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“The Dronians are here,” she whispered starkly.
Chapter Two
Gray Bastine had neverbeen one to let fear rule his head, but knowing the vicious aliens were nearby, and had likely followed him to Sienna, made his blood run cold. “Can you see the Dronians once they’re in range?” he asked hoarsely.
He needed to get a bearing on just how deep in the shit they both were.
Her eyes flashed. “No, of course not.” Her gaze narrowed. “Can you?”
He nodded. “All of my kind can see through their camouflage.”
She scowled even as he pushed off her, the train slowing for the station, where the Dronians would no doubt be waiting to board. He looked down at her, his pulse surging. “We need to get off this train before it gets to the next platform.”
She nodded, for once in complete agreement with him. “We do.”
“Any ideas?” he asked. From what he’d learned just recently about her she’d been living on this train. She’d know it inside out and back to front.
“Just one.” She stood, and in half-a-dozen strides, she went to the end of the carriage and lifted the cover of an access panel. An alarm immediately sounded, and she braced her legs wide apart before slamming her hand against a red button.
The train screeched in protest at the emergency stop, braking sharply and throwing him into the back of the nearest seat.
Oomph.
He shook his head to clear it, the blood from his neck wound flicking free and spraying the seat. And though it’d take some time for the locomotive to pull up all its carriages, it took Gray less than a handful of seconds to gain his feet again, then pivot to lock eyes on Sienna.
Except, she was already gone.
His lips curled. “Well played, Sienna, well played.”
Too bad she was weaponless. Her rapier lay beneath the seat opposite. He lunged to retrieve it along with his club before he sprinted toward the end of the still-moving carriage, then jumped through its opened doors and onto the shoulder of the stony ballast and sleepers.
Stones avalanched beneath his boots, but any noise he made was covered by the still-squealingbrakes that pushed back the weight of the carriages. Despite his sensitive ears, in that moment he cared less about the noise.
His sense of smell was almost as responsive and his nostrils flared at the incoming, revolting odor of the Dronians. But if they stank to high heaven while alive, apparently the oily, rotten egg stink when they died was even more disgusting.
He only wished he’d been able to glean more information about them than the few alien journals he’d been able to get his hands on. Even the little knowledge he’d acquired had been quite the tedious process thanks to having to use a translator device to read the weird, alien script.
