by Sonia Nova
“You had to,” she said, raising her hand to brush his cheek as she often did. “If you hadn’t killed him, they would’ve killed you.”
Xarq almost grunted. Of course, she would think that way. She was sweet. Kind. Caring. Without her, he would’ve likely lost his mind already, being captured by his makers again. Without her, he would have become the monster he had once been trained to be. But because she was here, everything was different. Even in the darkest of moments, she managed to bring in some light.
“Yes…,” he said. “But this time, I will kill them.”
The Krezlians would pay for their crimes at last. This time, with their own blood.
Because now, he had a female to protect and to get to safety. And not only because that had been his job, but because she made him feel… something he’d never felt before. She made him feel good, made him feel right. And he’d never felt good or right in his life.
“Tomorrow…,” he said quietly, brushing a strand of her brown hair through his fingers. “When they bring food, we will fight.”
Alyssa turned to look at him in obvious surprise. Xarq knew they hadn’t talked much about escape until now and in her eyes, he could see fear. But he also saw the resolution in them. Just as he did, she knew there was no choice. That if they ever wanted to get out of here, they’d have to act now.
It had already been days since they had been captured. He’d been taken for tests twice more and as he had been fighting his consciousness, plugged into the tubes and wires of the Krezlian ‘scientists’, he’d sometimes heard bits and pieces of their talking. Enough that he had found out some things…
A grumbly noise suddenly filled the cell, and Xarq looked down at the female, noticing her cheeks flaming red as they always were when she was embarrassed. The noise had come from her. Her stomach, to be specific.
“Eat,” he said, pushing his plate of mush toward her.
Every day, the Krezlian guards would throw them two plates of garbage slop into the cell that he wouldn’t even feed an animal. But it was the only thing they had, so although initially Alyssa had refused to eat it, he’d made her shove it down.
Just as he would now.
“I can’t eat your food every day,” she mumbled, but by the way her eyes darted to the plate – as disgusting as the food was – he knew she was starving.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, pushing the plate toward her. He would be. More so than her. Being an experiment of the Krezlians in the first place, he had gotten used to going without food for days, even weeks.
She wasn’t. And if what he suspected was right, she needed the food more than him anyway.
Looking guilty, she finally took the plate from the floor, starting to eat the food, all the while looking up at him to make sure that he didn’t want it. She was too kind for her own good. And without her, Xarq was sure he would’ve already reverted back to the monster he once was. Before he had been freed.
Although he was glad to see her eating, his mind already wandered back to the Krezlians – to what they had said the last time during his tests…
‘A DNA mutation,’ a guttural voice said in his head.
‘Shouldn’t be possible. This isn’t what we created them for.’
‘Something has gone wrong. But only with this one. The others tested normal.’
‘Yes. Only this one. But not until now either. Something about her made this happen. Made his hormones out of control.’
‘Run more tests. We might be able to use him.’
His hormones… Alyssa…
Xarq closed his eyes. He knew he had been feeling off ever since he had been assigned to guard her. Knew he had been… out of control. But he hadn’t understood what was going on until now. He still didn’t know why it was happening; he was as clueless as the Krezlian scientists. But it was happening.
They had been having sex the past days – every day, several times a day. It wasn’t as crazed as the first time once she had stopped ovulating but… he just couldn’t get enough of her. She had awakened something inside him and there was no way he was letting her go anymore.
He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t understand it. But it was almost definitely happening. He hadn’t told Alyssa about it yet. He wasn’t sure how she’d react, and he didn’t want to worry her.
But if he was right… He had more to fight for than just his and her lives.
CHAPTER 9
ALYSSA
Alyssa woke up to Xarq shaking her on the cold floor of the cell. Her eyes snapped open when he called her name, her heart racing in her chest as she was suddenly pulled out of her sleep.
“Wh-what?” she breathed in slight panic, her mind still hazy from sleep.
“Up. Now,” Xarq grunted into her ear. “Someone is coming.”
Alyssa’s heart jumped to her throat at his words, and she scrambled up from the floor. Moments later, she could hear someone walking in the corridor outside their cell.
Oh, god… Were they coming for Xarq again?
Alyssa looked up at him, her body tensing in fear. Did he know what was coming? His hearing was a hundred times better than hers. Could he tell what was going to happen now? And if they… If they took him again, would he even survive another round of… whatever it was they always did to him? …Torture.
Cold dread filled her body at the thought. She knew that this place brought up old memories for him – things she knew he wanted to forget – and she wondered how long Xarq could take it anymore. Hopefully forever… Because Alyssa wasn’t going to survive on her own.
But even besides that, she worried – not only because she might lose her cell mate but because… Oh, god… was she actually going to admit it at last? She closed her eyes, afraid to even think of it under the current circumstances, but the feeling was too strong to ignore.
She worried because she loved Xarq.
At first, when they had met for the first time and he had been introduced to her as her bodyguard, she had been terrified of him. Afraid of the way he looked like, of what he was. But now, after spending time with him, even if it was in a rotten cell on an enemy spacecraft, Alyssa had learned how kind the man could be too.
