by Tana Stone
No. Whoever it was knew they were inside and wanted to get them at a disadvantage. As Kax tried to see anything through the inky blackness, he considered their options. Make a run for it through the building in the dark, or stay in the room and hide, hoping the intruder didn’t find them or didn’t look hard. Even though he felt Bridget’s hand trembling in his, he knew they couldn’t stay there and wait to be picked off. Better to make a run for it and fight their way out if they had to.
He tugged her hand and she followed him as he felt his way silently to the doorway and into the hall, heading away from the door leading outside. He tucked her behind him as he backed down the hall holding the blaster in one outstretched arm, even though he could see nothing.
“You can’t escape me, female.” The voice reverberated through the corridor, and he felt Bridget jump and then move closer to him.
It was Krav, the Kronock who’d taken Bridget out from under his nose and seemed to think he could take her again. Kax tightened his grip on her hand, partly to reassure her and partly to reassure himself. He flipped up his hood and pulled hers up over her face.
No way was he letting that monster take her. He’d seen the way the Kronock looked at her, and now he knew what he wanted from her. Kax knew without a doubt he’d die before letting her be taken again. He moved faster, backing her down the hall and hoping there was another way out. The footsteps clomped closer, and he wondered if the Kronock could see them in the dark. He wouldn’t be surprised, considering how they’d clearly been augmenting themselves.
“She is mine.” The voice grew louder. “Give her to me.”
Kax heard the sound of a door opening and light entered the building from the opposite end. Another door, he thought, as the outside haze illuminated the twisted face of the commanding alien advancing on them. Kax spun around to see a pair of Kronock fighters entering from the second exit, and he fired on them as he ran forward, with Bridget close on his heels.
The fighters were startled and fell back through the doorway, as blaster fire hit them square in the chest. Kax didn’t slow down, leaping over them and turning to see Bridget do the same much more gracefully than him, her legs almost becoming parallel to the ground. The Kronock chasing them ran as well, his heavy legs causing the floor to shake as he pounded closer.
They ran outside into the choking, swirling air. He squinted, trying to see through the glowing red haze.
“The ship,” Kax cried, the words muffled in his suit.
They ran fast along the side of the building, Kax looking over his shoulder but not seeing the dark, hulking Kronock behind them. They passed the first building, and Kax saw blinking dots of light ahead. He fired at them but didn’t slow, hearing the sentries hit the ground but not able to see them through the storm.
He kept running, holding tight to Bridget’s hand and hoping his sense of direction was taking him toward their ship. He felt her stumble behind him, but he pulled her up before she hit the ground. He could hear the clomping of feet behind them and feel the ground trembling. Blaster fire erupted in front of him and Kax dodged to the side, pulling Bridget closer. He couldn’t see who was firing, but he could feel the heat of the blasts as they skimmed his shoulder.
The oxygen in his mask had started to run low, no doubt due to how heavily he was sucking in breath. It made his head ache and his legs feel heavy. He felt Bridget’s hand slipping from his as her pace also slowed. He gave his head a firm shake. This was not the time to let up. They had to make it to the ship. He clutched her hand and powered forward.
As they approached where he was sure he’d landed the shuttle, Kax slammed on the brakes. The massive Krav stepped out in front of him, barring the way. Kax felt Bridget bump into him then heard her gasp as she registered the dark outline of the enemy commander. How had he gotten in front of them? Kax sucked in air, his vision blurring. Had they been running in circles?
He turned to run back the way they’d come, but a line of fighters materialized behind them, their bulky outlines glinting through the dense air. He could tell these weren’t the sentries, but were the fast-moving Kronock fighters who’d only been slightly altered.
Bridget clung to his arm, and he felt her gasping for breath. His stomach clenched as he once again did a mental run-down of his options, which were shrinking by the minute.
“If you surrender yourself to me, I will let the Drexian live.”
Kax could barely see the Kronock’s face, but he could hear the self-satisfied victory in his voice.
“Otherwise, I will cut him down in front of you and let my soldiers rip his limbs off.” The soldiers raised their weapons in unison and aimed them at him. He could see the red glow of dozens of laser gun sights bouncing across his body.
Bridget inhaled sharply beside him, and he felt her hand slip out of his.
“No.” He reached for her. “You can’t do this.”
“I can’t bear to see them kill you.” Her voice was small behind the clear window of the environmental suit and through the howling wind, even though he knew she was screaming to be heard. “This way, there’s still a chance you can come for me again.”
He watched as she took small steps toward the huge Kronock, glancing back over her shoulder at him. His heart constricted as he saw the fear in her wide eyes. He knew he might never get her back once the Kronock commander had her again, and he was sure they wouldn’t let him live, no matter what empty promises they made. Even as his head throbbed from lack of oxygen, he tried to think of solutions while panic and despair threatened to overtake him. There was no way out. Not with both of them alive.
Maybe his brother had been right. Maybe he’d been wrong to take this mission. He thought about Dorn and felt glad his brother had found happiness. If that was all he left behind, it was enough for him. Thinking of Dorn made something in his brain snap into place. What would his brother do? Something unexpected, for sure, and probably dangerous. Something they’d never expect.
