Page 45 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)

M eg tightened her fingers around Beverly’s to make certain that the other woman didn’t become separated from them, but it was to Kaylar that she clung to with every ounce of determination. She was still humming from the excitement of successfully freeing herself from the Argurma. She still couldn’t quite believe that it had actually worked.

She was rapidly coming down from her energy high, however. Enough so that she could feel the burn of the muscles in her legs and lungs. It made her falter as exhaustion began to set in and she was struggling more and more to keep up with Kaylar’s pace. Worse, she was certain that he was running slower for their benefit, and they were still struggling all the same. She could feel Beverly lagging, the other woman dragging her like a sinking stone, making Meg readjust her grip on Beverly’s hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Beverly rasped wearily. “I’m afraid that I wasn’t much of an exerciser before I went to sleep and waking up here hasn’t really improved on that much.”

“It’s okay, we’re going to make it out together. Just hang in there.”

Meg’s words were as much for herself as they were for Beverly’s benefit. Her throat was beginning to ache with every word she forced through it and with every drag of air that she panted in short little gasps for air. Exhaustion would eventually set in… and soon, given the faint wobble already in her legs that she was trying to ignore.

“I’m trying.” Beverly rasped, a look of strain etching into her face. She gave a bitter laugh. “Somehow, I never quite imagined this happening. It makes all that petty bullshit I pulled seem kind of pathetic now. There is no guaranteed safety here.”

Meg’s lips thinned and she fell silent for several moments to conserve her strength as they ran in silence. When she spoke again, her voice had a quiet, breathless quality to it that her body allowed. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt like anything was ever a sure thing. Even with Kaylar… it was hard to believe at first.”

Her mate’s hand squeezed hers in silent reassurance. He heard her—he was always listening, and he was reminding her that he was there for her even without a guarantee for anything else in her life. She would always have Kaylar, and that squeeze reminded her of that. With him she would be guaranteed a life full of love and whatever safety they could find together. Never again would she be alone to face anything that the world or whatever gods were watching threw at her, and neither would he. It was a seductive promise but one she could finally believe wholeheartedly without any doubt whispering insidiously to her.

“Just promise me that if the worst happens, you’ll get your ass out of here and not look back,” Beverly rasped vehemently between her wheezes for breath, causing Meg to blindly glance back with a tiny sound of surprise that made the other woman chuckle humorlessly. “I know, that sounds pretty ironic coming from me, but trust me—I don’t want to meet my end with that sort of guilt on my conscience after everything else I’ve put you through… besides—”

“Shh,” Kaylar hissed, coming to a sudden halt ahead of them so abruptly that Meg slammed into him before she even realized that he had stopped moving.

Fuck, she hated not being able to see.

“What is it?” she whispered back at him.

She heard a suggestion of movement but she wasn’t sure if it simply his vibrissae moving or his head. But then, amid the deafening silence she heard the soft chittering growl that made her skin go clammy. She’d hoped that when the Argurma drove back E302 that the creature slinked off to pursue easier prey. Now, however, she knew that was definitely not the case. She could hear the wet slap of his sail like fins shifting as they rose and lowered rapidly as if it were flexing them in preparation for an attack. Meg’s fingernails dug into Beverly’s hand, making the other woman hiss in pain but at the sudden recognition of what they were dealing with, Beverly bit back the sound with a strangled gasp. Somehow E302 had circled back around and cut off their only route for escape.

Suddenly, Meg regretted leaving the other male so far in their dust.

There was another shift in the air and the hairs on the back of Meg’s neck prickled with it as six eyes slid toward them with another, louder, chittering sound to his growl that sounded like bits of metal rapidly being scraped together.

For all she knew that was exactly what it was. As something Kaylar described as biotech, it naturally possessed strange metal parts in their makeup. That too was something she’d struggled to wholly believe as well until she caught a glimpse of the predatory mass, every foot of it bred with nothing less than the pure intention to consume them. And those eyes—there was something so malevolent as gleaming yellow slits focused in on them.

Meg pressed into Kaylar, a tremble working its way through her. She reached for her knife instinctively before belatedly remembering that it was gone... either abandoned somewhere in the halls or still stuck in the side of the Argurma’s neck—though the latter was unlikely so she was going with abandoned uselessly somewhere. Her grip tightened on her mate. She was shaking so badly from being under the focused regard of that terrible glare that she didn’t even realize at first that Beverly was as well and that she was clinging to Meg now with both shaky hands. One of the hands lifted free and Meg felt it move along her arm as Beverly reached for her wrist. Beverly’s hand fumbled, her fingers grazing Meg’s hand clumsily but it didn’t click what she was doing until suddenly the light on the watch popped on again, flooding the space around them with its dim light.

