Ava leapt to her feet. There was no time for pain. Or regret. No time even for a throb of satisfaction over the widening of her enemy’s eyes as she caught him unaware. Instead, she simply dodged his hands and spun. Doing what she did best, fleeing.

“I don’t think so.” Powerful hands closed round her waist. “We have unfinished business, breeder.”

No! She wasn’t that person anymore.

He yanked backward.

She slammed into warm steel. So hard her teeth rattled in her skull. The scent of burnt ash, oak, and man enveloped her. Too close. Too big.

A calloused hand wrapped round her windpipe. “We don’t get too many Council citizens down here. They usually have the coin or ore to wipe away their indiscretions. But you make a nice exception.”

Her heart stuttered. He was a thousand times stronger. A criminal and a killer who reveled in destruction and pain while she’d been raised to cower and serve.

No! She was no little mouse, any more. “Your grudge is with Hollisworth, not me.”

The hand round her throat tightened. “My grudge is with all Council parasites.”

She’d always harbored a secret sympathy for non-Council demands for fairer access to food and water, but killers like this man were almost as bad as Hollisworth.

She rammed her elbow into his stomach. Pain radiated up her arm. The behemoth didn’t even grunt.

“I’d lose that sudden spine or you’ll regret it.” His rumbled threat was a warm whisper against her ear.

“Valdus, look out.” The warning came from the terrifying man with the scar snaking down his ribs. He was slugging it out with two prisoners, his ax whipping back and forth. “Three at your back.”

The firm grip around her waist disappeared.

“Stay there.” The beast pinned her with a hard look before giving her his back, moving so fast his fist was a blur as it connected with one attacker’s jaw. His facemask, now latched to his side, swung wildly as he moved.

She didn’t stick around to see what happened next.

Jumping back, she sprinted for the exit, hurtling over prone bodies, past grasping hands, ignoring the throb of her ankle, an injury still healing from the crash. Just in front, she could see other prisoners disappearing through the open transport hold. Pratt was nowhere to be found.

Her new plan was simple: find a place to hide.

Easy. Clear. Desperate.

Adrenaline surged as she crossed the threshold—only to skitter to an abrupt stop.

An anguished rush of breath singed her lungs, the air outside the transport hold as hot as a laser strike. But what she saw was even more searing.

She’d run headlong into an ambush.

“Fresh meat! Fresh meat!”

Knees weak, her gaze jerked wildly from one horrifying mini-scene to the next, her mind barely able to process what it was seeing.

Just ahead, illuminated by flickering greenish lights, shrieking creatures caked in red dust grabbed the fleeing prisoners, knocking them to the ground with fists or crimson-soaked shovels and pickaxes.

Beyond that, bodies littered the narrow cavern of unending blood-colored rock while other attackers crowded around the dazed, downed men, forcing them onto their hands and knees, lining up behind their spread legs.

Pained grunts, pleas for mercy, rang through the air.

She gagged, her body folding in on itself.

She’d thought she’d understood what hell was. This was worse.

“It’s an actual female. Get her.”

Her head snapped up, the gleam of metal catching her attention. It was a shovel. Headed straight for her temple.

“No!” A speeding boulder plowed into her. The beast. She plummeted with him, air from the whoosh of the shovel brushing her cheek, the ground coming up fast.

She threw her palms outward, bracing for a painful hit. Only to have the world tilt as her body twisted in midair. She landed with a grunt on top of unforgiving warm steel.

He’d taken the brunt of the fall.

Her gaze clashed with ice blue eyes so close she could see the splashes of silver within. But unlike the soft, malleable material she’d worked with in the lab, these flecks were hard and cold as ice. “When I tell you to stay, you stay.”

Her lip curled upward, her refusal on the tip of her tongue.

She never got to utter it.

Instead, he tossed her to the side as if she weighed nothing and leapt to his feet, snarling at the men closing in. “Touch her and you die. She belongs to me.”

His ax flashed, a menacing arc of metal.

It would have been heroic as hell—if she didn’t know he fought only to dole out the pain himself.

She wasn’t surprised to see the other attackers scamper back, their palms coming up in a gesture of submission, their gazes flickering to the ground.

Apparently, even in their bloodlust daze, they still recognized a bigger threat.

So did she.

