They walked all the way back to the place Ares called the sci-labs, navigating a complicated route through cold, intimidating corridors. She was starting to get a feel for the architectural style of the Drakhin. Distinctive arched ceilings, ornate geometric patterns, and a dramatic use of scale screamed power and majesty.

Design choices could reveal a lot about a species. Whatever they were or whatever they had been, Calexa decided she didn’t like these Drakhin.

Of course, Ares was the exception to the rule, but he wasn’t really a Drakhin, was he? He’d been infected by the ship’s consciousness, and then something had caused him to transform, and then…

She’d become his makivari.

The girls were really going to have a fit when they found out.

He still hadn’t really explained this whole makivari concept to her. Bloody cryptic Vradhu. There was too much to process; too much she didn’t understand about this terrifying new world. Calexa hoped to hell that Monroe had made good progress on his repairs, because the sooner they got away from here, the better.

Are you really in such a hurry to escape him?

Part of her didn’t want to leave Ares. The feeling was surprisingly powerful, and it came from a deep place she hadn’t even known existed. In spite of logic, she was starting to become attached to this wild, unpredictable creature. Maybe he’d put some sort of glamor on her, or maybe the mysterious language-implant they’d put in her brain had obliterated her good sense.

What if you can’t escape?

Calexa quickened her steps, almost breaking into a run as she struggled to keep up with Ares’s long strides. The Drakhin set a mean pace, but at least they walked. Thank the stars. She didn’t think she could stomach another wild ride through the walls and floors of the ship. The ‘fall’ from the sci-labs to the Drakhin command chamber had been disturbing enough. If not for Ares, who had engulfed her in a warm and protective embrace, she might have gone insane.

One thing was for sure, this wasn’t a conventional metal-and-bolts kind of ship. As they passed through endless corridors and chambers, where the ceilings soared into darkness and the walls and the floor were all the same shade of silvery-grey, Calexa was reminded of one of those infuriating illusion holograms. If one looked closely enough, they would eventually realize that up was down, straight was bent, and what seemed simple at first was actually mind-blowingly complicated.

Somehow, they returned to the sci-labs without ever taking a lift or climbing stairs or ascending any ramps.

They drifted through silent rooms like ghosts, passing a bewildering array of devices that emitted faint green light. Like the walls and ceilings, the machines were geometric and ornate, reminding her of the ancient historical palaces she’d once seen on an Earthian doco-projection.

Alien baroque. Her lips twisted into a wry smile as she covertly watched Ares. He glided through the surroundings like some sort of benevolent specter, looking completely at home. These spaces had been made for Drakhin, and Drakhin he was. It was Calexa who was the outsider here; the alien.

They reached the place where Ares had been paralyzed and transformed. The chamber was eerily still, revealing no trace of their fierce battle with the Naaga.

“What exactly happened here?” Something in the dynamic between them had shifted. Now she was comfortable enough to ask these sorts of things. “You were moving just fine, and then…”

“There was a poison of some sort. A paralysis gas. Typical Naaga, poison is their power. They must have synthesized it without my knowledge. If not for you, they would have killed me.”

The appreciative note in his voice made her toes curl. Huh. A certain large-and-winged alien was making her feel good. She was used to saving people for credits, not good vibes and warm fuzzies. “I just did what was necessary,” she said gruffly, trying to ignore the pleasant sensation working its way into her chest. “I’m just lucky that the poison didn’t seem to affect me. Must be a species thing.”

A low rumble of approval radiated from him, making her heart sing. It reminded her of the way one of those rare large Earthian hunting cats might purr after feasting on a kill. “Your instincts are good, Calexa.”

Sometimes.

“I learned to trust them a long time ago, Ares. Where I’m from, you don’t stay alive by waiting for someone else to come and rescue your ass.” That was why they were here and not dead, or worse, imprisoned on some Paxnath slave ship destined for the underground flesh markets. It was the reason she was free and not bound as the body-slave of a detestable Khral.

He turned to her, revealing a glittering, sharp-edged smile. “Good instincts are forged out of suffering and close flirtation with death, wouldn’t you agree?”

Something simmered between them. It was that comfortable, mutual understanding shared between two battle-hardened warriors, and yet it was something… more. “You’re a man after my own heart, Drakhin. I’ve found that once you accept that the very act of trying to stay alive might kill you, it becomes a whole lot easier to do the necessary.”

Embrace death to avoid it. That was the way of the Universe.

