“You go right. I’ll go left?” I yelled to Ruk.
Ruk didn’t answer. He sprang at the creature nearest him with a roar.
I didn’t have time to see what happened because the creature nearest me chose that moment to attack.
I fired my blaster. Direct hit.
Fuck. They had shields, too.
Three of them surrounded me like a pack on a wild hunt. I didn’t have Ruk’s claws. I had two knives and a mate to protect.
“Come on!” I yelled at the one in the center. As I’d hoped, it charged me.
Twisting away at the last moment, I drove both knives into its side and threw it at its companion, keeping hold of the knives’ handles as the black, scaly body slipped off the blades and then slammed into the second creature. I knew I had only seconds before the one I had buried beneath the carcass of its friend was on its feet again. I turned to face the third, rushing the thing to force a fight.
The animal leaped at me, muzzle going for my throat. I used its momentum against it and slammed us both to the ground, driving my blade through its skull when we landed. I shoved and twisted until I felt ground beneath the tip.
A low screeching sound caused me to look up from where I lay on top of the corpse. Drawing my legs beneath me into a crouched position, I yanked the blade from the skull at my side and held the screeching thing’s gaze.
I recognized intelligence there. Frightening. Focused. Furious that I’d murdered two of its friends. “What are you?”
The monster opened its mouth as if to respond, another screech like metal grinding on metal. I shook my head to clear it of the hideous sound.
“Cormac!”
Abby? My mate sounded terrified.
“Abby!” I was out of time.
I rushed the creature in front of me, expecting it to leap for my throat as the other had. As expected, it leaped. Timing my thrust just right, I plunged both blades into its neck as I caught it. Claws raked down my arms from shoulder to elbow. Searing pain exploded where it sliced through my armor, like acid burning through muscle to bone.
“Abby!”
I threw the carcass aside and ran for the entrance of the base. I reached the door in time to see my mate stab one of the creatures climbing toward her.
Another was nearly upon her, snapping at her feet despite the kicks she managed to land on the monster’s head. A third climbed up the side of the panel. She hit it in the hide with ion blasts, but the weapon didn’t have much effect.
“Cormac.” Abby whimpered my name as if she had lost all hope. She hadn’t seen me yet. That sound nearly broke me.
Something inside me snapped. I had battled. I had raged. I had killed. This fury was raw. Brutal. Primitive. And it was all for her.
I grabbed the creature snarling at her feet and slammed its spine down over my knee. The animal’s bones snapped and popped. I did not stop, literally ripping the thing in half like an Atlan.
Moving with every ounce of speed in my Hyperion and Hunter blood, I wrapped my hand around the hind leg of the climber and swung a wide arc, slamming the monster’s head into the hard floor, over and over until the body went limp. Probably would have kept going out of pure rage that they dared attack my mate, but a soft cry pulled me back to myself.
“Abby, are you hurt?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Her voice trembled, and I had to strain to hear it.
Turning to put her at my back, my attention on the door in case more of the fuckers slipped inside, I fought to slow my pulse. My breathing. I was holding on to my control by a thread. I’d nearly lost her. Half a second longer and…
Her small hand appeared in my peripheral vision as she reached down to touch my shoulders. “Oh god. You’re hurt!”
“I am fine, mate.”
“No, you’re not. Where is one of those green wand things?”
“The battle is not over, Abby. I will tend the wound when I know you are safe.”