Chapter 38
Now that I was behind the crates closest to the door, the subject of my attention ran to join me.
“Jac? What the hell is happening?” Jaron crouched with me behind the stack of crates and I threw my arms around his neck.
“I missed you so much.”
“I’m glad you’re ok. We thought you were right behind us.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I—” he glanced up. “We need to get somewhere safer.”
“I can’t leave.” I looked behind me, but Luuciyn hadn’t returned to the spot. It was then I caught sight of a man sneaking up to a shelving system behind Arrazyl. I swung the rifle around and settled it on my shoulder. Breath in, steady. When he raised his own rifle, I pulled the trigger.
Trying to blink away the vision of the man dropping, I turned back to Jaron. He was looking behind me. I spun around in my crouch to see what he was looking at and fell back as Luuciyn barreled toward us. Aiming for Jaron.
I threw myself in front of Jaron and Luuciyn pulled his claws in just in time before he had us both flattened on the floor and pinned.
“Stop, this is my brother.” I gasped out as he wrapped his arm around me and hauled me away from Jaron.
“Your brother?”
“You have a lot to catch up on, clearly.”
“Get down.” He pushed me down before tossing a plas grenade over the top of the crates.
“Are you looking for the vorpyr they have here?” Jaron asked, wincing at the boom of the explosion.
“Yes.” I handed the rifle to Luuciyn, who made better use of it than I did.
“She’s up on what I’ve dubbed the viewing deck. Her entire room is made of plexiglass like she’s a lab rat.”
“We need to get to her.” I pivoted to Luuciyn and told him what Jaron had said.
“Where exactly is that?”
Jaron described and Luuciyn tapped his earpiece when he was done, letting the others know what we were doing. He turned to us. “We must get her. Reinforcements are no doubt coming and they’ll know we’re here for her so they might try to move her.”
“What about them?” I waved in the direction I thought the others might be.
“They’ll deal with this and catch up.”
I hesitated. What if reinforcements came with more firepower and heavily outnumber them in this restricted space?
“The faster we get her, the faster we can get out of here.” Luuciyn gave me the gun and pushed me with a wing.
Jaron and I waited for a pause in the gunfire to sprint over to the door, Luuciyn on our heels. Just as we got through the door, Luuciyn grunted and snarled. The door slammed shut.
I spun around, immediately assessing him. “You’re bleeding.” I reached for the emergency kit on my belt.
“It’s not that bad. Keep going.”
A laser beam that struck through his wing and shoulder was not what I would call “not bad,” but I didn’t argue.
Jaron led us deeper into the complex, into another room, up a set of stairs and down a high catwalk over another room with strange vats in the middle of the catwalk circling the room.
“How big is this place?” I muttered.
“Big enough that I can’t find the exit.” Jaron said over his shoulder.
Suddenly Luuciyn grabbed both of us and stuffed us into a recessed doorway. He stood in front of us, wings flared to hide us. Jaron and I shared a look when nothing happened. If he thought we needed to hide, I had no problem with it.
Boots thudding onto the metal catwalk announced a group of soldiers, likely going to the battle in the storage cavern. I shifted the rifle in my grip so it pointed up and I could quickly level it forward once Luuciyn was out of the way.
Thankfully, they didn’t notice us. When the last two were jogging past, Luuciyn reached out and artfully flicked his claws along their throats.
They never saw it coming. He grabbed onto the backs of their uniforms so they didn’t hit the ground and alert the others.
When the sound of their footsteps faded, Jaron led us on.
Sure enough, the vorpyr was holding her tiny baby to her chest, fangs bared and wings flared behind her as two men tried to get her out of a completely see-through room with what looked like a cross between a cattle prod and a taser.
Luuciyn swept past us. With his wings to propel him, he was through the open door and on the men in a blink. They dropped, their blood painting the walls.
The female spoke rapidly to him in vorikaan and he responded soothingly, wrapping an arm around her and gently stroking her hair as she cried.
He said something else, and she trilled, hurrying out in front of him.
When she saw us her face grew wary, but Luuciyn told us to go back the way we’d come and encouraged her forward with a hand to her back.
“Wait. We should get Tatiana.” Jaron turned to me.
“She’s here? Where?”
“Likely in her room. She’s not enough of a rule breaker.”
“Let’s go.”
“Jacqueline!” Luuciyn barked behind me as we made a dash for the hallway on the other end of the room.
“I have to get Tatiana. I’ll meet you.” I called back without breaking stride. A string of curses followed me.
Sure enough, we found Tatiana in a tiny room, sitting on an equally tiny cot, reading a book and jiggling her leg.
Jaron pushed on the metal door sporting a single thin window, but it didn’t budge. Tatiana leapt to her feet and came to the window. She said something but I couldn’t hear anything. I pointed at my ear and shook my head.
“We have to find a crowbar or something.” I looked around the cold concrete hall.
“What we need is to find the controller to the door lock and short circuit it.”
“What you both need is to be beaten, but first I’ll tear this door open so you stop wasting time.” Luuciyn’s matter-of-fact tone did nothing to hide the look of murder in his eyes. It took some doing, but he warped the door near the lock enough that it came free.
“Oh thank goodness!” Tatiana wrapped me in a hug. “We didn’t know what had happened to you.” She had tears in her eyes as she pulled back.
“Let’s discuss that when we don’t have a whole compound trying to kill us.” I grabbed her hand, and we raced after Luuciyn. The female vorpyr joined us, clutching her baby.
We made it back to the hallway that would lead us to the storeroom where sounds of fighting still raged and came face to face with a handful of soldiers.
“Shit.” We dodged to both sides of the hallway entrance as the soldiers began shooting and advancing toward us.