Ares’s laughter came as a shock. It was a booming, organic, metal-edged sound that bounced off the walls and fractured into a thousand echoes, surprising the hell out of her. Not in a million years had she expected that sound. His laughter deepened, turning into an infectious chuckle. Black wings unfurled, revealing his taut, muscular frame. Silver teeth gleamed. His eyes—normally sharp and narrowed—crinkled in amusement.

Suddenly, he was completely different. Warm. Friendly. Enticing.

Whoa. When had that happened?

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” she grumbled, trying to hide the heat rising in her cheeks. It felt as if the entire weight of her existence had been lifted from her shoulders, as if she’d been given the chance to feel innocent again.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, before all that shit with the generation-debt and the Khral had happened, she’d actually looked forward to the idea of finding someone like Ares.

“It’s just that you speak a truth that takes even the most skilled Hunters many orbits to learn. I try to explain it to them, but…” Still smiling, he shrugged. “How is it that a complete stranger, an alien from a planet I have never heard of, and a female at that, can know my truth better than the warriors I run with?”

Calexa didn’t know whether to be chuffed or offended. She chose the latter. The default. Life had turned her bitter, not sweet. “You’re right, I’m a girl. Is that a problem for you, Drak?” Come to think of it, all of the Vradhu she’d seen so far were male.

Ares must have read the threat in her face, because he held up his hands in an appeasing gesture. “Not a problem,” he said softly. “Not. At. All.” Luminous eyes slid up-and-down her figure. His tail flicked. Tap. Tap. “It’s just an unusual concept for a simple Hunter like me, who has never been outside the Shadowring before. In our culture, females never fight.”

“Oh?” Calexa’s voice dropped an octave, becoming low and dangerous as a terrible hollow sensation filled her. Surely he couldn’t be one of them—another fucked-up misogynist alien—not after what they’d just shared. Her fingers tightened around the hilts of her bone-swords. “What do you mean, they never fight?”

“Our females are respected. Revered. We would never allow them to join the Hunt.”

Ah. So it was about protection, not control. In this strange moment of closeness and shared minds, she’d forgotten that Ares was an alien from an entirely different culture. “So… do you respect me any less because of what I am? A female who fights?”

Ares spread his arms wide and curled his wings behind him, as if to try and diminish them. His beautiful smile turned into an expression of self-loathing. “Look at me, Calexa. Do you think I’m in any position to judge you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her heart rose in her chest and she swallowed it back down. If Vradhu Ares was striking, then Drakhin Ares was downright magnificent.

“I’ve become the very devil our people despise most. You, on the other hand, are a fine warrior, and my makivari. Not many can go toe-to-toe with me in a fight and survive. You’ve had my respect from the very start.”

Oh. Perhaps she could forgive him for knocking her out and abducting her. She was pretty sure she must be blushing by now, but she took comfort in the thought that he probably had no idea about human body language. A little flush in her cheeks wouldn’t mean anything to him, right?

You’re no devil, Ares. You’re a good sort.

Considering the circumstances, he’d been more decent toward her than any other alien she’d encountered in her life. Everyone else in the Fiveways seemed to want to capture and enslave humans. The general consensus was that standard-issue Sapiens were weak. Calexa had spent her entire life trying to disprove that theory.

“Let’s go,” Ares snapped, once again wrapping himself in a sheath of leathery black. Hiding in plain sight. “Now that you are fully recharged, we must move quickly. We do not want to be here when the Naaga breach my barriers, and my people will be getting restless. They can only restrain their curiosity for so long.”

Barrier? Recharged? What is he talking about? Is this to do with that vir thing? A dart of anxiety shot through her. “They better not have done anything to—”

“Maki isn’t a fool. He knows the humans are under my protection, and he knows I’m no longer bound by the laws of the Two Clans. They will not be harmed.” He walked.

Calexa remained at his side until they reached an imposing doorway. The tall metal doors were engraved with an ornate geometric design comprised of hundreds of intersecting hexagons, and they snapped open in response to Ares’s presence. Without missing a beat, he strode through the entrance… and froze.

Calexa had the presence of mind to stop just before she crashed into Ares’s broad back.

Whoa! A familiar metallic smell hit her in the face. Her stomach churned. She knew very well what lay beyond the threshold.

They bleed red, just like us…

A low, menacing hiss escaped Ares, making the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. There was something so primal and savage about him right now, as if the thin veneer of his self-control had finally snapped. Calexa had to remind herself that he wasn’t the enemy.

With a sharp intake of breath and growing sense of dread, she raised her swords and lifted her eyes.

Blood.

It was deep crimson, and it had a very distinct coppery scent. It decorated the floor in vicious swirls and sprays, coalescing to form a dark pool.

