“Ava!” Two bodies outside the circle dropped to the ground.

Both she and Ryker swiveled toward the roar.

Her heart stuttered and then started back up again.

Valdus had arrived.

Another clump of attackers crumpled to the ground.

Ryker let go of her arm and started swinging his ax harder.

“Ava.” Eyes half crazed and slitted with raw rage, her protector reached her.

His body was covered in more blood and bruises than she’d seen before. His face a mask of fury and brutality.

She’d never seen anything more beautiful in her life.

For a heartbeat, their gazes fused, relief and something softer flaring in his dark depths.

Then, he threw back his head and roared. “Tighten the circle.” He shoved his ax aloft. “For Carvter.”

A roar went up among his men, the sudden surge of energy so visceral it danced across her skin.

Swinging his pickax from side to side, her ex-captor swept the advancing attackers aside as if they were blades of grass, the veins in his neck bulging as if they might explode.

His teammates followed his example.

Soon, several fallen bodies littered the path around them.

But one man couldn’t do it all.

Her ax sailed forward. “Look out!”

The weapon buried itself in an attacker’s forehead. His body fell steps from Valdus, landing on top of the others with a sickening thud.

Her gaze locked with her ex-captor’s shocked stare.

“We need to get out of here.” Ryker’s strained shout drew their attention.

Valdus’s gaze flickered to Griffin. Eyes closed, the wounded man was still on the ground, his breathing shallow, pain etched in tight, pale lines across his face while the ore lay scattered around him. “He won’t make it.”

“So, we leave him.”

She sucked down a gasp.

The veins on Valdus’s neck popped. “We’re not leaving him.”

“Damn it. We all knew the risk going down this path, dangling her as bait,” shouted his second. “You can’t save everyone.”

“Watch me.” Valdus swung again, sending the surging tide of attackers scuttling back once more.

“There’s more coming. Too many.” Sweat dripped down his nose as Ryker stuck his boot forward, sending an attacker flying back. “Without her, the whole plan falls apart. Griffin knows what’s at stake. He understands he’s expendable.”

Valdus snarled. “No one is fucking expendable.”

“Then we follow her plan. We leave her to Draeke. Get Griffin and the ore out.” His second shuffled back as Valdus swiveled in his direction. “Come back for her when the numbers are more in our favor.”

“He’s right,” she agreed. “It’s the—”

“No.” Valdus’s grip around his weapon was knuckle white. “Not happening. We’re so close. I’m not giving up now. I’m not letting anyone else die. Dragath25 has taken too much from us already. We leave together or we don’t leave at all.”

His strength awed her. His determination bolstered her own. His refusal to give her up cauterizing wounds that had bled for far too long.

Her husband was trying to call their bluff. They’d call his own.

Curling her hands into fists, she prepared to go down fighting.

“Together!” she shouted.

The mob closed in.

“Enough!” Her husband’s shout echoed from one of his droids, the rest humming as loud as a shuttle engine as lasers erupted at five times the speed they had before and wild-eyed attackers in the crowd began to flicker orange and drop to their knees. “Draeke, you and your men stand down. Now!”

Her husband was giving up first.

They’d played another bout of the old Earth game “chicken” with a madman and won.

“This unsanctioned attack is over!” He screeched from above. “The offer of a pardon revoked.”

“No,” Draeke’s enraged roar echoed through the mine shaft. “You promised a pardon. I can get her.”

But the advancing mob, their frenzy dampened, had slowed to a trickle. The few who continued to advance and were missed by Hollisworth’s droids, easily plowed down by Valdus and his men.

“You fool, I promised you a pardon if she was alive,” snarled Hollisworth from above. “Your idiotic plan will see her destroyed before I even get my hands on her.”

“No! I—” A laser burst shot from one of the droids, the scent of burnt flesh filling the air as Draeke stumbled backward with an agonized roar. His massive hands clutched to his chest as he dropped to the ground.

She swallowed a gasp. Hollisworth had killed his own lackey.

Draeke’s followers and the rest of the mob shrieked in fear, skittering backward as they clung to the walls. The attack was at an end.

“This may seem like a victory, breeder.” Hollisworth’s voice echoed through his droid once more. “But I assure you it’s not. Because the more I think on this, the better I like your new protector and his men remaining alive as well.” He paused. “That way I can kill them slowly. In front of you. One agonizing cut for every metral you delayed their death with your foolish attempts at resistance. And you’ll watch every moment they beg and plead and writhe in agony, knowing they suffer because you refused to let them die a quick, easy death when I gave you the chance.”

Her stomach pitched.

“Ava, ignore him.” Valdus’s hand wrapped around hers, seizing her attention. “We need to get out of here now.”

While Hollisworth was hurling his threats, Ryker had thrown Griffin over his shoulder.

Her gaze shifted to the ground. “But the ore?”

“Do you hear me, bride?” Hollisworth was still ranting above.

“My men grabbed what they could.” Valdus dragged her forward. “We’ll come back for the rest.”

“No! We need it all. I can’t make the serum unless I have it all.” She dug in her heels. They were so close. She was so close. “If we leave what we mined now, it will be gone in a heartbeat.”

“Then we’ll figure out something else. It’s not worth dying for.”

Wasn’t it?

“We have to go,” he insisted. “Now. The other inmates won’t stay cowed forever. Nor do we know what Hollisworth has up his sleeve next. We have to take advantage of this lull and run. With what we have. We don’t have time to collect what we’ve lost and a full sled of ore would only slow us down anyway. There’s no other choice.”

Before she could argue, she was swept up into solid arms that clutched her tight. The scattered ore growing more and more distant as he sprinted toward the closest exit, everything they’d worked so hard to get, everything that offered freedom, disappearing from view, right alongside the body of a teammate who’d sacrificed everything so his friends could escape.

She didn’t think her despair could be worse.

Until, right before they reached the exit, Hollisworth’s futile screams echoing through the corridor, and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Draeke’s arm twitch.