Chapter 14
Flack
I returned to Dimon in the clearing after my recon with a feeling of satisfaction.
Yes, this was the place, and the idea of that diamond so close made my body tingle with excitement.
In that, the pirate captain was absolutely right: I loved the thrill of a challenging theft.
A little over five years ago, the Verana diamond had slipped from my grasp when it was auctioned off privately before I could steal it.
It had gone underground and vanished until I’d managed to pick up its paper trail, and now it was here, waiting for a rematch.
Of course, as soon as I approached the clearing and saw the captain and his handful of males, reality reasserted itself.
That diamond might tempt me to steal it, but the true theft had to be stealing Irena away to safety.
I could not forget that; I wouldn’t. She was on the ship right now, hiding, but safe as long as she was in that unreachable junction.
Unease settled deep in my gut when I realized Xathena and a handful of the crew had left.
They hadn’t exited the clearing, or I would have picked up their scents as they left.
That meant they’d flown back up to the Vidu in my absence.
If Xathena was back on the ship… Had she gone back to hunt for my mate again?
“So you’ve returned.” Dimon stated it like a fact, not a question, but he sounded relieved.
I was not alone in noticing that; several heads turned his way and stared.
Sil, even with open dismay, turned his Asrai deathmask into a macabre set of gaping holes—eyes, mouth, all pulled wide.
The others were not so extreme in their reaction, but I saw it.
They were losing faith in their captain; Dimon was standing on very shaky ground.
When I gave him a sardonic smile, I could see in his eyes that he knew it too.
Perhaps he hoped to finish this and pay off Jalima, then vanish with the remaining money.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I said with a grin. That made my former captain narrow his eyes at me, full of suspicion.
Rightly so, because we both knew he’d been lying to me earlier.
What possible reason did I have for actually coming back?
He knew I wasn’t an idiot. The half a dozen weapons currently trained on me proved that.
“I couldn’t resist hanging around to steal that pretty diamond.
As you said, it is the one that got away.
” Dimon still didn’t look convinced, but he had to be desperate to get back on Jalima’s good side.
“What’s the plan? Can you get in and get it?
” he asked, his eyes flicking briefly away from my face to the slowly darkening forest behind me.
The mansion I’d just scouted was a nice little fortress, that was true, but it also relied on its remoteness and hidden location for protection.
They had a very nifty sort of shield generator that, while not true stealth technology (that didn’t exist), would do a very good job of camouflaging the place.
Its energy requirements were enormous, though, so it was powered down right now.
It wouldn’t do them any good anyway, as we already knew exactly where the mansion was located.
Which meant the rest of the security was surprisingly basic.
“Yes,” I said immediately. “But it’s a two-male job, or rather…
” I made a show of eyeing everyone in the clearing with a very critical expression.
Even though what I was about to say was technically true, there were clever tricks I could use to get around it.
I’d always planned to play this card, though, so it suited me very well that it was actually true.
“You got anyone smaller? Say about so high?” I gestured with my hand to well below my chest, roughly indicating Irena’s height.
The Ovt crewmember, there was only one, would fit that bill, and he gave Dimon a very scared look.
His tongue flicked out, and he licked both eyeballs in rapid succession.
I tried very hard not to look disgusted by that, but damn it, you never got used to a guy who could lick his own eyeballs.
Especially one who also spat horrible acid.
How did that even work? Regardless, the presence of the Ovt was a problem I’d have to eliminate before tomorrow, but I doubted that was going to be a problem.
Dimon secured my wrists with shackles, pulling them tight, his beady eyes checking the locking mechanism twice before he was satisfied.
Then I was led onto the shuttle, surrounded by males with suspicious glares.
This time, there was no Xathena cautiously, viciously training her gun on me the whole ride back up to the ship.
No, I’d say that while the mood was still tense, they’d lowered their guard.
As if my showing up and meekly letting myself get shackled had convinced them I was safe now.
They were wrong; they just didn’t know it yet.
I mulled over the plan a little more during the flight, observing the crew and Dimon through my lowered lashes.
My posture relaxed in the jump seat, shackled hands tucked behind my head as if I were taking a nap.
Nothing, I knew, unnerved people more than someone who was supposed to be at a disadvantage acting like they weren’t.
I wanted them all so ready to jump out of their skin the moment I said boo, and Dimon had done half the work for me.
All those careful musings and pretty plans vanished from my mind the moment the shuttle’s rear hatch opened.
The sound of a scream ripped through the air, and the scent of Irena’s fear slapped me in the face.
Never in my life had my body responded with such an instant surge of adrenaline.
I was a creature of instinct only, responding to the scent of her fear—her blood—in the air.
Even before the hatch was fully lowered, I’d shifted.
Exploding from man to beast in the blink of an eye, shedding those tight shackles like they were nothing.
I snarled in fury as I landed inside the shuttle on four paws and continued to grow in size.
Screams erupted around me; something sizzled past my fur, but by then the hatch had lowered enough for me to squeeze my massive form through.
I landed on the metal floor grates of the hangar bay with a thud, broke into a run, and flung myself carelessly out of the door and into the hallway.
My nose pulled Irena’s scent in deep, tracking her as easily as it was to breathe.