Beyond the pool lay two bodies.

Vradhu.

Calexa gasped.

She was accustomed to death in all its forms, but this was truly brutal. The dead Vradhu stared up at the ceiling with empty black eyes. From the waist up, their bodies were perfectly intact, to the point where they still clutched their weapons, but from the waist down, their legs had been torn to shreds, leaving mangled skin and flesh in a pool of blood.

Bile rose in her throat.

Whoever—or whatever—had done this to them had stripped the bones from their legs.

Nausea hit Calexa like a punch in the gut. She fought the urge to empty her stomach of all its contents.

She turned to Ares. He was pure, cold rage, a glittering statue carved from diamonds and ice. As if a large stone had been tossed into a still pond, the floor rippled outwards. Ripples became waves. Tremors turned into an earthquake.

Ares was at the epicenter, and Calexa stood on unstable ground. She fell to her knees as her world tilted. An ear-splitting metallic groan reverberated throughout the chamber.

Not again!

“Ares.”

He ignored her. The ilverium tempest tossed her across the room. She crashed into a hard surface, barely managing to hang onto her swords.

“Ares.”

Ignoring the pain shooting through her neck and back, Calexa scrambled to her feet. Ares moved into the adjacent chamber, ilverium surging at his feet as he walked past his fallen comrades.

The room tipped again.

“Ares!” This time, Calexa screamed.

He stopped. Turned. Blinked with a set of second eyelids that were clear like a reptile’s. Stared at her with cold, silver, alien eyes that could freeze over the lava pits of Endor. It was as if she’d pulled him out of a deep trance. “Sorry about the disturbance. I am very angry right now. I will try and control myself a little better. Follow me… and don’t look at them.” His voice was low and dangerous, and it sent a warning shiver Calexa’s spine. If he weren’t her ally, she would probably be pointing swords at him or running very fast in the other direction.

Any decent mercenary who had earned their tout-pass in the Fiveways would have split a long time ago, but Calexa couldn’t leave.

Not now.

Some insane part of her had become deeply invested in this tortured creature. She wanted him to escape. She was rooting for him.

Why?

He muddled her instincts like crazy, pushing her fight-or-flight response into overdrive. He was both stranger and friend. Protector and agitator. Predator and object of desire.

Monstrous and yet vulnerable.

Somehow, he reminded her of herself. She knew all too well what it was like to be hopelessly trapped; to have one’s fate dictated by forces beyond one’s control.

She also knew what it meant to take the threads of fate in one’s hands and twist them until they broke. Some people just refused to accept the status quo. Ares was one of those, and he was dragging her along for the ride.

Calexa tried to rein in her hammering pulse as they left the mutilated bodies and moved toward the inner chamber, heading for the light. A lurid green glow enveloped them, turning Ares into a dark silhouette.

Clink. Clink.

What was that sound? It was high-pitched and strangely melodic, as if someone were chiseling into a rock.

“Hurry. We don’t know when the Vradhu might come back.” A thin, lilting voice reached her ears. Naaga. It was obvious. The strange aliens all spoke in the same deceptively pleasant tone. “The longer he is in contact with the Hythra, the stronger he grows. I do not understand. The host usually grows weaker over time.”

“Jara did not calculate all the possibilities when she formulated the plan. She did not envisage that the Corrupted would become so difficult to contain, nor did she predict that the Vradhu would bond with the ship.”

“Could there be another variable, one we had not factored into the algorithm?”

“Obviously, something has been missed. Our masters left many secrets behind when they abandoned Khira.”

“I thought the Hythra was fully mapped and accounted for.”

Clink. Clink. The tapping went on, punctuating their strange conversation. The floor rolled under her feet, hinting at Ares’s barely restrained violence.

“We are a young race. We have not yet unlocked all the mysteries of the Universe. The purpose of the Hythra is mostly unknown, and her vast power remains untapped.”

“The Vradhu has managed to unlock more of it than we ever could have imagined. If only we could control him…”

Clink. Clink.

“Better just to eliminate him, along with this infernal body. Are you any closer to breaching the temundra?”

“This cast is thicker than it looks, and it is far from being ripe. It will take time. Go on ahead. Take the bone samples back to Jara. If he returns, only one of us needs to die. I will destroy this body, even if it costs me my life.”

“Very well.”

Ares snuck up on the two Naaga like darkness engulfing twilight. He moved so quietly that Calexa felt like she were watching a hologram with the volume turned down.

