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Once a group of guards passes, I run as fast as my feet can carry me toward the double doors I know lead to the arena. Focused on my escape, my gaze never wavers from my destination.
When I finally reach the entrance, I'm stunned by the sheer enormity of the arena. The ceiling stretches up to heights that seem impossible, and the walls are lined with balconies to seat hundreds of spectators. Sheltered for so long inside the warden's bedroom, I shrink inside my skin as I take it all in.
I don’t have time to stand here gawking. Steeling myself, I race across the sandy floor until I reach the exit I know leads to a corridor and to the outside. I curse and slap my palms against the cold, metal slab, finding the exit door locked with a keypad embedded in the wall adjacent to the door.
I press my fingers to the smooth surface of the keypad, squinting at the alien scribblings on its face. I don't know the code and my knowledge of their language is less than nil, offering no help to decipher the keys. My heart sinks and I try to think of another way out.
Guards explode through the double doors, spilling into the arena. I duck behind a row of spectator seats. With breath held, I tremble in my hiding spot, hoping they don’t see me as they march closer.
Electrified rod squeezed tightly in a white-knuckle grip, I peer around the seat where I’m hunkered down. They’re too focused on the exit door that I couldn’t open to take notice of me. One taps in the code, and the barrier between me and freedom opens with a beep and the clunk of a disengaging lock.
One at a time, the group of guards file through the door. As the last guard passes, I slide my electrified rod across the floor and wedge the door open just as it closes. I scoot back up and wait, listening intently for any signs that they noticed my maneuver.
I jerk and yelp from the loud claps of blaster fire echoing from the exit. The guards grunt in pain and I silently cheer on whoever is doing the shooting.
After a furious exchange of fire, the blasting dies down to a deafening silence. I pause for a bit, listening. Waiting.
When I hear nothing more, I scurry to the exit, push open the door, and grab my weapon. I race down the dimly lit, narrow corridor only to find a huge male with glossy blue skin and long white hair lying on the floor in a pool of bright blue blood. A charred wound is splotched between his pectorals, but his muscled chest still rises and falls with each shallow breath.
I inch closer, recognizing the male. He's the marauder Admiral Lorken, the commander of the Bioti Spacefleet and an ally of the warden, hired to capture and deliver a monster called a Wetokian and bring it here to fight the Berserker at the request of Warden Hyt.
My ears are always open. Either the warden forgets I'm listening or doesn't care that I hear and speaks freely around me. According to what I've overheard discussed between the warden and his guards, this glossy blue alien with long stark, white hair—this Kaul—is among a group of elite space pirates known as Star Mavericks. Whatever group he's in, he got here in a spaceship.
And that means he's my ticket off this frozen rock.
ChapterTwo
NAVIK
"Wake up, space pirate!"
I'm roused by a strident female voice, but I do not comply with her request. I keep my eyes tightly shut, refusing to obey. I don't follow orders from anyone, let alone a female.
The rhythmic pulse of pain where my nose was smashed flat to my face, beats in time with my slowing heart. I give up my life's blood to the hard floor of the exit corridor. An azure river leaks from a gaping blaster wound in the center of my chest.
I groan in response to the swift kick to my booted foot. "Leave me to die in peace, female," I croak out with more strength than I realize I had.
“Good. You can understand me.”
“A regrettable circumstance due to my translator implant,” I sneer.
Perhaps I'm not as close to death as I thought. Then again, there's nothing that gets a male riled up more than a nagging female. Even with my eyes shut tight, I can sense her vexatious presence looming above me, demanding my compliance, which she will not be getting.
I remain motionless in my determination to deny her what she demands. Surely after all the blood I've lost, I'm close to the end of my days.
My body goes limp as I surrender to my fate and accept death with peaceful resignation. My muscles release their tension, relinquishing any remnants of struggle. Calmness washes over me like a gentle wave as I accept death's embracing peace.
The vicious female jolts me back with a hard kick, this time higher up on my thigh. Sharp pain lances through me like a laser bolt, igniting all my nerve endings.
With a groan of frustration, my eyes fly open, momentarily surprised to see that my nemesis is human. "Spare me your insufferable presence. Can a male not breathe his last breath without a female pestering him into the afterlife? Be gone with you!"
"By the sound of your bitching, there's plenty of life left in you." She pokes my shoulder with the glowing tip of an electro-rod. "Now get your ass up and fly me off this rock."
I hiss and flinch away from the stinging shock piercing my shoulder.
The female glares down at me, her electro-rod poised and ready to deliver another sizzling jolt. Small in stature, she radiates a fierce energy. As much as I hate to admit it, this little human intrigues me.
Humans are usually beneath my disdain, but this petite starfire stirs my weft. The last time that appendage was coaxed to erection was with a kylari female who could do this delectable trick with her forked tongue on the underneath side of my—
