Page 68 of Interion

The other men started closing in, and I took a few steps back toward the club door.

“I don’t want to. Thanks,” I said, but I felt like a cornered animal.

I’d been through enough dangerous situations to recognize when I was in one. It was like a tingling at the base of my spine, a discomfort that radiated through my nerve endings and throbbed at my temples. I had a survival instinct honed during my days of slavery, and even drunk, when I looked at them, I could feel their intentions were twisted. The moment I realized one of them was reaching for me, I turned and bolted for the club door. My brain was swimming in alcohol, but my instincts screamed that I had to get back to safety.

I didn’t get very far. Painfully strong arms wrapped around my waist and started dragging me away. I screamed and grabbed the iron bar of the door, but there were five of them and they dragged me off easily. I felt my nails breaking as I desperately tried to cling to the doorframe. As I struggled, I realized they were all human and were hauling me toward the alley beside the bar. I fought and pushed, but even though I was stronger than them, it was five against one, and in the end, I wound up in the alley.

Despair clenched my throat when one of them picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“The little Drutes rat thinks she can fight,” the leader—the one with the piercing-covered face—mocked, laughing at my desperation. “Put her in the van. Today’s purge day,” he ordered, pointing to the vehicle parked near several trash cans.

The men cheered and whistled their approval. I stared at them in confusion, trying to process their words. The adrenaline cleared my head just enough to realize two things: everyone here belonged to the anti-Drutes movement, and I was alone, in deep trouble, and needed to escape.

The throbbing pressure in my temples was becoming unbearable, as if my mind were being pummeled and shaken. With no time to lose, I thrashed and landed a kick to the chest of the man behind me. He lost his balance, giving me space to throw myself to the ground. I fell rolling to cushion the impact. Someone tried to kick me, but I rolled aside and staggered to my feet. Within seconds, the five men had me cornered against a cold wall.

My heart raced, my chest heaving in a frantic rhythm, my head pounding with sharp pain as they closed in around me. The alcohol in my system made everything seem distorted and blurred. One of the men—the one in a black leather jacket—pulled a knife from his pocket, and the sight of the blade snapped my focus to him.

“Kill her!” the leader shouted. “We don't have time to get her in the van.”

In the moments that followed, I didn’t even think about what I was doing—I just did what I’d been trained to do in combat classes when there were no weapons and we had to improvise with whatever was around. The man with the knife came at me, and the first thing I looked for was a way to defend myself. There were trash cans nearby, and I grabbed a round metal lid, holding it in front of my chest. When he reached me, knife raised, I blocked the blow by shoving the lid toward him like a shield. When he slammed into the metal, I kicked him and sent him sprawling. The knife slipped from his hand. Two others rushed me, and I dodged their blows, landing a punch that broke one guy’s nose. A man with long, messy hair tried to wrench the lid from my grip. I yanked it back, but he managed to land a kick to my stomach—one that should have hurt if the alcohol hadn’t numbed me.

“You didn’t even try, Kyller,” Zion’s voice echoed in my mind like a curse.

I dodged and attacked the way I’d learned at the academy. The problem was that I usually only fought one person at a time—here it was five against one, and I could barely see them clearly through the alcohol haze. Someone grabbed me by the hair, positioning himself behind me. I felt my scalp burn as he dragged me. I reached back, trying to grab hold of him and break free, but I couldn’t get a grip. While I struggled desperately to escape, the others closed in and I was thrown against the wall. My already aching head cracked against the white bricks, and the impact knocked the breath out of me. The leader pressed a cold blade to my throat while two men pinned my arms and legs against the brick wall.

This was it. I’d learned enough at the academy to know that when someone puts a blade to your throat, it’s over. I had escaped slavery in Drutes only to die in this horrible alley. My heart hammered at an insane pace, and the headache was so intense I could hear voices in the back of my mind.

The men shouted in ecstasy, and as the blade began to sink in, I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to witness the death stretching its black fingers toward me.

I don’t know how much time passed—time distorts in situations like that—but something familiar flooded my senses. The scent of sandalwood on a summer day, carrying that sensation of iron, steel, and determination.

Out of nowhere, the sound of a blade clattering on the cobblestones filled the air, and the pain at my neck vanished. My head spun as I processed what had happened. I didn’t feel pain—I didn’t feel anything, actually. I just heard the crack of breaking bones.

Then I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a tall man’s back. He wore military clothing and had apparently broken the hand of the man now opening his mouth to scream—his fist twisted at an unnatural angle. My body stiffened when my numbed brain registered who was there.

Zion.

In a flash, he landed a kick to the chest of the man holding the weapon, sending him flying away from me. The man slammed into the opposite wall and crumpled unconscious.

Something moved across my skin, and I realized it was tendrils of darkness clustering around me, as if trying to protect me. Zion vanished and reappeared like shadow and smoke behind the other man who’d been holding me. He growled at the attackers, and they all stared in terror at the darkness racing hungrily along the walls.

“You want to have fun with descendants? Come on! Let’s have fun!”

My brain froze. Descendants? Was he talking about himself? I didn’t have time to think. Zion launched himself at them, and I shrank back against the wall.

Chapter 18

The general walked along the edge of a lake. He was at the border of Interion, where the Drutes Forest began, and had been summoned to deal with a breeding camp discovered that morning. It was protocol. Even on vacation, he was the one they called when something like this happened. Zion wouldn't trust anyone else to handle the women, so whenever the call came, he went as fast as he could.

They believed this was the last breeding camp outside the city of Valmar, in Drutes territory. Over the years, the general and his army had swept through all the land between Interion and the outskirts of the city—a city protected by a mountain range that created only one way in: the Sarahi gorge. As the last installation in the last conquered territory, Zion could say with pride that they were doing excellent work.

Now, each squadron held its position around the enemy nation. No Drutes ventured beyond that perimeter, and no Interian dared storm the Sarahi gorge looking for a fight. Past the gorge, the territory belonged to the Drutes, and their forces there were immense.

Zion was tired from the journey. He’d shadow-traveled all morning and made the trip in just two hours—something that would take three days by military vehicle. He’d handled his problems quickly; years of experience had made him efficient at setting things right. The war had dragged on for ages, and it seemed the farther the reconnaissance squadron advanced, the more problems they uncovered. Even though Interion’s forces were immense, the Drutes inhabited a forest they knew like the back of their hand, and there they had the advantage.

The women he’d found today weren’t originals—the first women of Interion—and he believed installations like that probably no longer existed. These were half-breeds who had barely had their first blood before being used as breeders. A savage fury had seized him when he found them handcuffed to beds, legs spread, as if ready to receive the next insemination. There was also a room where several of them were chained, their swollen bellies showing different stages of pregnancy. When Zion finished what he needed to do, he shadow-traveled to a place where no one could hear him. There, hidden among countless trees, the general punched fallen trunks and screamed into the wind, as if somehow his hatred could reach the enemy and tear their horrendous hearts to shreds.

When he finally returned to the army camp, he washed up in the bathing tent and went straight to his sleeping bag. The plan was to turn in early, wake up rested, and make a leisurely return trip. But before sleeping, he always checked the chimera’s mind to make sure Kyller was all right. This time, however, when he entered Kiara’s mind, he was struck by images that shook him to his core.