Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Esme
He’s bleeding and battered. I’m badly shaken but whole.
The alarm is still whooping, and I feel like my body is vibrating with every cycle. “Let me heal you,” I say.
“Not a fucking chance,” he mutters, taking me by the arm. The gentleness I felt is gone in a flash as he marches me to the furthest corner of the command room away from where he corralled the Uncorrupted prisoners.
I’m not sure if I can technically call them prisoners yet… damn this makes my head hurt.
“Why not?” I demand over the drone. “What if one of them attacks you again?”
“I will kill anyone who so much as twitches,” he growls, eyeballing the cluster of ship personnel.
I believe him.
I believe they believe him, too.
“And you’re exhausted and stressed to the max.” He turns back to me. “You probably have no idea where your limit is. I’m not taking the risk.
Now he’s just being insulting. “I know my goddamned limit!” I suddenly feel irrationally annoyed that I’ve spent more time looking at this ugly Uncorrupted soldier that everyone seems to recognize and not the handsome alpha from the ship.
I gesture in his general direction. “What do you even look like? Do you have hair?”
“Hair?” His face is a picture of outrage and confusion.
“Of course I have hair! What kind of question is that? If I want hair, I’ve got hair in any color of the damn rainbow.
” His eyes narrow, his nostrils flare, and his voice drops to a growl.
“I know where this is going. I’m not an alpha, and I’ll never be good enough for a healer. Not the right type of dynamic.”
“That wasn’t what I said!” I can feel my temper rising. “You’re putting words in my mouth!”
His laugh is bitter. “Only stating the obvious, baby.”
“Don’t you dare ‘baby’ me, or I will…”
He raises a brow as if waiting to see what the worst is I can do… and clearly, I’ve got nothing.
Someone moans on the other side of the room… the captain, I think.
“Shut the fuck up or I will break your damn jaw,” he throws over his shoulder.
The moaning ceases, although I’d barely noticed it over the alarm.
It’s been twelve hours since we left, and a hell of a lot has happened in between. Now we have another twelve-hour journey back home. Despite his words about using his signature, I’m still freaking out about what will happen when we arrive.
I’m also terrified that something will go wrong before then… that someone will override the lockdown… Launch an attack… That an Uncorrupted ship will turn up and blasts us out of space rather than allow us to be taken.
The possibilities are endless, and it feels like only one of them is good.
Zeb’s chest is heaving. He stabs his finger at the floor. “Sit. Rest. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.” He smirks, and that smirk is all him, I just know it is. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten your punishment is due.”
Damn him, it’s hard to stay mad at a man who can have your libido rocketing with a promise wrapped up in a threat.
The fire in his eyes says he’s thinking about enacting that punishment right now.
I swallow hard.
Sudden movement on the other side of the room registers too late.
A shot goes off. Blood splatters.
I gape, stupefied by my horror. The blast took his ear clean off, splattering it all over the floor, wall, and me.
I scream.
He roars and spins around.
The air crackles with electricity like it does right before a storm. Zeb’s body begins to judder and contort.
His cry is inhuman. Not even animal, but something else, something dark and terrifying. His chest arches up. I hear bones snapping, his ribs popping one by one, his arms, his thighs… even his fingers. Another blast hits him, his body jerking with the force.
Oh god, they’re killing him!
Think! Project!
I’m too late, too slow.
The shots abruptly stop. Someone screams, high, horrified. It’s not me. Realizing I’ve screwed my eyes shut, I snap them open.
A beast fills the space before me. Huge, black shaggy fur, the visage of a nightmare. He looks like a wolf… if wolves could stand on two feet, and his mouth when he opens it to emit a feral roar is full of razor-sharp teeth.
I gasp. His red eyes swing my way. He snorts once, then spins back toward the clustered prisoners. In one leap he clears the distance and tears into them. Blood arcs. The prisoners scream and try to scatter, but they’re still bound and fall over one another in the crazed rush.
I shrink deeper into the corner as body parts start to fly, gore painting the walls and floor.
This isn’t real. This ISN’T real. I’m losing my mind, having some kind of psychotic episode…
The screaming stops abruptly. A low growl and the clatter of claws against the floor, approaching.
I’m shaking hard enough for my teeth to chatter, and keep my eyes screwed shut. A puff of air hits the side of my throat. Claws lightly scrap under my chin.
Steeling myself, I open my eyes.
A jolt goes through me seeing him as the beast, this close, this terrifyingly near.
His breathing is a ragged pant. Blood stains his snout… his chest, his claw-tipped hands.
Only, there is nothing threatening about him, and his eyes, red eyes with flashes of gray, are all him.
“Rest,” he rumbles. “Safe.”
My mind and system are in overload. My eyes roll back, and the lights go out.
Zeb
She passes out. I catch her before she hits the floor.
It’s probably for the best. I can’t see my face, but if the rest is any indication, I’m giving off nightmare vibes.
Huge, gnarled hands ease her into a position on her side.
Her breathing evens out, and she moves slightly, curling into herself—asleep.
The fucking alarm is giving me a headache, but my baby is exhausted… and in shock. I wish I had a blanket to put over her, something soft for under her head…
Yeah, I’ve got it bad.
She’s been through a lot… understatement of the fucking year. I just took a bullet and then tore a dozen people apart right in front of her.
I don’t know how this happened. But I need to change the fuck back.
I rise and pace, trying to will myself back into human. Fuck, what if I stay like this?!
I double check our course, and that lockdown is still in effect. My eyes never leave her for long.
Mine.
She awakened this nightmare, my feral side. Protecting her was an imperative that defies the laws of nature. I mean, I guess lots of things can go through a metamorphosis, and I’ve been changing forms for a while… But never this dramatic, or extreme.
I take a deep breath. Some of the tension eases, and I feel myself start to shrink.
Another deep breath, and another tremor goes through me.
My body is trying to reform, I can feel it: not to the Uncorrupted soldier, nor the alpha she first met, but the human me, the zeta.
I’m exhausted. Probably just used a shit-ton of energy, and it feels like I’m undergoing some kind of forced reset.
But this is good. For the best. If the government gets wind of this, I’m fucked.
My eyes go back to my sleeping mate, even if she doesn’t realize what she is to me yet. It hasn’t escaped me that this all happened because she came to save me, as misguided as that was.
She came to fucking save me.
It blows my mind that this tiny, vulnerable woman threw herself onto an enemy ship for me.
How fucking brave it that?
I want to spank her ass, fuck her, and profess my undying love all at the same time.
And I just chewed her ass out because, what, her comments hit a sore spot? Then I turned into a slavering beast and tore a dozen prisoners limb from limb. The stench of blood and death fills the air.
Way to go, asshole. That’s really going to help.
I’ll do whatever it takes. Lay my feelings on the line, and all that bullshit, once we’re home and safe. I don’t know how or why it happened, but we’re soulmates. Her actions tell me she feels it too.