Rhavos discovered the location of the vault shortly after docking with Waystation Helios.

As humans had once lived entirely underground, it was logical to assume these so-called Freedom Fighters were holed up in one of these derelict bases. They were not especially organized, beyond the fact that they evidently had a gifted programmer in their midst, and disorganized groups tended to cling to their instincts. Even non-sentient beasts staged attacks from familiar territory.

He'd sent scouts ahead to confirm the vault was in use while he'd spoken to the Karuvar who had encountered this group of rebel humans firsthand. Kor'ven was a chief engineer for the Karuvar, but he was not a male Rhavos trusted. Especially when Kor’ven told him to speak to his mate, a human woman named Adi'sun.

Rhavos had one of his men get a statement from her. Without anything else to pursue, her account of the Freedom Fighters' leader—or at least one of the more imposing among them—would have to do.

When the scouts reported, Rhavos gathered his men and took a small strike team to the vault. They'd traveled in large, lumbering vehicles that seemed more like glorified wagons than anything else, and Rhavos was treated to a firsthand view of the devastation that was the human world before Karuvar intervention.

They'd given so much to these humans and had received so little in return. If Drol’gan believed this so-called “Matchmaker” system was going to save their kind, he was delusional. If anything, it had weakened their ranks. So many viable males were now slaves to the whims of human females.

Rhavos would do this job quickly and efficiently, as promised. And then he would propose a more reasonable code of involvement with the humans to ensure such an uprising did not happen again. It was the best he could do if Drol'gan refused to simply leave the humans to their fate.

His team of ten highly trained Karuvar arrived in a reasonable amount of time. He set two of them to the task of prying open the vault door, while two more searched for alternative entrances, canisters at the ready. It was perhaps a crude hunting technique to smoke out one's prey, but humans were crude beings who would undoubtedly flee toward the breathable air if faced with a cloud of smoke.

The door gave his men little trouble, and they took the lead into the primitive chambers. Rhavos followed soon after, wanting a full view of what he would be facing, but the tight, human-sized corridors made it difficult.

"Surrender or you will be killed," Rhavos called.

A fair warning, and one his father had always given when he occupied the role of Conqueror. Many thought it was a position requiring a certain amount of bloodlust, but it was easier to allow the people you were conquering to cower beneath your foot than to kill them. Easier, and more honorable. More in line with the Karuvar goal of exploration, and better for Rhavos' own men.

There was no answer to his promise, though. His ears twitched and pivoted slightly, but he did not hear the telltale signs of someone scrambling to press deeper into hiding. Nor did he hear the muster of battle before a defense was mounted against them.

What he did hear was the vicious arc of electricity right as it shot into one of his men. He watched the bolts travel over the male's skin, drawn upward from the soles of his feet in an unnatural path toward his weapon, arcing out through his fingertips.

Rhavos rushed over to the male—as much as he could in so cramped a space—and motioned for the healer to join them. There were burn marks upon his scales and skin and he looked visibly shaken, but he waved off medical attention, and Rhavos merely gave a nod.

His men were strong, and they would not be felled by human traps.

"Search for the humans," he said. "Bring them to the surface, willing or otherwise. Subdue them as quickly as possible. I will look for this Dal'uzh."

The human who seemed to hold sway over the others, Dal'uzh was described as charismatic, duplicitous, and unpredictable. Traits that would not help him when he came face to face with Rhavos.

He jerked his chin, indicating for his second to accompany him. Alien species that lacked in strength tended to make up for it by being especially wily, and Rhavos had no wish to find a blade shoved in his spine.

So his most trusted warrior, Lovak, accompanied him as he scoured the vault, taking the path opposite of his men. If he was even a little smart, Dal'uzh was already gone. But there was a chance he'd sealed himself off as a captain might in a cockpit. Rhavos simply had to get inside the mind of his prey and think of where that safe haven might be.

He closed his eyes and allowed his senses to rule him, taking in the smells of this place, the feel of the metal under his skin. He imagined what it must be like to be a human and to feel the fear of facing an adversary far stronger than himself.

But as he imagined, something else caught his attention. Something that hummed through his consciousness, tingled at the base of his spine and radiated outward, all the way to his fingertips.

It was a sudden, visceral awareness, and Rhavos could only call it instinct. Something inside of him had resonated with this Dal'uzh, and he knew exactly where he would find his prey.

