Chapter 18 #2
Someone who could stand beside me as an equal.
"Twenty-eight seconds," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. A smirk played at the corner of her mouth. "I counted."
The audacity of it—the sheer nerve to be teasing me right now, standing among seven unconscious and/or dead Ulkommenian soldiers—broke something loose in my chest.
I crossed the distance between us in three strides, caught her face in my hands, and kissed her.
Hard. Fierce. Pouring everything I couldn't say into it—the awe, the pride, the bone-deep want that seeing her like this ignited in me.
She made a surprised sound against my mouth, then melted into me.
When I finally pulled back, I kept my forehead pressed to hers, both of us breathing hard.
"Magnificent," I said, my voice rough. "You're absolutely magnificent."
Her eyes sparkled with something wild and bright. "Took you long enough to notice."
"Oh, I noticed." I grinned. "I just didn't realize the full extent until you took down seven Ulkommenian in under half a minute."
"Twenty-eight seconds," she corrected, that teasing smile widening.
I kissed her again, softer this time, reverent. Because she deserved that too—not just the fierce claiming, but the tender acknowledgment of exactly who she was.
My mate.
My warrior.
"Ship," she said, voice steady despite her exertion. "Now."
We ran.
But we'd made too much noise. The sounds of combat—the blaster fire, the impacts, the bodies hitting the ground—had echoed through the forest. As we sprinted across the clearing, I heard the rest of the search party crashing through the trees toward the commotion, their clicking voices raised in alarm.
The ship was so close. Fifty meters. Forty. I could see the ramp, still partially extended from when we'd activated the distress beacon.
Eight more Ulkommenian burst from the trees directly ahead, cutting off our path. Fresh. Uninjured. Armed with heavy blasters.
Fuck. I'd miscalculated the size of their shuttle.
They'd sent enough soldiers to take me alive, no matter what resistance I put up. Enough to absorb casualties and still complete the mission. The Ulkommenian didn't waste resources like that unless the target was worth it.
Unless I was worth it.
The realization made my blood run cold, even as my combat instincts kicked in.
We skidded to a stop and dove behind an outcropping of rocks as blaster fire erupted around us. The bolts struck stone with sharp cracks, sending fragments flying. One piece caught my cheek, drawing blood.
"Shit!" Niki breathed beside me, her back pressed against the rock. "They're between us and the ship."
"Then we clear them," I said, checking my claws. Still sharp. Still deadly. "We go through them."
"Enslak, you're already wounded." Her gaze dropped to my shoulder where I'd taken the blaster bolt.
"They won't kill me." I watched the Ulkommenian tighten their formation. "Look at their weapons—stun settings. Blue discharge, not red."
Niki's eyes flicked to the blasters, then back to me. Understanding dawned on her face. "Stun settings can still—"
"I'm their prize," I interrupted. "They've been hunting me for weeks. They want me alive. They need me alive for their experiments." I met her gaze. "They'll shoot to incapacitate me, not kill. But you? You're expendable."
I didn't add that they might want her too. For testing. For experimentation.
The thought made something savage and protective surge through me. I'd rather put a claw through her heart myself than let them take her to those labs. At least death would be quick. Merciful.
What they'd do to her wouldn't be.
"So I draw their fire," I continued, the plan forming even as I spoke. "The stun bolts will hurt like hell, might even drop me eventually, but they won't be fatal."
"That's insane—"
"It's tactical." I gripped her shoulder, feeling the tension in her muscles. "They need me intact. That's our advantage."
Another volley struck the rocks, closer this time. Fragments rained down on us.
"Enslak—"
"I know." I met her eyes, seeing the fear there, the concern. "But we don't have a choice. It's this or we die here."
A bolt struck the rock beside us, sending a jagged fragment flying. It grazed Niki's arm, drawing blood.
"We do this together," she said firmly, checking the blaster she'd taken off a downed Ulkommenian. The charge indicator showed half power. Enough for maybe half a dozen shots. "You draw their fire, but you don't just stand there and let them shoot you. No unnecessary risks."
I looked at her—small, human, fierce—and felt something surge in my chest. Pride. Respect. Something deeper that I didn't have words for yet.
"Together," I agreed.
We emerged from behind the rocks side by side.
The eight Ulkommenians had spread out, forming a loose perimeter around our ship.
