Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

GAROTH

M y eyes snap open to a void where Lila should be. The other side of the bunk is cold, the sheets tossed aside like afterthoughts. A sick churn twists in my gut.

I search the ship, but she’s nowhere.

Where the hell is Lila?

The ship’s log blares to life at my touch, pulsing with data that makes less sense every second. There was a pause at a weigh station—she must have hyper-beamed there, no doubt. My mind races; how long has she been gone? An hour, maybe two?

“Dammit, Lila!” I smack my fist down on the console. Diplomat or not, she’s cagey as a star-thief.

I check the ship’s chronometer, its tick mocking me. Every moment wasted is another Lila’s alone out there. I can’t stomach it.

With a grunt, I throw myself into the pilot seat, the leather groaning under my bulk. My fingers fly across the console, demanding more from the battered engine than I should. The thrusters cough and whine, protesting. But I don’t fucking care.

“Come on, you rusted heap,” I growl. The ship shudders, fighting against the quick turnaround. It hasn’t fully recovered from the last hyper-jump with the warlords.

I clench my jaw, focusing on the coordinates of the weigh station.

My ship lurches forward, metal creaking as we tear through the cosmos. Every bone in my body rattles, but it’s nothing compared to the rage inside me. Lila’s face, her defiant gaze, the way her braid swings when she argues—it all claws at me, demanding I find her before something else does.

Her scent lingers in the cabin—something floral and fierce, just like her. It wraps around me, a cruel reminder of what I’ve lost.

No, I can’t think like that.

The hyperdrive whines, pushing past safe limits.

She wants peace. Well, I want her. And if the galaxy thinks it can take her from me, then it hasn’t met me.

The weight station materializes around me—a tangle of metal and neon that buzzes with alien dialects. My boots thud against the docking bay’s grated floor as I leap from the ship onto the weigh station’s deck.

“Lila!” Her name rips from my throat. No sign of her dark braid weaving through the throng, no flash of those defiant blue eyes that haunt me even now.

“Have you seen this woman?” The image on my communicator from an old article about her is a poor substitute for the fire she carries, but it’s all I have. I shove it at passerby after passerby, their nonchalant shrugs grinding my patience to dust.

“Human?” The word slithers out of a young alien, her tentacles curling with caution. “Taken by warlords.” She points a slender appendage skyward, where stars witness silent crimes.

“Thanks.” The word is an asteroid lodged in my throat. My heart drops into my boots, fury taking its place.

Fuck! I storm back to my ship, tasting blood.

As I punch the coordinates for the warlord’s territory into my console. I’m declaring vengeance.

My hands clench the yoke, knuckles whitening. I can almost feel her touch, soft yet unyielding, the ghost of her fingers tracing battle scars, the whisper of her kiss, the sounds of her pleasure.

I will bleed the galaxy dry for her.

“Warlords,” I growl, the ship lurching forward at my command. “You’ve taken what’s mine.”

And I will take her back.

I push the transmit button, the impact resonating through the metal like a war drum. The signal, an urgent call to arms, ripples out across the void, finding my kin wherever they may lurk.

“Brothers. Cousins,” I snarl into the comm, my tone filled with fury burning in my chest. “Converge on my coordinates. We hunt warlords today. They have my mate.”

Beneath me, the ship hums, alive with the promise of retribution. It’s a familiar vibration against my skin, one that always precedes the dance of death and glory. But today, it’s not for honor or conquest; it’s for her. For Lila.

Her voice echoes in my skull, all fire and steel—arguments laced with that diplomatic charm. She’d say, “Peace, Garoth. There’s always another way.”

The console pings—a chorus of acknowledgments from my clan. They’ll come, they’ll follow me into the fires of hell itself, not for peace or diplomacy, but because blood calls to blood.

“Get ready, Lila.” A growl builds up in my chest. “I’m coming for you.” And when I find her, I'll remind her why an orc's not something to run from. Why we fight with everything we've got. And why we love even harder.