Page 94 of Alien Jeopardy

“Not a fucking worm!” I yell again, throwing my hands in the air in absolute irritation. “Couldn’t be something squishy, nope.”

A crab? What the hell is it?

“Oh, you wanted a worm? Fuck you!” I mimic Ken, putting one hand on my hip.

Apparently, I’ve lost my mind.

My gaze darts right, only to see another enormous claw.

Then I look straight ahead, the clicking sounding somehow frustrated now. The mud is sucking at the huge animal, too, and it’s not happy about it.

Its eye is four times the size of my head. Well, at leastthatpart of it is squishy. I scrabble backwards, losing my balance again and landing on my butt.

“Holy fucking shit,” I breathe as its legs appear, coated in muck. “Crawfish.”

It finishes freeing itself from the marsh, looming over me. It’s the size of my apartment building, or close to it. Not that I’m a great judge of size. I’m more of an eyeball it, close enough kind of girl.

“Crawfish intensifies,” I say weakly.

I don’t think I’m going to make it past the first challenge.

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

Ka-Rexsh

When nothing shoots me out of the sky, I decide Ken No Privates might not be as evil or unstable as I first supposed. The weapon he saw fit to provide me with upon announcing the difficulty increase is strapped to my hand, fitted over my fingers, a metal replacement for the talons I bit off.

A Draegon is already weapon enough.

My wings ache already, unused to this sort of sustained flight. The drop from the ship onto the surface of the moon was one thing, but a marathon of search and rescue requires a different type of musculature.

My people have grounded me for far too long.

My injured wing hurts particularly badly, and I grit my teeth.

It doesn’t matter how badly it hurts.

I have to get to my little human mate. She is soft and vulnerable and not bred to fight, nor has she any experience.

Ken must want us to reunite and fight together, for whatever twisted reason.

I will not pretend to understand the motivations of the space station’s sentience—I can only hope that Ellison and I are well and truly gone from the surface of this place before it tires of us.

At least it’s moved us on to this final challenge, a maze of epic proportions. Even from my altitude, I’m sickened by the sheer size of it. It would take us days to travel to the center, and I’ve been in the air for a solid forty-five minutes now without sighting Ellison.

Pain jolts up my wing, the muscle seizing up from either lack of use or the serpent’s efforts yesterday morning.

I will not let it take me down.

Being on land, in that maze, means hours upon hours lost without Ellison, and I refuse to put her through that.

She needs me.

The entire side of my body shakes with effort as I continue flying, scouring the maze below for any sign of her.

In the distance, an explosion sounds, a deafening boom that makes me snarl.