They spotted us immediately and raised their weapons in perfect synchronization.
The Ulkommenians weren't warriors. They were scientists who'd spent their lives hunched over data terminals and specimen tanks.
But I'd learned during my time in captivity that they were surprisingly competent with blasters.
Which meant this was going to hurt.
"Surrender," one of them called in their clicking language. "You cannot escape. The subject will be returned to the laboratory. The human will be terminated."
"No," I said simply.
Blaster fire erupted.
I positioned myself directly in front of Niki, my body a shield between her and the incoming barrage.
The first volley struck—one bolt caught my shoulder, another seared across my ribs.
The pain was white-hot, like being branded with molten metal, but I stood firm.
The stun setting meant the bolts didn't penetrate deeply, but they still burned like hell.
"What are you—" she yelled.
"They can't aim for shit," I growled through gritted teeth. "Let me draw their fire. Use it."
The next volley came and I felt more bolts strike—one in my thigh, another punching into my already-wounded side. Each impact sent waves of pain through my body, but I stayed upright. Behind me, Niki fired her blaster with devastating precision. The first Ulkommenian went down.
Seven.
I charged forward, drawing their attention, forcing them to track me instead of her.
My size, my speed, my obvious threat level—all of it pulled their focus.
Two more tried to flank me, going for an angle on Niki.
I moved to intercept, taking bolts meant for her.
One caught me in the chest, driving the air from my lungs.
Another hit my arm, making my muscles spasm.
I roared through the pain. My claws found the first one. He crumpled, his throat torn open.
Six.
Niki fired twice more from behind me. Two more Ulkommenians fell, her aim perfect despite the chaos.
Four left.
Then—click.
"I'm out!" she called.
An Ulkommenian lunged at her, seeing his opening. She spun—actually spun, her entire body rotating with perfect balance—and her leg came up in an arc. Her foot connected with his head with a crack like a melon splitting. He flew backward and crashed to the ground.
He didn't get up.
Three left.
Two of them fired at me simultaneously. Both bolts hit—one in my shoulder, one in my arm.
The pain was becoming harder to ignore, my body accumulating damage faster than I could process it.
I roared through the agony and charged. They tried to scatter, but I was on the first one before he could move.
My teeth found his throat. He collapsed, blood spraying.
Two.
The last two Ulkommenians tried to coordinate an attack against Niki.
She moved between them like she'd choreographed it.
Her strikes were precise and devastating.
A palm strike to one's ribs that I heard crack from ten meters away.
A knee to the other's face that shattered his jaw.
She grabbed one's arm, twisted it in a move that made him scream, and used his momentum to send him flying into the second one.
Both went down in a tangle of limbs.
Neither got up.
Silence fell over the clearing.
I stood there, swaying, every cell in my body on fire.
Bolts had caught me at least a dozen times.
Blood ran down my chest, my legs, my arms. My right shoulder hung wrong—dislocated from the impacts.
My left side was a mass of burns, the flesh charred and blistered.
My vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in.
But Niki was untouched.
"Enslak!" She sprinted toward me, her face drained of color, her eyes moving fast over my body the way they did when she was cataloging damage and trying not to show how badly it frightened her. "You took so much fire—"
"Had to keep you safe," I managed through gritted teeth. Each word cost something. My lungs felt wrong, my breath coming in shallow pulls that didn't seem to fill anything.
"You stubborn, impossible male," she grumbled, and I heard the tears she was refusing to let fall thickening her voice. Her hands were already moving across my chest, her touch careful and systematic, pressing gently at the worst of the burns to test the depth. "You could have died."
"But I didn't." I tried to find her eyes and hold them. "Neither did you."
She looked up at me then, and for a moment neither of us said anything. Her expression was complicated in the way it often was when she felt too much at once and didn't know which part of it to hand to me first.
"The ship," I said, forcing my legs to move. "We have to—"
"I know." She slipped under my arm without being asked, taking my weight against her small frame with that quiet, matter-of-fact strength that still caught me off guard every time. "Come on. Lean on me."
I did.
Niki slammed the hatch controls as we stumbled up the ramp. The metal door hissed shut behind us, the locks engaging with a series of heavy clicks that felt, in that moment, like the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. Sealed inside. Breathing. Alive.