She would have given all of her Arena winnings to possess that kind of stealth. She would have sold her soul to be gifted with his silent, lethal grace.

Instead, her technigard boots gently scuffed the floor as she followed behind him.

As they turned the corner, she stifled a gasp.

A large translucent pod rose up before her like some kind of giant mutated alien flower bud. It was about twice her height, and it was the source of the intense green glow. The external shell of the pod was divided into several segments, each made of a material that reminded her of thickly frosted glass.

Temundra. That’s what the Naaga had called it.

There was something inside the pod; a dark shadow.

Unaware of their approach, two Naaga stood beside the strange device. One of them was tapping the shell of the pod with a thin metal rod. The other Naaga had a long metal cylinder strapped to his back. “The shell is unusually thick,” he said.

“His kind are bigger. Stronger. More robust. It makes sense that the cloning would warrant a thicker shell. A shame that we cannot salvage this body or harvest his cell lines. They are perfect. What a waste. This body would have been incredibly useful, even in its premature state.”

“We cannot risk creating another Vradhu bonded, even if this copy lacks conscious will.”

“Truth. You had better go.”

“Yes.” The Naaga turned… and met Ares.

Opalescent eyes widened.

At the Ares’s command, the floor rose up, and the Naaga found himself speared by a dozen angry tendrils of ilverium. Aside from a soft grunt of pain, there was no reaction.

Ares unfurled his tail like a whip and ripped the metal cylinder from the Naaga’s back. He rolled it toward Calexa. “Guard it with your life, makivari.”

“Got it.” Calexa put out her foot to stop the canister.

A pang of sympathy welled in her chest as she tried to put herself in his place. Calexa had lost friends before. D5 was a brutal place where the average human lifespan was only forty-five standard years. Enhancement therapy was so bloody expensive that very few people were able to access it—unless one went underground.

She knew what it was like to lose people. It made sense that Ares was barely holding himself together.

For a scarily powerful alien who could control a spaceship the size of a small city with his mind, that was a precarious place to be.

Clink. Clink. The other Naaga continued to tap the glowing bud-thing, completely ignoring the fact that his companion had been impaled on sorcerous tendrils of living metal. A deep crack had appeared in the glowing green shell, spanning its entire length. Clear, viscous liquid leaked through the fissure. The dark figure inside started to twitch.

“How did you get in here?” Ares hissed, his expression utterly fearsome. “How did you breach my barriers?”

Sinister vines of ilverium coiled around the Naaga’s limbs, drawing tendrils of emerald colored blood. The blue alien stared back at Ares, not saying a word.

He was almost… smirking.

What kind of madness was this?

Ares growled and wrapped his large hand around the creature’s neck. His silver eyes looked more reptilian than ever as they flicked back in the direction of the outer chamber, where the mutilated Vradhu bodies lay. “You did that?”

The Naaga stared back at him in insolent silence. Ares tightened his grip and the alien wheezed, his slender legs dangling in the air.

Clink. Clink. Still, the other Naaga kept chipping away at the giant pod, increasing the speed of his hits.

“Forget the temundra. Get the cells,” the dangling Naaga spluttered. “Run.”

His companion looked up and nodded. He stood and lurched toward Calexa. The crack in the temundra had widened. Thick, gel-like liquid started to pool on the floor, reflecting the eerie green light and the slender silhouette of the Naaga.

Calexa didn’t waste time. She danced forward, putting herself between the canister and the blue alien.

“Don’t you dare, pyshtana!” Ares roared, his voice deafening inside the small chamber. “Do not touch that container. You will not have them!” Ilverium surged out of the floor and engulfed the Naaga.

Instinctively reacting to the grief and anger in Ares’s voice, Calexa ran her blade straight through the Naaga’s chest, where she guessed the heart would be. But even though he was bound by Ares’s ilverium, the Naaga kept coming.

“What does it take to kill these bastards?” Calexa stabbed her second blade into the alien’s chest, this time aiming for the right side.

Emerald blood spurted from the Naaga’s mouth. Finally, the alien stopped and gave up his last breath. Calexa put her foot against his stomach and kicked the body away. The dead alien slid off her bone blades and slumped to the floor.

“They have two hearts,” Ares said softly. “You have to stab them twice. I could have handled it, but… thank you.”

“For guys who don’t have weapons, they’re surprisingly hard to kill.” Suddenly, she was breathless. “Why don’t they fight properly? What’s with this weird resistance?”

