“How do you know it was designed by that particular being?”
His Bride shrugged. “Her signature is on the system. All architects sign their systems. They have specific logos they design and stamp their work with.”
“I haven’t seen a logo,” Trax hissed.
“That’s because you’re a civilian. I’ve seen them everywhere. They’re on the hand scanners for the doors, on the drones, on the bots…I saw them in the med unit. She even has a really cool design built into the blue energy webbing that covers the cell doors.”
“You’ve been watching this all along?”
“Yeah, since the moment we arrived. I had to, because I’m sure as hell getting out of this place. I can’t stay here, the other inmates will kill me. Plus, like I’ve been saying since day one, I didn’t kill Cylo Rin. It’s bullshit that I’m even here.”
Syrin’s lips curved. He loved her spark of life. Her determination. “Well, you were a thief.”
“The type of work I did would land me at one of those Detention Centers where they put the prisoners in their own rooms and it’s more like you’re on vacation than in an actual prison. Also, I know I would’ve never gotten more than three planetary rotations, not a life sentence. It’s still bullshit that I’m here. I’m not a killer and the work I did was mainly me figuring out puzzles and working with a team to reunite people with their lost artifacts. That’s it.”
“Maybe when we’re on the outside you should think about becoming a Bounty Hunter and joining our group.”
Trax made a choking sound.
Sara’s eyes grew big. “What?”
“Well, you’re my Bride now. On the outside you can’t thieve anymore. You’re mine. And I’m a Bounty Hunter. Join us. It’s simple.”
He looked over at Rengeli and Trax to see their doubting faces. “We could use a systems expert within, not as an outside expert we hire freelance.”
Trax gave her a hard stare. “How can you use what you know to affect this facility?”
“It’s how I got away from the gang of inmates who’d lured me out of the cell with that recording of Syrin’s voice. They had me pinned down in the cleansing station. First, I gave a verbal command to the computer. It’s a back-door function that only works for sixty seconds. But I was able to use it to turn on the sprinklers, turn the lights off and start the siren in the showers. It caused them to let me loose long enough for me to run out of there and shut and lock the doors behind me.”
“Fuck,” Trax breathed.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, then,” Rengeli said. “I’m not sleeping on that damn bunk or eating that disgusting crap in the mess hall even one more cycle. What do you suggest we do to get out of here, right now?” He directed his question at Sara of One, which made pride glow in Syrin’s chest.
“First, what was your original plan, if things had gone in the timeline you’d created?”
“Our ship is cloaked in slip drive and hidden behind a nearby moon. Two other Bounty Hunters, Joyzal and Jacole, are waiting there for the extraction date and time. We cannot communicate with them from this prison in order to change the plan.”
“And what about the detonators they planted in our brain?”
“We don’t know what the hell to do about those,” Trax admitted.
“Well, I do have a plan,” his Bride admitted. “Do you want to hear it?”
Syrin grinned. The fact that his Bride had already formulated a prison break escape plan caused his cock to twitch within his suit.
She was spectacular.
“Tell us,” Rengeli said.
“First, I need to know how to get to the system analyst’s station. Second, I need a Guard’s com unit. And, third, I need a blanket.”
“A blanket?” Trax smirked. “I can get you a blanket. That’s easy,” he said. And then he slipped out of the cell and was gone.
“And I can tell you where the system analyst’s station is,” Syrin said.
His Bride turned. Gleaming, colorless locks shifted over her shoulders. She leaned in and pressed her luscious lips against his, swiping her tongue along the seam of his mouth. Then she pulled back and regarded him with sultry eyes. “Really? You know where it is?”
“Yes.” He took a deep, calming breath and stared into her heavy-lidded blue gaze, a peculiar color no one on Chronos possessed, but a color he was certain he could stare at for the rest of his life. He was determined to keep his claws to himself. He could wait to consummate this mating. It would be the greatest challenge of his life considering he was walking around with a permanently hard, ready-to-breed shaft, a cock that was literally throbbing within his suit. He deserved a medal of honor for his extreme physical denial. “Before we committed our crime, we studied the schematics of this facility so that when we arrived we would understand it’s workings to give us an advantage and also to preplan our escape. I know the location of the system analyst’s station.”