He fisted his free hand into a steely ball. Even if it meant death, he was not going to let Bridget be taken. Before she was within the enemy’s reach, he clicked a setting on his blaster and shot her in the back.
The woman slumped to the ground, and he darted forward and scooped her up, hearing the Kronock leader bellow at his soldiers to hold their fire. Cursing as he ran, he dodged the bigger and slower-moving Kronock commander and jabbed at his own wrist controller.
“This had better work,” he muttered to himself, as the door to the shuttle opened and he ran on board, dropping Bridget’s body to the floor and pressing his controller to close the door behind him.
He could see the Kronock soldiers running toward him and shooting as he powered up the shuttle and pressed a sequence of commands into the console. Through the fiery, swirling winds, he spotted the commander waving soldiers to their ships, as his shuttle hovered a few feet off the ground before taking off. He punched the final button, then picked up Bridget and ran to the back of the shuttle, kicking at the release for the back hatch and watching as the short ramp dropped down. He pulled her tight to his chest as he dropped out of the hatch and hit the ground in a crouch, stumbling forward and righting himself before pressing his wrist control and sending the shuttle rocketing up into the sky.
He ran as fast as he could away from the buildings and the Kronock ships lifting off the ground to follow his shuttle. Cresting a small hill, he dropped down so he and Bridget were out of sight, and braced himself for what he knew was coming.
An explosion lit up the sky above them, and Kax knew it had worked. His shuttle had self-destructed just as he’d programmed it to do. He let out a breath and sank down, curling his body over Bridget’s limp one, in case there was any fallout.
There was more screaming on the ground as the Kronock forces clearly tried to determine what had happened.
“Who fired on that ship?” the Kronock commander bellowed. When none of his soldiers answered him, his rage-filled scream tore through the air.
> The voices weren’t far from where Kax lay with Bridget. He held his breath, betting on the thick atmosphere and general chaos to keep them from being discovered.
“Return to Choor Dar,” the Kronock yelled to his troops as he stalked past them only meters away then dropped his voice to a menacing growl. “I will have to find another human.”
Kax felt the small, unmoving woman beneath him and hoped his gamble had paid off.
Chapter Seventeen
Bridget heard the scream and felt the wind beating against her. She tried to open her eyes but the red haze blinded her, so she raised a hand to cover them. She felt her body being rolled underneath something and Kax pressing up against her as the stone overhang she was looking up at shielded them from some of the elements.
“Don’t move,” the voice was soft and right in her ear. “I don’t want them to see us.”
It took her a while to piece together where she was and what was happening. The last thing she remembered was walking toward the scary Kronock and feeling a blinding pain in her back. After that, everything had gone black. Kax. She felt a moment of panic he’d been shot, too, but then realized it was his voice in her ear and his body shielding her from the worst of the storm. Bridget tried to take a deep breath, but inhaling only made her head ache more.
She instinctively took the front of Kax’s shirt in her fists and pulled him closer until his face was burrowed in her neck and she felt the hard planes of his chest press against her breasts.
“You okay?” his words were choked and barely audible through their face masks.
She moved her head up and down, hearing nothing but the roar of ship engines blasting off close enough to feel the heat of their exhaust. When the ground stopped trembling and the engines noise had grown faint, they lay breathing together for a few moments, his chest rising and falling along with hers.
Kax moved out from under the rock and pulled her out. They stood side by side, peering through the opaque air.
“It worked.” He sounded surprised as he wrapped an arm around her. “They’re gone.”
Bridget recognized the faint outline of the buildings and attempted to locate their shuttle. “Where’s our ship?” Her legs buckled and he swung her up into his arms, hurrying back to the nearest building.
Normally, Bridget would have complained bitterly about a man carrying her, but since her legs felt like jelly and her chest ached, she let him carry on without saying a word.
He tugged at the door and she pointed to the fallen Kronock lying at their feet, motioning at Kax to press the hand to the door panel. Kax raised an eyebrow, but followed her direction. Once inside, he slammed the door behind them and stepped over the broken bodies of the Kronock robots, cradling her even closer. He pulled off his face mask, gasping for breath, before doing the same to hers.
“I can walk, you know.” She let her head rest on his chest while she argued. It felt good to breathe in regular air, even if the old barracks smelled musty and she knew she was inhaling as much dust as anything.
“You’ve been shot.” He continued down the hall until they reached the sick bay and he pushed open the swinging doors.
Bridget shielded her eyes from the bright lights flashing on, but grinned as Kax placed her gently on the platform. “Hey Al, I’m back.”
No response.
She looked up at the ceiling and the various arms and wands extending down. “Hello? Doctor?”
A series of lights flashed above her. “Hello, Brid-get. Welcome back.”
“She’s been shot with a blaster,” Kax said, the impatience clear in his voice.
The curved bar lowered and began scanning her, stopping at her neck. “Please remove all extraneous fabric, Brid-get.”
“This again.” She sighed and pulled off her environmental suit then untied the drawstring at her waist, pulling her legs up so she could slip out of the baggy pants.
