“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 hi
m, 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.
Thirteen
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.”
“What?” Why should she run?
A moment of indecision caught her unaware. Run? Then, she took a few steps back, because something inside of her was building, already saying this idea made absolute sense. Her pulse raced. She shifted on her feet, restless. The call to run echoed in her mind, gaining in intensity.
Run. Run. Run.
Suddenly it all unified with sparkling clarity—this was the chase, and it was her job to make it hard.
“Run,” he repeated.
So she ran. Sara whipped around and sprinted into the dark forest.
She laughed as she took off, her legs pumping. She leaned into it, using her arms for momentum, her breaths paced in short bursts. Running was her favorite exercise, but that was with specially fabricated running shoes. Running half naked and barefoot in a dark, unknown forest was fucking hard. Her feet immediately hurt like hell. Every rock, branch, or seedling jabbed her foot or scratched her legs.
Shit.
But this didn’t mean she stopped, she just kept going, pushing herself harder. Harder. Because that huge male was somewhere behind her and she had to make this head start count.
A familiar roar echoed in the forest.
Damn.
She ran faster, dodging a boulder and leaping over a fallen log. He was closer now, tearing up the ground behind her. At first it was distant, but now his giant breaths were staccato bursts in the background, spurring her forward.
Raindrops splattered across her face, changing everything. The enchanted forest instantly altered into a spooky timberland. Thunder cracked overhead. Sara gasped as the wind picked up, blowing her hair back.
A bolt of lightning struck a tree nearby, splitting it wide open. She screamed. The tree was so tall the top disappeared into the night, and oh fuck, it was toppling down and… Syrin scooped her up in his arms and swerved as half the tree crashed to the ground behind them.
He continued to run through the forest, cradling her in his massive arms. The rain turned from a spray to a torrential downpour, like someone had turned on a faucet. Water pounded against the ground, alongside the steady beat of Syrin’s feet.
But she had to get away. This chase was not over. She twisted and kicked in his wet grip, her nails scraping across his chest. He slipped and they both fell onto ground that was half dirt, half water. Sara rolled in the mud. It pasted her tunic to her torso, clogged her hair and swiped across her face. She didn’t care. She was busy beating on her male, forcing him to the ground and away from her thighs, which he was relentlessly trying to separate.
He dropped on top of her, his knees in the mud.
“No,” she screamed. His lips fell on hers, smothering her aggression. She bit the hell out of him and his fangs scraped across her tongue and…pure bliss. His lips were a dam
n drug she was never able to combat. A claw cupped the back of her head, and she opened her mouth as he deepened the kiss, dominating her with the magic of his taste.
The warm rain continued to fall, pouring, cleansing. His claw reached down and fingered her core, penetrating and testing. She couldn’t stop herself from raising her hips, seeking out his rough touch. A growl of approval rumbled in his chest.
Lightening cracked across the sky, illuminating the giant male crouched over her. His shaft bobbed and tapped against her leg as he pulled her into position.
Sara sucked in a sharp breath.
How was that monstrous cock going to fit?
But…she didn’t want to wait. She’d waited long enough. All those nights and mornings, with her husband’s claws in her folds, never penetrating, always fingering her to orgasm but leaving her empty, as her core had clenched around…nothing. He hadn’t even allowed her to touch him through the cloth of his suit. She was so hungry and wet for his cock she wanted to weep.
She was a virgin and it was going to hurt like ten thousand suns but she did not care. She needed him that bad.
“Fuck me, now,” she snarled.
The head of his erection rubbed against her wet entrance. Dark eyes met hers. His jaw clenched. Then he thrust inside, balls deep. Hot, long and scorching. She screamed and thrashed underneath him because it was like being stabbed. He rutted, plunging in and out. Primitive and untamed and exactly what she needed.
Because, in a moment the shock of pain converted to overwhelming pleasure, his giant cock scraping against parts of her she didn’t know existed, finding every spot inside that needed his immediate attention. She tilted her hips and wrapped her legs over his hips. He plunged deeper and she moaned with pleasure.
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