“Can you lead us there?”
“Yes, it’s near the medical bay and the transporter room. We mapped the route from the cell block to the transporter room because we needed that location to teleport back to our ship. But that’s useless to us now because we have no way to let our ship know to pull out of slip drive and move into position to receive the transport.”
“That’s perfect. We can collect the things we need today, plan out all of our steps and get started on this tomorrow.” She turned her head. “Where’s Rengeli?”
His brow furrowed. Where the hell was that green-horn?
And then his friend’s familiar figure reappeared at the entrance to the cell. He was out of breath and sweaty, holding out a narrow, glowing object in his hand. “I’ve got the com from a Guard’s armband,” Rengeli said.
“And here’s your blanket,” Trax proudly announced.
Sirens began blaring. Guards shouted in the distance.
“Or, we can just get started now,” Sara quipped.
Trax cursed.
“Run!”
Syrin held his Bride’s hand with a firm grip. A blaster he’d confiscated off a guard was in his other claw. Within moments all four of them had busted out of the cell block and were strutting down the halls of the staff area.
The passageways were freakishly clear.
“The guards were all deployed to the cell block,” Trax laughed. “Idiots.”
“How far until we reach the system analyst’s station?” his Bride asked.
Syrin squeezed her hand. “We’re close.”
The small screen on the com unit attached to Rengeli’s forearm came to life. “Oh hell,” he exclaimed. Rengeli touched the screen to maximize it for their benefit and restarted it. And there, on the vid, was the warden screaming orders. “Kill them. Don’t let them escape!”
The warden was Kroga of Seventy-Five.
“Well, that explains why we couldn’t find him this whole time,” Trax remarked.
“Hurry,” Rengeli said. “He’s ordering the guards back to the staff and intake area.”
Syrin swept his Bride into his arms and sprinted down the hall. “Here it is,” he said. They’d turned the corner and came to passage that terminated in a maximum-security portal. He deposited Sara of One in front of the side panel. His Bride immediately busied herself, bypassing the hand and eye scans to unlock the door to the analyst station.
“What are you using the blanket for?” Trax asked.
“Blanket? Oh, I didn’t need a blanket.”
Trax rocked back on his heels. “What? You didn’t need a blanket for your escape plan? Then why did you ask for one?”
She grinned. “I was just playing around.”
“Are you kidding me?” He threw the blue blanket to the ground. “I got that for no reason?”
“Yep. You should’ve seen the look on your face when you showed it to me. Priceless.”
“What the—”
“Ready?” She cut him off.
Trax lifted his blaster and straightened against
the side of the portal. Syrin glanced at Rengeli. He nodded.
“Go.”
They burst through the door. Trax and Rengeli shot the two guards stationed in the chamber.
The analyst, another Surellian with four arms and red skin, gripped the arms of his chair. Sweat glistened on his face. “Wh…what do you want?” he asked.
Sara marched forward. “I want you out of that chair,” she ordered.
His eyes narrowed at her declaration. “Bitch,” he snarled.
“Pretender,” she answered with derision. “I could do a better job than you in my sleep. Get out of that chair before I force you out.”
The Surellian raised a hand in an aggressive gesture. Syrin sighed, lifted his blaster and shot the asshole in the forehead. Sara turned and stared at him slack-jawed. He shrugged. He’d never liked Surellians. They were not Xylan allies.
Trax pulled the dead weight out of the chair and then bowed and swept his hand out. “For you,” he said.
Sara of One chuckled and sat down.
“So, what’s the plan?” Rengeli asked.
“Those.” His Bride pointed to a row of doors. “The executive escape pods. That’s how we’re getting out of here.”
