As the General writhed on the floor, Wrath tried to fight his way out of his restraints, but the organic membranes immediately constricted around him with such strength they were clearly cutting his blood flow and choking him. It took a few seconds after he stopped struggling for them to start relaxing. I didn’t know why he wasn’t shifting into battle form or summoning a mouth dart. It could only be that the Enhanced Worker had previously injected him with something.
The spasm shaking Khutu suddenly stopped. For a moment, I thought the bastard had finally died, but he took in a deep breath, before exhaling slowly. And then his skin appeared to liquify as it settled into place, taking on a beautiful, flawless, light grey color. Lustrous blond hair grew at an exponential rate from his skull, settling on his broad shoulders as dark chitin scales began covering him.
I gaped in horror as Khutu straightened while still in his kneeling position, wearing Bane’s beautiful face and perfect body. He raised shaky hands, and they slowly roamed over his chest and up to his face, the way a blind person would ‘see’ someone by touch. As his fingers slipped through his long, golden locks, an evil grin slowly stretched his lips. The soft, smug chuckle that shook his shoulders further fueled my rage. I tried summoning my acid to spray him with, but my body refused to respond to me any more than my psychic abilities. Khutu had no right to that body, to that angelic face. How much further would he desecrate all that was good in this world?
The hatred filling my heart was like a living entity choking me. Helpless, I watched him rise to his feet. Wobbly at first, he quickly steadied himself and raised his arm before him to admire his new body.
“Flawless,” Khutu whispered with awe and excitement. Turning towards us, he looked at the Enhanced Worker behind me. “Six, going forward, this will be my new permanent appearance. Tell your sisters that they are now to obey me in this skin.”
The Worker didn’t reply, but I assumed she had acknowledged his request with a nod or telepathically.
“You see, Xian,” Khutu said, turning back to Wrath, “I always win, and you always lose. I played the long game, and now I will live forever. But not you. There’s nothing of you that will live on once you’re gone. No mate, no offspring, you will fade into oblivion. I enjoyed fucking your little Elisa for decades. And now that I’ve taken over the body of the first son she gave me, I’m going to fuck Chaos’s former Soulcatcher; the impudent Dragon Queen. And then I’ll slit her open from cunt to throat. One by one, I will eliminate your brothers from within, and fuck their wives before killing them. Bane has not only made me immortal, he’s put Khepri itself in my hands. Too bad you won’t be there to see me becoming the new face of the Vanguard.”
“You will never leave this place alive,” Wrath said before spitting in Khutu’s face.
Ever swift to anger, Khutu backhanded Wrath with such force, I expected his neck to snap. But despite the blood trickling down from his mouth, the Warrior faced the General again, unwaveringly. That angered him even more. His scorpion tails extruded from his shoulder blades as did his claws at his fingertips. Instead of slicing Wrath’s throat, Khutu chose to make the pain last. He lacerated the Warrior’s face while pummeling his chest with the rounded ends of his tails.
Unable to resist, I shouted for the bastard to stop—to no avail. The demented grin on the General’s face grew with each sound of bones shattering under the impact. Despite the savagery of the assault, Wrath denied him any satisfaction, never making the slightest sound of pain and never speaking a word to plead for clemency. When he stopped moving, Khutu stabbed him multiple times with the poison darts of his tails, but the Warrior’s soul had already departed.
Khutu stood for a good two minutes, staring furiously at Wrath before his head suddenly jerked towards us. I braced, realizing that my turn had come. I didn’t fear death, but I hated that it would come at the hands of one such as he. But above all, I hated that I would never see my little Firefly again, that I didn’t get to say goodbye, and that I would leave her alone when I had sworn to be by her side forever.
However, the General was not looking at me. A look of horror descended upon his features, quickly shifting to anger and determination. His head jerked back towards the tunnel through which we had arrived, and he clenched his jaw.
“If I have not given you new orders about how to handle him in the next twenty minutes, kill him,” Khutu said to Six.
And then, to my greatest shock, Khutu was torn by a series of violent spasms. My eyes bulged as the same cracking sound of shifting resonated through the room, and his body reverted to the abomination he had been before appropriating Bane’s appearance. He collapsed on the floor, and exhaled a deep breath, before going still… dead.
Chapter 19
Shuria
Complete mayhem reigned in the nursery. The hidden panels had revealed entire sections our scanners had not been able to pick up because of some scramblers. Enhanced Workers kept pouring out in droves armed with blasters and those messed up shields that had knocked out the Vanguard females on the Moon of Melibos. Thankfully, we now knew better and had the numbers to help us fight back. The Scelks had formed a ring around the nursery, flying close to the ceiling to get a broad view of the entire area. Each of them mind-controlled as many of the Workers as they could while spraying them with acid. The Dragons also rained death from above with their mouth darts, the poisoned needles from their scorpion tails, and their blasters.
The Warriors were down in the trenches, more of them being brought over the chasm by the shuttles. They were taking the brunt of the assault, especially now that fucking sandworms had joined the fray. Being mindless creatures, the Scelks couldn’t control them. It was a pain to manage as every time one of the Warriors died, they were reborn inside the frigate located in the main hangar and needed to be flown over again to rejoin the battle.
But their sacrifice allowed the Dragons and the Scelks to do maximum damage to our enemies. Many of the psychic females were standing at the edge of the first corridor from the entrance, shooting down at the Workers, tossing replacement shields and blasters to the Warriors, and Shielding the souls of the fallen until they could be resurrected by a Portal.
I had just brought back another group of Warriors and was readying to fly back to the frigates, when I noticed Linette near the smaller tunnel on the other side of the nursery. Five Dragons, including Dread, were covering her while she futilely attempted to shoot the lasers blocking the passage. Her mate and her Warrior were trapped on the other side. Tabitha was putting on a strong front, but we all knew she was dying inside knowing her mate was also trapped there with the General. I had to give the female a begrudging respect seeing how she plowed through, upholding her duties despite her distress.
Bane wasn’t mine. He had never been. But even now, I ached. It had taken a long time for me to admit it, but I had fallen hard for the hybrid. I had accepted the truth, but knowing he was in harm’s way was tearing me up inside. Myriam’s team was unable to hack through the laser maze. But lucky for her, her mate Dread had died close enough for Ayana to rescue him. Technically, Linette should have been able to reach their minds. Something had been done to the men that they couldn’t respond to her.