Welcome back! I'm sorry this chapter is so short compared to some of my others. Still, I hope you enjoy.
Before he opened his eyes, Ronon knew where he was. He had been held captive in enough Wraith cocoons to recognize the warm, sticky web encasing his body. Craning his neck as far forward as it would reach, he looked to both sides of him. There was no one to his left, but Eva – eyes closed and unconscious – was in her own cocoon on his right.
"Eva!" he hissed. "Eva!"
Her eyes fluttered open and, once they focused, widened in fear.
"Dad?" she whispered.
"I'm here, pup," he reassured her.
"Where are we?" she asked, her voice breaking.
He started to wiggle his fingers in an attempt to reach the knife concealed in his wrist guard. "We're in cocoons on the cruiser."
"The cruiser?" he heard her breathe.
"We need to get outta here."
"Schmitz and Nichols?"
"They're not here. I don't know where they are," he answered as he struggled against the tendrils of the cocoon. "Can you reach a knife?"
"I'm trying," she replied.
Her voice was higher than usual. His little girl was scared and there was nothing he could do about it. He thrashed himself against his restraints but no matter how he fought against his prison, he couldn't comfort her, he couldn't protect her.
"If you cut yourself out before I do, don't stop to release me," he ordered. "Just go. Find a way out on your own."
"Dad," she whimpered.
"You leave me here and find a way home to your mother. Do you understand me?"
"No," she stubbornly declared. "I stand a better chance at survival if you're with me. We get separated – I'm dead."
"Dammit, Eva. Will you please for once in your life just listen to me?"
"No!" she shouted. "You would never leave me so I'm not leaving you."
"Quiet," he barked at the sound of approaching armored footsteps.
A Wraith commander and two drones appeared from around the dark corner and halted before their cocoons. The commander surveyed both of them from top to bottom, Ronon all the while hating how long its ravenous reptilian eyes lingered on his daughter, and then it leered.
"I did not realize we had picked up two more. A Lantean gate ship and four humans?" the Wraith commented. "What a pleasant surprise." It walked up to Eva's cocoon and smiled. "And this one is young." It stroked the side of her cheek with the back of the finger of its feeding hand and she recoiled into the womb-like pod to get away.
"Don't touch her," Ronon snarled.
It looked back and forth from Eva's amber eyes to Ronon's. "Fascinating how certain traits are passed down from the human sire to its offspring," it mused. "Useful too, once you learn how to control it...how to breed for it."
"Take me," Ronon growled, interrupting it. "Take me and let her go."
The Wraith raised its eyebrows and turned its attention to him. "She is important enough to you that you would sacrifice your own life for hers?" it asked more rhetorically than to Ronon himself. "Interesting…" It pulled a small device from its coat pocket and pressed a button, as though making notes. "I have frequently observed the females protecting their young, but this is the first time I have seen it with a male." The Wraith shrugged and put the device back in its place. "Unfortunately, you are hardly in a position to bargain. Whatever would make you think that I would let either one of you go?"
"I'm bigger. I'm stronger. I'll better satisfy your hunger," he argued.
"You humans consume bovine flesh, do you not?" it asked, yellow eyes peering into his own.
He glared back, breathing heavily, still trying to reach his knife. When he got free, he would start by cutting those eyes out of their sockets.
"Would you settle for the meat of an old steer," it returned its gaze to Ronon's daughter, "when you could have veal instead? I think not," it whispered.
Ronon slammed his entire weight against the cocoon, trying to break himself free. "Don't touch her!" he yelled.
"I much prefer the taste of the females, anyway." It ignored Ronon and stepped even closer to Eva. "I will leave the ox for my underlings."
"Dad," she called out to him. He could hear the tears thickening in the back of her throat.
The Wraith lowered Eva's cocoon, but she was ready. She forced her way out of it, grabbed her knife and sliced the Wraith across its cheek. It hissed in pain.
"Eva, run!" Ronon shouted to her.
As she turned to look at him, the two Wraith guards caught her by the elbows, disarmed her, and forced her to the floor. The commander wiped the dark blood from his face and cackled.
"Let her go!" Ronon yelled. "Take me!"
The Wraith advanced upon her, knelt to the floor and plunged his hand to her chest, preparing and strengthening her body for the feeding process. It clearly wanted this to last as long as possible. She shrieked in pain, tears falling from her eyes.
Her pain became his pain and the ground swayed violently beneath him. Had he not been imprisoned in the cocoon, he surely would have dropped to his knees. "Take me!" he roared as he watched, unable to look away.
The Wraith stopped and for the shortest of moments, Ronon thought he had convinced it. But that flicker of hope soon extinguished when he realized he recognized the look in the Wraith's eyes as it stared down at Eva. A Wraith had once given him that same look more than twenty-five years earlier.
The beast turned its head and made eye contact with Ronon, still fighting his flesh-like manacles. "She's strong," it sneered. "You should be very proud."
"I'm stronger," he growled.
"Take her to the laboratory," the Wraith commanded.
"And him?" one of the drones asked, nodding toward Ronon.
"You will take your fill once I have finished with her," it answered. "And see to it that she's restrained."
"No," Eva breathed as she struggled against the two guards. "No! Dad!" she screamed, looking back at him over her shoulder. With Eva flailing wildly in their grip, kicking, biting, and headbutting but to no gain, they disappeared around a corner. "Daddy!" he heard her cry.
Ronon strained so hard against the cocoon that his vision began to darken. A piece of sinew near his neck was suffocating him, he felt the capillaries bursting in the whites of his eyes, but he refused to relent.
They couldn't take his child. His only child.
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