Reclaiming Mystique (SpaceStalker Saga Book 2) by Bevan Greer Read Free Book Online

behind his inner shields. A glance at Demise showed all pretense of amiability erased from the demon lord’s face.
    “Tell me what you know of the Cazeth,” Demise ordered, his eyes tinted red, burning at the centers.
    “They aren’t real. They’re just rumors and myth,” Jace answered coolly.
    “Just as demons and devels are myth, hmm?”
    Jace waited but Demise said no more. The demon lord stared at him as if searching for something. Finally he stood, his wings flared in what seemed like agitation before settling against his back.
    “We’ll talk more later, boy. You will tell me what I want to know,” Demise promised. He moved to the door, paused, and turned back to Jace. “While I’m gone, think on what else I saw for that split second your mind lay open to me.”
    Jace waited until Demise left before sagging to the floor. He sat, searching for an inner balance that seemed to have vanished.
    It was only a matter of time before Demise wore him down. And he needed to do everything within his power to prevent Demise from learning the truth about his background.
    The Psi, a mythical race of men and women with mental abilities beyond that of most System inhabitants, seemed as unreal as the Cazeth to most. Yet Jace knew all too well they were real. He’d been born a Psi, on the thirteenth Nearworld—Mystique.
    No one actually believed that his kind existed, though rumors spread about mentally gifted beings alive and well on the outreaches of the System. But people attributed them to space anomalies, to those rare instances in life when odd mutations occurred.
    Jace was one of a handful of Psi that lived away from Mystique. He had left the planet involuntarily, due to the soulless scum-sucking Cazeth and their leader, Orsan. He’d done his best to repel the invasion, but against such power, he’d been overpowered. The Cazeth had been a hairsbreadth from killing him when Orsan had stepped in. Orsan, in his wisdom , had sentenced Jace to a worse hell than death— to a life away from the living planet no Psi could do without.
    Ripped away from his homeworld and sold to Kre pirates intent on slavery, Jace had wanted to die. Apart from anything that mattered, psychically blinded by the loss of his beloved, sentient planet and those he called family, he’d lived only for revenge against those who had caused such pain. But the pirates hadn’t appreciated his hostility. At all. Only with the help of a Fenturi girl not much younger than himself had he escaped. And with her, he’d started to find pleasure in the simple things again.
    Dare had saved him, and the two had become best friends. In the time since, he’d served on the SpaceStalker as her Second, until a cycle past when she’d found her destiny on her homeworld of Bylar, and in the arms of her mate.
    The cold floor of his cell seeped into his bones, and he sighed. Why wouldn’t his planet call him home? Mystique had a living soul, one that existed within all her inhabitants. Without Mystique’s will, Jace could never again find or live on his planet. For ten cycles he’d been growing his powers, practicing and readying for his confrontation with Orsan and the hated Cazeth.
    He could only pray they hadn’t destroyed Mystique and any survivors that remained on the planet. At thoughts of his family, he concentrated on the present. No sense in inviting more unnecessary pain. He had enough to worry about in the here and now.
    Were Castor and the others still alive? He couldn’t sense them. He was too drained from Demise’s punishment and too far away to feel their energy. He knew none of them would inadvertently tell Demise of his Psi abilities. No one except Dare knew of his gift. And he intended to keep it that way.
    When Mystique called to him, and he prayed in his heart that she would, Jace would leave everything behind to save his dying race. Until that time, he would prepare for the coming battle.
    And I can’t do that from within a dark prison