Trax looked at the doors and back at Sara of One and threw his arms up, sputtering. “Genius. Genius,” he declared. “Syrin, if you don’t mate her, I will.”
Rengeli glanced back down at the com. “They’re almost here. We’ve got to get in those pods, now.”
“Start loading,” Sara said. “I sent a message to your ship to lower the slip drive to prepare to receive you. They’ve already responded that they’re ready. I’m still working on keeping the detonators disabled.” Her fingers were flying across the console, touching a myriad of screens. His Bride was a miracle in motion.
Trax and Rengeli went to the pods and tapped their initiation buttons. The doors hissed open.
Syrin stepped up and stood next to his Bride. “What are you doing?” he asked. “We need to leave.” He would throw her over his shoulder if he had to—anything to get his Bride safely in a pod and away from this prison.
She bit her lip. Sweat dripped from her forehead onto the console. “Trying…to stop them from killing you.” Her fingers continued to fly across a variety of screens. “Someone needs to stay here to keep them from implementing the detonators,” she explained. “I’ve been putting them off since the moment I began to unlock those doors. That was when they knew we were the instigators of the prison break. They’ve been trying to set off the detonators in our heads ever since. If I stop blocking them, we’re all dead.”
Trax pulled out his blaster. “I’ll keep them off at the door.”
“It’s better if you both leave first,” Sara gritted. “That’s less detonators I need to block. Once you’re gone the detonator is ineffective and you’re safe.”
Rengeli widened his stance. “We’re all leaving together.”
Sara looked up. “We can’t leave together. If I stop doing this, Syrin will be dead before he even steps into the pod.”
“Both of you, get in the pods and leave, now,” Syrin ordered. “I will stay behind with my Bride and we will leave together.”
“No. Fucking. Way. Bounty Hunters work together.”
“Go,” Syrin bellowed, the berserker already scratching to be let out. “That is an order.”
Trax’s face turned a dusky orange.
Pounding began against the maximum-security door.
“They’re here,” Sara whispered.
Syrin met the steady gaze of both Rengeli, and then Trax. “If you don’t go,” he snarled, “there will be no one to come back and rescue my Bride, or apprehend Kroga.”
“I am not leaving without you,” Trax hissed.
He met his friend’s furious gaze. “Trax, go… I am counting on you.” He lifted a blaster and pointed it at them both for emphasis. “Go!”
“Syrin!”
He whipped around at the sound of his Bride’s sweet voice. “I need you to buy me time. I can do this. I need two more minutes to deconstruct their detonation transmission system. Then we can go too.”
The chamber behind him vibrated as both pods safely deployed with his friends inside. Syrin let out the breath he’d been holding.
“Good,” his Bride said. “It will be easier now with them out of range.”
The maximum-security door exploded. Surellian guards began pouring into the chamber. His berserker exploded, too.
My Be’Ih.
Lightening fast, the blinding rage took hold and his body morphed into the monster only heard of in tales of old. The raging beast that could not be contained. It rumbled through his body, effecting change, bursting across muscle, elongating and strengthening wherever it touched. Bones snapped as he literally grew taller. Syrin threw his head back and roared. Baring fangs and razor claws. His two hearts thundered in his chest.
They fired at him, but their blasters were ineffective against berserker scales. Syrin waded in, pulling them apart by hand. Cracking skulls. Tearing off limbs and dismembering bodies.
“Syrin,” his lovely Bride screamed. “Syrin. I did it. The detonators are disengaged. We can go.”
And then a blaster shot pierced her shoulder and she crumpled to the ground.
Syrin saw nothing but red. Red blood. Red haze. Red gore.
Later, he bent and smelled his female, her scent calming his berserker. His Bride…his Bride was bleeding, her breaths shallow. Amidst the quiet of the fallen guards, their torn bodies strewn like broken toys, he scooped her into his arms and stepped into a pod.
13
Sara woke up in an enchanted forest. Or what she imagined the images that would result from a search of “enchanted forest” would look like.
