Chapter 5

Rhys was going to die.

He was certain of it. There was no way that he could survive being tied up to a stake in the middle of a Borraq camp, deep in the heart of their wilds.

The Borraq were strange and alien creatures, unlike anything that Rhys had ever seen. They were humanoid, like humans, but that was where the similarities ended. Their skin was a burnished gold, and two long, curved horns rose from their heads. Despite their alien appearance, there was no denying the power in their corded muscles, or the sharp focus of their strange eyes.

Rhys had been hauled into their camp as a captive, and then tied up to the stake. The younger Borraq warriors who"d escorted him here had deferred to their leader, the imposing man who had looked into Rhys"s eyes and chosen to keep him alive. Rhys had heard the warriors call their leader by a name: Taryn.

Taryn was nowhere to be seen now, as the warriors sat around the campfire to eat their meal. Rhys was left alone at the edge of the light, bound and forgotten.

He had never felt more despair in his life.

It wasn"t the prospect of his impending death that filled him with hopelessness. No, he"d faced enough close calls in seedy space stations to be familiar with the specter of death. In those moments, he"d always been able to see a way out, a slim chance to slip through fate"s fingers and survive.

No, what filled him with despair was the reason for his capture.

Rhys had thought that he was a member of the human race. But in the moment when the Borraq had attacked, and his fellow humans had looked at him then abandoned him to his fate, he"d realized the truth.

He was just a tool to them. Disposable, there to perform a task and then to be thrown away when he was no longer useful.

Humans were supposed to be the dominant species of the galaxy, with their colonies and their starships. But in that moment, as they"d looked at him and seen not a fellow man, but just a replaceable part, something had broken inside of him.

He couldn"t bear the thought of it. Rhys refused to be small. He refused to be a cog in a machine.

Screw them. He was going to prove all of them wrong. He was going to survive, and he was going to carve out a better future for himself, one where he actually mattered.

He was going to be something more.

The ship they"d come down on wasn"t going to take off again — it was deliberately junky, to slip through the Borraq defenses. But the others had said that there was a pick-up point, a place and a time where another ship was going to get them.

That was Rhys"s plan. Escape this pack of alien murderers, find the other humans somewhere on the most dangerous planet in the system, and make it to the pick-up point in time to get back to human space.

Simple, right?

Now, he just had to figure out the first part…

As the Borraq warriors ate their meal, Rhys assessed his surroundings. In front of him, the campsite gave way to wild jungle beyond. He was small, much smaller than the Borraq, and fast… If he got to the jungle with enough of a head-start, he might be able to disappear into all that dense undergrowth…

Someone approached him.

Taryn was back.

Oh, god. Even for an alien, the man was something else. The firelight played over the sleek, golden lines of his muscles, his powerful frame barely contained by his alien garb. His eyes were a piercing green, the color vivid against his skin, like jewels in a gold setting. Two long horns rose from his head, curving back into dangerous points. They framed his stern, handsome face like a crown.

Rhys swallowed.

"Please," he said as Taryn double-checked his restraints. "I"m no harm to you. I mean, look at me! Just let me go, and I"ll never bother you again."

Taryn looked at him with visible scorn. "You humans have no honor," the Borraq warrior ground out in a deep voice. "Sneaking onto our sacred homeworld like vermin, violating Vasz for your own greed."

It was the first time Taryn had actually spoken to him, and Rhys recoiled at the venom in his words. He opened his mouth to protest, but what defense could he offer? What Taryn said was true.

"You"re all the same," Taryn continued, his lip curling with disgust. "Warlike beasts, conquering and pillaging wherever you go. Our warriors have bled defending our world from your kind."

Something hot and uncomfortable washed over Rhys. He wanted to argue, to insist that not all humans were like the ruthless miners he"d fallen in with. But the truth was, he had no idea — his entire life had been confined to the grime and desperation of the colonies and space stations. He didn"t know anything about the front line of the war.

"I... I"m not like that," Rhys stammered, hating how feeble his voice sounded. "I was just trying to survive, to pay off my debts. I don"t want to hurt anyone."

Taryn"s piercing green eyes held him, unconvinced. "And yet here you are, violating our lands and threatening our way of life. You cannot plead ignorance, human."

Rhys winced, half from the sight of his chances sinking even lower — and half from real pain. The pain in his shoulder flared, aggravated from the way he was bound.

