Chapter 18

18

T hey'd taken her. They'd frexxing taken her, and he hadn't been able to stop them.

Covak paced the bridge of the Lady's Dream like a caged animal, his massive frame taut with barely contained rage and anguish. His hands clenched and unclenched, his claws dropping to their full length and then retracting as he fought the urge to lash out at everything around him.

"I let them take her," he growled. The words tasted like ash in his mouth. "I'm supposed to protect her, and I just stood there while they took her."

He replayed the moment over and over in his mind. Jesh's face, filled with determination and fear as she surrendered herself to the assholes who had held her captive and hurt her… to save him. The sickening moment the Scorperio hit her and threw her over its shoulder like a limp doll.

"You didn't let them do anything," Ryke said. "Those Scorperio suits caught us all off guard. There was nothing any of us could have done."

Covak whirled on him, his lips pulled back in a snarl. "I'm Vorrtan! I'm supposed to be stronger, faster, better than… anything! But I couldn't even protect my own mate!"

Silence fell on the bridge, the others looking at him wide-eyed.

" Trall, that's why your eyes changed!" Rann hissed. "They're exactly like hers now. You've bonded with her."

Covak froze and turned to look at Rann in shock. He was Latharian, an off-worlder… not Vorrtan.

"How the frexx do you know that?" Covak demanded, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Rann shrugged, a guarded look in his eyes. "Guess I read it somewhere."

"That's not written down. Not anywhere," Covak growled, taking a menacing step toward him. "We made sure of it. How do you know about Vorrtan bonding?"

Rann's jaw tightened, the tension in the room thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Dammit, Rann!" Covak slammed his fist down on the console between them, leaving a sizable dent. "We're supposed to be teammates. Don't you trust me enough to give me a straight answer?"

The Latharian's eyes flickered with something—regret, perhaps?—before he shook his head. "I'm sorry. Some things I'm not at liberty to discuss. Not with anyone."

Covak growled, frustration threatening to boil over. He opened his mouth to demand Rann tell him what the frexx that meant, but Ryke stepped between them, slamming a hand on his chest to keep him from getting to his quarry.

"Leave it. We have bigger fish to fry," Ryke declared. He turned to Covak, his gaze piercing. "Is Rann right? Have you bonded to Jesh?"

Covak's broad shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of him like water from a broken vessel.

"Yes." He nodded. "And now she's gone. I failed her."

Shame coursed through him. He'd finally managed to bond but hadn't been able to protect his new mate. He was a weak, unworthy male.

The pitying looks from his crewmates were like knives to his heart. Anger surged through his veins. He didn't want their sympathy. He just wanted Jesh back.

"We'll find her," Ryke said, clamping a hand down on his shoulder. "Anson, how's that decryption coming?"

On the other side of the bridge, Anson's fingers flew over the holo-keyboard in front of him, a frown beetling his heavy brows together.

"It's not!" Anson growled, still typing at light speed. "She must have used a Zodiac encryption. It's light-years beyond anything I've seen."

Covak's heart sank. If Anson couldn't break the encryption, what hope did they have of finding Jesh? He clenched his massive fists, fighting the urge to punch something… anything.

"Any progress at all?" Ryke asked, his voice controlled. Too controlled. Covak didn't blame him… he was one second off going berserk like an Izaean, and no one wanted that on their bridge.

The B'Kaar shook his head and then paused. "Wait. I've got something. It's not much, but I've isolated the destination of the message. That's all I can pull out of this draanthing mess of code."

Ryke leaned in, studying the string of coordinates and identifiers on the screen.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said in a low voice. "That's the Sprite ."

"The Sprite ?" Covak echoed, confusion momentarily overriding his worry. "As in the Warborne's ship, Sprite ?"

"Yeah." Ryke nodded. "I think so."

Covak's head snapped up, hope exploding through him.

"She didn't betray us," he breathed. "Shit, she didn't betray us."

