Page 74 of Bred By Sor'en

There are not many who can skill their toxin as I can. Years of constant self-loathing and imbalance forced me to learn. I amdripping with it, but it is harmless now. I don’t explain that as I flick my finger, sending a droplet straight onto his cheek.

To his credit, he doesn’t so much as flinch.

Hue screams.

We stare at one another.

“It would takenothing, prince.”

He sighs. “I have had your mate in my chambers for hours and have not harmed a hair on her head,monster.” He smirks. “I actually quite suspect she enjoyed her time with aprince.”

I see red. While I do not doubt the loyalty of my mate, the sheer concept is enough to nearly make me mad with rage.

The mate in question stomps between us, wincing as her hands draw up to her belly. When was her last dose? “Enough! Ravian,please.”

My mind shakes with the sudden onslaught of memories—Clayan ducking into an unused storage room with me, our laughter all too loud in halls that were supposed to be quiet, other secrets whispered his skin inches from mine without a single feat shared between us.“Ravian helps me hide from our teachers. I despise my lessons.”

It is like staring down at the grown-up ghost of my friend.

What he would’ve grown into, had I not killed him. Had Adder not ripped me from his corpse, his gloved hands punishing, and forced me into the bowels of Vortara while I sobbed.

“I am here only as a favor to her, so that she may rest well once you are executed by my father.”

I let my body sag to my knees, my eyes only on my mate.

I have fought hard not to think of that day for so many orbits.

“One wrong move, murderer, and I will rip through your mind so violently that not even the birth of your son would bring you back from the drooling, mindless husk I would leave you as.”

My head snaps toward him, the same time hers does.

Her voice is the only one given substance in the dark room. “I knew it!”

Kalzaits are highly intelligent. Dangerously so. Particularly in the field of medical advancement. Bio-hacking their own species to the point where they can hardly be considered a species at all. So devoid of their own customs and needs, they pale in comparison to what they once were. They are no more than pretty robots to dance around their grottos, lost to everything that made them…them.

“And then what?” I ask. “I killed your brother. Will watching me do it through my own eyes afford you any peace?” My words are a haunting growl because he’s close now, the stinger on his tail poised and ready, the antenna they hide in their hair twitching above his head while his wings flutter with barely concealed malice.

I cannot blame him.

But my mate is here.

Within his grasp.

I should kill him.

Right now.

My body tenses before a pair of soft hands finds my face, making me melt apart in her orbit. My oil turns for her, warm and buzzing as she likes. She gasps, her eyes fluttering closed as it reaches her. She doesn’t have to ask as I lower my head to rest on hers. “It’s a chance, Sor’en.”

My eyes slide away as I lean up, back to the male, offering him a curt nod.

The next moment, he leans forward, and he does, in fact, rip into my mind.

Pain is all that finds me next, and I welcome it as the horrible story is pillaged from my memories. It had been so amazing to have a friend who wasn’t exactly like me. Clayan thought so too. Every limtic for kintics during those talks, we would sneak ontoour leaders' vessels and disappear together where the hidden nooks and crannies of Vortara became our playground. Our make-believe world where he wasn’t the heir to his throne, and I wasn’t a botanist in training who had just planted my mother and father. It was fun, endless fun… until it wasn’t.

We should’ve known better.

Too lost in the game to realize we had made a horrible mistake. I stumbled into the outer rim, bright with its neon lights, the maintenance hatch that led to the safety of the halls popped open, suddenly spilling me out. Still to this day, I can’t recall why the door to the hatch had failed. If we’d, in our rush, not secured it properly, or someone else on another solar had made the mistake. It didn’t matter because a horrible secret had just been told. I shouldn’t be there.