He was much bigger than her, but he had always given her most of his share of the food and water. He’d calmed her down every time she had been about to cry or panic, held her when she’d had nightmares even though Alyssa knew that he was fighting his own – all of which were likely much worse than hers – and the way he held her when they made love…
She was in love with him, in love with a man whom many considered nothing more than a beast, an abomination, a freak of nature that shouldn’t exist. But Alyssa knew that wasn’t true. He wasn’t the monster his people were described as, and she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. She was in love with him – and she was dead afraid for him.
“It’s going to be fine,” Xarq said, gently squeezing her hand as if once again noticing her fears. How he knew every time what she was feeling, Alyssa couldn’t understand. But he knew. And he knew exactly what to say and do.
The footsteps finally came to a halt in the corridor, and a shuffling sound told her that whoever it was behind the door, was right on the other side of it.
“Remember what we talked about last night,” Xarq said, referring to their discussion about attacking the guards the next time they brought food. He grabbed her face into his large hands and turned her toward him, pulling her gaze away from the door. His dark eyes were intent as they stared into hers. Determined. And Alyssa knew that this was it.
She looked up at him in fear. This didn’t seem like food was brought to them though – it couldn’t be. Although Alyssa had slept part of the time, she knew it hadn’t been long enough for them to be bringing food already.
They were somewhere in space, so even if there had been windows, she wouldn’t have been able to tell exactly how many days they had spent in the cell. It had been days, for sure, and while she had no idea what kind of a schedule the Krezlians
followed, the food always came at equal intervals.
And now was not the time.
It wasn’t food. It was something else, and the uncertainty of what was to come made her heart pound in her chest. They had to be coming for Xarq again. She was sure of that. And when they came for Xarq, there was always more than one man.
But Xarq must already know that. He must have counted the steps. And either way, what choice did they have? Xarq probably wouldn’t survive another session of torture, and she didn’t want to stay in this shithole of a cell for the rest of her life either. She would rather die trying to escape.
It was now or never.
The door opened slowly, sliding to the side and disappearing into the wall. Blinding light was let into the room once again, and Alyssa struggled to see. Her heart raced in her chest, panic about to take hold of her body.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, she saw three men marching into their cell.
“No,” Alyssa breathed, horrified.
She didn’t know what possessed her at that moment, but she stood up, turning away from Xarq, and almost jumped in front of him, trying to block him from the Krezlians and prevent them from taking him. Three was too many to fight against…
“Alyssa!” Xarq snapped, standing up behind her and making a reach for her.
But it was too late.
One of the Krezlians had already taken hold of her arm with his cold, scaly claws, and was now tugging her away from Xarq. Before she could do anything, another one had her by the waist, his clawed fingers pressing hard into her skin and pulling her toward the door.
The third one emerged, pushing past them to restrain Xarq. He rammed Xarq against the wall with all his might, trying to keep him in the cell. Keep him – Not take him.
Alyssa’s eyes widened in surprise. At that moment, she understood.
They hadn’t come for Xarq after all… Not this time.
They had come for her.
CHAPTER 10
XARQ
“NO!” Xarq bellowed as the scaly green claws of the Krezlian guard grabbed hold of Alyssa, starting to drag her toward the entrance. She thrashed around, resisting the man’s grip, but the Krezlian was too strong.
Rushing immediately after her, Xarq tried to grab her before she was lost forever, but another guard stepped between them. He rammed Xarq against the back wall of the cell with a brutal thrust, making him grunt from the impact.
Xarq tried to shove the man off him, but days of lying in the cell with hardly any food had taken their toll on him. The guard’s feet slipped only slightly as Xarq pushed at him, and before he could shake the man completely off, the third Krezlian joined him. He grabbed Xarq by his shoulders and dragged him away from Alyssa.
Alyssa screamed. The guard holding her had her right by the door now. She was kicking at him and crying, but her struggles didn’t have any effect on the larger man.
Xarq’s heart sunk in his chest. No… He rammed against the guards harder. They would not take her. They could not. She was his. His.
He fought against the guards, pushing them from side to side in the cell as he struggled to get loose. When the first Krezlian started to pull Alyssa out of the room, Xarq saw red. Adrenaline surged inside him and he ripped himself out of the guards’ arms, lunging toward the one holding Alyssa. He hardly even felt the sting of a tranquilizer in his neck as he ripped at the man’s arm, dislocating it at the shoulder.
The Krezlian howled in pain, letting go of Alyssa, and she collapsed on the floor. The two other men were already back at his sides, trying to grab a hold of him again, but Xarq thrust them off his body, reaching down for the fallen Krezlian and grabbing his gun.
He turned around swiftly and shot the two Krezlians straight in their stomachs, making them fall to the ground with a loud thud that echoed in the cell. With a final strike, he blasted off the head of the Krezlian moaning on the floor and holding his shoulder in place.
At last, they would pay.
Alyssa sat on the floor, her eyes wide in shock as she looked up at him. Xarq felt a pang in his heart that she had to see this. And although he knew that she was afraid – probably even of him, finally seeing him as the cold-blooded killer that he was – he also knew they didn’t have any time to waste.
