Page 67 of Ashes & Aether

Margaret Elmsleigh won’t merely provide blood.

She will provide the ultimate missing link.

Let the spymaster tear the planet apart looking for her. By the time he reaches my laboratory, both specimens will be far beyond his grasp.

22

ORIEN

The strategic deployment briefing with Kairen concludes after marks spent poring over manifests and schedules. I review the troop assignments for London, committing the numbers to memory, but my mind is leagues away.

It remains in my estate. In the bedroom there, where Maggie is waiting.

A primal satisfaction thrums through my veins, vibrating along the glowing orange neural filaments of my neck and chest. My twin hearts beat a steady, triumphant rhythm. I did it. I buried myself deep inside Margaret Elmsleigh and filled her with a fertile load. She took it willingly. She surrendered her terrifying independence and asked me to breed her.

My cock twitches against the fabric of my trousers, a phantom echo of her slick inner muscles clamping down on my ridges. I want to return to the estate, strip the tailored jacket off her shoulders, and back her against the wall before we board the ship for Earth. I want to mark every inch of her skin.

I step onto the royal transport skiff, engaging the silent thrusters. The vehicle glides over the bioluminescent canopy of the capital, the vibrant greens and blues blurring past the viewport.

The skiff docks on my private landing pad, and the rush of the lower lakes fills the cool night air.

I walk through the sweeping archways of my home, the silence welcoming me.

“Maggie.”

My voice echoes off the dark timber beams and the polished stone floors.

No deadpan insult answers me. No sharp reprimand about alien arrogance.

I cross the foyer, my boots silent against the stone. I expand my enhanced hearing, pushing my senses past the ambient noise of the waterfall outside. I listen for the steady, measured thump of her human heart. I listen for the rustle of her sensible clothes, the click of her practical heels.

Nothing.

The silence is absolute. It is not the peaceful, empty quiet I enjoyed for centuries. It is a hollow, suffocating vacuum.

A cold weight drops into the pit of my stomach.

I stride down the eastern corridor, the leisurely pace vanishing entirely. The heavy wooden doors to the guest suite stand ajar. I push them wide open, stepping into the room.

The bed is made. Her canvas duffel sits on the low bench at the foot of the mattress, the zipper hanging halfway open. A single white blouse lies folded atop the dark canvas. Her hairbrush rests on the vanity.

She hasn’t finished packing.

I scan the room, my eyes darting into the shadowed corners, checking the balcony, the adjacent bathing chamber. Empty. I inhale deeply, tasting the air. Her scent lingers. But it is fading. Stale. She hasn’t been in this room for at least a mark.

Maggie does not wander. She does not take leisurely strolls without an objective.

I step up to the primary communication terminal mounted near the doorframe, pressing my bare palm against the dark metal. My nanites interface with the estate’s security grid, flashing streams of data across my optical nerve.

I bypass the ambient environmental logs and pull the access registry.

A single entry glows. An S-class assistive unit arrived at the estate a little over a mark ago. It bypassed the outer perimeter using a verified, high-level authorization seal.

Lirael’s seal.

A medical summons.

My jaw tightens until the bone aches. Maggie despises the medical scanners. She despises the extraction tools. But she made a promise to synthesize a cure for her dying soldiers, and Margaret Elmsleigh honors her commitments above her own comfort. If Lirael sent a mech requesting her presence for a breakthrough, Maggie would go.