“Supposedly, it is a defect of temperament. When the Drakhin created them, they were designed to be submissive. They aren’t capable of violence in the way that you and I are, so they resort to more indirect means. Poison. Sabotage. Threats. Strength in numbers.” His features twisted into an expression of disgust. “They do not value life.” As he spoke, he crushed the windpipe of the Naaga with his bare hand. The alien’s pearlescent eyes went blank.

Calexa was no stranger to violence, but Ares’s sudden display of brutality shocked her. At the same time, she wanted to laugh hysterically at the irony it all. “And you do?” Horror must have shown on her face, because a look of anguish crossed Ares’s features.

“This is all wrong,” he said softly. “Many orbits ago, before the Dark One appeared and caused the divergence of our people, Khira was a paradise. We wanted for nothing and knew no evil. If the Naaga had left us alone, I would have let them be, but they have disturbed my people greatly.”

A violent shudder rocked the chamber, and the dead Naaga’s body was swallowed by a tide of moving metal, as if Ares were offering it up as a sacrifice to the ship.

A savage look crossed his face. His anger was truly scary, because she didn’t know what he would do; didn’t know what he was really capable of.

Dread welled in the pit of Calexa’s stomach. She glanced at Ares, then at the glowing green bud, which had almost lost all of its fluid. It was slowly starting to open, like a giant mutated flower. “And what is that? Should we kill it?”

“No!” Ares became a blur of motion. Suddenly, his hand was on her arm. “Wait. It is…” His fierce expression melted, exposing something unexpectedly raw and vulnerable. A sigh escaped his lips. “Just wait. You will see.”

He bent down and picked up the metal tube at Calexa’s feet. He was careful with it, almost reverent. His big silver hand went over the lid. Ares opened it, looked inside with a baleful expression, nodded, and closed it again.

Relief crossed his face.

“Ares, please tell me that whatever’s inside that tube isn’t dangerous.”

“There’s no threat in here. This contains the bones of my clan-brothers, nothing more.” A terrible sadness crept into his voice, and he squeezed her arm. The impermeable fabric of her thermosuit protected her from his vir-draining touch. It was such a simple action, but it sent a pleasant shiver through her. Little by little, she was starting to peel back his layers, like an onion.

Ares wasn’t the bad guy here. He was violent and conflicted and probably traumatized—just like Calexa—but he wasn’t an asshole.

Calexa did something she never thought she would have felt like doing, not in a million years.

She reached out for Ares’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said sharply, refusing her hand. He stepped back. “It… It is not wise to touch me when I am like this. I…” To her astonishment, his voice cracked. There was a desperate edge to it, as if he were trying very hard to contain something wild and terrifying.

“You don’t want to?”

“It isn’t that.” His denial was swift and absolute. “As I said before, this form I have taken is an abomination. Your vir swirls around you like the most potent and intoxicating drug, and I fear that if I tap into it, I won’t be able to stop.”

“Y-you…” Calexa shook her head, astonished and slightly afraid. Ares could sense the fucking life-force swirling around her, and he wanted to… eat her soul?

He wanted to touch her. She shuddered, in a good way. The thought was unexpectedly powerful.

“The truth is, I would very much like to take your… hand, but for now, this is enough.”

“Vir. New alien body. Scary temptation. Got it.” She nodded, clamping her mouth shut.

Sometimes, it was better not to say anything at all.

So instead of touching, they stood side-by-side, sharing a moment of unexpected affection as the bizarre and utterly alien pod-thing began to unfurl.

Somehow, on a floating death-trap in an unknown corner of the Universe, they’d found something in common, a way to transcend the chasm between them.

And now here she was, comforting a lethal, winged alien—a supernaturally transformed alien—as they watched the temundra give up its mysterious contents.

As the segments of the pod fell away, Ares inhaled sharply.

Calexa gasped.

The dark figure inside the bud was a very naked, very wet Vradhu. He fell to the floor, limp and unresponsive and slick with moisture, his striking purple skin glistening in the cold light. His chest rose and fell in a slow, mesmerizing rhythm.

At least he breathed! Thank the stars.

The Vradhu lay flat on his back with his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. Calexa couldn’t help but stare. Burning curiosity gave way to admiration.

In his pure, naked form, the Vradhu was beautiful. His deep violet skin was incredibly vivid, and it glistened with moisture. The contours and planes of his magnificent body were sculptural and perfect; he was clearly built for power and speed. Tendrils of long hair fanned around his head, creating an abstract black crown that accentuated the striking lines on the his face.

The black markings on his face were a shade lighter than Ares’s, and as they extended downward they spared his chest, appearing on the sides of his neck and the backs of his arms.

Interesting.

