I shake off the guilt and careen into another room where all the escape pods sit just as a blaster goes off. The alien whirls around despite the bleeding wound now decorating his back. I see the gun before he's even turned all the way around and dart for Lyra without a moment's hesitation.
Diving in front of her, I knock into her and take the shot aimed at her. My grunt is overshadowed by Lyra's scream and I drop to the ground. The sheer panic in that sound breaks my heart, but I can't do anything other than cradle my now burning arm. Three shots go off in quick succession, and only the sizzling sound from the rounds can be heard in the echoing silence that follows.
Lyra drops to her knees beside me and cries out, causing my stomach to drop and panic to rise. I reach for her, uncaring that my blood is now on her ragged clothes as I study her for wounds. When I see nothing, I let out the breath I was holding and reach for her cheeks, gently brushing her tears with my thumbs. She's sobbing as I look over her shoulder toward where Clija was and see he’s very, very dead.
"You're okay," I breathe with obvious relief.
"Y-You’re shot," she hiccups, wide eyes on me. "It w-was supposed to b-be me!"
She wails, and I try to smile at her to reassure her I'm fine, but no doubt it's more like a grimace because my arm is hurting pretty badly. I don't want to look at it. I'm a little afraid to see a hole in my arm and the burnt skin that comes with it.
"It's just my arm, Lyra. I will be fine.Wewill be fine."
"Th-That should h-have been me! W-Why the hell d-did you jump in f-front of me like that, you… you idiot?"
I release her cheeks and pull her into my arms, tucking her head in my neck on my uninjured side to pet her hair. "It's my job to protect you,” I say.
"No!" She nearly yells it, and it startles me so much I jump. "It's our job to protect each other, and you stupidly risked life for mine."
"I don't regret it."
And I don't. I'd do it again in a heartbeat and without thought.
The sound of someone racing down the hall makes my head jerk up, and I push Lyra behind me, facing the door as I scramble for the gun I didn't realize I had dropped. Before I can grip the damn thing, Wen darts into the room with a wild look in his eyes, clearly panicked. Without a word he drops down in front of us and gently turns us this way and that, cataloging our injuries, no doubt.
He growls low when he sees my bloody arm, the one I'm still studiously pretending doesn't exist, despite the horrible burn. Our alpha looks over our shoulders and snaps his teeth at the dead alien before gentling his fury and turning back to us.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asks.
I shake my head, trying for a smile, but falling short. He sees it, but thankfully he doesn't comment on it, just presses a rough and almost desperate kiss to my forehead before turning to Lyra and asking, "Are you hurt?"
She sniffles and shakes her head before grabbing me and sobbing. Wen looks completely terrified at her pained wails and hastily pulls us both into his arms, panic clear on his face.
"Are you sure you're not hurt, Lyra?" he asks almost frantically. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"
His purr starts up, rough at first, but quickly steadying, the sound reverberating directly into my body where I'm pressed up against him. I sink into him and note Lyra does the same. I don't know how long we sit there, but it's long enough that Clija's blood is no longer pooling beneath him and his body has grown cold.
Eventually Wen breaks our tentative peace to say, "We need to get your wound cleaned up, Olo. The battle is over, and we have control of the ship."
"We can go home," I mutter softly and with no small amount of relief.
"We can go home, mates," he agrees.
Thankfullyitdoesn'ttakelong before we're exiting the spaceship and stepping onto Strafor's soil once again.
"Wen!" Talia, the councilwoman, shouts as she stomps toward us, Rina on her heels.
"Talia," he tersely replies, keeping his grip tight on me and Lyra.
There are so many dead, some of them are our own, some I even recognize. My heart aches for our losses today, but I have to remember we won today too. We're all free, or at least soon to be free, for those who didn't make it out of their cells when the power went out. But at least the majority of the dead are the aliens. It seems our speed, strength, and numbers worked in our favor.
"We're glad to see you and your mates are okay," Rina remarks with a pained smile, her eyes flicking around and taking in all the death same as me.
Wen cuts right to business. "There are others still on board who didn't manage to escape when the power shut down. There are regular humans there as well—I don't know how many or where, but a handful of them were used in the experiments and might already be infected with the Allagi virus."
"We will find them," Talia states resolutely.
"Good, we will need to send word to Earth as well. The master mentioned his home world and thestockhe has there.” Wen spits the wordstock, lip curling. “Ideally we help them gain their freedom, but I'm sure you can handle it. It's been a long however many cycles we've been gone, and my mates and I are anxious to return to our den and start our recovery."