Page 17 of Alien Devil’s Prey (Vinduthi Stolen Brides #1)

T he maintenance corridors of The Maw were a maze of tight passages that reeked of recycled desperation and industrial lubricants. The air itself felt contaminated, as if the misery processed here had soaked into the metal bones of the station.

But what struck me most was how Tamsin moved through this nightmare.

She navigated the labyrinth, her steps sure and silent as she cross-referenced the station's schematics on her data pad with the patrol schedules she’d spent years acquiring. Watching her operate in her element was a revelation.

"Security sweep just passed checkpoint seven," she whispered, her voice tight in my ear. "Window opens in twenty seconds."

I crouched beside her in the shadows, hyperaware of how her body pressed against mine in the cramped space. The maintenance uniform did nothing to disguise her curves, and being this close to her after a few days of careful distance was testing my control.

"Ventilation access, two meters up," she murmured, indicating the panel. "Takes us past the main guard station without triggering proximity sensors."

The shaft was tight, barely wide enough for one person. I went first, pulling myself into the oppressive darkness while she followed behind. Her breathing was steady, but I caught the slight hitch when my body blocked the light from below.

"Claustrophobic?" I asked quietly.

"No." Her voice was steady, but I heard the lie. "Just... memories."

Of course. A seven-year-old hiding in ventilation shafts while guards hunted escaped property. The courage it took for her to return to this place, to willingly crawl through these passages again, hit me like a physical blow.

"We can find another route," I offered.

"No. This is the only way to bypass their sensor grid." She pressed closer behind me, her hand briefly touching my ankle. "Keep moving."

The guard station passed beneath us—two burly Krelaxian guards hunched over displays, their attention fixed on the false readings she'd fed their systems. They were watching ghost signals while the real threat moved directly overhead.

"Beautiful work," I said as we dropped into the next corridor.

"Save the compliments." Her tone was all business, but I caught the pleased flush in her cheeks. "We're not rich yet."

The vault level spread before us, a spoke-and-wheel design that put six heavily secured chambers around a central hub. The doors were reinforced titanium, bristling with biometric locks and pressure sensors.

"Vault twelve," Tamsin confirmed, checking her scanner. "Recent access logs show they moved the Regalia after our reconnaissance."

I studied the approaches. "Guards?"

"Two at the central station, rotating patrols every fifteen minutes. Shift change in..." She consulted her chronometer. "Four minutes. They'll be distracted by handoff protocols."

"Time enough?"

"If you're as good as you claim."

I turned to look at her, catching a tension in her voice that went beyond pre-mission nerves.

"Second thoughts?"

She met my gaze, hazel eyes shifting from green to gold in the corridor's dim lighting. "About the vault? No. About what comes after..." She shrugged. "Ask me when we're clear of this place."

What comes after. The words carried a weight I couldn't ignore. After she faced Kelloch? After we returned to The Penumbra and I had to explain to my crew why I'd risked everything for one human woman? After I admitted to myself that she'd become more important than the mission itself?

"Ready?" I asked, checking my gear one final time.

"Always."

We crept through the final approach. When she indicated the vault's approach, I felt that familiar calm settle over me—the focused clarity that came when violence was imminent.

The vault door was a masterpiece of paranoid engineering. Five separate lock systems. The final barrier was a new quantum encryption system, more complex than I'd anticipated. It cost us fifteen seconds.

The vault door slid aside with a soft hiss.

Inside, on its pedestal, sat the first piece of the Regalia. It was a dense, crystalline lattice, cool to the touch, with intricate circuits of light pulsing within its depths. It felt dormant, but powerful. This was the key to reclaiming our legacy.

"Got it," I said, my voice low as I disabled the protective systems. "Let's move."

I lifted the key from its resting place, feeling the faint warmth it emitted against my palm. This was real.

"Package secured. Moving?—"

Alarms shrieked through the station. Not a soft chime, but the full-throated wail of a facility-wide lockdown. Red lights strobed as blast doors began slamming shut. Our fifteen-second delay had cost us.

"What happened?" I demanded, securing the Regalia in my flight suit's shielded pouch.

