Toppled by Yellow Eyes’ tug, Ava’s knees disappeared out from under her. She slid backwards over the slick floor, so fast floor burns singed her hips and thighs.

Lips compressed tight, she thought of what her friend Bella would do, twisted sideways, curled her upper body toward her feet, raised her spear—and struck with all her might at the crushing grip circling her boot.

With a roar, Yellow Eyes let go.

“Surprise, dunger beetle.” Not such a little mouse, after all. She scuttled forward on her hands and knees, dodging fists and feet as grunts and the smack of flesh reverberated in the dark. Her sole plan: find a wall she could throw her back against and disappear until the free-for-all ended.

Only before she could execute her strategy another wave of heat ripped through her, more vicious than the last. Panting, she clamped her thighs tight, her back bowing.

Dragath hell. The stress must have sped up the cycle.

Unsealing the thigh closure of her uniform, she fumbled for a pill.

Cruel hands tangled in her hair, yanking her to her knees and wrenching her head back. “You’ll pay for that, Council-bitch.”

Yellow Eyes had found her again.

She didn’t bother calling out for Pratt. With her camouflage and facial disguise gone, he wouldn’t recognize her anyway. Plus, chances were good her crewmate was in as much trouble as she.

Eyes stinging, she fought past the haze of lust, jabbing her spear up and around, hoping to hit her target.

Another body crashed into her side and she flew sideways, agony ripping along her scalp as the asshole gripping her hair held tight.

“Freeze.” A near-growl cracked through the hold and down her spine.

Everyone froze.

Bright light and scalding air poured into the hold. An awful metallic, charred smell as well. The echo of crashing boots making it sound as if an army was descending.

Instinctively, she shielded her eyes, but the light was too bright. Everything reduced to pinpricks of shifting black and white spots right in front of her eyes.

The silver lining? The ruthless fingers digging into her scalp loosened.

Jerking free, she scurried back on her knees, knocking Yellow Eyes off balance. He stumbled into the body next to him. A tree-trunk of a man who roared and shoved in return.

Seizing on the distraction, she skirted around two corpses with sightless eyes—thankfully, neither of them similar in size to Pratt—backpedaling on her ass as fast and far as she could until her spine hit the wall, a small target blocked by a sea of far larger torsos and legs.

As her sight returned, she risked a quick scan. No cameras. The rush of relief left her dizzy.

“Next to move will regret it.” It was the same deep voice. Lethal. Dark. Ice cold.

She curled into a tighter ball.

The sound of a scuffle regained her attention.

Yellow Eyes crashed to the ground, unmoving except for the slow rise and fall of his chest.

It was the only proof he was still alive.

“On your knees or you’ll suffer the same. Eyes on the ground. Hands on your head.” The sharp command drew her attention as the speaker swaggered toward the middle of the room.

Her breath stuttered in her lungs.

He was massive. Twice the size of Yellow Eyes. A beast from the depths—or her worst nightmares. His face concealed by a crude silver faceplate that looked like it had been hammered into submission and offered only narrow horizontal slits for eyes and the hint of a hard, square jaw. Leaving him faceless. Expressionless. Utterly devoid of humanity.

The rest of him, however, was on full display. His bare bronze chest stretched by slabs of lethal muscle that flexed ominously with every shift of the gleaming pickax in his hands. His biceps alone bigger than the hated rocks Bella had been urging her to haul around for defense.

And he wasn’t just wide. He was as tall as the trees of old. His cropped brown hair brushed the ceiling even though he stood with his body partially folded, his knees bent. Streaks of red and silver dust covered his body like war paint while around his waist was a tattered loincloth that showcased powerful thighs.

The only half-civilized thing about him was scuffed, worn black boots.

She risked a longer glance, her gaze following the trail of sweat that glistened on his skin, dripping from his neck to roll down the ripped ridges and valleys of his carved stomach, past a hundred nicks, scars, bruises and burn marks.

There wasn’t an ounce of body fat, an inch of give. Thin straps of sinewy leather crisscrossed his muscled chest, back, and hips, holders for an impressive array of primitive pickaxes, metal blades, and what looked like bleached bones. They swung against his skin like trophies on display.

He was raw, barbaric power—and totally terrifying.

One blow from him and she’d be dead.

Worse, behind him in a tight V formation stood a pack of at least twelve similarly armed, faceless giants almost as big and wide.

And then she saw it, a flash of silver on the harness of the leader himself, one dagger among his numerous weapons, but unlike the battered, rusted metal of the rest of his arsenal, this lustrous blade almost glowed.

Her lungs seized. It was, without question, the ore she’d come to this hellish planet to find.

She’d found small traces of it on the surface. Not nearly enough to cover her fingertip, much less make a blade of the material.

She’d almost begun to doubt its existence.

But here it was. In abundance.

The key to her freedom.

The reason she’d come to this planet in the first place.

On the hips of a beast from the depths.

Nothing was ever easy on Dragath25.

Sucking down a bracing breath, she hid her spear lengthwise between her thighs and shifted to her knees, placing her hands on her head, terror and excitement thrumming through her veins in equal measure. If she survived what came next, she’d have to find some way to discover where he’d gotten it.

Not surprisingly, the other prisoners took up the same position.

Beyond the open doors, a terrible screeching erupted: “Taken, taken, taken.”

Who was out there?

“Exit the transport hold.” Indifferent to the chaos, the mechanized voice emerged once again from the ceiling offering instruction. “Incineration will occur in five metrals.”

Incineration?

A few of the prisoners surged forward.

“Freeze,” it was the same deep, commanding voice from before, “or die.”

“What by the storms of Janus is this place?” A stocky prisoner with the word Death tattooed between his shoulder blades shoved to his feet, panic lacing his voice.

Before she could blink, the faceless warrior grabbed the tattooed man, lifted him as if he weighed nothing, and slammed him back onto his knees. “Hell.”

The mocking pronouncement rang terrifyingly true.