She sat up, utterly disoriented, and looked down at herself, noting she felt perfectly fine even though she knew for a fact a blaster shot had seared through her shoulder, burning a sickening hole through muscle and bone. There’d been a flash of blinding pain, one second before she’d blacked out.
She rotated her shoulder, which now felt perfectly fine, as if nothing had ever happened.
She exhaled, a wave of confusion crashing through her mind. Her last thoughts were of blaster fire and screams of pain from Surellian guards fighting a losing battle against a Xylan berserker. And now, not only was her location different, but her clothes had been changed too. A silky blue tunic went to her thighs, and underneath that was nothing but…bare skin.
Somehow, after everything that happened in that prison, her face heated up over the fact that Syrin must’ve changed her clothes. After spending a week in a tiny cell with this Xylan, many of those days sharing the same bunk and finally with his amazing hands and mouth bringing her relief again and again from the flood of mating hormones that crashed through her body…she was still shy over the fact that he’d changed her clothes. But, it seemed so intimate.
And now here she was, in this…forest. It must be the holo deck of his ship.
A smile formed on her face and her heart lightened. The fact that she was on a holo deck meant that their prison escape had worked. Trax and Rengeli must’ve made it back to the Bounty Hunter ship alive. She’d deconstructed the detonators and yes, she’d been hurt but Syrin must have been able to reasonably control his berserker, get her out of there and both of them in a pod, because, here she was, in this forest.
Warmth radiated throughout her body.
They’d broken out of that alien prison and now they were free.
She wasn’t in a prison full of inmates who wanted her dead. And this forest was private and dark, with no prying eyes. And she felt perfectly fine, like she’d woken from a pleasant nap. She wasn’t hungry, thirsty, or tired. In fact, Sara felt pretty darn good.
Late at night, in their cell, Syrin would whisper and tell her how he would one day claim her as his in an ancient Xylan forest in a fierce claiming ceremony. He wasn’t kidding, was he?
And here they were, in
a Xylan forest?
Sara stood up because, strangely, she felt restless, ready to get going, although not sure where she was going to. Adrenaline coursed through her body, and she felt bouncy and ultra-awake, ready to conquer the world.
A breeze brushed across her cheek. This forest was a soothing green with plush grass. Giant trees jutted up into the starlit sky. Two full moons hung pure white overhead. It was night time and quiet except for the sound of wind rustling leaves and the soft hooting of an unseen bird.
She heard a crunching noise and saw a figure approaching from the shadows. He came stalking toward her, his bronze hair loose around his shoulders.
Syrin.
Enormous Syrin with his wider than wide chest and all those acres of dark, powerful muscle and he wore…nothing. Nothing at all. He was naked. And oh shit, was that his hard shaft jutting out from the juncture at his thighs?
Sara swallowed. He looked like legends and myths of old. The stories the elders on New Earth told at night of their ancestors. Epic heroes who vanquished obstacles with heart and soul, cunning and guile. Her pulse beat fast; her palms sweaty.
All the images of the chaotic moments prior to their escape, the shouts and explosions, and the pain…it all evaporated in her mind and was replaced with a flood of sensations. All those same hot, pulsing vibrations of love and lust she’d been drowning in the last few cycles prior to their escape.
He’d said she was in her breeding cycle.
And he was going to mate with her now and release his hot seed into her welcoming channel. Her stomach swooped pleasantly and that place between her thighs throbbed with warmth and desire.
Syrin stopped before her. His harsh features more pronounced in shadow. He spoke in Xylan, dark and guttural, his words formal, as if he were reciting a ceremony. She understood what he was saying thanks to the universal translator, but she didn’t understand the context. His words were triggering her fight or flight reflex to increase exponentially. She shook her head. Maybe she should’ve asked more about what this mating ritual entailed.
Finally, he uttered one command she could understand clearly. “Run.”
The Alien Bounty Hunters Complete Series: Books 1-8 Page 46