Heir Of Violence (#1 Betrayed Destinies) - ONC2024

Chapter 6 - Bound

What was she...? Zaen glanced down, following his captive's gaze, and gaped at the black vine tattoo now wrapping around his wrist, forearm, and climbing his elbow. No. NO! Frantically, he scrubbed at it as the delicate leaves continued to form—a heated prickling itch in his skin that burned with implication.

He'd been caught... bound.

No escape and no chance to bargain. His pulse thundered in his ears, his every sense heightened. He had a soulmate and the only person he'd touched—

Eyes narrowing and red washing over his sight, he charged toward a wide-eyed Caeryssa, now cowering with her arms held in front of her, palms out, crouched against the grey metal of the pilot's cabin wall. He snorted—as if he could fail to see her glowing blue skin. No vines appeared on her hands or bound wrists. Nor did he see anything on the side of her face visible behind that curtain of snowy hair.

"Where?" he roared.

"I—I don't," she stammered.

Was she fucking lying to him? Now? If he could feel the vines forming, she sure as fuck could too.

Zaen shot a hand out, gripping her by the throat and raising her into the air as she clutched at his hands, feet kicking. No vines on her neck or face. With his free hand, he yanked up her sleeves. Nothing. He tore open her shipsuit from neck to crotch to reveal her sensible white bra attempting to restrain the full globes of those luscious tits and white bikini panties. Stars, she really was blue everywhere. Her shapely form was almost enough to distract him from the black vines still forming on her abdomen. His vision tunnelled until they were all he could see. They'd have been beautiful on her glowing sapphire skin if he ignored their significance.

Which he wasn't.

He bared his teeth and bellowed, "Son of a shitstain o-dep spacer!" Rage swelled in an overwhelming fiery wave, burning his veins. Of all the people to get stuck to—that foul assassin's daughter.

Stomach churning, Zaen tore his gaze from her damning skin and released his grip to let her collapse on the floor, then turned his back and stalked from the cabin. "Lock, my voice command only," he growled into his wrist com and the swish behind him as the door closed confirmed his ship's AI had complied. Still feeling the sensation of her fragile neck against his hand, he slammed his fist into the metal wall. Pain exploded in his knuckles and he struck again. A match to the agony, the betrayal in his heart.

Why? Why his enemy's daughter?

Roaring in a wordless scream that thundered down the ship's hallway, he fell to his knees with his ears ringing. His back itched, the nanites heating his flesh, mistaking his turmoil for a threat, for the need to shift to protective dragonscale. He fought it back even as they repaired his broken knuckles. As they had the bite that little hellion had given him, the bite that sealed their fates.

His soulmate.

He snorted. It figured he'd find his soulmate by her tearing into his flesh. Dark amusement boiled from him in a deep chuckle that echoed off the surrounding metal walls. Damn fate was a ruthless fucking bitch.

"Are you spaced? What in the black hole are you doing on the floor, shouting and cackling?" Emmed frowned down at him, then peered at the blood on the metal wall. "Whose blood—Tell me you didn't kill our best lead to that jiswinner!"

"No, of course I didn't fucking kill her," Zaen snarled. "Although it would have been better if I had." He turned his forearm towards his friend as he rose to his feet.

Emmed's brown eyes widened. "Oh stars... that's... that's..."

"Yeah. I know."

Emmed blinked, then burst out laughing.

"You can just go suck a fucking airlock, damn you," Zaen growled, shoving his friend into the grey wall with a metallic thud.

Emmed staggered but stayed on his feet, bent over and howling as Zaen stomped down the hall towards the bridge.  

(670 words)