Chapter 4 #2
"You can make this easy or hard, little human," Bronto's voice oozed through the trees like poison.
"Either way, you're coming back with me.
Persico's going to pay good credits for a pretty thing like you.
Fresh human female? You'll fetch a premium price in the slave markets after we've had our fun with you. "
"I'd rather die."
Her voice cut through the air—steady, clear, sharp as broken glass. No tremor. No plea. Just pure, raging defiance.
By the ancestors, she was magnificent.
Bronto's laugh was a cruel thing that bounced off the trees and died ugly in the air. "That can be arranged too. But Persico wants you alive. Damaged goods are worth less, but still worth something. Your choice."
I shifted position, circling through the shadows to find a better angle. My hand found the blade at my hip, fingers wrapping around the grip like greeting an old friend. Bronto was massive, even for a Kaelaks, but his entire focus had narrowed to the female before him.
Fatal mistake.
I could drop him before he even knew I was there.
But as I watched her—the subtle shift of her weight, the way her fingers tightened around that makeshift spear she'd fashioned from pod debris—something happened.
A tingling sensation bloomed at the base of my horns, spreading like liquid fire through my skull, down my spine, into my very bones. I went rigid, breath strangling in my throat.
No.
Not now. Not her.
The horn-tingle was unmistakable, undeniable. Every Aljani knew of it from the moment we came of age. Recognition. The first whisper of a mate-bond stirring to life. It was rare as starfall, precious as water in the deep wastes, and completely, catastrophically unwelcome at this moment.
I forced air into my lungs, tried to shove the sensation back where it came from. This wasn't the time. This couldn't be the time.
And she—this fierce, fearless, fragile human who'd survived a pod crash and was now facing down a brute twice her size without flinching—she deserved better than a disgraced former royal with more enemies than allies and a future darker than the space between stars.
I buried the feeling deep, locked it away, and focused on what mattered. Getting her away from Bronto.
Alive.
I took another step closer, my blade sliding free of its sheath with barely a whisper of sound, a prayer of steel in the quiet.
But before I could close the distance, the female moved.
What happened next unfolded in a heartbeat—a brutal, beautiful dance of survival.
She dropped low, fingers clawing at the dusty ground. Bronto lunged, his meaty hands grasping for her throat, already savoring his victory. But the female whirled and came up fast, hurling a fistful of dirt directly into his face.
Bronto's roar split the air. He reeled backward, pawing at his eyes like a wounded beast.
Most would have run. Most would have seized that precious moment to flee.
She attacked.
The makeshift spear drove forward with the kind of force that spoke of pure, distilled rage.
The jagged metal tip punched through Bronto's leather armor like it was parchment, finding the soft space between his ribs.
His roar died in his throat, replaced by a wet, gurgling gasp.
His hands fell from his ruined eyes to clutch uselessly at the strut now buried in his chest.
She didn't let go. Didn't step back. She leaned in, throwing every ounce of her weight behind the thrust, driving the spear deeper still. Her face was a mask of grim determination—no tears, no trembling, no mercy. Just pure survival instinct.
Bronto's legs gave out. He toppled like a felled tree, hitting the ground with a bone-rattling thud that sent dust billowing into the air. His body convulsed once, twice, then surrendered to stillness.
Only then did she release the spear, stumbling back on shaking legs, her chest heaving.
I stood there like a statue, my blade still half-drawn, utterly redundant.
By the ancestors.
I'd watched seasoned warriors freeze when facing a Kaelaks enforcer. I'd seen battle-hardened prisoners falter before Bronto's particular brand of cruelty.
This slip of a human—this fragile-looking female who'd just dragged herself from the wreckage of a crashed pod—had ended him in seconds.
Impressive was too small a word for what I'd just witnessed.
She moved toward the corpse, reaching for the spear with trembling hands, adrenaline still singing through her veins.
"Wait—" The word left my mouth before I could think better of it.
Fatal mistake.
Her head whipped toward me, eyes gone feral, and she bolted.
"No! Stop!" The command tore from my throat as I lunged after her.
My longer stride devoured the distance between us in heartbeats.
I caught her around the waist, and the impact sent us both crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs and desperation.
She was smaller than me, lighter, her body fitting against mine in a way that would have been intoxicating under any other circumstances.
But right now, she was all wild fury—a cornered predator fighting for her life.
"Get off me! Don't touch me!" Her fist cracked against my jaw with surprising force, then my shoulder. Each blow carried the weight of her terror and rage. Not especially painful, but noticeable. Impressive. She twisted beneath me, trying to drive her knee into my groin. "Let me go!"
"I'm not going to hurt you—"
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" The scream ripped through the air, raw and primitive, edged with a terror so genuine it pierced straight through my chest like a blade.
