Page 11 of Rescued By the Alien Assassin

The ship wobbled a little when I lifted into the air, I pulled the flying yoke as instructed and aimed Striker’s nose at the sky. Then I glanced back at him and cursed when I realized he was using some pliers to yank the metal from his body. “Oh fuck, Rurick that’s… Don’t you fucking die okay?”

He grinned, but the expression quickly shifted into a grimace of pain. “I love you too, sweetheart.” The piece came out of his chest with a sickening, sucking kind of noise. He held it up triumphantly with one hand while slapping some kind of self-adhering bandage over the wound with the other.

“Identify yourself, unregistered flight path, return to berth or report,” a voice announced loudly over the ship’s speakers. I glared, it was none of their damn business where we were going. I didn’t even know where we were going, a bar apparently, but where that was? No clue.

Rurick seemed calm as he finished up his first aid by injecting himself with something and then chugging a bottle of water. “I’ll take over, as long you come sit in my lap.” I glared at him but scooted over, unable to resist being close to him now that it seemed all the danger had passed. It had to be a good sign that his lips were no longer nearly white but back to their luscious pink and golden hue.

“Identify yourself now, this is your final warning. Your ship is locked in our targeting.” That didn’t sound good but Rurick scoffed and rolled his eyes. His arms came around me, both of them back to full use, his hands confident as he settled them on the pilot yoke.

“Are you ready for some adventure, Lexi?” he asked me, his eyes twinkling. The ship seemed to speed up, racing out of the atmosphere as alarms blared and that voice warned us to stand down or they’d open fire. Then they were firing, but Rurick seemed completely calm.

“Depends,” I said breathily, “Are you planning on getting hurt again?” In answer, he slammed his mouth on mine, my toes curling as he licked across my mouth. That was a mark of possession and I was totally into it. I knew what his answer was, no pain, only pleasure. Now that was something I could get behind.

We careened out of Earth’s atmosphere and the alarms fell silent, the voice gone, while not a single blast hit our ship. When Rurick locked our course in on some distant planet in a faraway solar system, it was final. Goodbye old life, hello new.

Rurick picked me up in his arms and strode across the ship to lay me on his bed. A hand-held tissue regenerator aimed at the massive bruising on my cheeks, his eyes tender. Yeah, I was ready. Ready for a life with him, wild, crazy, and a little dangerous.

Epilogue

Lexi

“Where is my left boot?” I called out, hopping around on one leg through the Striker’s one room. It was a little messy and cluttered now that I had an entire, obnoxiously large wardrobe to pick from. I didn’t care, I loved living on the ship with Rurick, even if that ship had been parked on Afir most of the time.

We both worked at the bar his friend Mads had started years ago. I ran the books and payroll, while Rurick was usually the bouncer/bartender. But it was a bar that the Clade liked to frequent, not that they advertised it. Sometimes, Rurick would slip into the backroom with one of them, and then he’d have a job and leave for a few days. Sometimes I’d go with him, sometimes I’d spend a couple of nights with his brother and sister-in-law.

There was just no keeping my mate in one place without at least some ways to let off steam. And while our bed play was fantastic, that wasn’t the kind of release he needed, or rather, not the only kind. Still an assassin, now he worked for the good guys, the ones fighting to keep the UAR from expanding and killing and annexing more and more planets in the Alpha Quadrant. I could live with that.

“Here,” he said with a laugh, an impish glint in his eyes. He ducked down next to me to help me put the boot on, something he liked doing ever since my belly was starting to get too big for me to see my own ankles. I had noticed that he wasn’t taking nearly as many jobs as before, preferring to stay closer to home the closer my due date got. I liked that very much, I liked that he cared so much about me and our little one that it was suppressing his urge to roam.

“Thanks,” I said, tossing my arms around his neck so I could kiss him. He was bare-chested, only wearing pants after he’d stepped out of the shower. A scar crossed his left pec like a silvery half-moon against his otherwise golden skin, a reminder of our run-in with Agosta. The mobster was dead, obliterated during our escape, and we were both very happy about that.

“What do you say we take a snow day?” I suggested, waggling my brows toward the bed. He laughed, sweeping me off my feet and reaching the fluffy mattress in two big strides.

“I say yes. I love you, Lexi.” And then he nuzzled my belly, “And I love you, tiny one.”

THE END

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