I slid the rifle around the corner and pulled the trigger before pulling back. Luuciyn was directly across from me on the other side of the hallway and tipped his wing at me. Approval? I wasn’t sure, but I did it again, shooting twice. In response, a round cylinder came bouncing out of the hallway.
“Plas grenade!” Both Jaron and Luuciyn shouted.
I whirled and shoved the female back as hard as I could.
She grabbed my arm with her free hand and dragged me as she propelled us away with her wings.
On the other side, the other three had gotten further.
While the heat from the small explosion reached us, we were far enough away to not be injured.
The baby cried, noises only slightly different than that of a human newborn.
The soldiers came out shooting. I shot back as we backed away with no cover to run for.
One came directly at me. Click. The rifle was out of charge.
He raised his laser pistol, and I stepped in front of the mother.
A shot sounded and the soldier dropped. Jaron stood there, with a pistol he must have gotten from one of the downed soldiers, looking determined.
Luuciyn dispatched the remaining soldiers with lethal grace. “Come on,” he ordered, running into the hallway. The three of us hurried after him.
Getting across the massive warehouse wasn’t as hard as I thought because most of the soldiers were down, injured or dead.
The ones who’d taken cover behind crates and shelving systems kept the vorpyr away with relentless fire in their direction.
With them distracted, we ran, making it halfway before they noticed us.
Instead of shooting at us they left two to continue laying down fire and the rest raced toward us.
The gun had barely recharged itself and maybe had one shot in it. Great.
Luuciyn sped at them and took down two. The rest swarmed toward us and Jaron and I raised our guns.
I got two shots off before it powered down.
I gripped it like a bat, my heart in my throat as they got closer.
A soldier darted around the crates that blocked us and when his gun clicked out of charge, he tackled Tatiana and started choking her.
I didn’t have a chance to swing my weapon. Zyroth was on him instantly, tearing him off her and throwing him halfway across the cavernous room. How he’d gotten across the space to us I didn’t know, but I was grateful as he and Luuciyn dispatched the rest.
We ran out from hiding and joined the rest of the team. Blood dripped down Arrazyl’s leg, creating a sheen on his pants, and Zyroth lifted a badly injured vorpyr over his shoulder.
“Let’s go.” Arrazyl barked. Everyone fell into a rhythm as we ran back the way we’d come.
It took us longer to get out as the hallways swarmed with more soldiers, but they were confined in the hallway and the vorpyr were frighteningly fast, so no one else was shot, and we burst out into the night.
Luuciyn grabbed me and we were in the air in an instant.
Someone had made a call to the other warriors, and now they were all gathered back at the ships and had the soft lights along the ships’ hulls lit for us.
I looked for Arrazyl as soon as we landed. He was striding toward me, hiding any limp from the laser wound in his leg.
“You’re injured.” I reached for him.
“It will heal, dhysari.” He crushed me to him, mouth on mine, our breath mingling. I melted against him, relieved he was ok.
When I stepped back, Zyroth was gazing at us, red eyes glittering with interest. I lifted my chin. I wasn’t embarrassed. We deserved that after nearly dying today.
A warrior came over and tended to Arrazyl’s injury with swift, practiced movements.
“I will be taking all of my warriors straight home.” Zyroth said when he came over.
“This was a good joint effort.” Arrazyl gripped his shoulder. “May your ancestors in the other realm bless you.”
“And you.”
“Goodbye, thank you for your help.” I said.
“Allikara,” he inclined his head, “there is clearly more to human females than I thought.”
“Allikara?” I murmured to Arrazyl when he’d gone.
Arrazyl ran his fingers through my hair. “It is the female equivalent of the Vorazyr. His mate. His queen.”
My lips parted in surprise, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it because it was time to load up.
No one spoke until the craft was through the atmosphere and cruising through space.
I turned to Jaron. “Who were those people? Why were you here instead of on Earth?”
“I don’t think they’re Consortium. At least, they’re not obviously Consortium. They had uniforms I don’t recognize, burgundy and grey,” he said.
“And we were there for a ‘debriefing.’” Tatiana lifted her fingers in air quotes and rolled her eyes at the word.
“As much as I love a good, bad habit one can’t shake, can we please stop almost dying?” Jaron griped.
“It would be nice to have a month or two of calm.” I said dryly. Then worry took over. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No. Thankfully. Hey, who was that ultra hot vorpyr? He’s not here.” Tatiana looked around.
“Don’t you already have someone who’s madly in love with you?” I grinned.
“I can appreciate a good build when I see one.” Her eyes crinkled with mirth.
Jaron looked over my shoulder. “Speaking of a good build, Arrazyl doesn’t even look like he was shot.”
“I hope he’s not being foolish and faking being fine.”
“I am never foolish.” The rumble came behind me and I tilted my head back with a smile.
“I think I should be the judge of that, don’t you?” I teased.
He laughed and settled on the floor where we’d taken up residence since there were so many warriors cramming the ship that all seating was left to the injured and those high in rank.
We spent most of the flight getting caught up and the hours passed quickly as we headed home. Home. Now when had I started thinking of it as that?
“Is it just me, or are you two closer than before?” Jaron no longer had disdain in his gaze as he looked at Arrazyl, but he still challenged him. “The last thing I remember was you talking trash about us and sending us into a death trap.”
Arrazyl’s face was grave as he explained his reasoning and how he’d been wrong to not correct my assumptions and tell me the truth. “I have now taken your sister as my mate.”
I nearly choked at the blunt words.
Jaron’s eyebrows shot so high up they might as well have flown off his head. “Well, that’s… congratulations.” He looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I would find out and do the best job as Allikara that I could.
Because now, home was with Arrazyl.