Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I scramble up from the bed but quickly get tangled in the vines along the floor—the fog obscuring the narrow path through the room. I stumble, the width of the ridiculous skirt weighing me down.
When my knees slam hard into the ground, I can't take it anymore. I grab right below the highest most ruffle and rip off any of the fabric beneath it. I jump to clear the voluminous fabric before sprinting into the hall.
The smoke burns my lungs, so I drop to my knees and crawl in the shallow pocket of air near the floor. I can hear Mekkra's roar and the sound of a droid being cleaved in half by one of his blades.
“You’re right,” he calls into the smoke, his voice carrying through the haze like a challenge thrown at the void. “I don’t deserve her.”
For a moment the words hang there, heavy with something that almost sounds like regret.
“But understand this.”
His hand tightens around the weapon at his side.
“The universe could tear me apart atom by atom before I’d ever place her in the hands of a scrap-built tyrant like you.”
He gulps, and the smoke makes him cough, but he regains his composure quickly. His voice hardens into something immovable.
“So if you came here expecting surrender… you’ve come to the wrong corner of the stars. I'll kill you, Quldo, even if it I have to take myself out in the process!” His hoarse, dangerous laugh slips through the smoke.
"Mekkra!" I yell, unable to find him.
"Computer, ready Mae's ship—Starcroft, take her there," he commands.
A metal hand grabs me by the laces on my back and quickly lifts me into the air.
"No, leave me here!" I yell as I claw at the floor.
"Sorry, an order’s an order," Starcroft says as we whizz through the hall in the opposite direction of the fighting.
Before I know it, the smoke thins and we're crossing through the hull and into the cockpit of a sleek and small vessel.
My ship.
Starcroft deposits me into the captain’s chair at the center of the room. He pulls the safety harness over my shoulders and secures me with a click. A blue panel drops from the ceiling, and he places my palm there.
"Hello, Mae—destination?" the computer says so calmly, as if everything isn't being swept out from beneath my feet.
"I—I—"
I don't know where I would go. I'm sure I could just say anywhere, or away, and we'd jet off with my billions to a new life.
I look down at my hand, the ring made of his bone is there, heavy despite its featherweight.
I can't leave him here to die, to fall away completely into his muddied mind.
"Computer, are there weapons on board?" I ask as Starcroft's eye blink in confusion.
"Yes, we have a stow of thirty blasters on board, all keyed to your bio-signature," the computer explains.
I unhook myself from the captain’s chair. "I'll only need one."
Fuck, I'm scared. Every instinct screams for me to turn around and run as the corridor around me shakes with distant blasts. Sirens scream overhead, the station lights snapping into a brutal strobe—scarlet flashing hard against the metal walls.
The smoke has thinned, just enough. Each breath still burns, but it no longer feels like I’m choking on it.
I hold the blaster, my finger on the trigger, against my cheek. I've shot some on Earth, and while I wasn't the best marksman, if you give me two or three goes, I'd normally hit the target if I was motivated.
And I'm motivated—to save Mekkra and to fucking end the slug fucker.
My heart hammers in my chest with every step closer to the sounds of fighting. There are bits of the enemy droids strewn through the hall. That fact alone might lift my spirits if not for the trail of blood alongside their mechanical corpses.
Droids don't bleed.
There's a growl, then it's muffled right before I hit the atrium in the cargo bay where the fighting seems to have ended up. I slow my pace, press my back against the wall, and peek my head around the corner.
Chaos.
Cargo containers are toppled over and broken, and sparks rain down from broken electrical conduits above. At the center of it all, Lord Quldo is slumped, his large yellow slug body surrounded by a semicircle of droids with blasters and blades drawn.
On his knees, bleeding and bruised, with his arms restrained against his back, is Mekkra.
One of his eyes is so swollen that it's shut. His weapons lie on the far side of the room, smoking and out of reach. He doesn’t meet Quldo's gaze.
"Well, the human isn't here?" He taps a tiny two-fingered hand against the side of his slimy face. "Your sacrifice seems ineffective."
Mekkra spits at the floor in front of his captor.
"If she's not with you, that's a win," my future mate says sardonically.
"She should be so lucky! I was shocked when the Deenz wouldn't let me sample such a ripe fruit.
