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Overcome by a righteous indignation and determination, he threw his shoulders back and stomped back onto the ship, braving the barbed air, and began tearing at the barrier, ripping metal away and discarding it behind him with a volley of clatter. A moment later, he heard a hatch opened from within, followed by her protests. “Stop it! Stop it!” It sounded as though she tried to get closer, but the effects of her attack still lingered in the air, and she began to cough and gasp, backing away. The hatch closed once more. Her lungs could not take it, and she was smart to return to her inner sanctum.
Though Orik, too, was having difficulty breathing, his supernatural healing meant his lungs were mending just as quickly as the gas could tear them up, and as motivated as he was, he could endure much worse than this.
Soon the tangle of metal was a heap of rubble that he simply climbed over, revealing a long corridor lined with hatches. At the farthest end, he spied those blazing hazel eyes peeking through a small porthole. He shot her a look he knew she could interpret; his lips curled at the edges, his eyes flashing with triumph.
She countered by pressing her middle finger to the glass. His spunky human queen had educated him on the meaning ofthatgesture.
Orik bared his teeth in a mocking grin. “Out of tricks?”
He frowned when she mirrored his expression.
3
Who the fuck is this guy? Goliath?
Jessie peered at the man through the hatch’s small porthole. He was a straight up beast, she noted, running her gaze over his gladiator’s physique. Barely anyone on earth wasthatfaultlessly beefy. Even Dwayne Johnson with his comedically arching eyebrow would be impressed. Goliath’s shoulders practically sported their own hemisphere. By comparison, his waist was slim, yet still double her width, and packed with muscles. And his arms? Fucking tree trunks!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Was he built in a lab?
She surveyed his face. His jaw could have been sculpted by the Hollywood gods, all beauty and masculinity, cut and chiseled to a perfect rough-and-tumble angle with just the right amount of stubble. His dark hair was short, yet long enough that it still had to be brushed off his face. But it was his arresting eyes that held her attention. They were like ice in a storm. Clear and blue, yet hard and piercing, menacing, targeting her through the porthole.
Though his physical appearance was pleasing, it was his dark uniform and action-ready stance that convinced her he was a dangerous adversary. It was highly likely that his long-sleeved coat concealed weapons…just as hers did.
As soon as she’d realized capture was imminent, she’d retrieved her red biker’s jacket from her pack, the one that had cost half a month’s paycheck—a functionality-meets-beauty kind of purchase.
She used it to conceal both her loaded 9mm and utility knife.
Goliath’s stance was that of a trained warrior. Her father used to stand like that, a former Marine and war veteran. It was like he could never shake the constant tension in his body, the readiness to attack or defend. A mighty berserker, struggling every second to shrug off the horrors of his past, but it had always been there, in his movements, in his countenance, like an impenetrable miasma that gathered around him constantly.
The man currently glowering at her through the window exuded that same vibe, a faint similarity, a faint…coloring? She blinked, literally seeing strange ghostly hues dance around Goliath’s shoulders and head. The longer she looked, the more pronounced the colors became, a soft burnished orange cloud tinged at the edges by indigo. She rubbed her eyes, trying to clear them, but when she looked again, that strange orange cloud remained. Was it the gas? It had never looked like that before.
As his gaze bore down on her, her secondary barrier seemed like a paltry obstacle. It was only a matter of time before he and his posse broke through.
And when that happened, her last resort would be to fight her way out. Problem one: her clip only held ten bullets before she had to reload. Problem two: she had no extra bullets to reload with. She’d wasted the rest on carefree target practice the second day of her solo camping trip, long before her abduction, but how was she to know she’d be propelled into space and captured by an alien race?
Problem three: Even if she managed to get past Goliath and his considerable backup, she didn’t know where the shit she was in the universe. She didn’t know if she was on another planet or still in space. She couldn’t fly a ship. Not even this one. She’d tried. The hieroglyphs around the controls might as well explain the secrets to quantum physics for all she could interpret.
The hatch handle jiggled. Shehadfigured out how to lock it from her side. When she glanced back up, Goliath bared his even white teeth. “Open this door,” he ordered.
She backed away, shaking her head, her heartbeat knocking against her ribs. Having determined her chances of battling her way out—nil-point-nil—she could see only one final option.
She retrieved her gun from her jacked holster and gazed at it. One of these bullets had Jessie Jane Knight written on the side. Her stomach felt like churning rocks, and her eyes began to water.Is this really how I end?With my own gun? By my own hand?
Was this a coward’s way out? Is that what her father would have thought? Modern warrior that he was, she had no doubt he would have fought. He’d have fought to the death, taking out as many aliens as he could before he kicked the bucket. But as much as he’d taught her, she couldn’t take on an army. She wasn’t a trained soldier. She wasn’t a…killer.
Unless I count what I’m about to do to myself.
And for all her bravery, the prospect of being a lab rat was too horrible to fathom.
She felt a warm tear slide down her cheek as she rubbed her thumb over the butt of her gun.
“What are you doing?” Goliath’s rough voice held a hint of concern, his agitated gaze darting between her face and the gun in her grip. Was her intention painted all over her face? Apparently so, because he ground out, “Doona do this.”
“I won’t do well in captivity,” she replied earnestly, as if to convincehimthis was the only course of action left. Why was she even bothering?
As she slid her finger over the trigger, a thunderous roar made her jump. It was the sound a wild animal might make if in agony…and if nuzzling a microphone with the bass turned up. She practically felt the reverberation in her bones. It was like no creature she had ever heard before.
What sort of animal did they have out there with them?