Shoving off the ground, she darted round his big body, her gaze locked on the bend. There had to be a nook there. Some kind of small crevice where she could hide.

She wasn’t nearly fast enough.

“There’s no escape from me.” A hand clamped round her waist and then she was twisting in midair, a grunt escaping as her stomach connected with unforgiving muscle.

The beast had tossed her over his shoulder.

A shrill whistle rent the air. Followed by two shorter blasts. Some kind of signal.

He was on the move.

She scrambled to find purchase as they dashed down the tunnel, digging her hands into the slick ridges of his back, and caught a glimpse of the rabid animals who’d attacked her already launching themselves at someone new.

She could only pray it wasn’t Pratt.

Her stomach heaved. Just as her hand scraped the rough edge of a weapon.

In her fright, she’d forgotten. Her captor had a veritable arsenal strapped to his back.

Panting hard, she seized hold of a nearby handle and tugged. The damn thing wouldn’t give. Her effort only earning her splinters.

Until a sharp sting at her backside had her sucking down a silent gasp.

“Be glad it won’t come out,” he growled. “Your kind only gets one chance to stab me in the back. Try it now and you won’t like the consequences.”

His threat shimmered between them.

But it wasn’t the first she’d heard.

She curled her hands into a single fist and aimed for a kidney—only her hands stalled in midair. A strange metallic humming noise sent her gaze shooting upward.

Hovering only a few paces behind was a silver elliptical machine, the size of those antique dinner plates from old Earth. Red and green lights flashed furiously from its underside.

The drone looked decidedly unfriendly. And oddly modern in these surroundings. Its sleek, streamlined design a shocking contrast to the crumbling, crude state of everything else down here.

Her skin prickled with dread.

In the next heartbeat, a shrill beep sounded and a green light shot from its underside, slicing the shoulder of an attacker near the transport hold.

She gasped. The man screamed, his palm slapping over the wound as he collapsed to the ground and went still. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Shrieking, those around him scattered.

“Is it protecting us?” Her voice shook as her head bobbed up and down.

The beast’s grip around her legs tightened. “Nothing can protect you from me.”

She fought another wave of panic. Shoved aside a tangle of hair. “What does it do?”

“Never been on the receiving end of your kind’s little tools?” He sprinted faster.

She had, but her husband had preferred those with a more personal touch.

She fought a shudder.

“Electronic guard,” he said at last. “If you’re hoping for rescue, it won’t come from there.” He dodged another mass of writhing men and kept running, his breathing not even labored. “It’s linked to the tracker and programmed to deter frenzies by shooting anything in the vicinity with an elevated heart rate and rising heat level. It won’t kill, but it will leave a nasty scar.”

Elevated heart rate? Hers had to be off the charts.

“It’s…it’s coming toward us.” She twisted in his grasp. Change of plans—she’d run from both the electronic guard and this man. “I’m weighing you down. Let me go.”

“Never.” His hold tightened to the point of pain.

The shrill beep sounded. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sudden, involuntary whipping of her head—first left, then right—stole her breath.

Heat scorched her skin as the laser struck. Packed clay and rock exploded. An arm’s length from where she’d been. Tiny fragments scraped her cheek and arm, but her body was still in one piece. Moving quicker than she’d thought possible, her captor had dodged the laser.

But the electronic fiend was already gearing up to try again, the lights beneath its underbelly flashing bright.

“It’s coming back. Let me down. No way will you get that lucky twice.”

“Not luck. Practice.”

“Put. Me. Down.” Out of options, she infused her voice with as much haughty command as she could. Over the last few weeks traveling with Bella and the other scientists, she’d almost gotten used to people treating her with respect.

Another stinging swat landed against her ass. “You don’t give the orders down here, breeder. I do.”

“Don’t touch—” Her world tilted as he ducked through a small fissure. Soft web-like tentacles brushed her cheek. She swiped them aside, raised her fist once again. “If you think I’ll go down quietly, you’re mad.”

“I passed mad ages ago.” Before she could take a swing, he set her none too gently on her feet. Then, he shoved her backward. Her spine struck rock wall.

A quick glance revealed he’d shoved her into a hollow crevice no bigger than a coffin. Way too small for her and the massive beast prowling toward her, his wide shoulders blocking the only way out.

So, this was it. This was where she met her end.

And it might not be at her husband’s hand as he’d vowed, but it would be his doing all the same.