He took a shallow breath, trying not to aggravate the injury. The last thing he needed was for Taryn to see any sign of weakness or vulnerability. Rhys was already at the complete mercy of these alien captors. He couldn"t afford to make them think about disposing of him.

Gritting his teeth, Rhys met Taryn"s piercing green gaze with a defiant stare of his own. He refused to show even a flicker of the pain lancing through his shoulder with every shallow inhale. His dark eyes remained steady, his jaw set in a hard line of determination.

Taryn seemed to study him for a moment, those strange alien eyes missing nothing. Rhys could have sworn he saw one of those fleeting glimmers of something odd in Taryn"s expression. Curiosity? It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced once more by that inscrutable mask and his disgust.

Without a word, Taryn turned and strode away, leaving Rhys alone at the edge of the firelight once more. Rhys let out the shallowest of relieved breaths, the barest whisper of air escaping his lips. He hadn"t given Taryn the satisfaction of seeing him flinch or falter, no matter how much pain he was in.

But a few minutes later, Taryn reappeared, approaching him. To his surprise, the alien produced a bag of what looked like medical supplies. He held something up to Rhys — a pill.

"What"s that?" Rhys squinted at the pill, suspicious, but he didn"t know anything about alien medicine.

"It will help," Taryn said, and that was that. He was back to being taciturn.

Rhys took a deep breath, wary… and then gave up. If this was the start of some Borraq torture, there wasn"t much of a way to get out of it. Rhys had once seen someone give a pill to a cat, and he didn"t exactly want Taryn to do the same to him.

But pain never came. A warmth spread through his body, and then through his aching shoulder. Rhys moved it experimentally, but the pain seemed to have faded completely. "Well… thanks," he said, taken off-guard.

The alien didn"t respond, but for just a moment, his eyes lingered. Then he picked up his medical bag once more, and returned to the campfire.

Kindness from an enemy. It was enough to make your head spin. When it came to compassion, Taryn was ahead of Jak, who had just told him to man up and keep digging.

No. Rhys caught himself. He was a fool. Kindness from an enemy meant nothing. It was just a way to mess with your head, to make you lower your guard. Rhys had read things like that in the cheap, pulpy novels that were passed around the corridors of space stations.

He wasn"t actually sure what the Borraq would be able to get from a useless, abandoned piece of space trash like him, but he was going to be on his guard anyway.

Taryn moved through the camp, interacting with his warriors. Rhys couldn"t help but watch.

"We"ll track them to the mountains," the one called Worrack stated. His voice was bold, betraying none of the concern that tightened the corners of his eyes. "They"ll be forced to stop there."

Krye stood a little straighter. "Next time they won"t get away."

"We"ll be their end," Soren finished, crossing his arms — but his glance flickered towards Taryn, seeking reassurance.

When Rhys had first seen the squad of Borraq rushing the mine site, he"d thought that they were all warriors. After watching them set up camp, though, he"d soon realized that while Taryn was the real stuff, the other Borraq were pretty much just kids. If they were humans, they"d be worrying about spotty skin and breaking voices.

Not that they wanted to be thought of that way. Around the campfire, they were acting like the toughest of tough guys. Jorah, the last one, chimed in fiercely. "We"ll avenge those we"ve lost on the front lines."

They all subtly looked towards Taryn, as if drawn by a magnetic pull. Taryn caught each of those glances, replying with a minute tilt of his head or a brief clasp on a shoulder — a silent dialogue of reassurance amidst the unsaid worries. "We will protect our land."

Rhys could see the effect Taryn"s words had; the tension in the boys" stances eased, and they breathed a little easier. All it took was a few words of support from someone they looked up to.

Rhys had never seen anything like this scene, out in an alien jungle… but in a strange way, it felt like something that he"d always longed for.

As Rhys watched Taryn move through the camp, a strange ache bloomed in his chest. On the surface, it almost resembled envy — but not the petty, grasping kind he was familiar with from the ruthless circles back in the colony.

This was something deeper. A longing for something he"d never truly experienced.

In his scrappy life of grifting and dodging debt collectors, Rhys had never known the steadying presence of a mentor. The men who drifted in and out of his orbit were hustlers at best, leeches at worst. They saw him not as someone to nurture, but as a resource to be exploited.

But as he observed the dynamic between Taryn and his warriors, Rhys was struck by the respect, the sense of loyalty, that flowed both ways. These were hardened soldiers, killers by trade, yet they sought Taryn"s approval like eager pupils. And the Borraq leader, in turn, showed a strange tenderness as he shaped them — firm when necessary, but always with an undercurrent of care.

