Dragon’s feet propelled him forward, but his heart and mind remained in the command room with Jade. He didn’t care about his life. His only fear was leaving his soulmate and child to fend for themselves if anything happened to him.

More than twenty men escorted him and Valerian, and Crane and Lauren followed close behind. Dragon couldn’t believe that the meek house manager he had met at Gabriel’s manor was the rebels’ leader. The last time he had seen Crane, the man had been hit by an arrow and transported to Celestia in critical condition.

“We meet again,” Dragon said when the leader stepped by his side. “We searched for the traitor all over Paradisia, and it was you all along.”

Crane’s upper lip curved up into a cold sneer. “Your kind thinks so little of humanity, it’s almost too easy to use your arrogance against you.”

“Were you ever wounded?” Dragon asked.

The man laughed. “Of course not. All smoke and mirrors to divert Master Martelli’s investigation.” He pronounced “master” as if the word were poison in his mouth. “The girls’ location had been discovered and we couldn’t let them talk. Too bad we couldn’t get rid of the vampire, or you and the werewolf.”

“What has Gabriel Martelli ever done to you?”

“His father claimed my planet as his own and gave it to him as if it were nothing more than a piece of property. As if it were a deserted island he could dispose of any way he liked. But Celestia belongs to us humans. The Fifth Moon’s System belongs to us,” Crane answered. “Vampires and shifters have dominated us for far too long, but we will erase you from history. Soon, your cursed species will be a pale memory from a forgotten past, and our grandkids will inherit a universe which won’t remember you ever existed.”

The man’s words resonated over the din of the men’s steps.

Crane moved away from Dragon with one last contemptuous sneer. “Move!” he ordered when it became clear his men had slowed while listening to his speech.

Under his scrutiny, the rebels immediately doubled their pace, marching through the deserted corridors at a jog. They only slowed again before reaching the hatch doors to give the security chief time to open the locked sections. As they waited, Crane’s barked orders broke the heavy silence.

The pulsating light colored the metal surfaces in blood-red, and the walls seemed to close in all around Dragon.

Valerian stirred at his side. “Why didn’t you let me take that bullet?” he whispered. “I was going—”

“Shifting wouldn’t have worked,” Dragon interrupted. “Jade and I might have escaped, but your beast would have been a sitting duck.”

Valerian stumbled, and Dragon held him up and pulled him forward to avoid giving the rebels behind them an excuse to hit his friend. Despite their leader’s orders, those men were on edge and ready to pull the trigger at the least provocation. If the command room was too small for a shift, the corridors would become a coffin when Valerian’s dragon came out.

Holding Valerian upright, Dragon jogged at the same pace of the troop, wondering where they were headed. The answer came several minutes later, when Crane commanded his men to stop in front of the refuse bay. The rebels moved to let their leader and Lauren walk to the front of the line.

Crane nodded at the security chief to unlock the last hatch door.

“It will take me a few minutes for this one,” the man said. “The refuse bay has a triple security mechanism because—”

The leader cut the man short with a curt, “Just hurry,” and stepped closer to Dragon. “Fitting, right?” He gave Dragon a chilling smile as the security chief worked on the wall-mounted control panel. “Flushed out like the shifter scum you are,” Crane said, laughing.

Dragon ignored him and looked at Lauren instead. “I guess murdering me will grant you the immortality you so much wanted.”

The briefest glimpse of remorse showed on her face, then she raised her chin and gave him a hard glare. “I told you what I wanted, but you wouldn’t listen—”

“When did you switch sides?” Dragon asked.

Lauren seemed to debate answering him, then shrugged. “I started working with the resistance soon after my family signed the termination of our betrothal contract.”

“You were behind the attack that happened before we left Solaria,” he said, putting together the pieces of the puzzle that had eluded him.

“You were going to leave me behind, but the Front Pro Humanity needed me by your side on Celestia.” Lauren’s eyes shone with a cruel light.

“That heart to heart we had that day in the observation deck?” Dragon remembered how for the first time, he and Lauren had a civilized conversation, and how he had hoped that they could reach an understanding.

“My tutors taught me how to dissimulate. As the High Lord’s bride, I was expected to please him and be the perfect companion. Faking was in my job description. I needed you to think I had relented in my quest.”

“Why go after Gilda?”

“She stopped being useful to me a long time ago. On Celestia, I framed her to wreak havoc between you and him—” Lauren’s eyes cut toward Valerian for a moment. “I don’t know how Gilda managed to convince you she wasn’t guilty with the trap I’d laid for her. But it doesn’t matter anymore. She won’t be a problem any longer—”

“What did you do to her?” Valerian’s voice was low and menacing.

“I made sure she won’t be telling anyone what happened here,” Lauren answered with a satisfied leer before adding, “I shut her pretty mouth forever.”

With a pained bellow, Valerian launched himself at Lauren, but Dragon held him back for fear of the men shooting in retaliation. For a chance of making it out alive, he needed to control when and how a shift happened.

Valerian tried to jerk his hand away. Slightly squeezing his arm, Dragon hoped his friend would understand his reassuring gesture. He couldn’t say that Gilda was still alive and put her in danger but hated for Valerian to believe his soulmate was dead.

Gears whirred, and the hatch door’s iris started unfolding, section by section.

“Enough,” Crane said, motioning for the men in front of Dragon and Valerian to enter the refuse bay.

Valerian fought him at every step as Dragon forced him along. They stepped inside the large room with the high ceiling that composed the anteroom to the airlocked chute. The walls of the chute moved, acting as a large press that compacted the spaceship’s garbage before jettisoning the compressed cubes into deep space.

“Open it,” Crane told the security chief, who immediately moved to the hatch door separating the anteroom from the chute.

With the corner of his eye, Dragon looked around.

The security chief stepped back when the door began opening.

“Walk or your assassin will suffer the consequences for your disobedience.” The leader pointed his gun at the chute, gesturing for Dragon and Valerian to cross into the next room.

There would be no coming back from being squashed and thrown out into the black void outside. Even a dragon’s power to regenerate a broken body had its limits.

Dragon gave Valerian a nod and stepped forward.