I pursed my lips, not thrilled with the answer, and I realized I was stalling. “Fine.” Noise was building behind me, and I had a sneaking suspicion the Cerberus guys were getting closer.
His eyes narrowed as he said, “We go in three. Three. Two. Go!”
He darted from our pseudo hiding space pulling me behind him with one hand as he fired his space blaster with the other.
“Stop them!” The booming order turned more heads our way, and Isaak released his hold to shoot at two more red armband guys who were running toward his ship from the opposite direction, trying to cut us off.
“Hurry!”
Isaak didn’t need to shout. I was sprinting as fast as I could. The floor was diamond hard and grooved, the sharp little peaks cutting painfully into my bare feet.
A large, fur-covered creature lunged for me from the side, and I swung the titan stick hard, right into his face. He screeched like a wounded cat and fell a few steps back. He was on his feet again in seconds, closing in. But slow. Too slow to catch us.
“Move! Move! Move!”
I bolted toward Isaak’s voice, waving the stick around in the way he told me not to minutes ago. He was nearly to the ramp that would take us up inside his ship when another alien, this one easily seven feet tall and dark blue, stepped out from behind another spaceship to block our path. It wasn’t the Ulza female… but a relative? Definitely the same species of… blue.
“Get out of my way, Graig,” Isaak warned, weapon pointed at his chest.
The blue guy grinned. He wasn’t hideous, was attractive in a blue kind of way. And he and Isaak seemed to know one another. Maybe he wasn’t a bad guy? “Not this time, Trion,” the blue guy countered, then pointed at me with a strangely long finger. “I want the female.”
Isaak shook his head. “She’s not for sale.”
“I’m taking not buying.”
Taking? Yeah, that had already happened. Not once, but twice. Third time was not going to be the charm here.
Nope. Blue was totally bad, and I wasn’t letting him take me. Something inside me snapped. Broke. I’d heard of a blackout rage, but I’d never felt this before. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I was going to hurt the blue asshole standing in my way of escape. I was done with this shit. This was like me with PMS, and someone was keeping me away from chocolate. Sooo not happening.
With what felt like a war cry escaping my chest, I raced at the huge blue alien. He stared for a moment, uncertain how to respond. By the time he snapped out of his shock, I had the titan stick between his ankles. I swung up for his balls. Hard. I had to assume blue guys had balls.
His bellow of pain was much more satisfying than hairy cat-man’s had been. Yeah, he had balls, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stay around and see them or how he reacted to then being shoved up into his throat.
Isaak blinked in shock at what I’d done, looked from Graig, moaning in a fetal position on the ground, to me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but his wide eyes and cute as hell grin had me grinning back. Yeah, I had rage issues.
“Nice one, gara.”
“Z, Isaak. Z for Zara,” I said on a sigh. Men never learned.
I swung my titan stick at the hobbling cat-man who had stupidly decided to try to grab me again, which made me realize just because these aliens could walk on two legs didn’t mean they had any brains.
I burst out laughing—hysterical, crazy laughter—at my ridiculous thought as Isaak spun around and shot down the closer of the two huge Cerberus guys. He fell like a log, the thud causing a group of smaller, not nearly as dangerous looking thugs, to slow completely then stop. Since they didn’t have the arm bands, they probably came to the conclusion this wasn’t their fight nor worth dying over.
Only one bad guy was left, and the way his face was contorted with rage, he was really angry at Isaak for taking down his friend. Isaak fired, right into his chest, but the guy was not going down. Shit. Should I help?
“Get on the ship!” Isaak’s order had my feet moving before I could process the thought, and I raced up the ramp…
Straight into the blue bitch. I bounced back a step or two then dodged her claw-like excuse for fingernails grazing my upper arm as she tried to grab me.
“You’re coming with me, female,” she snarled. I knew to be wary of pissed off females. She was more dangerous than all the males I’d encountered so far, I was sure.
“No, I’m not,” I told
her. No fucking way.
She grabbed for me, for my neck. “Give it to me!”
I spun as she grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me in closer, where she could get her hands on my body.