Rhavos descended into the belly of the vault, Lovak following him. No humans came to resist, and he could not hear any standoffs being waged on the other side of the vault. Perhaps Dal'uzh was arrogant enough to believe he could face them alone. Or perhaps he retained some sense of honor and wished to go along peacefully and answer for his crimes without his people being hurt.

Rhavos doubted that.

As he continued, the thrumming in his veins became more insistent. He could feel his heated blood pumping to every part of his body, could feel the vibration of his implant with every step he took. It was an odd sensation, and one he was not used to when pursuing quarry.

His instinct led him to where his men had gathered, and as he approached, he heard the higher register of a feminine voice. It brushed across his heightened senses like a soft caress, despite the fact that her tone held contempt.

The Karuvar standing guard parted to allow him through, and Rhavos heard more than saw his men detain the female. Whatever was inside of him roared loudly, the rush of blood too persistent to ignore as he stepped forward. It was so overwhelming that Rhavos thought perhaps the human Adi'sun had mistaken the gender of her captive.

"This is the only one we found," Vekt said, stepping aside as Rhavos neared.

He saw her then, crumpled in a heap on the metal floor. Something about her tiny, helpless form drew him in, though he still examined her from a distance. Hair dark as endless space fell over richly tanned skin. Her body—so different from a Karuvar—was slight in stature. She was soft, and the lines of her form curved in ways that made Rhavos' groin tighten with unabashed desire.

More than that, when he saw her, he felt an irrational rage building within him like a surging inferno. The moment his gaze happened upon the bruise forming at her temple, that rage erupted into a rush of violence that had him practically snarling at his men.

"What did you do to her?!"

His men backed up, eyes wide, ears flattened against their heads. "You said to subdue them as quickly as possible. We subdued her."

"You harmed her," he growled. "And if you touch her again, Stars mark my words, I will—"

"Conqueror!" his second urged, cutting Rhavos off in the middle of his warning.

He turned to face the male, instinctively reaching for his bladed spear, but Lovak did not budge. He simply stared back at Rhavos unflinchingly before turning his gaze to the human female.

Rhavos felt as if he'd stepped into an airlock after scouring the surface of a loud, unruly planet. For the first time since setting foot on this lower level, he was able to think.

His reaction to this female was unnatural. It went against all of his training, all of his common sense. Even now, he could still feel an intense pull toward her, and an unparalleled desire to protect her from his own men.

When they looked at her, rage boiled deep within him, and he wanted to challenge each of them in turn as his ancestors had once done. He wanted to defeat them in a match of pure strength and virility to prove he was a worthy mate.

Mate.

That word echoed through his mind, through his body, through his heart. His groin tightened again, his cock stiffening as he thought of claiming his sweet prize and making her his beyond a shadow of a doubt.

He drew back from her as if she were the most dangerous thing in the universe. And perhaps she was, because for some reason, Rhavos' desire to mate had been called to the surface, overruling his good sense. This female was a human. She could not be his mate. And that meant the humans must have employed some kind of trickery to make it seem like she was.

Rhavos was about to tell his men to bring her above ground when she stirred. Her groan distressed him, and that urge to punish the male who'd hurt her returned with force. He resisted, but was nearly undone when the human opened her light brown eyes and looked up at him.

He saw awareness there. Awareness of him. Her pupils dilated, her breaths came quicker, and he could see the color in her eyes darken with desire.

Raw hunger blazed through him, and he felt the sudden urge to run off every other male in this vault, lift the small human, and claim her against one of the walls. It was more than a carnal want, it felt like something he needed.

The female was the first to break the spell, jerking her head to the side to force her gaze from his.

"Whatever you're looking for," she said, her voice steady, "I don't have it. I'm not a part of this. I'm… I'm not even sure how I got here."

An odd sense of empathy settled within him. He wanted to believe her, despite the fact that he knew prisoners would say anything to regain their freedom.

Rhavos looked to the human, then to his men. Several of them were staring at him, eyes slightly narrowed. They would not say it aloud, but they wondered at his sudden outburst. They doubted his capabilities.

And that ultimately made the decision an easy one.

Rhavos reached down and hauled the female to her feet, slinging her over one shoulder as he moved toward the ladder. She yelled and squirmed and beat ineffectually against his back, and the entire time, he forced himself to ignore how much her scent spoke to him, and how good it felt to touch her even under these circumstances.

It was a trick, and once she was detained in Helios, Rhavos would put an end to it once and for all.