Page 51 of Alien Healer’s Mate

“This is a private berth. Z’Saai’s ship is docked on the main spur. I checked the manifest.”

Amaelii shrugged. “The scent goes through this door. He didn’t take her to his own ship.” She pressed her palm to the panel beside the airlock. “It’s dead. Whose berth is this?”

He frowned. When in dock, all ships needed an active power and data connection from the airlock to the station’s system. He pulled the registry up on his comm. “The research delegation from Kaalas-Delta-Three.”

She nodded.

“The neural graft presentation. It was on this morning’s schedule, and they never showed.” Her eyes narrowed. “I marked it and thought nothing more of it.”

Kellat’s jaw tightened. What were the chances that the delegate hadn’t missed his presentation by choice?

Opening the panel, he grabbed the hatch release and hauled. Nothing.

“Odd.” He stepped back. “Power must be cut from the inside.”

“Let me.” Amaelii shouldered him aside, set her grip on the frame, and her fingers punched into the metal. His eyes widened as she peeled the metal of the hatch back. He’d known vorrtan were strong, but there was strong, and there was strong.

Her lips quirking, she dropped the ruined hatch at his feet. “After you, Healer.”

Chuckling, he inclined his head. “I’m not sure if I’m the point warrior here or the bait.”

She grinned. “I’ll leave that to your interpretation.”

The air inside the airlock and the corridors beyond was freezing, the air of a ship run on minimum power for days.

Hold on, kelarris. I’m coming.

The first warrior came out of the dark swinging.

Kellat ducked, letting the blade whistle over his head, and put his shoulder into the male’s gut as he drew his own blades. The air left his opponent in a grunt as he slammed into the wall. But before Kellat could finish it, Amaelii went past him in a blur, and the warrior hit the deck with his head facing the wrong way. The warrior coming up right behind him met her claws and then the wall in quick succession. He slid down it, babbling as he held his guts in his hands.

The two of them walked past him. The corridor opened into a cargo bay, big and dark, crowded with crates and the shadowed bulk of powered-down machines. Warriors came out of the darkness in numbers he didn’t bother to count.

Amaelii shifted.

Between one stride and the next, her skin split and her bones cracked as her whole body reset itself. The thing that landed in the middle of the enemy warriors stood taller than any male in the bay, with claws as long as his forearm. Throwing her head back, she howled.

Everything in Kellat froze. He’d read about the vorrtan howl; every Latharian had. Myth said it made even the Krin run.

Then she went silent and started killing, and the sounds in the silence were worse than the howl.

He left her to it and followed his instincts.

The marks on his wrists burned, the bond pulling at him like a hand around his spine. He didn’t fight it. Instead, he followed it down a short corridor with open doors to stripped-out rooms. Warriors kept getting in his way, and then they stopped getting up. He didn’t remember hitting them. Bone gave under his fists, blood splashed over his skin, but still he kept moving.

Then the corridor ended, and he stepped through a bulkhead door into a larger chamber. There was a cage in the middle, with a small figure huddled within it.

His breath caught.

“Delilah!”

She was on her knees, hands fisted in the skirt of his gown, and when she lifted her head, the look on her face nearly put him on the floor. Her expression was flat, without hope. His heart ached savagely. Somewhere in the dark between the conference hall and this cage, she’d stopped believing anyone was coming for her.

He crossed the space without thinking, wrapping his hands around the bars. Three fingers of cold alloy between him and his mate.

“Kellat.” Her voice cracked in the middle of his name.

“I’m here, kelarris,” he growled. “I’m here. I’m getting you out.”