Page 56 of Silver Slayer

His gaze dropped to the device clipped to my belt before he moved on. "What is that?"

"Bio-spectral analyzer." I unclipped it and held it up so he could see, glancing at the readout. The screen displayed dozens of life-sign readings unique to this world. "Biological life sign detection. We crashed on a planet where everything wanted us dead. This detected biological signatures before they reached us." I clipped it back onto my belt. "It's how most of us survived. Two of us were not so lucky."

"That is most unfortunate," he said quietly before moving on to the next woman.

The others hadn't been paying attention to the exchange, their whispers carrying on around me without pause.

"I cannot believe there are this many hot guys in one place," Brooke whispered, her blue eyes sweeping slowly over the assembled warriors.

“And they're all stacked,” Kira sighed.

“Ladies, try to act like you've been somewhere before,” Erin murmured.

Nullar worked through the rest of the group, the scanner whirring in the same unhurried passes, his cheeks slowly returning to their natural silver. When he reached Lila, he ran the scanner slower this time, his silver eyes flicking up from the reading to her face with an expression that had nothing to do with microorganisms. He said nothing, simply held her gaze, the corner of his mouth curving in a warm, quiet smile before he moved on.

When he reached Elizabeth, flanked by her Nomadicans, Nullar paused. His eyes moved to Ruze first, the Nomadican who had been living on Valose long enough to become a familiar face, then to the male on Elizabeth's other side.

"Ruze." Nullar gave a brief nod of recognition, then looked at Mehr. "And this must be the ones you have been searching the stars for."

"This is Mehr," Ruze said. "And our shoulsis, Elishbeth." A beat, his hand settling at her back. "We are whole again."

"I am glad for all of you," Nullar said, running the scanner over all three. "All clear."

Nullar moved to Vala last, running the scanner over him in the same methodical pass. "Welcome back, Yulineon." Amusement crossed his face. "I have it on good authority that a certain female is anxiously awaiting you inside.”

"No doubt, nuwska," Vala looked toward the dome. "My human sister, Layla."

Nullar inclined his head to Vala in a brief, respectful acknowledgment. Then he turned to address the group.

"You are all clear to enter the city of Huren. Welcome."

The warrior at the dome wall raised a comm device to his mouth and spoke into it. A moment later, the dome responded. A ripple of energy spread outward from a fixed point in the wall, the surface shimmering and displacing until an oval opening formed, large enough to step through, its edges catching the light and scattering it in fractured blue.

They moved through one by one. Brooke first, then Lila, then Erin with Kira close at her shoulder. Elizabeth passed through between her mates, Ruze and Mehr, flanking her on either side. Behind them, Mara had drawn Nullar aside and was speaking to him in a low voice, one hand gesturing toward the ship. No doubt, worried about Brunnex.

I stepped to the threshold and stopped, looking back over my shoulder at the Yulineon Star Chaser, where the hatch sat open. Eyes fixed on that open hatch, willing Vennox to appear in it. The want of him beside me for this was something I hadn't expected to feel so strongly, the comfort of his steadiness when everything around me was unfamiliar. Somewhere along the way, between the anomaly world and here, having him close had become a given. How much so, I hadn't realized until now.

I thought about the command deck. About how I had been sitting there, falling apart, and he had suddenly appeared. The tiny piece of me I’d shared with him, echoing my emotional breakdown.

I pressed my palm flat against my sternum, where the shawra pulsed beneath my shirt, and focused on sending him a silent message through the tether that existed between us.

Then I caught myself and pulled back hard.

What was I doing? Valose wasn’t my home, merely a pit stop on my way back to Earth. Besides, I knew better than this. I had already learned this lesson long ago, never to rely on anyone but myself.

I shored up the armor I had let slip and reminded myself why I had built it in the first place, then stepped through the portal.

The city unfolded around me all at once. The structure that dominated everything was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was pale and massive, its lower walls rising in clean, unbroken lines before the architecture fractured into something more complex, terraced and jagged in a way that looked deliberately asymmetrical, as if grown rather than designed. It rose above everything else in the city by several stories, its upper levels catching the light of the twin suns and throwing it back in scattered warmth.

Around it, white dwellings and outbuildings dotted the grounds, some clustered close and others scattered further out, all of them connected by pathways that curved between them.

In the center of the plaza, a fountain rose in circular tiers, streams arcing high into the air and catching the last light of thetwin suns in shifting, cracked patterns before falling back into the pool below.

Then we were surrounded by women, human women, pouring from the pathways and the base of the great building in a wave that had clearly been held back by exactly nothing.

A dark-haired woman with bright eyes was at the front, a toddler balanced on her hip with silver-tinged skin and dark, watchful eyes that seemed too alert for someone so small. The male beside her was unmistakably the one in charge, silver-scaled and broad-shouldered, with the kind of muscle that did not come from a gym. A crown of matte silver circled his long, white hair. He carried himself the way males carry themselves when everyone in the room already knows who they are.

A shawra marked the center of his chest. A soft glow pulsed at his sternum, and when I glanced at the woman next to him, I saw the matching light beneath the neckline of the sleeveless dress she wore.