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"Brace yourselves," is all Rooke shouts before taking us on a roller coaster ride to try and shake off the creature.
Our screams become one, a chorus of terror as Rooke takes us on a dizzying ride through the sky. We cling to each other, the seat straps holding us in place while poor Slye, crouching at the hatch, goes weightless before being body slammed onto the shuttle floor.
Drax shouts through the comm for Rooke to descend. With the creature still hanging on, we plummet like a stone, hurtling toward the ground as it rushes up to greet us with the promise of death.
We're blinded by a flash of bright light. The shuttle lists hard to one side before leveling off.
"Corithian cunts!" Rooke shouts, bringing us down in a smooth landing next to the Kaul's spacecraft. "Mordox just blasted the creature into a million pieces with a plasma gun."
"The Kaul must have been armed!" Bruke whoops in celebration while the girls and I sit in stunned silence, wide-eyed just trying to catch our breaths. I hold Tris in both hands, the tiny plurshy shaking and curled into a tight ball. Then we notice Slye isn't moving from his place on the floor.
Tasha is first to unstrap from her seat, scooting around Stacy to crouch at his side. The rest of us follow suit, releasing our straps and standing in front of our seats. We're packed in tight, straining forward to see the unconscious male on the floor.
"Slye!" Tasha gives his shoulder a shake. "Slye. Oh my god, please wake up."
Without warning, the shuttle's hatch flies open, and I peer through the crush of people to lay eyes on the person I need most in the world. Mordox's face is a mask of concern as he searches the interior of the shuttle for me. His bright, emerald gaze locks with mine and I blink through the hot press of tears. I want so much to rush to him. To feel his arms around me, but I'm stuck behind a shuttle full of people.
"Are you hurt, lula?" Mordox asks. I shake my head, biting down on my trembling lower lip. He sags in relief. "What about Tris?"
"She's okay." I hold up our plurshy friend still cupped in my hands so he can see her above the crowd. "Are you? Were you hurt capturing the Kaul?"
"No." He slowly shakes his head, his emerald gaze devouring the sight of me, piercing me to my very soul with a hunger I've never felt before. The warm embrace of his gaze melts away my fears leaving me bare before him. Being seen so intimately, felt so deeply, by someone's eyes alone makes my heart beat faster and my skin tingle with anticipation.
This is the first time in my life I've ever experienced such intense love and adoration from someone's gaze, and it overwhelms me in the best way possible, but our reunion will have to wait. "Mordox, we have to help Slye."
My male is so consumed with concern for me that he doesn't even notice the injured male lying on the floor of the hatch. Mordox looks down at the unconscious male, carefully lifting him in his arms and laying him on the ground. Tasha follows, taking wobbly steps to remain at Slye's side.
Mordox kneels over him, placing two fingers over the male's throat. "His pulse is strong, but he needs a medical cuff."
"Already on it," Bruke hollers out, rummaging in the far back of the shuttle through all the bags stuffed with what we could carry with us from the lab.
We all spill out of the shuttle, making way for Bruke and the medical bag. Tasha limps towards me, her movements hindered by her injury. I wrap an arm around her waist to offer some comfort. Her gaze is fixated on Slye, worry evident in every line of her face.
Mordox secures the cuff Bruke hands him onto Slye's forearm and rapidly taps on the little buttons until they flash in a riot of blinking lights. Bruke tends to Slye's head wound, cleaning away the trickle of blood leaking from the back of his head and applying a pressure dressing.
"The Thrushian vessel should have a decent medic bay." Rooke's face twists in worry for his friend.
"Let's hurry and get Slye inside the Kaul's craft," Mordox says, his voice calm but urgent. "We need to grab the Kaul and everything we packed inside the shuttle."
"I've got the Kaul." Bruke jogs over to where the Kaul lays in a heap on the ground near the compound's entrance.
We offer to help unload the shuttle, but Drax and Mordox are not having it, insisting we stand by while they do the heavy lifting. Whoever said chivalry was dead had never met a Ziarian male.
The girls crowd around me, taking turns petting Tris who had calmed enough to settle on my shoulder. She delighted in their affection, purring loudly as they cooed and praised her beauty.
Drax and Mordox start to unload the shuttle while Rooke heaves Slye into his arms and starts toward the Kaul's spacecraft parked on the outskirts of the compound followed by Darcy and a worried Tasha.
It loomed before us, its massive boxy frame casting a shadow over the landscape. A silvery-grey, the hull appeared to be smooth and seamless, as if it was made from one continuous piece of metal.
The sight of it is surreal, reminiscent of the time Stacy maneuvered us through the crafts docked out in space after we escaped the red planet in her former owner's vessel. Weeks have passed since I woke up naked and chained to a wall on the red planet, but the reality of everything that's happened since still shocks me.
My eyes land on Mordox as he helps Drax unload the shuttle and I instantly calm. He is my home, along with Tris, and my four sisters. My found family among the stars.
"I'm going to get started unscrambling the lock on the hatch to lower the ramp so we can board." Drax heaves four massive bags, each the size of a duffel over to the spacecraft. Stacy follows close behind, insisting she can manage a bulging sack filled with all manner of alien tech paraphernalia. Bruke joins them, casually dropping the colossal Kaul at Drax's feet from his shoulder with ease.
"I'll never get used to the sight of aliens," Romy shudders at the sight of the Kaul.
I don't blame her. He radiates danger, even more than the males we're used to. Bare chested and heavily muscled like the Ziarian's, except he has no horns and no tail. Instead of scales, he's covered in glossy blue skin that shines like polished metal with bone structure to rival any male model on Earth. His eyes are closed in his unnatural repose, and I wonder at the color. Even more striking is the snow-white hair falling to his waist, plaited in a single, thick braid.