Kax looked down at the floor then turned to face away from her. “Do you need help?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I got it,” she said. “Trust me. It’s easier for me to undress myself than for you to try to.”
He cleared his throat and shifted from one foot to the other as she pulled the T-shirt over her head and lay back on the platform completely naked.
“Alright, Al. Do your worst.”
The scan began again with the blue light running the length of her body. “I do not think you wish me to ‘do my worst,’ Bridget.”
“It’s an expression, Al.” She allowed herself a small laugh. “I know you’re incapable of doing a bad job.”
“That is correct. I have the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of medical training in order to provide the most accurate diagnosis.”
“Didn’t I tell you he was a charmer?” she said to Kax.
“How is she?” Kax said, not turning his head. “Did she sustain damage from the blaster?”
The curved bar lifted into the ceiling and a wand dropped with a single, small needle that pricked the side of Bridget’s arm before she could think to protest.
“Minimal damage,” Al said in his robotic voice. “Her heart and lungs have above average capacity for organic creatures of her size, so the blaster fire did no permanent damage. I have administered a healing agent to speed her recovery.”
Kax’s shoulders sagged. “Thank the gods. What about exposure to radiation?”
“Negative,” Al said.
Kax let out a long breath.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Bridget said. “I’m tougher than I look. It’s going to take more than being stunned by a Kronock blaster to bring me down.”
“This wound was not created by a Kronock weapon,” Al said. “The heat signature in your body is very different from the one in your friend when he was wounded by the Kronock, and in the Validians when I treated them from Kronock blaster wounds.”
Bridget propped herself up on her elbows. “If the Kronock didn’t shoot me, then who did?”
Kax started to turn, caught a glimpse of her still naked body and stopped. “I did, but only—”
“You shot me?” Bridget cut him off. “Why? I mean I know you don’t really like me, but did you really have to shoot me?”
His hands became fists. “I did it to save you. It was my last resort, since you stupidly decided to give yourself up to the Kronock.”
“Stupid?” She sat up all the way. “I was trying to save your sorry ass from being blown away by about a hundred Kronock.”
“It isn’t your job to save me.” His voice was a low growl. “It’s my job to rescue you. Not the other way around.”
“Well, tough.” She swung her legs over the side of the platform and glared at his back. “You may not care much about me, but I care about you, and there was no way I was going to watch you die if I could save you.”
“Please lie down, Brid-get,” Al’s stilted voice cut through the fighting. “Your heart rate is rising.”
“You think I don’t care about you?” Kax asked.
“Oh, I know you care about the mission and getting me back to the station.” Bridget’s voice sounded shrill even to her own ears. “But I’ve seen the way you pull away from me and flinch when I touch you. It’s clear I’m nothing more than the mission to you.” Her voice cracked. “You won’t even look at me now.”
“That’s because I’m afraid if I look at you, I’m going to throw you down on that table and take you right here.”
Bridget felt like all the fight had been knocked out of her. “What?”
“I’ve been battling it, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.” His breathing was ragged. “Please put on your clothes, Bridget.”
As she looked at his broad back, the muscles bunched so that the raised bumps down his spine pressed hard against the snug fabric of the environmental suit, she imagined running her hands over them and her nipples hardened. As much as she didn’t want to fall for anyone, she couldn’t deny he stirred something in her
no one had in a long time. Ignoring her feelings hadn’t worked, but maybe burning them off another way would. “No.”
“Bridget.” His voice was pleading with her as he put his hands to his head.
“I don’t care about your mission, or the Drexian rules, or any other Drexian warrior. I want you.” She hitched in her breath. “And right now, I want you inside me, Kax.”
With a guttural growl, he turned and advanced on her, his eyes burning as he crushed his mouth to hers. She raked her fingers through his hair as his tongue found hers. There was nothing timid about his kiss as the force of it pushed her back. He claimed her with his mouth as she pulled him deeper to her, wrapping her naked legs around him.
She did believe in lust, after all.
Chapter Eighteen
Kax moaned as Bridget used her bare legs to jerk him toward her until his cock pressed against her through his pants. She tilted her hips up to grind against him, and he nearly lost control. She was kissing him like she couldn’t get enough of him—her tongue insistent as it stroked his. His brain tried to slow him down, but her raw desire overpowered him, and he lost the internal battle he’d been fighting for days.
“We shouldn’t,” he said, pulling away for a moment before he pulled her closer.
“Oh, we definitely should.” Her words were a series of breathless gasps she whispered into his ear, sending tremors down his spine and causing his nodes to harden. “Unless you have some sexually transmitted disease you need to tell me about.”
He shook his head, and she nipped his ear. “Didn’t think so. Me, either.”
Kax barely registered what she was talking about, as raw desire tore through him. She bit his ear again, this time hard enough to hurt. He growled, low and rough, the sound echoing through his body.
He wanted to be gentle, but he couldn’t be. He wanted her too much to take his time, not when she was ripe and ready, her naked body moving against his. He moved his hands to her bare ass and rocked her toward him, his fingers biting into her soft round cheeks.