"Silent alarm," Tamsin said, her fingers flying over her interface. "Someone must have spotted the encryption breach. The whole station's going into lockdown."

Through the vault's entrance, I could see guards converging on our position. Too many of them, their movements coordinated, their formations drilled and professional.

"This way!" Tamsin grabbed my arm, pulling me toward what looked like a solid wall. Her palm slapped against a hidden panel, revealing a maintenance hatch. "Service corridor—connects to the industrial levels."

We squeezed through the opening as the first guards reached the vault chamber. Shouts echoed behind us. They'd discovered the theft, but we were already gone.

The service tunnel was a tangle of pipes and conduits. We crawled and climbed, squeezing through gaps that scraped skin from our arms. An explosion shook the station, deep and resonant.

"They're sealing the docking levels," she said, consulting her scanner. "Blast doors, energy barriers, automated defense systems. They're trying to trap us."

We reached a junction where maintenance passages branched in three directions. Tamsin hesitated, studying her display with a frown that made my gut clench.

"Problem?"

"The direct route to bay seven is blocked." She looked up at me, and I saw something in her eyes that made the air in my lungs turn solid. "There's another way, but..."

"But?"

"It goes past the command center. Past Kelloch." Her voice was steady, but I could see the war playing out in her expression. Professional survival instincts battling eighteen years of accumulated rage.

Another explosion, closer this time. Whatever window we'd had for clean extraction was closing rapidly.

"How much longer is the alternate route?" I asked.

"Twenty minutes through maintenance shafts and service lifts. Safer, but slower." She gestured to a different passage. "The command center route is eight minutes if we move fast."

Eight minutes versus twenty. In a station-wide manhunt, that difference was the margin between escape and capture.

But I could see what the proximity to Kelloch was doing to her. The way her hands had started to shake, her breathing gone shallow and rapid.

"Your call," I said. "You know this station better than anyone."

She stared at the scanner display, thumb hovering over the route selection. For a heartbeat I thought she'd choose the safer path.

Then her expression hardened into something cold and determined.

"Command center route," she said. "It's faster."

We ran through corridors that grew wider and more expensive as we climbed toward the executive levels.

"This level," Tamsin said as we reached a junction. "Command center is fifty meters that way. Emergency exit to the docking levels is?—"

She stopped, pointing ahead where guards were establishing a checkpoint. Portable barriers, heavy weapons, everything needed to lock down this section of the station.

"They're between us and the exit," I observed.

Tamsin stared at the checkpoint, her whole body gone tense as wire. This close to Kelloch, this close to finally confronting the architect of her personal hell, and armed guards blocked the path.

"There's a maintenance shaft," she said finally. "Parallel route that bypasses the checkpoint. I can get you around them."

"Us," I corrected. "Get us around them."

But when she looked at me, I saw something in her expression that made my blood freeze. The look of someone whose plan was finally coming to fruition.

"This was always the plan, wasn't it?" I said, the realization hitting me. "You used my mission to get back inside."

"I helped you get your prize," she countered, shoving her scanner into my hands. It showed the escape route. "My payment is access to Kelloch."

"Tamsin, no?—"

"I have unfinished business." Before I could grab her, she slammed her palm against a nearby control panel.

A heavy blast door shrieked down from the ceiling, the metal slamming into the deck between us with a deafening boom.

She had trapped me on the side with the escape route, and herself on the side with Kelloch.

"The Regalia is what matters," her voice came through the comm, thin and distant. "Finish your mission, Talon."

"The mission includes you!" I slammed my fist against the unyielding metal. "I'm not leaving without you!"

"You have to." Her voice carried absolute certainty. "This part was always mine alone."

The comm went dead.

I stood frozen for a heartbeat, staring at the blast door. She had outmaneuvered me completely. The rational choice was obvious—follow the route to the docking bay, complete the extraction, return to The Penumbra with the Regalia.

But rationality had stopped mattering the moment I'd realized she meant more to me than any objective. The Regalia was a cold weight in the pouch on my suit, a reminder of everything we'd fought for, everything my team was counting on.

Everything that suddenly mattered less than her.

I turned away from the maintenance shaft, my eyes scanning the corridor for another way around. I wouldn't let her face her demons alone.