Again, his hands dug into the sand and huge arcs fell onto his thin frame like a waterfall against a branch. He was ill and should rest, yet I couldn’t deny him this. Not anymore.

His arms went around my waist and he hugged me tightly. Then I sat down on the sand while he breathed in. Again, I wiped away a tear. For the next hour, I watched him draw lines in the sand, stick his feet into the water, and even drink from the sea. The taste was unpleasant he said, and yet he did it again.

Once finished he hobbled over to me. I helped him down to the sand. “I am not gone yet.”

He wasn’t. I suspected this ‘play session’ and his mobility was a mental boost. The sickness and age would take him soon.

“But for now,” he said. “Thank you for letting me be a Volardi.”

He didn’t say ‘die a Volardi’ and for that I was grateful.

My lips thinned. Perhaps I should have let him free earlier. I don’t know if it was a mistake, but he could live life now.

As short as it is.

The shouts of soldiers and the high pitch from security orbs took my attention.

“Sire! Your Femeni… we’ve searched everywhere. He’s gone.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

PETER

I woke up to a grey fog, with shimmering lines of white and shifting blue.

My eyes seemed to work fine yet I continually blinked quickly from my bed. It wasn’t the clear dome above me, nor schools of aquatic life that made me doubt my surroundings. The multi-eyed, and very large, orange ‘crab’ at the end of my bed did.

Its segmented shell was curved up like a croissant. Two sets of three eyes on each side stared without blinking. I strained my neck up slowly and saw six tapered feet with two large claws in front. I heard Omegas have strange pregnancy dreams, and I did but this thing wasn’t in my head.

My forehead scrunched, and I touched the side of my neck that felt extremely tender and raised.

I inhaled deep and frowned at the overpowering scent of briny ocean water. I wondered how much of that was from the creature or my environment. With one hand I pushed up while a dull, throbbing pain radiated down my spine.

Damn this bloated body.

My steady gaze remained on the armored thing before me. Neither of us blinked – yet I wasn’t sure if it could. My implant told me nothing about it.

Okay… what now?

I had to do something. Earlier I told Matros, I wasn’t helpless. That was about walking by myself, and running back and forth to the kitchen while I tried new foods.