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“Yes, I know,” Valdis said. “We’ve gone over this a thousand times.”
Kaita snapped. Her hand wrapped around his throat and she slammed him against the wall.
Roxy grinned and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s about time someone put him in his place.”
“If it weren’t for me you’d still be in thrall to the Neprijat king,” Kaita hissed in his face. “You would still be perfectly willing to let him rape your lover. So, I suggest you do exactly as I say without complaint. You’ve passed out the earbuds to everyone?”
He swallowed against her hand but didn’t protest. Valdis nodded and she released him, feeling the adrenaline riding her hard. For days it pushed at her todosomething and this ass was trying her last bit of patience.
Finding Valdis had been easy enough. The genetic pings she’d sent out as the pirates attacked told her three royals in the Khara System were still alive. Only three.
Valdis and his lover had been visiting Khara Prime when the Neprijat came.
She’d sent the locations of the other two royals to the teams on their planet - Lithios.
So few left alive.
That there were only three left aside from her and Nash and the two they’d found in Hai…the sheer number of royals dead would haunt her for a long time. If she managed to win Khara she would be ruling over a wasteland.
It made her chest ache with the force of her fury, like she would burst through her mortal body and rip through the universe to wipe it clean and exact her vengeance. But she’d have to settle for the king.
“That will help us,” Kaita murmured as she shook out her hands to ease the urge to murder everyone. “They won’t expect them to fight back and ignore commands.”
So much could still go wrong.
“How many of us need to go in as slaves?” Mak asked.
Kaita looked at Roxy and Delphine, the captain suspiciously quiet since she’d arrived. “All of us. Is that going to be an issue Delphine?”
Those strange eyes snapped to hers and Roxy glared at Kaita. Having so many strong-willed females didn’t make things easier, but Kaita would rather have them onherside.
“Have you seen the slaves?” Delphine asked. “Have you seen the way they dress the females? How in all the hells are we going to make them believe we’re slaves with our weapons and armor?”
Kaita had kept this from them until the last minute, knowing how much they would all hate it. “We’re not.”
“Excuse me?” Roxy demanded, taking a step forward.
The females in Kaita’s own squad shifted as well. They’d all seen the slaves by now. But at least they didn’t outright question her.
“Valdis will be carrying our equipment. Once we get into the same room as the king…that’s when we get our stuff back.”
It was a massive risk, and mostly for the females.
“The males will have all theirs under rags. We should be fine.” But the females couldn’t hide their armor under rags because they were always paraded around in scraps of nothing to show off as much of their body as possible.
“I don’t like this,” Roxy said with a scowl. Did the female ever smile? “Too much can go wrong.”
“And if we don’t do this, then your queen and all her warriors will be slaughtered when they try to take Khara,” Kaita snapped.
She turned to her people and her gaze softened. They would do as she asked no matter what. It was their family out there, friends and lovers. They had hope they might find them yet, and Kaita knew that was what would drive them all.
Even if her family was dead, Kaita still had people she cared about. Friends that she prayed were somehow still alive. And a planet – a home that she needed to get back if only to spread her family’s ashes there to feed the trees, to provide life for others as was their way.
Fate had taken them all from her, and Kaita had the sense not to curse that goddess, but she wasn’t going to take it lying down. She would show Fate who exactly she was and what she could accomplish. She would take back her entire system and roar her victory at the stars.
No one and nothing would make her people suffer if she had anything to say about it.
“We have to do this,” she told her squad. “We will prove Fate wrong. We are not meant to fall. We are not meant to be slaves for evil creatures. Pretending to be slaves is probably the stupidest thing we’ve done, but it will also be the bravest.”
