Wyck’s words echoed in my mind.
I had no reason to trust anything he said, but could I prove him wrong? Even if I managed to somehow fix the cut-out in the escape capsule door that Nocc had made, I had no idea what to do about the system malfunction.
“Not enough power to take off.”
I distinctly remembered the warning message on the control panel, but I didn’t know what had caused it or how to fix it.
Our team had been carefully selected. The distinct skill set of each individual was meant to add to the combined knowledge base we had as a group. My expertise, sadly, appeared to be the least useful for the current situation.
As a movie producer, my sole purpose on the team was to obtain appealing footage to create a documentary that would showcase the achievements of our expedition in the best light and make our sponsors look good. The cameras I had installed around the common areas of the ship would’ve recorded the carnage upon our arrival and the demise of my entire crew—nothing for the sponsors to brag about.
I had no idea how to fix any of the complicated space travel technology that had gotten me here. I’d spent nearly a year in training, learning how to use it. It would take years more of studying to learn how to repair any of it.
The people who could do something about it were now dead. My chest tightened as the image of the motionless bodies of my teammates rose in my mind’s eye again. The horror of their murders churned painfully in my soul.
A little flicker of hope burnt through the darkness of my despair. Val wasn’t among the corpses on the floor when Wyck had taken me off our ship. I hadn’t witnessed her being killed. Could she have survived and made it out of there undetected? And if she had, how long would she be able to survive in this place?
According to Wyck, being anywhere on the Anomaly on your own meant risking being raped or eaten. After everything I’d experienced here in the short time since our landing, I was inclined to believe him on that one.
The horror of it all crept up my throat, making it hard to breathe and bringing tears to my eyes. I pressed my eyes shut quickly, refusing to let the tears flow. As long as I was still alive, I had to keep going.
First, I needed to talk to Wyck—or anyone who would speak to me—to find out more about this place and those who occupied it.
Letting go of the door, I finally turned around. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of the room Wyck had put me in.
It’d been made entirely out of transparent material. Attached to the pewter-colored wall with the entrance doors, the glass bubble extended out into the open space beyond. The bottom of it was flat, serving as the floor, the rest arched around me, surrounded by the rolling waves of multi-colored light. It ebbed and pulsed in an endless cosmic dance, impairing my sense of reality.
The space beyond the glass room was both beautiful and terrifying in its vastness. Staggering back, I pressed my hands into the door behind me, letting the sensation of cool solid metal ground me.
One didn’t need to be an expert to realize this light show was not a normal occurrence. For all the wonders of space I’d witnessed on my journey here, I’d never seen anything like this before. The mesmerising beauty would’ve beguiled and excited me had Wyck not made it clear—this was now my prison.
Beautiful and terrifying.
Chapter 4
WYCK
He punched the code into the newly mounted panel to engage the lock, then leaned against the closed doors, grateful to have the female and her scent finally concealed behind them. The urgent throbbing in his cocks subdued somewhat, resuming the normal blood flow to his brain.
Now what?
“Take care of her. Feed her...” Vrateus had instructed.
She must be hungry. He needed to get her some food.
Since Vrateus’s woman, Svetlana, had taken over meal preparation on the Dark Anomaly, the crew was no longer allowed to come and go in the kitchen whenever they pleased.
Three times a day, Krahkil served the crew the food Svetlana cooked. Outside of the meal hours, snacks were available in the mess hall.
Lunchtime had passed, and there was still some time before dinner. He should get something for the female—Nadia—from the mess hall, but first he needed to get Lesh.
He’d left the mahdi chained in the humans’ spaceship. Lesh could take care of himself, but Wyck didn’t like leaving him alone for long anywhere but in his room.
Pushing away from the doors, he turned right, heading in the direction of the human’s spaceship.
Three errocks—Nocc, Trox, and Gler—were working on stripping the ship of equipment.
Chained in the spot where he’d left him, Lesh lay on his belly. However, his posture was far from relaxed. His paws drawn under him, all six eyes trained on the errocks, the animal was ready to pounce on anyone who came too close.
“There you are,” Gler growled as soon as he’d sighted Wyck. “Get your beast the hell out of here. He’s in the way.”
Lesh leaped to his feet the moment Wyck entered. He refrained from petting or even greeting the animal in the presence of the others, silently unwinding the chain from the bar on the wall, instead.
“Where is Vrateus?” he asked Gler.
“Took some boxes with weapons over to his storage.”
Weapons.
He remembered about Nadia’s knife in his pocket. It was resting right above the wound she’d made between his ribs.
Crazy female.
A warm thrill tickled inside his chest at the thought of her.
Vrateus didn’t allow anyone but Svetlana to carry weapons. Although the laser knife was more of a utility tool, Wyck was certain his captain would classify it as a weapon and would demand Wyck surrender it to him. Any of the errocks present would love to get their hands on the blade, too.
He didn’t always obey his captain, but he’d never concealed anything from his family before. Except for Lesh. His grip tightened on the chain connected to the mahdi’s middle neck.
Wyck had found Lesh in one of the narrow passages that were plentiful around the Dark Anomaly, in which only the mahdi pup could fit. He’d been not much bigger than Wyck’s forearm back then, whimpering in fear, his three heads pressed tight to each other.
The youngest on the Dark Anomaly, Wyck was only fourteen back then. Finding someone younger than himself had intrigued him. Having someone small and defenseless, who wouldn’t order him around, had felt refreshing.
“Hey!” Nocc stomped out from a side compartment, hauling out an armload of spacesuits. He dropped them on the floor. “How is my female doing?”
Wyck’s neck muscles stiffened, and his jaw tightened at the word “my.”
“Ours,” he corrected. “That’s what the captain said.”
“Fuck the captain.” Nocc came closer and wrapped his arm around Wyck’s shoulders.
Just a hand-width shorter than Wyck, Nocc was two decades older than Wyck’s twenty-four years of age.
“The captain put you in charge of the female, didn’t he?” Nocc said in a conspiratorial tone. “Whatever you do with her now is up to you, right?”
“That’s not what he meant—”
“Since when do you care about what he means?” Nocc snapped. “All errocks are a family. Here, we’re all brothers. And family comes first.”