A deep cut wounds me deeply. I’m stabbed in my very soul, the sharp point of the blade puncturing me.

I stumble back, gasping for breath.

“What happened?!” Kariza asks.

I try to recall the images, to make sense of what I just saw. I could see through Luan’s eyes, but I am a guest there. It’s like looking through a fogged up window. You see shapes, but it’s hard to form the whole picture.

I do know one thing though, with every fiber of my being: My mate needs my help.

“Caia!” I say. “She’s in danger!”

I rush out the door, not even bothering to explain myself to Kariza. There’s simply no time. I race through the corridors and up the stairs as fast as I can, my heart beating in my throat, every muscle in my body begging for a gasp of air as I lose count of the amount of steps I’m racing up, my body pleading with me for a moment’s respite, but I ignore it all and push through.

My mate, my love is in danger, my spirit animal wounded. Everything I’ve ever done in my life boils down to this moment.

I reach the upper levels of the ship — the one guarded by battle bots. I rush past them before they even have a chance to respond, pushing them out of my way. In the distance I hear the guns mounted on the ceilings whirring up, getting ready to turn me into Marbitian cheese.

I rush to where Caia is, where I feel that she is. With a heavy kick I break down the door, and that’s when I see him.

The slick bastard has his back turned towards me. His dark suit is now torn to shreds and colored crimson. His knife is raised up high, and it glitters with thick red droplets of fresh blood.

Am I too late?

“YOU BASTARD,” I scream as I rush towards him. He turns to me with a disturbing glint in his black eyes.

I tackle him, slamming him down into the round table as hard as I can. The table collapses under our combined weight, burying Wellington. I quickly scamper back up and turn to Caia, who is lying on a pool of what I fear is her own blood.

Am I too late?!

I rush to her side and grab her blood-soaked arm. It’s covered with cuts and bruises, and I wrap my fingers around hers.

“Are you okay?! Caia?! Talk to me!”

“You’re too late.”

The soft voice behind me is filled with glee. Wellington.

“You’re too late, Zoran. Didn’t you listen to what I told you last time? Your part is already played out. You were dead the moment you woke up on my ship. Hell, you’ve been a dead man walking your entire life. It is your fate to end up a cog in my machine. You think yourself a hero, but you’re nothing more than a footnote in my story.”

I ignore his rambling as much as I can, but his words cut as deep as his blade. I hold Caia’s cheek and rub it gently.

“Please, baby,” I say. “Open your eyes.”

To my great relief, her eyes flutter open.

“Hey,” she says, weakly. “You made it.”

“Of course,” I say, fighting back tears. “Of course I made it.” I hold her hand as tightly as I can, planting small kisses on the back of it. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

“I might,” she coughs.

“Save your strength,” I command. “You need to rest. I’ll get you fixed up, don’t you worry.”

“No, I need to tel you,” she sputters. “SINTRA, their plan... it’s...”

Her eyes go big as she looks at something over my shoulder. I turn to see a wooden table leg headed straight towards my face. I duck and roll out of the way, the leg grazing my cheek.

Wellington is wobbling on his feet, slamming the makeshift club on the ground over and over again as I roll out of the way.

“Why won’t you stand STILL!?”

With a sweep of leg I take him out. He tumbles over backwards, and I quickly jump up and kick the table leg out of his hand.

“Surrender, Wellington, and I might let you live,” I say. “It’s more than you deserve, but I’m feeling uncharacteristically generous.”

“Never,” he laughs, blood dripping down his thin lips. “Never!”

My fists are antsy. They want nothing more than to give him the killing blow he deserves, but I know deep down that his death won’t make the universe a better place. He needs to stand trial for his crimes. The whole world needs to see that his megacorp is rotten to the very core.

Giving him a quick release — if anything, it’s mercy he doesn’t deserve.

At that point Wellington’s robotic army comes rushing through the door. Before I have a change to look up I’m already tackled, two synths holding my arms down.

I struggle to break free, but their cybernetic strength is more than a match for mine.

“Took you bloody bots long enough,” Wellington barks. “What took you so damn long?! He nearly had me!”

“Apologies, sir!” One of the synths says. “There was an overload of inquiries, and so our systems couldn’t make the critical calculations in time!”

“Bullcock,” Wellington complains as he rises to his feet and dusts off his jacket. A ridiculous gesture, considering it’s ripped to shreds and dripping with blood. “I’ll deal with you when the time comes.”

“Let me go,” I struggle, kicking and flailing wildly, with absolutely no avail. The synths have a tight grip on me, and I can barely move an inch.

A few feet from me Caia lies on the ground, writhing in pain, and seeing her like this makes my heart break into a million little pieces.

She trusted me to save her, and what did I do?

I let her down.

Wellington takes a step towards me, sneering.

“See? What did I tell you, big guy? I ALWAYS win. That’s what being a Wellington is really about. Winning.”

“You may have won this battle, but you’ll never win the war.”

“Why is that? You got a little army of Zoran and human crossbreeders, is that it? Trust me, we know all about your little ‘Chosen’ group. It’s not a problem to us. We’ll kill all of them when the time comes.”

“Come closer and I’ll tell you a secret,” I say with a raspy breath.

Intrigued, Wellington comes closer. He leans down, so that his face is mere inches from my own. His cologne is overpowering my heightened senses. “Spit it out, Zoran. Your last word. Your dying fucking breath. Make it count.”

“Oh, I will.”

My entire mind is focused on Caia, on her bloodied body, on her pain, her suffering, her anguish. And this lights a fire inside of me. A fire so brilliant, so intense that nothing in the world can come close to stopping it.

Luan is injured, but not defeated. His cut made a dent in my soul, but it is far from fractured. Using every last ounce of strength I still have left in my system, I summon him forth.

And my spirit animal delivers.

My lion leaps out of my very chest and rips Wellington’s jaw right open with a bone-crunching sound, spilling blood absolutely everywhere.

“Argh!”

Wellington stammers back, his hands flying towards his deeply cut neck. He frantically tries to hold his own neck, to close the wound, but blood spurts out regardless, pooling on the floor.

With his dying breath he casts a final look of shock and surprise my way. He tries to utter a final curse... but all that leaves his mouth is a bloody gargle.

The synths freeze all their functions instantly as their leader collapses in a heap.

I rush to my mate and hold her dying body in my hands.

“Caia! Open your eyes, Caia. Caia!”