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  The door opened suddenly, making her blink with the rush of light. “Now.” Xairn’s voice was a harsh whisper.

  “Now what?” Deep was the first to recover. Unbuckling himself from the safety harness, he crouched close to hear what the Scourge warrior was saying.

  “The AllFather is distracted—the pain from your cutting has filled him to completion. He is satisfied for the first time in weeks—torpid. We must act before he becomes alert again. And most especially before the dravik bursts.”

  “Dravik?” Kat frowned as she fumbled to unbuckle her harness. “Is that the weird blood-bubble thing he’s in?”

  Xairn nodded tersely. “Yes. Come, we need to get Lauren and run for the front entrance of the Complex at once. Here.” He passed Deep and Lock the weapons he’d taken from them earlier. “Watch what you shoot—if you burst the dravik none of us will get out of here alive. Now hurry.”

  “Wait,” Lock said. “What about the guards?”

  “They’re slow and stupid—they do only what the AllFather tells them,” Xairn said rapidly. “But they’re also extremely strong so don’t let them get too close. They aren’t intelligent enough to be trusted with projectile weapons but the AllFather has armed them with kusaxs.”

  “What’s a kusax?” Kat asked, finally getting free of her harness.

  “A Scourge knife,” Lock answered in a low voice. “The blade is made of the tainted black metal found only here on their home planet. It’s said that even a scratch from one it will poison your soul.”

  “Great,” Kat muttered. “Like my soul wasn’t messed up enough already.” She was trying to joke but in fact, the strange feeling of having had something vitally important amputated continued to grow. She couldn’t stop reaching out, feeling for Deep, expecting to pick up his emotions. But every time she tried she felt nothing…nothing…

  Then Lock wrapped an arm firmly around her waist and they were leaving the confines of the silver drum. “She’s yours now,” she heard Deep telling the light twin. “Take care of her. Leave the guards to me.”

  “Brother—” Lock began but Deep gave him a look fierce enough to shut him up.

  “Just do it,” he ordered. “And don’t call me that anymore—it no longer applies.”

  Lock nodded. “Very well.” He pulled Kat closer to him. “Stay with me, my lady. I will shield you with my life if necessary.”

  “I know you will.” There was a lump in Kat’s throat as they exited the interior of the psychic-knife. She kept feeling like she had lost something important—something irreplaceable which was now gone forever.

  The first thing she noticed when they stepped out was how silent everything was. The spidery shadow of the AllFather, within the glistening bloody bubble, was still—almost frozen. The three huge guards that surrounded him were silent too, reminding Kat of robots that had been switched off or monstrous toys whose batteries had run down.

  What’s going on with them? Kat wondered, staring at the silent tableau in the viewing gallery. She remembered Xairn saying something about the AllFather being satiated with pain… Our pain, she realized suddenly. That’s why that damn psychic-knife hurts so much. It’s not just meant to cut bonds—it generates the maximum amount of agony. Pain is what that sick bastard feeds on. Looking at the skeletal figure slumped within the slimy bubble, she knew she must be right. After everything we just went through, he must have sucked down so much hurt he can barely move—like a spider full of flies. He looks like somebody who just finished an entire Thanksgiving dinner all by himself, turkey and all!

  Obviously the AllFather’s torpor had spread to his attendants. Even the Alpha guard who was holding Lauren seemed to have loosened his grip and was simply standing behind her with his huge hands resting on her shoulders.

  Lauren seemed to have sensed the change too. She was tense—her eyes wide, obviously poised for something. A signal? A word? Kat moved a little back from Lock, ready to reach for her and try to drag her away from the monstrous solider guarding her. Then Xairn said, “Now!” and everything happened at once.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Lauren, to me!” Xairn shouted.

  She sprang forward, obeying his command at once. The huge hands that had been resting on her shoulders snapped shut—an instant too late.

  “Quickly!” Xairn grabbed her hand. “Before they awaken.”

  “Too late for that, my ssson.” The shape within the bloody black and red bubble moved as the AllFather came to life. “Alpha! The girl—get the girl!” he commanded, the dravik expanding with the force of his anger.

  The huge guard stumbled forward blindly, clumsy after his doze. He reached out but the female his thick fingers closed on was Kat, who was trying desperately to get out of the way as the other guards came to life.

  “Let go of me, you idiot!” She thrashed and kicked, aiming for his shins. But though plenty of her kicks connected, the merciless grip on her shoulders only tightened more.

  “Kat!” Lock and Deep both ran forward but at the same time the AllFather was descending the stairs of the viewing area. Worse, Xairn could see the dravik expanding and contracting regularly now—beating like a heartbeat. It was a sure sign that it was about to burst and release the AllFather. His father had gorged himself on the pain of the Kindreds’ cutting and now he would be more powerful than ever. They had to get away before that happened.

  I could go, he thought. I could take Lauren and run while the guards are distracted by the Kindred and their female. We could be safe in space before they even realized we were gone.

  But he couldn’t do it. He had pledged his help to the enemy warriors as they had pledged theirs to him. He had no right to leave them now—even if it meant his life. But that didn’t mean that Lauren had to die with him.

  “Run,” he told her, pushing her toward the far end of the lab. “Go straight down the corridor and out the double doors at the end. Keep going and you’ll come to a place with many abandoned ships. They should be touch activated so—”

  “No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You have to go!” Xairn was torn between exasperation and admiration. “I cannot leave until the Kindred and their female are free.”

  “I’m not leaving either.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Give me a weapon—let me help.”

  The thought that she might want to join the fight had never entered Xairn’s head. But from the look of things, they could use every hand they could get.

  “Here.” He fumbled in his boot for a moment and came up with a slim, finger-sized weapon. “This is a stunner. Point and press the trigger button at the end. Aim for the chest if you can—it’s a bigger target. Just don’t hit any of us—it’s calibrated for the guards.”

  “Got it.” She took the weapon in remarkably steady hands.

  “And don’t burst the AllFather’s dravik,” Xairn added, as he primed his own weapon and took aim. “It will rupture soon enough on its own.”

  “All right.” Holding the stunner in one hand, she steadied her wrist with the other and took aim. Xairn was impressed to see one of the guards who had been reaching for Deep knocked backwards from the force of the blast. Convinced that she knew what she was doing, he joined the fight.

  * * * * *

  Kat was doing her best not to freak out but it was pretty hard not to. One minute she’d been reaching for Lauren and the next she was being dragged backward by the massive, dead-eyed guard toward the raving AllFather.

  “No, no, you imbecile!” he was hissing angrily at the oblivious Alpha guard. “The other girl—thisss female isss uselesss to me. Get the other!” The weird blood bubble enclosing him was moving in waves, sucking in and out almost as though it was breathing. The strange motion somehow made it even more disgusting than it had been previously—and that was saying something as far as Kat was concerned.

  “Get off her, you son-of-a-bitch!” Behind her, Lock was aiming his weapon at the guard but cle