A part of him hungered to be on the receiving end of that sort of relationship.

Damn. Rhys quickly banished the thought, disgusted with himself. Since when did he start pining for the approval of his captors? Taryn and his warriors would sooner gut Rhys than take someone like him under their wing.

And yet, as Rhys"s gaze lingered on Taryn"s powerful form, that inexplicable yearning remained. He felt unworthy, like an outsider peering through a window at something he could never truly grasp.

"I"m going to scout," Taryn said. "Hold the camp while I"m gone. Be wise, warriors."

Was that last comment a little pointed? The young warriors agreed that they would, their heads bobbing in eager nods. Taryn"s back was broad and proud as he left the camp, slipping into the night.

Rhys settled down as much as he could. With their leader temporarily gone, the Borraq wouldn"t have any plans for him. All he had to do was regain his energy.

At least, that was what he thought.

As time passed, the young warriors, chatting around the fire, began to look at Rhys with curiosity.

"Hey, human," Soren said. "Tell us about your people."

They approached Rhys, and the human couldn"t help but feel a flicker of unease. These aliens were different from Taryn. They were younger, yes, but there was something else in the set of their shoulders, the sharpness of their gazes. They were eager, full of a restless energy. They hadn"t yet fully grown into their roles, and they were hungry for experience.

Their eyes roamed over him with open curiosity, lingering a little too long in ways that made him deeply uncomfortable.

"Tell us about your weapons," Jorah demanded, his sharp teeth bared in an unsettling grin. "How do your puny human bodies withstand the kickback?"

Rhys swallowed hard, shifting under their scrutiny. "I… I don"t know. I"m not a soldier. I"ve never fired a gun."

Krye snorted derisively. "Typical human cowardice."

How could humans be both warmongers with guns and cowards at the same time?! Rhys bit back his retort. "Whatever you say, big guy."

Soren loomed over him, that massive frame blotting out the firelight. "Humans are so fragile," he rumbled with a cruel smile. "I could snap you like a twig."

Rhys said nothing, his jaw clenched tight.

Krye circled him like a predator. "Your kind don"t belong on Vasz. This is our world."

Jorah jabbed at Rhys"s ribs, making the human flinch. "Yeah, scrawny little thing, ain"t he? He doesn"t fit in here."

Fear and anger surged through Rhys in equal measure. He was a member of a species that had conquered entire star systems, that had built colonies on distant planets and mined the resources of a hundred different worlds. And yet here he was, at the mercy of a group of alien teenagers.

He"d heard dark rumors about the Borraq. In the depths of the colonies, men whispered that the aliens didn"t kill their human captives. No, they did something far worse. Something that turned the stomach to even think about — something that spoke to a deep, primal fear in the hearts of men.

Surely the rumors about cannibalism couldn"t be true. They were just the fevered imaginings of men trying to act big, telling ghost stories about their times on the front line to scare civilians.

And yet... as they loomed over him, those dark whispers seemed all too plausible.

If the Borraq didn"t eat their captives alive… then why had they taken him?

Rhys"s heart pounded with fear and adrenaline, the heat of the campfire mixing with a cold sweat on his skin. He was trapped. Trapped at the mercy of aliens, his fate unknown. Trapped in a world that he was too small and insignificant to understand.

Trapped... and utterly alone.

But just as things looked like they were about to go bad, Taryn reappeared.

The Borraq leader stepped into the circle of light, and every single one of his young warriors immediately straightened. Rhys had been around enough dangerous men to recognize the sight of someone who could command respect — and it was never a good idea to disappoint them.

"Fall back." With two curt words, Taryn disciplined his charges. And this time, he didn"t call them warriors.

It wasn"t anything as crude as a punishment; there were no raised voices, no harsh reprimands, no orders for extra laps run or weapons to be cleaned. Instead, it was a simple look of disappointment from their alpha, a few quiet words, and a single sweep of his gaze that seemed to cut through the young warriors like a blade.

They hung their heads, abashed, like scolded children. They were anything but children, though. As they returned to their seats by the fire, a sullen air hung over them, mixed with the simmering potential for violence. Rhys had seen the same look on the faces of men who"d had their egos bruised, men who were all too eager to lash out to reclaim their pride. A simmering pot that could boil over at any time.

Rhys had to escape before it did.