Her gaze roamed down his body. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to see what was…

Holy hell.

An impossibly broad chest. Pecs so chiseled they could have been carved from marble. A perfect six… no, was that an eight-pack of abs? Nature seemed to have thrown an extra set of muscles in there. She followed the contours of his defined abs as they tapered into a vee, leading down to his groin.

Having just been ejected from an oversized frosted-glass flower bud, he was completely naked. Of course he was. Curiosity almost burned her to a crisp as she stared at his… manhood.

For some reason, her messed-up brain chose that stupid old-fashioned Earthian word to refer to his cock.

Big was the second word that entered her head. To her surprise, his impressive cock wasn’t so different to a human one. Why was that so… unexpected?

Calexa mentally slapped herself. What had she been expecting? Exotic alien junk? The Khral had been bad enough. She shuddered.

Ares was staring at her, following the direction of her gaze.

“He is young,” he whispered. “His markings haven’t fully emerged, and he is not yet beaded.”

“Beaded?” Calexa blinked. Ares nodded in the direction of…

She made a silent O with her mouth. Beaded. That sounded… interesting. An almost-smile tugged at Ares’s lips. The hungry look had returned, turning his silver eyes molten.

“What do you make of him? Ugly brute, isn’t he?” There was something in Ares’s voice; a certain sense of expectation.

“Ugly? No way. As far as species go, I’ve seen a hell of a lot worse.”

“Do you find him… pleasing to look at?”

What the hell kind of question is that? He’s fucking magnificent! “He’s not bad,” she said, giving Ares the side-eye. What a strange question. Nervous heat crept into her cheeks, and she started to become restless. There was a naked Vradhu on the floor, damn-it! She mentally berated herself for getting distracted. “What’s wrong with him? Why is he unconscious?”

Ares was strangely calm. “There is no need for concern. That body lacks awareness. That’s all.”

That body… that face. Calexa took a closer look at the purple figure. His eyes were closed and his features were composed. Lying in that dark, reflective pool, he looked rather peaceful. He had the same high, noble forehead, sharply slanted eyes, and broad, sloping nose as the rest of the Vradhu. His lips were full and tempting. His chin was prominent, his jawline strong.

She did a double-take. He looked so familiar.

The markings on his face… They were a unique imprint; a distinctive tattoo.

No two Vradhu shared the same facial markings.

“He looks like you.” She shook her head. Someone pinch me. “Is he your twin?”

“No.” Ares inclined his head, staring intensely at the Vradhu. “He is not.”

She watched Ares carefully as his face reflected both shade and light, reminding her of clouds scudding through bright sunlight. Although he’d sprouted a pair of wings and grown a fine layer of scales, not much else had changed since he’d undergone the transformation from Vradhu to Drakhin. His hair was still jet-black and fashioned into a long braid. The sides of his scalp were still shorn, giving him a wild, savage appearance. His distinctive black markings had disappeared, but the underlying bone structure of his face was the same.

Yet the Vradhu who had fallen out of the grotesque flowerbud appeared younger. She knew nothing about the life expectancy of the Vradhu, but if Ares was a man in his prime, then the guy on the floor was the eighteen year-old version of him.

A tiny laugh escaped him as Ares shook his head, as if not quite believing what he saw. Calexa imagined the experience would be similar to looking in the mirror.

Exactly. The. Same.

The resemblance was uncanny.

Now Ares was frowning. “It is strange to see oneself born anew, untouched by the ravages of life. He is missing scars here,” he pointed to a spot just below his collarbone, “and here, amongst others.” He pressed the area beneath his right rib. “Other than that, the process seems to have worked.”

“Process?” Calexa’s voice was a cracked whisper. “What process?” Realization lurked in the back of her mind, on the verge of dawning. Deep down, she knew what the creature on the ground was, but she needed him to say it out loud.

“Do you not see the resemblance?” Now he was looking at her expectantly, as if her answer mattered greatly to him.

“Resemblance?” Of course I see the damn resemblance… “Oh.”

Oh.

The penny finally dropped. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. An oddly pleasant sensation crept over her body, like millions of velvet-footed ants crawling all over her at once. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

Ares’s expression told her all she needed to know. He raised one eyebrow ever-so slightly.

“H-how?”

“The Naaga do not reproduce sexually. They are a made race, and therefore all of their offspring are clones. I forced them to use their technology on me. We made a bargain. They were to clone me. In exchange, I was to give up this body, and control of the Hythra.”

“So you could escape the ship,” she said softly as shocked realization blossomed into perfect understanding. “That was your plan, wasn’t it?”