She wasn’t alone, and the scents that accompanied hers made my worst fears come true: Xathena, and other members of the crew—some I’d never met before, and others I did know, like Vaka.
Irena wasn’t where she was supposed to be either, hidden safely away deep beneath the engine room of the ship.
The explanation for that also filtered through the rage that turned my vision red: the sting of a gas grenade. They’d used it to drive her out.
As I barreled around a corner, laser fire scorched the tip of my tail, but I was barely aware of the sting of pain.
My vision had narrowed to only what was directly ahead of me, oblivious to everything else.
Irene on her back on the floor, Xathena on top of her with a knife flashing in her hand.
I dug deep for speed and felt as though my body only grew in size.
The four-legged shape of my animal filling up the hallway, fur brushing the ceiling.
I reached them just as the knife came down, my paw crashing into Xathena and knocking her off my mate.
Then I was above Irena, my body forming a shield around her.
She was breathing, and as I inhaled, I knew she wasn’t seriously hurt.
Dazed, she didn’t move, but that just made her an even harder target to spot between my paws.
With her safe, my brain began to calm, and a measure of calculation returned.
How could I turn this situation to my advantage?
How could I get her out of here and off their radar before they captured me again? I knew they would; it was inevitable.
Kill Xathena. That thought scorched through my brain, and I spun in the tight hallway, searching for my target.
There were a handful of other crew members, including a Hoxiam female I didn’t know.
Her, I struck with my claws when she fearlessly leaped to attack, and her body crunched in my jaw as I closed my fangs around her neck.
She had never before encountered a beast with a maw bigger than hers, and she died full of surprise.
Xathena, however, had scattered in the wind the moment she’d recovered from my first blow.
Dimon and the crew from the shuttle came rushing up, and laser fire began to fly.
I hunkered down over Irena, protecting her, my belly brushing against her back.
She whimpered, but Dimon roared. “Don’t kill him!
Shoot to stun, we need him!” Not everyone heeded that order, and heat scorched the thick fur on my shoulder, burning my flesh.
I lashed out in fury, felt my claws cut through more flesh and bone.
A Rattire died with a squeak, Vaka crashed into a bulkhead and broke his neck with a loud crack.
Then I saw my opening. On Dimon’s orders, they were approaching with stun guns now, darts with tranquilizers bristling from their cartridges.
As big a target as I was, my fur was too thick for those to penetrate from a distance.
How could I tell Irena to flee and hide before they took me down?
I lowered my head and braced myself to take care of the biggest obstacle in the smallest package: the Ovt.
He was hiding behind three others, coughing as if his instinct to spew acid had almost gotten the better of him, the tranq gun in his trembling hand.
I lunged, rear staying protectively low over Irena, my paws and maw slashing and biting.
Two fell—I didn’t even register who—and then I had the Ovt in my maw, shaking him like a rag doll.
He was dead by the time he struck the ceiling with a smack before crashing to the ground between me and the rest.
The barrage of darts they shot into me was impossible to avoid, especially when I filled nearly the entire hallway with my bulk.
They came at me from behind too, and my vision began to spin and blur as some of those darts struck true.
Irena… I would crush her if I collapsed on top of her.
Shifting was a monumental effort, but I had no choice.
As my consciousness began to fade, I crashed to the ground in my two-legged form.
Body curling, seeking, but Irena was not there…
***
Irena
I didn’t want to leave him, not when I knew he was fighting a battle he couldn’t win, but what else could I do?
I was curled beneath paws so massive they were as big as dinner plates, with fur brushing against my sides and a tail whipping wildly in front of my face…
He was so big he filled the hallway, but his paws were elegant and covered in the same silvery pelt as before.
Seeing this side of him finally made me understand Dimon’s fear, and his stories.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but he’d reached me just in time, and now he was fighting for both our lives.
No, that wasn’t true. He was protecting me, but these pirates needed him; they couldn’t kill him.
Me, I was completely disposable, though.
So I made the hard choice to slip away. Right now, I was protected between his paws, sheltered from the battle that raged beyond the shield he formed.
If I slipped away, nobody would see where I went, and that would give him the freedom to move.
He came down lower over me, more fur pressing against my back, heat warming my flesh.
He was so big—massive—it was impossible to wrap my head around it, but it was unmistakably him anyway.
I struggled to orient myself between his paws, assess the chaos beyond his safety, and plot my exit.
My mind skipped over the wan, sightless face of the rat-like alien that had tracked me with his overdeveloped sense of smell.
I caught sight of far too many splatters of blood decorating the wall and found only more bodies surrounding Flack and me on the floor around us. Half a dozen, just like that…
As much as I did not mourn any of their deaths, it still made my stomach roil to see, smell, and even be forced to touch all that death and gore.
With horror coating the back of my tongue in a foul taste, I located the hatch I’d wanted to reach before and slipped from between Flack’s paws to crawl inside.
The hatch trembled in my fingers as I pulled it shut.
The last I saw before I slipped away was Flack shifting as he collapsed onto the floor—man instead of beast again—his hands twitching against the deck as if he was looking for something: me.
It only strengthened my resolve. It was up to me now to act, to do something. No more playing the victim, Flack needed me.