Chapter Three

The world around them seemed somehow even quieter and more still as Ivy and Maxim walked through the abandoned prison compound. This made it feel like the air was closing in on them, so thick she could almost feel the weight of it pressing down on her as they walked.

“Where did they go?” she whispered to Maxim.

He walked along beside her, his eyes scanning either side of them in a continuous motion.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They were so close to the shuttle. I could see them. I don’t understand where they could have gone.”

The words weren’t reassuring and Ivy’s hand instinctively went to her belly. She left it there only for a moment and then let it fall away, forcing it to stay by her side so that Maxim wouldn’t see the gesture. She glanced over at him. He wasn’t looking at her and she felt a sense of relief.

“How many of them do you think there are?” she asked.

“There’s no telling,” Maxim said. “Ryan never said how many of them he bred or how many he sent here to fight us.”

“It’s part of his control,” Ivy said. “He doesn’t want us to know what kind of threat we are facing, because if we did we would be able to plan better. This way he keeps us completely off-balance. We never know how many there are, where they could be, or what they could be doing. No matter how much we fight, we’ll never know if there could be another army right there when we turn the next corner.”

The bitterness in her voice was obvious, but Ivy did nothing to try to conceal it. There was a time in the not so distant past when she would have never been able to fathom fighting against anyone, much less someone who once worked in the same laboratory as George. Even when she was first on Uoria she could think of nothing but getting back to Earth and putting everything that she was experiencing on the planet behind her. Now, though, she thought of Uoria as her home. She hadn’t turned her back on Earth. In fact, fighting the hybrids and Ryan was a way to protect her planet from the horrors she could only imagine Ryan planned. When it came to the future, however, she could only think of being with Maxim, and that meant staying on Uoria.

“It doesn’t matter how many there are,” Maxim said. “As long as they are here, we will fight, and if Ryan sends more, we will just keep on fighting. My father knew, Ivy. He knew something was happening. He didn’t walk out on that battlefield and die. He was taken and he’s still alive. I’ve waited all my life to know what happened to him and why he just went away when Kyven and I were younger. I knew that he wouldn’t leave us or our mother, but it didn’t make sense that they never brought his body back. Now I know why.”

“I don’t understand,” Ivy said.

“They didn’t just take him,” Maxim said. “The Order gave him to Ryan. They offered him up as a sacrifice to protect themselves. I don’t care what I have to face, I am not going to stop. I will die before I let them succeed.”

The words sent a shiver down Ivy’s spine. The thought of losing the man she loved was already terrifying, but now she couldn’t even imagine living a day without Maxim. She knew that he was strong, brave, and determined in a way that she had never experienced in anyone else. When he said that he would die before he allowed Ryan and the hybrid army to destroy them, she knew that he was absolutely steadfast and serious. He would gladly lay down his life to protect his kind and those to whom he had dedicated his loyalty, and to ensure that those responsible for hurting his family and taking his father from them would never achieve their cruel ambitions.

She was proud of Maxim for the drive that he showed and the way that he was able to boldly and unwaveringly face the dangers that threatened them, the thought of anything happening to him was more frightening than anything she had ever heard. Suddenly Ivy wasn’t just thinking about what it would be like to lose Maxim and have to go through the rest of her life without him. Now as they walked through the compound, it was not just herself that she was thinking about. Instead she thought of the baby growing within her and the sickening feeling she got in her chest every time she thought of raising it without its father.

Ivy had suspected that she was pregnant for a few weeks, but hadn’t allowed herself to really think about it. With everything that was happening around them, the thought was just too much for her to process. Now she couldn’t deny it any longer. Her hand drifted briefly to her belly again. She knew that it was still tiny, but she felt like the just-beginning swell was visible to anyone who looked at her. Ivy hadn’t told anyone else, especially Maxim. As excited as she was that she was carrying Maxim’s baby, she also feared what might happen when the others found out.

The war that they were facing was something that none of them was truly prepared for. They didn’t know what waited for them or how long Ryan had been putting these plans into place, ensuring that they were intricate enough to keep the Uoria group constantly guessing. It would be enough to have to think about herself, what she could do to help, and how she could protect her own safety. The thought of needing to protect the new life within her was overwhelming. She wanted to do everything that she could to help Maxim and ensure that they were victorious, but the baby had to be her most important priority. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before she would have to tell Maxim. She worried about how he was going to react.