The irony drained from Ares’s harsh features, leaving despair in its wake. “Yes.”

“But that’s just a body, isn’t it? A copy? I mean, it’s impossible to…” She’d heard of consciousness transfer technology before. To the techno-elite, CTT was the holy grail. Everyone was trying to pull it off, because whoever got there first would become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

But on Earth, on D5, and all around the Fiveways, whole-body cloning technology was still in its infancy. Numerous groups claimed to have produced a perfect adult clone, but none had offered tangible proof.

So now she was supposed to believe that these waif-like blue aliens had perfected the technique using a giant frosted-glass flowerbud filled with gelatinous goop?

“There is a way,” Ares said, drinking her in with his gaze. “I’ve watched them do it. Timing is everything. When the time comes, you will know.”

Why did that sound so ominous? Calexa shook her head, trying to shake the strange feeling that he wanted more from her; that he was leaving something unsaid. “Do you have to be this damn cryptic all the time?”

“Do you trust me?”

Oddly enough, she did. She nodded, and it was as if a great weight slid off her shoulders.

“Then help me get this body of mine down to the hold.” He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Quickly.”

“You need help with that? I mean, I don’t have a problem carrying him… uh, you, but…” She looked him up-and-down, imbibing every inch of his honed body. Vradhu, Drakhin, host, whatever. It didn’t matter. He was utterly fearsome, and dare she admit it, hot.

“But?” He raised a silver-scaled eyebrow.

“You’re stronger than me,” Calexa said in a small voice, not quite believing her own words. Did she just say that out loud?

Ares dismissed her confession with an irritated wave of his hand. “Calexa, I need your help. Do not make me beg. My dead clan-brothers lie in the chamber beyond, and I need to return them to the Ardu-Sai.”

She bowed her head in a silent apology. Of course. How stupid of me. Ares would want to return the bodies of his people to Khira. It would be impossible for him to carry both the dead and… himself. She didn’t know anything about the burial customs of his people, but he seemed to be taking this extremely seriously.

All of a sudden, Ares was right in her face, so close she could see the tendrils of molten silver dancing in his eyes. He raised his free hand as if he were going to take her chin into his fingers.

Calexa tensed in anticipation.

He stopped just a hair’s breadth from her face, caressing her without touching her. Static prickled across her chin. It felt as if her energy was being drawn into him.

He closed his eyes and inhaled; a deep, shuddering, spine-tingling sound.

Why won’t you touch me?

For the first time in her life, she wanted a male to touch her.

Take my vir; I don’t care. I just want… I need…

Oh, Calexa had a tough and prickly shell, but when it came to things like need and desire, she was as bad as a fucking teenager on the cusp of puberty. No, she was worse; messed up. How was she ever supposed to communicate these conflicting thoughts?

“I never ask for help, Calexa.” Ares’s voice was a low rumble, and the way he said her name—rolling it off his tongue with that damn sexy Vradhu accent of his—made her insides turn to mush. “I never trust people I barely know with things that are precious to me, and yet somehow I am perfectly willing to let you carry my future.”

She glanced at the naked Vradhu on the floor and awkwardly cleared her throat as the heat rose in her cheeks. There was something so intimate about staring at naked Vradhu-Ares while Drakhin-Ares stood so close that she was surrounded by his heady rain-and-earth scent.

Was it possible to get high on a person… on an alien? Because that’s what was happening to her right now. One by one, the bricks in her hard fortress of memories were being stolen by a creature who was made of metal and flesh and dreams.

And maybe…

Maybe the rules of her old life didn’t apply here.

“I’ll get you down to the hold, Vradhu,” she said, finding a kernel of the grit that had gotten her out of the Arena and off the cesspit that was D5. “But you have to promise me that you’ll do everything in your power to make this consciousness transfer thing work, inkface, because I’m not leaving here without you.”

To her frustration, he didn’t give her a direct answer. Instead, a wistful smile softened his features. “You may fight like a demon, but you understand honor, human.” He pressed a closed fist against his chest. “I am glad you are the one I took.”

“You’re not starting to get all friendly on me now of all times, are you, Drak?” Amidst the blood and horror and strangeness, she latched onto that spark of affection, fully aware that it could explode into a full-blown inferno at any given moment.

Gods, if only he would just fucking touch her.

Like a moth to a flame, she reached out.

Once again, he stepped back. Ilverium rose up around him in the form of slender metal vines, and all of a sudden the liquid metal was coiling around her arms.

Metal on bare skin.

Smooth and sinuous. Warm. Sharp-edged.