Their war with the fi'len has made them wary.
They've never told me no before. And all of this headache because she was promised to some insane warlord?
I told them I could take care of you, but they didn't believe me.
No bother, I'll take your station, and then I'll find the human," he says in annoyance.
I can see the subtle shift in Mekkra's posture, the dead stare rolling over his eyes. His gaze quickly darts to a smoking blaster that he won't get to before the droids execute him. It would be a stupid move, it would be madness to attempt.
But we aren't mated, and I panic as I see him fall into the madness, knowing it'll get him killed.
There's a crash as another one of the crates smashes against the floor, the last bit of its support underneath giving out.
We both know this is our chance, and I can only hope that I'm faster than Mekkra.
"Hey, fucker!" I yell as I dive into the room.
I stand, square my shoulders, and take aim.
"No!" Mekkra yells as the droids register me as a threat. As if his restraints were made of dental floss, he snaps the high-tension coil with a flex of his biceps and chest. A split second later I pull the trigger, his big furry body covering the droids that have me in their sights.
In slow motion, I watch as the bright blue beam of plasma slices through the particulate-filled air and directly between Lord Quldo's eye stalks. I can smell burning meat as it exits the back of his head.
His mouth opens a few times before he slumps forward, face-planting on Mekkra's spit.
The droids around him buffer before dropping their weapons.
"What's happening?" I ask Mekkra.
"Self-destruct protocol!" he yells before running toward me and scooping me up in his big arms. He runs until we're behind a fallen crate on the far side of the room.
He pulls me against his chest, his head resting on top of mine, protecting me.
I'm glad his arms are over my ears as the blast rings through the room.
I open my eyes and pull back to see his bloodied and swollen face staring down at me.
He's gritting his teeth, like he's waging an internal battle.
Then his eyes glaze, and he starts muttering to himself as his grip on me loosens.
I realize, in that moment, that we've too waited long.
Mekkra is slipping.
I don't waste another second, and I pull his face down to mine.
"You're mine, and I'm yours," I yell through the explosion of the self-destructing droids behind us before I slam my mouth to his.
Every muscle in his body freezes as we kiss. I slip my tongue between his lips, not knowing if this is what we need to complete the mating ceremony.
Nothing happens, and I kiss him harder.
"Mekkra, come back!" I sob into his mouth.
I can taste the salt of my tears mixing with the coopery tang of his blood.
At first, it's so small I think it's just another explosion behind us. A spark, not outside, but between us.
A heat erupts where our mouths meet, a coal suddenly breathed into life. It sizzles across my tongue, metallic and bright. For a second, I choke on it, thinking it's more blood.
But it isn't a fluid, it isn't really corporal…it's simply light.
It spreads down my throat and into my chest like lightning finding its way into my veins. My lungs seize as something otherworldly rushes down my spine and out my fingertips where I clutch his face.
As I become a beacon, Mekkra jerks. His hands tighten over the bodice of my gown, and a pulse of energy explodes between us.
There's a sound like ice breaking across a frozen lake. My vision floods white, and I gasp as the energy between us grows stronger, hotter, pouring out of me and into him.
Or is it the other way around? I can't tell anymore, it's like I'm caught in the eye of a hurricane.
Strange symbols flash behind my eyes, stars colliding, planets crumbling, then nothing but Mekkra. His body shakes, and his fangs scrape over my lip as he draws in a trembling breath.
The light grows until the whole room is a blinding white, and for a heartbeat the exploding droids behind us freeze, metal combusting in air, motionless like they're epoxied in place.
Then the light dives into Mekkra, all of it.
The warlord rips back from the kiss with a yelp, and his blazing eyes snap open. They're clear, burning, and alive. The pupils contract to pinpricks before he grabs me.
"Mine!"
The words rip from his throat as the world speeds back to its regular motion. The clank of metal is all I hear as he kisses me more passionately than I've ever been kissed in my whole life.
When we're forced to breathe, he stares at me like I've just brought him back from the dead—his chest heaving.
"You completed the mating ceremony," he whispers hoarsely. His forehead drops to mine. "I heard you. In the darkness of my mind, I heard you—you should have left."
"I couldn't leave my mate behind."