Grabbing her by the arm, he lifted her up on her feet. “Come.”
An alarm started on the spaceship at that moment, blaring in the corridor. Shit. The Krezlians had no doubt noticed what was going on. Stepping out of their tiny cell, Xarq looked at the corridor outside their cell clearly for the first time – without the influence of drugs – and saw that it was framed with cells on both sides of them.
Just as he’d thought. They hadn’t been the only ones.
The cell had been sound-proofed except for the door – likely a precaution by the Krezlians to prevent the prisoners from communicating with one another, but Xarq was certain that the other cells were filled with his kind as well.
A plan formed in his mind, and he turned back to one of the guards he had shot, grabbing a keycard from his body.
“Come,” he said to Alyssa again, nudging at her arm.
When she wouldn’t move, Xarq looked at her. She stood still in her place in obvious shock, her green eyes wide and her mouth hanging open as she stared at the dead bodies in the cell.
Shit. This was no doubt her first time seeing a body up close – bodies, he amended in his mind. Especially two with their stomachs missing and one with a splatter in the place of his head. Sure, he had killed two other Krezlians on Ka’elea too, but he had immediately run away from them, not allowing Alyssa to look.
Now, she was definitely looking.
“Alyssa,” he said, glancing back into the corridor and seeing four new Krezlian guards approaching. “We need to go.”
Alyssa continued to stare, but after a second, she shook her head, seeming to come back to her senses. “I– Right,” she said, looking up at him at last, her eyes determined.
Xarq took a relieved breath. That’s his girl… She would be okay.
Hearing the footsteps of the Krezlians approach, Xarq quickly jumped into the corridor and shot at the guards running their way. He was satisfied only when he heard four grunts together with just as many thumps as the Krezlians went down.
He knew they had no time to waste, and as he turned back to Alyssa, he grabbed her by the waist and threw her over his shoulder – just like he had when they’d ran away from the Krezlians in the first place. She yelped in surprise, but grabbed hold of him a split second later.
Confident she was secure on his shoulder, Xarq took off into the corridor. He ran as fast as his exhausted and starved body could take him, rushing to the end of the hallway before any more Krezlians arrived.
As he reached the main door to the corridor, he shoved the guard’s keycard into a slot in the wall beside it, and pulled a release hatch by the side of the door.
All doors in the corridor slid open with a whoosh, releasing their prisoners. Xarq didn’t wait to see what – or who – might emerge from the other cells. He simply punched another button on the wall and opened the main door, running through it immediately to the other parts of the ship.
He didn’t like the way he was thinking.
With luck, the other Ezak-X would escape as well. With even more luck, they would help them fight against the Krezlians. But if anything, they would at least slow the lizards down so that they wouldn’t catch them.
Of course, he hoped the others would make it out too, but as it was, getting Alyssa out was the only thing that truly mattered to him. Right now, he was on the run with her again. But this time, it was no longer a job but personal.
Shooting at every Krezlian he saw, he tried to make his way to the back of the ship where he assumed the escape shuttles were. The ship was of Krezlian design, but the base of the ship was a Ghelian Speed Drive, and Xarq only hoped that the Krezlians had kept the layout similar when they had made their modifications. Because Ghe
lian ships he knew. He’d worked on several since he’d been freed, and he knew the layouts by heart.
The shuttle station was always somewhere– Yes. There.
He saw a Krezlian sign for the shuttles and dashed toward it. The ground tilted slightly before his eyes – probably from hunger, but he knew he had to keep going. He had to get Alyssa out, no matter what.
His head spun, and the sounds of struggle, fighting, and guns going off sounded behind them as the Krezlians tried to contain the other loose Ezak-X.
Suddenly, his vision blurred completely, and he realized the spinning in his head wasn’t a natural reaction to hunger – nor to the sounds of battle. His step faltered and the back of his neck burned – the spot where he’d been struck with a tranquilizer earlier in the cell. Fuck.
His initial adrenaline rush had most likely blocked the effects of the sedative at first, but now that his body had adjusted and his mind calmed down, it seemed that the drug was starting to kick in, and he couldn’t hold the drowsiness at bay anymore.
He blinked rapidly, trying to keep his eyes focused on the shuttle station, but by now he could no longer even read the sign. Still, he continued to run.
Taking longer leaps, he tried to rush to the station before he completely blacked out, but his head felt heavy, and his pace slow. Suddenly, his ankle twisted as he took another step, and he nearly tumbled to the floor with Alyssa still over his shoulder.
Fuck.
Realizing he had to stop, he placed Alyssa on the ground – just to catch a breath and pull himself together. He could not pass out now. He could not.
He slapped himself in the face, trying to keep himself awake, but the blackness threatened to swallow him.
“Xarq?” a quiet female voice asked him somewhere in the distance – Alyssa.
He blinked, his vision completely black, and realized the voice hadn’t come from far after all. His sight returned for a moment, and he saw her standing right before him, her face inches from his.
God, she was so beautiful…