Prowl & Passion (Alien Beasts #2)

Free Fall

Gravity clawed at Jules' ribcage, ruthlessly crushing the air from her lungs. The entire cockpit vibrated so violently her teeth slammed together, the sharp taste of copper spreading across her tongue.

Red strobe light sliced through the half-darkness, pulsing every second.

It bathed the shattered instrument panel in a bloody flicker that seared her retinas as the stench of ozone, scorched insulation, and overheated coolant flooded the cabin.

Her stomach clenched. Jules choked down the rising bile and pressed the back of her head deep into the headrest.

With every hard jolt of the tilting ship, the Kevlar straps of the copilot's seat cut deeper into her collarbones, eating through the fabric of her jacket and scraping the skin beneath raw. Jules jerked her head to the left.

Jinx sat hunched in the pilot's seat, not blinking once.

She looked like a machine in a humanoid shell, her fingers hammering across the tactile interface in a blur of precision and calculated speed.

Nothing about her resembled a living being plummeting through an alien atmosphere in a blazing coffin.

She stoically typed commands into a console already spitting sparks beneath her fingers.

Outside the viewport, plasma fire crawled across the armored glass—the extreme friction heat had long since transformed the ship's outer hull into a flaming comet.

The deafening screech of tearing titanium steel swallowed the alarm sirens effortlessly.

Murderous heat pressed through the cabin walls, instantly evaporating the sweat on Jules' forehead and parching her throat.

Adrenaline surged through her veins, hammering pure survival instinct against her ribs. She wrenched her mouth open, screamed against the hellish noise, and felt the raw scratch tear through her throat.

“We're dying! Fucking hell, we're about to burn to ash! Remember the part of the plan where you said, 'Get in, the ship's a damn ghost on radar'? Because this fireworks show out here feels pretty damn visible!”

Jinx's hands didn't pause for a fraction of a second. Her gaze stayed fixed on the red cascades of error messages as her voice cut through the chaos in the cockpit, ice-cold—monotone and utterly unaffected by the fact they were moments from impact.

“My calculations were flawless. The entry angle is perfect. The damn scanner dampening on this heap of junk has a latency error of point-four seconds. That's a hardware failure. Not faulty math.”

Jules stared at her in disbelief. The ship bucked, throwing her hard into the straps before the G-forces mercilessly slammed her back into the seat.

A sharp, scratchy laugh broke from her throat, teetering on the edge of madness—pure gallows humor as her last functioning shield against naked terror.

“Oh, thank God! Then we can have them write on our tombstone: She burned alive, but her math was excellent!”

The rattling escalated as white hairline cracks spread like fine spiderwebs across the armored glass, heat shimmering unbearably through the cockpit. Jules squeezed her eyes shut. Even though the glaring plasma fire burned through her eyelids, she stubbornly refused to look outside.

Invisible weight pressed her so deep into the cushions that every breath demanded brutal force.

Her thoughts raced inevitably to the coordinates they'd been chasing—to the Syndicate slave trader fleet in orbit behind them, herding humans like cattle onto platforms. Flesh buyers.

A phantom sensation scratched at the back of her neck, heavy and ice-cold like the metal of a slave collar.

The imaginary stench of urine, fear, and sick bodies in the breeding stalls rose in her, mingled with the grunting of warlords who bared their fangs as they assessed women's anatomy and muscles for the auction block.

A shiver ran down her spine, conquering even the infernal heat of the cabin for a moment.

If the ship burned up now, nothing would be left of her—no merchandise, no toy for some master.

Ash couldn't be put in chains, couldn't be fucked or sold.

Dying was final, but it meant freedom, and that was ten thousand times better than ending up naked and broken on the block.

Jinx's fingers slammed down on a red blinking panel, and a shrill warning tone cut through the roar of flames.

“Thrust reversal initialized. Jules. Head down. Brace for impact.”

Jules clamped her hands around the armrests so tightly her knuckles went white, fingernails digging into the fabric. She forced her eyes open and stared directly into the rapidly approaching black beneath the clouds.

“I hate yo—”

The brutal impact swallowed her remaining words as titanium steel shrieked and kinetic energy slammed into the ship like a sledgehammer.

