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“I trust you. And so does Kalla.”
He grins. “You know, I’m a little disappointed. I was looking forward to being a farmhand.”
I squint at him. “Work on your lies a little better, pipsqueak.”
“Worth a try…” He winks. “How’s my human eye twitch? Did I do it right?”
CHAPTERTWENTY
KALLA
I start in the bunks.It might not be honorable, but it’s more effective. Kill them silently before anyone is aware of an intruder, and you cut down on the unavoidable chaos that comes when your presence is discovered.
It’s clearly a mercenary group rather than Azza soldiers. There’s Azzan crew members here, but they aren’t soldiers in uniform. That doesn’t mean it’s a trap, though, because the empire hires out for all manner of dirty work, not just bounties and trafficking. Third parties always make it easier to pass blame.
As I’m finishing in the final bunk, I hear footsteps in the hall and freeze. Someone’s coming in and they’re about to raise the alarms. I scale the cabinet and climb onto the ceiling tiles, clinging between the raised edges to watch what transpires.
“Someone’s on the ship,” the fool whispers. If only they’d shift over a few steps, I could take them off guard and have their necks slit before they make a sound. After all, I still need to take the bridge, and I don’t need a security alarm blaring.
“That’s ridiculous. We haven’t heard a thing from the bridge. Comm them quickly. We need an internal and external security scan.”
“Hang on.”
I’d love to curse aloud right now. Perhaps if I move, I can maneuver above them. I’m readying to shift from one ceiling tile to another but the next words from their mouths give me pause.
“What’s that on him? A hair. Get it.”
“It’s orange.”
“Orange?”
A full body twitch nearly causes me to fall.
“Sort of red.”
“What sort of species has that sort of color? Strange, isn’t it?”
“Could be artificial.”
They need to die.
“Zaledian? They’re red.”
“But their manes are black, you idiot! How many Zaledians have you seen with colorful hair?”
Forget stealth. I drop from the ceiling, and the idiot males whip around. One of them slaps their comm line as I grab the other by his squishy throat and squeeze so quick and hard that he dies in an instant.
“Intruder on board!” The other raises his stinger and shoots without hesitation. Thankfully, my shield is up, but a swift kick sends the stinger flying. Alarmed by his sudden lack of weapon, he hesitates for just long enough for me to bury myikaniin his throat.
As the sirens start singing on the intercom, I squat down next to my first victim to search for the hair. Sure enough, the end of his tentacle is wrapped around a long, wavy strand of Kaye’s hair. This one is orange. Each strand of her hair is a slightly different shade, combining like magic to create a color unlike any other. It could have been golden, red, or rusty brown. I twirl the strand into a coil and tuck it inside my pocket. It must have clung to me all the while since I saw her and then dropped from my clothes. What are the chances that they noticed it? Is it only because her hair is such a bright color? It catches the light, but then it’s such a small thing. What are the chances that this could happen again?
I drop to the floor and nearly vomit.
An imaginary chain of events is playing out in my mind. There’s a slim possibility that a detail like this could turn into a threat to her safety. One witness catching sight of me with a red bleeding scratch would validate that I’m a mated male. One orange hair found at the scene of my crimes could fall into the hands of a bounty hunter. And how many flame-haired human females have left their home planet? It could be a hundred, or it could be only a handful. She’s the only human I’ve seen with such hair. Is it uncommon? I wouldn’t know.
Clutching my stomach, I try to take a deep breath and focus on the task at hand. Heavy breaths of panic keep coming along with the visions of those possibilities. It’s normally useful that my mind likes to see paths of the future appear like forks of a river I can choose between. Now, every option feels like a bullet train straight to her death.
If I wasn’t like this, I think desperately.If I wasn’t so sick in the head, obsessed with death…stained with blood.
