Page 58 of Alien’s Retrieved Mate

"It is. Which is why he told you the truth even though the truth is ugly. He'd rather you make a clear-eyed choice — even if it's a choice against him — than trick you into something permanent."

"I'm not choosing against him." It came out fast. Too fast. Zhara's eyebrow did something impressive given her very different eyebrow situation. "I'm not. I'm choosing him because I want to. Because he counted my freckles and didn't tell me because he thought it was tactically irrelevant. Because he moved close to me at night so I wouldn't be cold and pretended it was the elevation. Because when I found the ruins and forgot to be scared, he looked at me like I was the most important discovery in the galaxy." My voice cracked. "Because he said 'getting to know you is what made me want to be yours' and he meant it so completely that his entire body lit up."

Zhara smiled, but it was a thin, distracted thing. "Then tell HIM that instead of sitting here with me."

"I'm not ready yet. I need to be sure that what I'm feeling is the choice and not the corner." Zhara's scanner flashed green and she was already on her feet, pulling me up with the cup still in my hand. "He told me the truth. The least I can do is tell him the truth back. And the truth is I need five more minutes to stop being terrified before I can be brave."

"Then tell him." She caught my elbow, gentle but firm, and guided me toward the service hall.

I opened my mouth to respond.

That was when the front wall of the cantina exploded.

Not an explosion like a grenade. An explosion like something very large and very fast hit the building from outside and the wall just... ceased to exist. I was thrown off my feet, hit the floor, and for a stunned second lay there in a rain of debris and dust trying to process what had happened.

Then the screaming started. Not mine for once. The cantina's other patrons, a dozen aliens of various species scrambling behind tables, running for exits that may or may not still exist. Through the dust, I saw figures. Dark figures. Moving in through the destroyed wall.

Saurok.

Not one. Not two. Five of them. In full combat gear, not the orange leather of the slave ship crew but harder and darker-grade. Weapons drawn. Scanning the room.

Looking for me.

Zhara was already moving. She grabbed my arm, hauled me behind the bar, and pressed me flat against the floor. "Stay down."

"What—"

"The breaching team. They reached us before we reached the service door."

One of the Saurok made an announcement in a language my guild disc rendered as: "The human female. Produce her or this station burns."

His weapon swept across the patrons trapped between the ruined wall and the blocked side exit. A charge built at the muzzle with a rising mechanical whine. He was not bluffing. If no one produced me, he was going to fire into the room until someone did.

My blood went ice cold. Not the cold of surprise. The cold of clarity. Of understanding, with absolute precision, that I was the reason these people were in danger. Every patron in this cantina. Every person in this outpost. Because of me. Because I was a "trophy" from an uncontacted world and a slaver captain wanted his merchandise back.

I could not hide behind a bar while he fired into innocent people because of me. If he saw me, his weapon would turn away from them. The choice had nothing heroic about it; it was ugly arithmetic, and I was the only variable I could move.

I grabbed a broken bottle from the debris. Heavy glass, alien-manufactured, sharp edge. It wasn't a weapon but it was what I had. I still had my multitool on my belt — the most useful piece of Earth equipment I'd managed to recover from the slavers' prisoner-property bin.

"Taylor, what are you doing?" Zhara hissed.

"Pulling their aim off the crowd. Don't follow me."

"That is extremely dangerous advice."

I stood up from behind the bar.

The Saurok saw me immediately. The lead one — bigger than the others, scarred, with one eye that was milky and dead — swung his weapon toward me. I unclipped the multitool, thumbed the blade out until it locked, and raised my hands — bottle in one, blade in the other.

"I'm the human," I said. My voice didn't shake. I was deeply proud of that. "You want me? Come get me."

The lead Saurok made a sound that my guild disc rendered as laughter. He stepped toward me.

And then Kel came through what was left of the cantina's back entrance like the wrath of God.

He moved so fast I barely tracked it. One moment, empty doorway. Next moment, the nearest Saurok was on the ground and Kel was already engaging the second. His pulse weapon fired three times — precise, efficient, lethal. Two Saurok dropped.

The remaining three reacted. Weapons fire. I ducked behind an overturned table as energy bolts scorched the air above my head. Zhara drew the compact sidearm from her patched hip holster and provided cover fire from behind the bar.