She froze. “What are you doing?”

This reminded her of…

Restraints.

Calexa’s inner beast raged against the suggestion. Her natural reaction to being trapped was to go fucking ballistic; to lash out in any way, shape, or form.

She was crude like that.

But this was Ares.

Relax. He’s not going to hurt you, girl. He could have done that a thousand times over if he wanted to, but he holds back from even touching you.

She kept telling herself that, even as she yearned to break free.

Rivulets of molten metal slid down her hands, forming a fine meshwork of ilverium that stretched over her fingers and continued down the length of her curved bone swords.

“You can do anything with this stuff, can’t you?” She tried to control her frantic heartbeat; tried to keep the irrational fear out of her voice.

“If I could do anything, my makivari, we would no longer be stuck on this forsaken death-trap, and you wouldn’t have to lug my unconscious body-double around.” As silver vines curled around her twin blades, Ares exerted gentle pressure on her weapons. “Let go.”

“Why are you trying to disarm me?”

The ilverium was an extension of Ares’s hot, insistent will. Calexa sighed and relented, loosening her grip on the bloody things.

They were his, after all.

“Why would I want to do that?” His devious metal tendrils crisscrossed her torso.

The blades disappeared.

The metal vines across her chest tightened, coiling around her back. Calexa’s heart flew into her throat. Her mind went blank. Run! Runrunrunrun…

Just as she was about to explode into motion, the ilverium around her arms and hands unraveled.

She exhaled sharply, trying to disguise the fact that she was trembling. “What are you doing, Drak?”

“Reach over your shoulder.” His voice was as deliberate and assured as the rest of him. If she weren’t quietly going mad, she might even have thought there was something a little bit devious in his tone.

What would he do if he knew that he’d just dragged her to the edge of the abyss and back?

Bloody Vradhu.

She reached and found a familiar smooth, worn hilt. His hand had shaped this weapon.

She drew the sword, pulling it from where it hung in some sort of sheath. An overwhelming sense of relief flooded through her. “You made sheaths out of that? All that drama and suspense… why didn’t you just tell me what you were doing, Ares? I didn’t even know you could do this kind of thing. H-how…”

“Neither did I. You made me want to try. It requires concentration, but if I picture what I want in my mind and apply my will, it simply… materializes.” He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. “If you’re going to be carrying me, you’ll need to have your hands free and your weapons within easy reach.” A soft grunt of approval escaped him. “Suits you well. Sometimes, I impress even myself.”

“Modest, aren’t you?”

“Not at all. Why should I be?” Silver eyes roamed over her body, and even her thermosuit couldn’t dampen the warmth that rose in her belly and seeped down between her thighs.

Calexa looked down and studied Ares’s handiwork. The kit was simple, really. Two slender ilverium straps crisscrossed her chest, forming an ‘X’ between her breasts, where they stretched the fabric. He’d fashioned the damn thing in a way that made her breasts appear more prominent, the outline of her nipples faintly visible through the thermoskin.

Simple, really. Simple and impossible and deviously revealing. Had he done it that way on purpose?

“This will hold until we reach the lower chambers.” Ares waved his hand imperiously and finished off his creation. The ilverium remained connected to the floor by a tiny thread. “Remember, Calexa, you can trust me.”

How does he know? Is my fear that obvious?

Disquiet flitted across his face. “Whenever you are cornered, your killing aura flares like a beacon.”

“Killing aura? I didn’t even know I had one.”

“Oh, you certainly have one.” He nodded in approval as Calexa slid her blade back into its makeshift ilverium sheath, guided by instinct alone. “Those are yours now.”

“I can’t take these,” she whispered. The twin swords were the most perfectly balanced weapons she’d ever held. Calexa knew fine weaponry when she saw it, and these had been made by a master craftsman. What the hell was Ares trying to say?

“You will take them, because I insist. You have earned these krivera.” Ares stepped back, allowing no room for argument as he gestured toward his slumbering clone. “Now, do you care to assist?”

The outline of slick, sculpted muscle drew Calexa’s gaze. Her mouth went dry. Ares nodded in clone-Ares’s direction.

The weirdness was becoming a little too much, and as for her wayward body…

Well, Calexa was a grown woman, wasn’t she? Even if she’d forcefully repressed her urges for too long; even if she was a little bit fucked up inside, she still had needs, and this Ares was doing all kinds of strange things to her.

“I don’t suppose there’s a, uh, loincloth or something…?”

Ares raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “What difference would it make now? You have seen it all.”

Yes, she had indeed seen it all.