Chapter Fifteen
CJ
Panic. Terror. Rage.
They all filled me up in a storm of emotion I couldn’t control as the restraints twisted and pulled at my flesh. I fought, fought until my wrists were coated with blood, the slick wetness allowing me to pull harder.
Something popped in my hand. Broken bone? It hurt. Badly. But I didn’t care. That fucking blue Hive bastard was not going to touch me or my baby.
“No fucking way!” I shouted aloud, to anyone who tried to get near me.
I pulled back and twisted my hand, trying to slide free as Rezzer’s roar nearly deafened me. The Hive surrounding me turned completely away from me and the exam table, their attention on the real threat. The giant Atlan beast that wasn’t supposed to be here. Yeah, full Atlan fucking beast. Rezzer had gone Hulk, towering over the trio, breathing hard, muscles pulsing and twitching, ready to kill.
A huge-ass beast that was supposed to be suppressed. Dormant. Weak.
“Surprise, you assholes.” I whispered the words with glee as Rezzer rushed the Hive closest to him and tore the man in half. With his bare hands. As if he were a Ken doll and he’d yanked the plastic head off.
Gross.
I gagged, I couldn’t help it. The smell of blood and death making it almost impossible to breathe. But I couldn’t stop trying to get out of the damned restraints. I had to keep going. I had to fight as hard as Rezzer was fighting.
Rezzer lifted his huge fists and ripped the closest chair loose from where it had been attached to the ground. Bolts pinged against the wall.
The stupid Hive weren’t expecting this. A beast. An Atlan so beyond rage that I wasn’t even sure he would recognize me. His mate.
Nexus 4 turned away from Rezzer, his gaze roaming over me as he entered something into the screens on the wall. He looked confused, as if his plan had been so perfect there was no way it could go wrong. Until it did. Until the beast raged and destroyed.
“Reactivation protocol initiated.” Nexus 4 was talking to someone, somewhere. I had no idea who or what, but he tilted his head just a bit, as if he was listening to something only he could hear. “Negative. Zero change.” He glanced quickly at Rezzer, then turned back to the wall. “Increase strength of transmission signal.”
A buzzing filled the room, the sound like a thousand mosquitos swarming us. Rezzer lifted his hands to his ears with a howl of agony and staggered to a stop, twisting side to side as if he were in great pain.
“Stop it!” I yelled at Nexus 4, but he and the remaining guard watched Rezzer, ignoring me completely.
Nexus 4 looked at his companion. “Shoot him with another dose of active microbots.”
The half-silver Prillon lifted a strange gun from somewhere I couldn’t see and pointed it at my mate.
He fired, hitting Rezzer with what looked like elephant sized tranquilizer darts filled with silver liquid. Rezzer screamed, the sound making my heart skip a beat as terror returned full force. I had to stop them. Had to fight harder. Fight or die.
They weren’t taking me alive. They couldn’t have my baby. And they couldn’t have my mate.
With a cry of agony, I yanked my hand free of the restraint, sure that I’d broken more than one bone. But I didn’t care. As the Nexus 4 entered data into the screen on the wall so quickly I couldn’t see his fingers move beyond a strange blur, I reached over and freed my opposite hand. Leaning down, I grabbed the restraint on one ankle and pulled. The blue creature was so enthralled with watching Rezzer suffer that he wasn’t even looking at me.
Until he did. Shit. Big blue hands covered mine, as if he didn’t care if the other asshole were dismembered as long as he completed his mission: got Rezzer under control and terminated my baby. I shrieked in panic, because that so wasn’t going to happen.
Rezzer’s bellow shook my ribcage and Nexus 4 lifted his head as Rezzer lowered his hands from his head and straightened to his full height. The confused frown on the blue alien’s face was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life. “Reactivation failure. The Atlan remains in beast mode.”
He tilted his head with a strange tic of his brow. “Understood.” His confusion cleared and he focused on me. “You will come with me.” Nexus 4 wrapped both hands around the ankle strap and pulled, rending the thick restraint in half as easily as if he were pulling a piece of warm taffy into two parts.
But it wasn’t taffy. It was steel. Or titanium. Something a lot harder than taffy.
Shit. He was strong. Much, much stronger than he looked.
Maybe even stronger than Rezzer’s beast.
“No.” I shoved at his hands when he reached for the restraint on my other ankle. “No!” I kicked at him with my free leg, but it was like kicking a brick wall, the pain of it reverberating up to my hip.
The Prillon Hive to my left screamed a challenge at my mate, whose answering growl was all the more frightening for its near silence.