I caught her wrists, pinning them as gently as I could while still maintaining control, and shifted my weight to give her breathing room. The last thing I wanted was to add to her fear. "The Prime sent me! Admiral Cullen Blackwood sent me!"
She went utterly still beneath me, her wild eyes locking onto mine. This close, I noticed flecks of silver in the gray depths, felt the rapid flutter of her pulse where my fingers circled her wrists.
"What?" Her voice cracked, vulnerability bleeding through the fury. "My father?"
"Admiral Cullen Blackwood," I repeated, keeping my tone as steady and calm as I could manage. "The Prime and Duke Ako sent me to find you. To get you to safety."
For a long, suspended moment, she simply stared up at me, her breath coming in ragged gasps that I felt against my chest. Then something shifted in her expression—not quite trust, but the sharp edge of terror softened, replaced by wary calculation.
"Get off me," she said, quieter now but no less firm.
I released her wrists immediately and pushed to my feet, stepping back to give her space.
She scrambled away, putting several feet of rocky ground between us, her eyes never leaving mine.
I noticed her hand resting on the hilt of a blade sheathed at her hip—ready, watchful, still prepared to fight if necessary.
Now that the immediate struggle was over, I could really see her.
And ancestors help me, she was breathtaking.
Dark auburn hair, wild and tangled from her ordeal, framed a face that was all elegant lines beneath the smudges of dirt and blood.
Those gray eyes—sharp, alert—watched me with the wariness of prey assessing a predator.
The Alliance-issue jumpsuit she wore was torn and filthy, but it clung to curves that made my mouth go dry.
Beneath the grime and damage, I could see the lean muscle of someone who'd spent their life training, fighting.
This female was no pampered lady playing at soldier—she was a warrior through and through.
Beautiful didn't begin to cover it.
The thought slammed into me unbidden, and my horns began to tingle with that telltale warmth, the sensation crawling across my scalp like wildfire.
I almost raised a hand to scratch at them before I caught myself, forcing my arm back down.
Not now. Absolutely not the time. I clenched my jaw and shoved the awareness aside, focusing instead on keeping my posture non-threatening, my hands visible and away from my weapons.
"Don't touch me," she said again, and this time it sounded less like panic and more like a line being carved in stone.
I raised my hands, palms out in surrender. "Understood."
"Who are you?" Her voice had steadied, but those storm-gray eyes still tracked my every movement.
I kept my hands carefully away from my sides, every muscle screaming at me to close the distance between us even as my brain insisted on maintaining it. "The Prime and Duke Ako sent me to find you. There's a rendezvous point—an Alliance ship coming to extract you. To take you somewhere safe."
She studied me with an intensity that made heat crawl up the back of my neck. Her jaw tightened, and I found myself watching the way her pulse fluttered in her throat. "And I'm just supposed to believe that?" The skepticism in her tone was sharp enough to draw blood. "Supposed to trust you?"
"No," I said, forcing myself to meet those devastating eyes.
"You're not. You don't know me. You have no reason to trust me.
" I glanced back at where her spear still jutted from Bronto's massive corpse.
"But the Prime and Admiral Blackwood are desperate to get you to safety. And Duke Ako is my father."
"Duke Ako." Something flickered across her face—recognition, perhaps, or the ghost of a memory that made her expression soften for just a heartbeat before the walls slammed back up.
I moved slowly toward Bronto's body, hyperaware of how she tensed immediately, her fingers white-knuckled on that blade. Every instinct I had roared at me to move carefully, to not make her more afraid than she already was.
"Easy," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. "I'm just getting your weapon."
The squelching sound as I pulled the makeshift spear free made my stomach turn, but I couldn't help the flicker of admiration.
She'd smashed the end to create multiple points instead of one—brutal, efficient, deadly.
In the right hands, this thing was a work of art.
And from what I'd just witnessed, her hands were very much the right ones.
I turned and held it out to her, the weight of it nothing compared to the weight of her stare.
She looked at me like I'd just offered her a viper.
"Take it," I said. "I have no doubt you can kick my ass if I try anything out of line." The corner of my mouth twitched despite myself. "You just took down Bronto—and he was three times your size."
For a heartbeat, she didn't move, and I wondered if she could hear my pulse thundering in my ears. Then, slowly, she crossed the distance between us, never breaking eye contact, and I felt every step like a physical thing.
She snatched the spear from my hand and immediately retreated, putting space between us again.
The weapon seemed to ground her. Her shoulders squared, her breathing evened out, and I watched the transformation from cornered prey to apex predator with something dangerously close to awe.
"If you're lying," she said quietly, and the promise in her voice made my blood run hot, "if this is some kind of trick—"
"It's not," I said, and I'd never meant anything more in my life. "I swear it."
She didn't look convinced. But she didn't run, either.
And somehow, that felt like a victory.