be loyal to his blood." Zarn's boots echoed as he began to circle opposite me, always keeping the distance between us the same, like we were dancing some twisted version of a partnered step. "Perhaps you discovered what you truly were somewhere along the way. Perhaps you thought some grand gesture might draw your missing father's attention back to you. Prove yourself worthy of the Hommler name."

"That's insane." My voice cracked. “I hate the Empire. I’ve always hated the Empire.”

"Or perhaps," he continued, as though I hadn't spoken, "it was never about your father at all. Maybe this is all about my brother. It didn’t take you long to worm your way into his bed.”

"I never asked to be brought onto this ship." Anger burned through the fear now, hot and sudden. "I never asked for any of this. I was dragged from Kashara?—”

"You bargained for your friends to come with you." His eyes narrowed. "That was your condition, was it not? Your price for cooperation?"

"Because they would have died if they'd stayed behind!" I shouted, my voice bouncing off the glass.

He moved faster than I could track, closing the distance between us in a single cat-like leap and catching my wrists before I could react, backing me up and pinning them over my head. My back hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath from me.

"All part of the plan," he murmured, his face close to mine and his dark eyes searching my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "Trick your way onto our ship. Trick your way into my brother's bed. Manipulate a Raas into believing you, into trusting you.”

"I never tricked him,” I gasped, straining against his grip, my wrists screaming under the pressure of his grip.

Zarn's gaze slid over my face, slow and assessing, and something in his expression shifted and went darker. "I can see why he finds you so appealing."

Bile teased the back of my throat as he pressed his hard body flush to mine. "Lorken!"

"He can't hear you." Zarn's voice had an almost tender caress, which somehow made it more terrifying. "This room was built to keep sound in, little Zagrath. I have complete control over what happens to my prisoners inside it."

I bucked against him, twisting my wrists and trying to wrench free, but his grasp didn't budge. His weight pressed me flat against the unforgiving wall, and my heart hammered so violently against my ribs I thought it might break through them.

"Perhaps," he said, tilting his head and watching me struggle with amusement, "you require more forceful convincing to tell me the truth."

My breath came in ragged gasps, my mind scrambling uselessly for some way out or some words to convince him that he was wrong about me. I knew in my gut that tears would not move him, and a stubborn part of me refused to let him see me cry.

As I clenched my jaw and met his gaze with defiance, unbidden thoughts of Lorken filled my mind. For the first time since I'd held a blade to his throat in the theatre, I let myself feel the ache of wanting him near me and of wishing for his touch. Somewhere in the chaos of the last two days, whatever I felt for Raas Lorken was no longer annoyance or gratitude or the strange pull of circumstance.

It was something far more dangerous than that.

Chapter 33

Lorken

Ididn't know where to look first. My warbird was a maze even for those who spent their lives within its steel bones, and Athena had not been on board long enough to know its convoluted layout. She could be anywhere, including at the bottom of the warbird’s gaping chasm if she’d lost her footing or slipped off a floating staircase.

Regret sat heavy in my chest as I ran, growing colder with every level I descended. I had left her crumpled on the floor of my own quarters without a single word of comfort. I had let my fury at my brother and at myself override every instinct that told me to hold her instead of storming away. Whatever danger she was in now, I had put her there. I had made her feel so unworthy of comfort or understanding that she'd fled rather be there when I returned. If something happened to her before I found her, I would never forgive myself.

I nearly collided with a cluster of raiders coming up from the direction of the munitions bay, soot still smudged across their bare chests, and I caught the nearest one by the arm before he could click his heels in salute.

"The human female," I said. "Dark hair. Have you seen her?"

The raiders exchanged a look I did not like, a flicker of hesitation that made my stomach trip before any of them spoke.

"We saw her, Raas," the nearest one said, motioning to a level beneath us. "On the bridge just below. She was with the battle chief."

My breath hitched as fear iced my skin. If Zarn had her, I knew exactly where he would take her.

Rage rose up through me so fast and so complete that I barely registered rushing forward, taking the nearest staircase two steps at a time and then three, my lungs burning, and my vision narrowing to a single point far above me where the command deck waited. As I tore across suspended bridges and leapt from platform to platform, my mind conjured what I might find when I arrived at theoblek. Each image worse than the last, until I could think of nothing but reaching her.

I burst through the doors of the command deck at a sprint as I sucked in breath, and the raiders at their console spun and clicked their heels in startled unison. I did not slow or even acknowledge them. My gaze cut past the wide viewscreen of stars and locked instead on the smaller door set into the left wall of the deck. It was the door to theoblek, the place where he broke enemies and gathered confessions.