The cockpit wrenched upward. Branches thick as bridge pillars whipped against the viewport and shattered the glass in a hail of razor-sharp splinters as the Kevlar straps dug into Jules' flesh like blades, squeezing the last air from her lungs.

A massive jolt hurled her forward, her head slamming hard against the metal strut.

A white flash flared behind her eyes, pain split her skull in two, and the darkness dragged her down.

Raw cold was the first thing she felt. Wetness seeped through the leather of her boots, icy water already up to her ankles, and the stench of burning fuel, torn earth, and ozone hung heavy in the air.

Jules groaned softly, her jaw grinding, a dull throbbing in her left temple matching the rhythm of her racing heartbeat.

That sharp copper taste filled her mouth again as hot blood pooled on her tongue.

A hard blow cracked across her right cheek, snapping her head to the side. Jinx had slapped her, palm leaving a burning sting on the skin.

“Wake up. Jules, eyes open. Now.”

Jules forced her eyes open. The world still spun uncontrollably, red and black spots dancing in her vision.

She focused blearily on Jinx's face, leaning over her in the knee-high water of the flooded cockpit.

Jules spat a viscous clump of blood and saliva into the murky brew at her feet, then locked her gaze on the other woman's.

“If you hit me again, I'll break the fingers you flew this piece-of-shit ship with.”

Jinx didn't give an inch. Her expression stayed blank, a smooth mask, her eyes cold and laser-focused. Without sparing Jules another glance, she pulled up the status display on a datapad strapped to her wrist.

“Good. You're still functional. Grab your gear. We've got ten minutes max before the reactor goes critical and turns this whole sector into a smoking crater.”

Jules blinked hard, fighting the persistent dizziness.

Raw survival instinct shoved the nausea aside as she hit the release on her harness.

The buckles sprang open with a metallic click.

She pitched forward, braced herself hard against the demolished console, and hauled herself to her feet, trembling.

A stabbing pain shot through her left ankle, but the joint held her weight.

The view ahead told the whole story: the main window was gone.

Only jagged metal edges remained, torn wires dangling like bloody veins into a gaping hole.

Gray tendrils of fog were already creeping into the space.

Jules grabbed her backpack—wedged under a bent support beam at the rear of the cockpit—and yanked the fabric free from the debris with brute force, slinging it over her shoulder.

She scrambled over the shredded consoles, dodging the sharp edges of titanium steel, and squeezed through the shattered windscreen into the open air.

The atmosphere outside hit her face like a hot, wet fist. Heavy jungle air reeked of rotting plants, stagnant water, and a sweet, alien spore that instantly clung to her lungs.

Jules slid down from the ship's hull and landed in the soft, sucking mud.

The forest around her blurred into an impenetrable wall of gigantic trunks, fleshy ferns, and vines that hung from the branches like fat constrictors.

The cockpit jutted from the swamp at a grotesque angle. Blue flames licked greedily at the shattered port turbine while the wreck pulsed beneath her boots. An unhealthy, deep hum vibrated through the swamp floor—the core reactor was beginning to digest itself.

Jules lifted her gaze. Far in the distance, high above the canopy, a light burned.

Monolithic towers stabbed into the night sky like iron spears, shot through with artificial, menacing neon red.

The citadel seemed to be pure glass and obsidian, radiating a crushing coldness—absolute, mechanical control amid the wild darkness.

A sound tore through the silence. It came from the undergrowth to her right—a growl that bore no resemblance to anything earthly. A vibrating bass that made the mud tremble under Jules's boots and scraped like sandpaper against her skin. Hungry. Heavy. Deadly.

In one fluid motion, Jules drew the blaster from its holster.

The cold metal of the grip settled familiar in her palm as her thumb brushed the safety.

Sticky sweat ran down her neck. The alien growl resonated in her bones, a primal vibration that sent every flight instinct screaming.

Beside her, the mud squelched. Jinx had jumped from the wreck and was scanning the tree line with the same mechanical coldness she'd used to crash the ship into the dirt.

Jules wiped a sticky mix of sweat and blood from her forehead with the back of her hand. Her gaze darted between the wall of vines and the distant, glowing fortress. The steel monstrosity sliced through the darkness like a gaping wound.

“Please tell me we're heading to the glowing murder citadel,” Jules forced out. Her voice came out rougher than she'd intended. “I've got zero interest in ending up as a snack for some alien crocodile.”