And he'd thought she had… he'd doubted her, but she'd sacrificed herself to save him anyway.

With a roar of anguish, he lunged across the bridge. Before anyone could stop him, he had Anson pinned against the wall, a massive clawed hand wrapped around the B'Kaar's throat.

"You made me doubt her!" Covak snarled, his face inches from Anson's. "Your paranoia, your suspicions…I let them poison my mind against my own mate!"

Anson didn't struggle, his dark eyes locked with Covak's.

"I was wrong," he said simply. "I'm sorry."

Covak's vision blurred red as rage tried to consumed him, his muscles quivering with barely contained fury. The fabric of his uniform strained and creaked as he began to shift, his body responding to the anger coursing through his veins. His bones snapped and stretched, his muscles swelling as the change swept through him against his will.

The urge to tear Anson's face off with his bare hands was nearly overwhelming. Then he blinked and forced his fingers to unclench from around Anson's throat.

The B'Kaar dropped unceremoniously on his ass, gasping for air. Covak towered over him, his chest heaving as he clenched his fists at his sides, claws digging into his palms. He used the pain to anchor himself to reason, to bring himself back to sense before he killed his own crewmates.

He turned away, unable to meet anyone's eyes. Jesh had been captured thinking he didn't believe her. The thought was like a knife twisting in his gut.

"Covak," Davis's voice rang out from the back of the bridge. "I've got Zero on the comm. He says he has a way to track Jesh."

Hope flared in Covak's chest, and he was across the bridge in two long strides, looming over Davis's shoulder.

"Put him on screen," he growled.

Zero's face appeared, his expression grim. "I heard what happened. I'm sorry, Covak. But I think I can help."

He leaned in, his voice low and intense. "Tell me."

"Jesh sent me a lot of information on… well, us," Zero explained. "How we're built and how we work, all that. I can't pinpoint her exactly, but I can give you a general location."

"That's more than we had before," Ryke added from where he was looking over Davis's other shoulder. "Send us the coordinates."

"You!" Without thinking, Covak grabbed Davis by the shoulders and hauled him out of his seat to plant a fierce kiss on the human's forehead. "You bloody gorgeous human, you! Thank you!"

Davis's eyes went wide with shock and then narrowed dangerously as he shoved Covak away.

"Appreciated. But if you ever kiss me again," he said slowly, squaring up to Covak despite him still being in his battle form. "I will personally ensure that you spend the rest of your days as a eunuch. Are we clear?"

Covak's lips quirked up at the corners. "Crystal."

"Now that we've established boundaries," Ryke cut in. "Let's focus on the mission. We have a location. Anson, plot a course. Davis, start gathering intel on the facility. Covak… try not to maul anyone else before we get there."

Covak nodded as he moved to his station, calling up schematics and tactical data on the location that Zero had provided.

Hold on, Jesh . I'm coming for you. And this time, I won't fail.

As the Lady's Dream surged through space, Covak felt the distance between him and Jesh like a physical ache. He tried to focus on the mission prep, but his mind kept drifting back to their last moments together. The determination in Jesh's eyes as she faced down their attackers. The way she'd looked at him… he should have known then that she wouldn't betray them. He should have trusted her.

"Covak," Ryke's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "You're growling again."

He blinked, realizing he'd been staring at the same tactical readout for several minutes, a low rumble building in his chest. He took a deep breath, trying to center himself.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I can't stop thinking about what they might be doing to her."

Ryke's expression softened a little. "I know. But torturing yourself won't help Jesh. We need you focused if we're going to get her back."

He nodded. Ryke was right. But the fear and guilt still gnawed at him, threatening to overwhelm his rational mind. He turned back to his console, forcing himself to concentrate on the data scrolling across the screen.

"Talk me through what you're seeing," Ryke suggested. "Sometimes verbalizing helps."

