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The door slid open on a plain metal airlock, the white light blinding for the second it took my eyes to adjust.
“No welcoming party,” Sul said. “I feel unwanted.”
“I’m sure you’ll get plenty of time to play,” I thwacked the big merc on the shoulder as I moved past, making him laugh.
My mate asked, “Don’t you mean fight?”
“Same thing,” Sul answered.
For all his joviality, Sul was a good male to have at your back in a fight. All of my crew were.
Inside the airlock, we repeated the process as the inner hatch slid open, nerves drawn tight, waiting for an attack.
But the door opened onto an empty hallway made of the same unadorned metal as the Grug used everywhere.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” Car-Raa asked.
“Hard to say,” Raxnor said. “It depends on how they have their scanners set. We’re so much smaller than a shuttle that they might not know.”
Gravin growled, “And they sure as frek never expected anyone to make it this far into the Abyss.”
No one said what we were all thinking—that the Grug’s ability to kill our ships would killusif the team we’d left behind didn’t solve it.
“Let’s take down that telepathy field.” Vivv marched forward, her blaster held at the ready.
“She’s right,” I said. “The best thing we can do right now is complete our mission.” Because even if we ended up dying here, if we got the telepathy field down, it would give everyone else a fighting chance.
Frek, some days I hated being noble. A part of me wanted to grab Vivv and run to the other side of the galaxy and say “frek it” to everyone else. But we were here now, and there was no way out but to finish our mission.
She continued to take point, and I followed on her heels. There were no doors, no movement, no feeling of life. I slowed for a second to check my suit’s readings. The building had heat and air, so it could sustain life.
So where the frek were they?
A grinding creak of metal from overhead.
My head snapped up as a heavy metal blast door cut between me and my mate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Vivian
I spun right as a heavy blast door slammed into place with a clanging metal thud.
“Vivv-Ee-Aan!” Wrin’s shout rang through my helmet.
“I’m okay!” I lied. All of this was as about as far from okay as you could get. I was isolated on an alien moonbase owned by the very species that wanted to dominate all others, the ones who didn’t think of humans as anything more than pets. “At least we now know the Grug know we’re here.”
Resounding clangs like someone struck the universe’s biggest gong rang through the corridor. “Vivv, I can’t get to you!” Panic such as I’d never heard from him colored Wrin’s voice.
Along with the most overpowering feeling of love.
Oh. My heart pinched as the bittersweetness of the two conflicting emotions thrummed in my chest, coming from our mate bond.He really loves me!
An echoing ache radiated from me as well.
Wrin had been my rock. Even when I hadn’t trusted him at first, he’d never faltered. He’d always been there. Hell, I’d stabbed him! And he hadn’t offered me a damned word of complaint. If anything, he’d approved of how it showed my fighting spirit.
He supported me in my endeavors. He lifted me up to stand beside him. He valued my opinions.