A sudden sound in the stillness of the abandoned prison compound broke Ivy from her thoughts. Maxim reached a hand out to stop her, lifting a finger to his lips to tell her to stay quiet. Ivy nodded. Her hand tingled as it moved back and forth between her belly and the weapon that Maxim had given her before they left the shuttle. They heard the sound again and both crouched slightly, preparing themselves for whatever action they were going to need to take. It was low and grating, like something dragging along the sand. Ivy focused in on it, trying to identify the origin of the sound. Maxim turned in the same direction she did as they both seemed to focus in on a small building several yards away.

They met eyes and Ivy gave a small nod. Maxim shifted the bag on his shoulder and drew the sword from his sheath. Ivy remembered his reaction when he realized that his father’s sword was not found on the battlefield after his apparent death. It simply didn’t make any sense. While the creatures that they were fighting were powerful, he knew that they didn’t have the capability of making Aegeus and his weapon vaporize without a single trace. That weapon was the most important possession that Aegeus had and was with him every time that he went into battle. It was when he realized that Athan had not found any part of that treasured weapon when he watched Aegeus disappear on the battlefield and went to find him that Ivy had seen the first real glimmer of doubt in Maxim’s eyes. Though he hadn’t said it, he had begun to wonder if what he had been told about his father since he was a child was really true.

Maxim held his sword tightly, lifting it to his side so that he could manipulate it in any way that was necessary when they found the source of the sound. They walked toward the building, listening for the sound again. They heard it as they got to the side of the building and pressed their backs to it. Ivy closed her eyes tightly for a moment, seeking the strength that she needed. She could hear Maxim breathing beside her and a sense of peaceful calm washed over her. Ivy opened her eyes, feeling steady and prepared. Maxim turned toward the door and reached behind him, touching his fingertips to her thigh as if to communicate to her what he was thinking. Not for the first time, she wished that they could communicate in the way that the Denynso could with their mates. Even without the ability to speak to each other through their minds, though, it was as though she could feel his energy flowing through his fingertips into her and she knew exactly what he intended. Maxim slowly lowered his bag to the sand at his feet, moving carefully as to not make any noise that might alert whatever was waiting inside for them. Ivy followed suit, placing her satchel on the ground beside Maxim’s.

A moment later Maxim surged forward. Ivy followed close behind him, her eyes focused over his shoulder so that she could see what was ahead of him at the same moment that he did. The wooden door at the front of the building hung from time-weakened hinges and Maxim planted his foot in the middle of it. The wood splintered beneath his kick and what remained of the door swung out of place. Immediately a towering dark figure burst out of the building toward them.

The creature only got a few steps before Maxim swung his sword around and thrust it forward so that it plunged into the figure’s belly. Letting out a scream that seemed to tear through Ivy’s head and ricochet off of the walls around them, the creature arched and stumbled backwards until Maxim’s sword pulled out of its body. As soon as the blade fell loose, the figure surged forward again. Maxim forced his sword into its belly again and Ivy rushed around him, bringing her own blade down into the creature’s throat. It let out another of the blood-curdling screams and crumbled to the ground. It thrashed, trying to force Maxim off of him as he knelt with his knee in the center of the creature’s chest.

Ivy withdrew the blade and evaluated the creature, trying to identify any features that would tell her what type of hybrid this was, but the two men were grappling with such intensity that she wasn’t able to discern anything that told her what it was, and therefore what type of capabilities it might have. It was her greatest fear materializing in front of her. They were up against just one of the army of hybrids that was waiting for them on the planet, and they weren’t able to determine the true risk that they were facing. If only she was able to determine which of the species had gone in to creating this hybrid, she would know their capabilities and how they should be fighting.

Suddenly she thought of the men who she had met during her time on Uoria. When she first encountered the Denynso she was stunned by how similar they were to the human men on Earth. They were much larger and their white hair and shifting eyes set them apart, but they were incredibly close to human. When she discovered that two of the men, Ty and Ero, had descended from pairings between Denynso and other species, she had been amazed that no one recognized their differences. Ty had the blood of the Valdicians, the very creatures who had established this brutal prison compound, and yet the only thing that any of the clan knew was different about him was his mysterious ability to control things with his mind. Ero, the youngest and smallest of the warriors, was unbelievably fast and agile, a gift from the Mikana ancestor from many generations before, yet none had ever considered he was anything but Denynso. She realized then that it didn’t matter what they looked like. It might be impossible for them to determine what went in to creating them. They would have to fight with everything in them, not evaluating them or relying on their differentiations to guide them.

The creature gasped and fell still. Maxim lifted her eyes to Ivy, the emotion in them telling her that it had begun.