"The main problem is gonna be these automated turrets here and here," Covak said, pointing at the holo-map. As he spoke, some of the tension left his body. This was familiar territory. This was something he could do. "They've got a 360-degree firing arc and enough firepower to take down a small shuttle."

Ryke leaned in, his eyes narrowing. "What about blind spots?"

"Minimal," Covak replied as he zoomed in on the facility schematics. It was a space platform very like the storage facility they'd been trying to recover Jex from. Just… bigger and way more armed. "But there's a maintenance access point here that might work. It's gonna be tight, though."

"How tight?"

Covak grimaced. "Let's just say I hope you've been keeping up with your yoga, boss."

Ryke snorted. "Great. What about inside? Any idea where they might be keeping her?"

"If I had to guess?" Covak highlighted a section near the center of the complex. "High-security section at the center of the facility. Next to engineering, it has lots of shielding, minimal access points."

"Good," Ryke nodded approvingly. "Now, what's our biggest obstacle?"

Covak frowned. "Those fucking Scorperio suits. We don't know how many they have or what other enhancements they might have. They're a wild card. We don't know their full capabilities or how many we're up against. It's like fighting ghosts."

"Davis," Ryke called out, "you're our resident expert on human tech. What can you tell us about these Scorperios?"

"Are you saying that because I'm literally the only human on the crew?" Davis asked as he joined them. "The Scorperio program… that's ancient history. They were developed for a war decades ago, but it didn't end well for the pilots. The authorities kept it on the down-low, but most of the pilots ended up crippled, their nervous systems burned out by the tech."

Covak's eyes widened. "Burned out? So how the hell are we facing them now?"

"That's what worries me," Davis continued, running a hand through his hair. "If they've got functional Scorperios, it means they've made some serious advances in the tech. Back in the day, these things were basically walking tanks. Heavily armed, nearly impenetrable armor, and damned hard to kill."

Ryke leaned forward. "Give us specifics, Davis. What kind of firepower are we talking about?"

The human shrugged.

"Depends what they were built for. They had different types for different missions. So they could carry everything from high-caliber ballistics to energy weapons," he replied, his voice grim. "They were designed to take on small armies single-handedly. And their defense systems… conventional weapons barely scratched them. You needed a shit-ton of ammo and a minor miracle to bring one of these things down."

Covak growled around his fangs. "So how the frexx do we stop them?"

"That's the million-credit question," Davis said bluntly. "We'll need to get creative, find weak points in their armor. Maybe exploit the connection between the suit and the pilot."

"ETA thirty minutes," Anson's voice cut through the tense silence on the bridge.

Covak's head snapped up, every nerve in his body suddenly on high alert. "Covak," Ryke's steady voice grounded him. "You good?"

He met his captain's eyes, seeing the concern there. Taking a deep breath, he centered himself.

"I'm good," he replied, his voice low and determined. "Let's bring her home."

As they approached their destination, a fierce, protective rage built inside him. His Vorrtan instincts, awakened by his bond with Jesh, screamed at him to tear apart anyone who dared to get between him and his mate, who dared to harm what was his.

"Beginning our approach," Rann announced. "No signs of detection yet."

Covak turned in his chair to look out of the viewscreen. The facility was nondescript, easily overlooked among the countless other facilities that dotted this sector of space unless you knew where to look. If you did, it was easy to see that it was armed to the teeth, bristling with cannon arrays and point defense measures.

A low growl escaped him. Inside that hull, Jesh was being held. Studied. Possibly tortured.

"Easy, big guy," Davis murmured from beside him. "Save it for the bad guys."

"Alright, people," Ryke's voice cut through the tension. "We're going in hot. Covak, you're on point. Find Jesh and get her out."

Calm settled over him as he stood and left the bridge. The rage was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but now it was focused, channeled into a single purpose.

He was going to find his mate.

He was going to bring her home.

And anyone who stood in his way was going to learn why the Vorrtan were feared across the galaxy.