With his feet propped on the desk, Roden leaned back in his chair, his wings spread out behind him, draping across the floor. He rolled his neck, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders. Between planning a mutiny, leading the search for the Draeken traitor, and keeping his people safely hidden from the humans, there was little time left to sleep.

After rubbing his temples, he leaned forward and tapped out several commands on his desk, and the key to his plans filled the screen. The heir to the Draeken throne was still safely locked away in her cell; her heritage unknown to everyone. The tension in his body eased, and he smiled.

He’d always known his Sephian prisoner harbored secrets. After he first battled her and suspected that he was to be her tahren, he’d researched her to see how he could leverage her weakness in the war. He’d scoured her files, finding nothing. And so he’d dug deeper.

It hadn’t taken long to uncover the forged birth records. The Nalea he knew bore no legal birth record. The one in her files belonged to a still-born Sephian baby with the same name. And, since no father was recorded, it became clear her mother had been hiding something.

Her mother, Nexa, had been a beautiful Sephian with strong yet feminine features. Nexa had belonged to the Homs house, a Draeken lord Roden had met once in his youth and knew to be a good lord, known for neither politics nor secrets. But a neighboring house had a far different reputation: the Puftan house, childhood home to none other than Hillas Puftan himself. Roden had heard rumors about the Grand Lord’s… appetites, and Nexa fit his tastes perfectly. The poor woman had never stood a chance.

Once Roden rationalized the hard truth, he’d hated his leader all the more for it. The bastard deserved to die for his crimes. How fitting it was to have the result of one of his crimes be his undoing.

While Roden was confident of his theory, he needed proof. Capturing her at the false meeting with Sienna Wolfe presented him with the perfect opportunity to confirm his suspicions without her being the wiser. After tranquilizing her, he’d scanned her blood for signs of a Draeken heritage. From there, it hadn’t taken long to find the hairline scars that betrayed her secrets. Not only was it proof positive, but her DNA matched the Puftan bloodline: Nalea’s father was the most powerful Draeken.

Still, there was no way Nexa could’ve forged birth certificates without Draeken help. Homs had put his own life in danger by hiding Nalea. Roden wondered if Nalea knew that the Draeken she’d killed had risked so much to protect her.

Nalea had been right about one thing: if Hillas had known about her, she would’ve been killed at birth. Hillas was ruthless at protecting his position. Even now, the Grand Lord clearly suspected something when it came to Nalea. Roden gambled that it was the inordinate amount of time he’d spent with her that had garnered Hillas’ attention. Fortunately, that too played into Roden’s plans.

Allowing Nalea to kill the Grand Lord was the greatest gift he could give her so that she would be more apt to accept her role in his plans. Nalea was the key to his endgame, but he’d have to move quickly. Even though he’d deleted all Nalea’s files—including those in the archives—he had no doubt Hillas was capable of his own deductive reasoning, especially since Nalea bore far too many of her mother’s facial features.

Roden reached for the bottle of spiced rum he’d procured from Club Mayhem before the humans shut it down. The flavor reminded him of bolgk, his favorite drink, bringing back memories of home. He unscrewed the cap, paused, and then frowned. He sniffed the liquid yet detected nothing but the sweet smell of sugar alcohol.

He watched the bottle for a moment then set it down on the desk and examined it. Dark glass with amber liquid; a pretty package all too easily tainted. “What are you hiding in there?” No matter how tired he was, he was careful in his routines, and leaving the cap only loosely tightened certainly wasn’t one of them. His boots landed on the floor with a solid thud as he came to his feet. Grabbing the bottle, he punched the unlock code, stepped into the hallway, and waited for the door to close and lock before heading down the corridor.

It was late and the base was quiet. His people had quickly grown accustomed to Earth’s orbital schedule, and most would be sleeping. He continued past Nalea’s cell, and down corridors riddled with sharp turns until he reached a second set of cells on the other side of the base. These cells Nalea knew nothing about.

He came to the first cell. The human male inside was still awake, oblivious to Roden as he tapped on a keyboard. Every night he kept busy, typing out his memoirs on the tablet Roden had approved to keep the detainee content. Christopher Jones was a journalist who’d happened across the back rooms of Club Mayhem not long after it opened. While it wasn’t the Draeken way to kill innocents, they also couldn’t have their plans announced to their new world without being fully prepared.

The human had been here for over a year now while Roden waited for Hillas’ approval to approach the humans with terms of peace. During the daytime, Christopher was allowed free run of the base—except for Roden’s corridor, of course—but at night he was relegated to his cell due to fewer Draeken guardsmen being on duty during the sleeping hours. Roden had been careful. He would never be accused of being cruel to humans.

He wondered what Nalea would do if she knew of this cell block. Would she have freed these people rather than come to his room the night of her escape? If so, she may have been miles from the base by the time Roden discovered her empty cell.

He chuckled drily to himself. Of course, the woman he knew would have come to his room that night no matter what. Her hate for him was too great to be ignored.

He cleared his throat, and the human startled then smiled. “Oh, hello, Commander. What brings you by this late hour?”

“Out for a stroll, Christopher.” He held up the bottle before punching in the code to unlock the cell door. “We came across several crates of this beverage. A few tried it and found it too sweet. You want it?”

The human looked pensive then inquisitive as he came to his feet and reached out for the bottle. A quick look at the label brought a smile. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a good rum.”

Roden smiled as the human took a long draw. He only just swallowed it before he stumbled backward. The bottle crashed to the floor, sending glass splinters everywhere. The man’s eyes rolled upward, and he followed the bottle to the floor. His body convulsed as it succumbed to the incredibly swift poison.

“Fyet,” Roden cursed before the human’s body stilled. He grimaced. He hadn’t wanted the human to die. He hadn’t disliked Christopher. Rather, he’d found the man respectful and likely a good ally for when Hillas would finally condone their plan to reveal themselves and their intentions to humans. Having Christopher test the rum had been a purely logical choice. Compared to the limited number of Draeken remaining, humans were simply more expendable.

He turned to leave but paused to glance at the human’s tablet computer. Whatever the man had written on the tablet, it no longer mattered. On a whim, he picked the computer up and left the cell to return to his room. His mood had soured. While he hadn’t killed Christopher—the blame for that fell squarely on the assassin—he disliked the needless loss of life.

After changing his locks and adding an old-fashioned chain lock to his door, a dark laugh erupted from deep within Roden’s chest. Someone had had the gall to try to kill him. Him! He looked forward to tracking down the traitor and brushing up on his interrogation skills. After all, this assassin was merely a tool for the real killer. Someone with enough clearance to have access to his lock codes… and there was only one Draeken with more clearance than Roden.