“That’s the place, Sir.” Vaka brought up aerial vision of the compound where they’d taken Mari—his Mari. “How do you want to proceed?”

Anger snapped and licked at the corners of Iskar’s mind like a raging fire. He glanced at the human, K, who was slumped on the floor with his arms and legs bound. Both of his hands were covered in haem-patch, to stop the bleeding.

Beside the human was another culprit, the so-called Middleman.

The Middleman was a fat, aging human with a large bulbous nose and perpetually red cheeks. Everything about him seemed strained—the false hair on his head, the slightly too-tight suit, the long shiny shoes. Sensing Iskar’s scrutiny, he looked up, met his gaze, and quickly looked away.

“I d-don’t know who’s bought her. Ya gotta ask the Middleman. He’s responsible for all the wheelin’ and dealin’ of bodies in this town.” That’s what K had eventually told him, amidst screams of pain. It had only taken three severed digits—shiny rings and all—for the human to spill, surprising Iskar. Of course, he’d done all this on the ground, out of the human boy’s sight. In his experience, the guilty ones usually held out for longer, but then again, he’d never really interrogated a human before.

They’d taken the now-terrified K up into the glider, where he’d communicated with his men, ordering them to detain the Middleman. He understood perfectly well that if Iskar’s target escaped, he was dead.

And so they’d cut a swathe through Darkside looking for this middleman. At one point, a fleet of Enforcer vehicles had appeared on their tail, attempting to give chase.

With the glider’s impressive speed, it hadn’t been hard to lose them.

The Middleman had proven even easier to crack than the Collector. Apparently, confidentiality went out the window when one’s life was at stake.

“I know where he’s taken her. I’ll tell you everything. J-just don’t kill me, please!”

That was how they had arrived at this destination. They were currently hovering above a large residential compound surrounded by lush gardens and high walls, planning their assault.

She is inside! The thrill of anticipation coursed through him, mixing with his anger. Iskar’s headache had returned with a vengeance, and his inner tension was mounting. The simple soldier in him wanted to shoot something. The commander in him wanted to summon his troops and round up every single person who had been complicit in her suffering.

The man in him was afraid.

Afraid of what condition he might find her in.

Afraid of what he might do if they had harmed the very female he was going to claim as his mate.

Goddess, what insanity! Was this what the General and the other mated First Division warriors constantly had to deal with? This vicious, seething, all-consuming torrent of anger and fear and possessiveness that stripped him of all rationality?

Now he understood why they said the Mating Fever was dangerous. It wasn’t dangerous to him—it made him dangerous.

Iskar nodded toward the two humans on the floor. “Vaka, put these two in the lower hold. I will decide what to do with them later.” When he retrieved Mari, he didn’t want her to have to see these pathetic creatures. “We will approach through the roof. They won’t be expecting us. We go in and retrieve her before have a chance to figure out what hit them.”

He signaled to Tyrak. Follow me. Like Iskar, the soldier wore full assault armor.

From his seat near the navigation pod, the boy, Arturo, was staring at them with a mixture of awe and hope.

Iskar gave the kid a reassuring half-salute as he turned and headed toward the rear ejection-pod.

I will retrieve your sister, boy. You may not be aware of this, but she is mine.

The plan was simple: get in, search the house, find the female, and get out. Shoot anything that gets in the way. As for the human who was responsible for this mess, he was Iskar’s, to deal with as he saw fit.

This was starting to feel a little too much like the bad old Imperial days, when they ruled planets with total impunity.

“Commander Gar-Kurai.” As if reading his thoughts, the General’s deep voice rumbled through Iskar’s comm. “I have received reports of a rogue Kordolian craft speeding above Darkside. What the fuck are you doing, Iskar?”

Iskar hesitated, searching for the right answer in his mind. One of the most difficult things about dealing with the General was that he was notoriously difficult to read, and one never quite knew how he was going to react.

“I am dealing with a personal matter,” he said finally, knowing it was in his best interests to be honest. The General always discovered the truth in the end. “There is a female I intend to claim as my mate.” I cannot rest, cannot think clearly, cannot function until I have her. “I am sorry, Sir. I should have informed you, but Humans have taken her against her will. I cannot—”

“You should have informed me, Commander, but I will deal with your breach of protocol later. Right now, you do not have to explain any further. Believe me, I understand what you are going through. Do what is necessary. The act of claiming a mate supersedes anything else.”

Akkadian’s blessing was given in a quiet, fierce manner that only served to reinforce Iskar’s loyalty to the man. At the very least, he’d expected a harsher reprimand, but there was only support.

I have your back. That’s what Akkadian was saying, and Iskar could not have asked for a more powerful ally.

“It will be a quick infiltration,” he said. “I expect minimal collateral.”

“Get it done, Commander. We will deal with the humans later.”

“Sir!” Iskar performed the fist-on-chest salute as they moved from the central cabin to the rear ejection hatch. With a quick command to Vaka, the hatch opened, and Iskar and Tyrak were suddenly in highly controlled freefall, dropping to the roof of the facility below.

They landed on the metal roof with a thud, their armor-boots creating small indents in the flat grey surface.

“Where’s our entry point?” Tyrak asked, speaking through the comm.

“We blast through the roof,” Iskar said. “You start at that end. I’ll enter through here.”

After all, he didn’t know of any human-made structure that could withstand a concentrated burst of plasma-fire.