E302’s eyes slitted at the sudden light, its chittering, metallic snarl visibly vibrating in its thick throat. It was crouched there ahead of them, its body filling the hall just in front of the lobby. Somehow—it had correctly worked out that they would head there and had placed itself at that exact point to cut them off.

“Fucker,” she rasped.

Kaylar’s mandibles clicked softly in agreement as he warily eyed the creature. It was close enough that even in the light, she could make out hints of the deep blue pigment covering its body, and the thick bulge of its heavy musculature along his neck, legs and what little she could make out of its torso. Its mouth gaped open, its tube long tongue wiggling and the flesh around its mouth lifted in a permanent snarl that its multiple rows of numerous, blade-like teeth remained permanently exposed. Those, of all things, caught the light so perfectly that she could make out each and every deadly point.

She rather wished she were not so fortunate in that regard. She would rather not see its terrible grin leering at her below floating blood-like eyes. The less she saw, the happier she would be—if she were honest with herself.

Kaylar’s hand tightened hers and she looked up at him, his inhuman blue eyes settling something within her as he regarded her calmly. It was only for a moment—the briefest of seconds—and yet it seemed to last far longer in her mind with its perfect silence as they shared that moment between them.

“Shield your eyes,” he snarled suddenly and she jumped as the enormous machine mounted to his shoulder, that she’d somehow failed to notice in the weak light, suddenly spun and came to life with a loud hum. “Now!”

Grabbing ahold of her elbow, he thrust her away, spinning her in the process, and Meg cried out in shock as she collided with Beverly. Beverly’s hands frame Meg’s face, clinging to her as she dragged their foreheads together. In the fading light of the watch, Meg noticed that it was somehow getting brighter and that the other woman’s eyes were closed tightly.

“Close them before that thing goes off!” Beverly shouted, her own eyes not cracking even a little as E302’s chittering crackled and became louder in a progressively lengthening shriek. “I’ve seen video feeds of the damage those weapons can do—thanks to our resident alien—and neither of us need the discomfort and temporary partial blindness from looking directly at it.”

The hum increased to a whine that skated over her nerves leaving a hyper awareness and crawling sensations over her skin that fueled a sudden feeling of anxiety that had Meg quickly slamming her eyes shut. She didn’t know what the weapon was but she was intelligent enough to trust Kaylar and Beverly on this matter. If they said not to look, then she sure as hell wasn’t going to look.

The whine deepened into a blast that was so loud that Meg fell into Beverly with shock. With their legs and arms braced, they managed to cooperatively keep each other standing but Meg’s knees shook and nearly gave out from beneath her as a bellow answered the blast with a frightening amount of volume from somewhere behind them. But then was nothing compared to the terrible screech that filled the hall just in front of them.

E302’s body thrashed as it sprawled on its side from such a close attack, a smoking, charred patch streaking up its side. But it wasn’t dead, or anywhere close to dead. In fact it seemed perhaps more stunned than anything—its movements almost appearing drunken—as it worked to turn itself and get its feet beneath it again. Kaylar hissed in response, his mandibles lifting before he swung around and grabbed her hand, practically hauling her past the creature. The massive, leather sails on its wing and back spread wide and snapped closed again, the long, needle-like spines that made the frame of the sails practically quivering with the effort as its tail flopped uselessly behind it as a very dangerous looking obstacle.

Kaylar lifted his arm as they ran forward, the large spines at his elbow rebuffing the tail with a violent thwack that did nothing to break the skin but sent the tail flopping away from them as they hurried past. E302’s head lifted on its long, thick neck, its eyes following their progress as it let out an infuriated scream and its claws scraped faster and more erratically against the flooring as it sought its purchase.

Meg didn’t linger to look at it, nor did she give Beverly any opportunity to as she hauled the scientist along with her at a hurried pace into the lobby entrance and around the bend into the main part of the lobby. The screeching metallic scrape of claws and the shrill shrieks of E302 followed them, as did the more distant roars and bellows of the Argurma on their trail, with a deafening threat of imminent death that quickened Meg’s pace beyond what she would’ve expected. It pumped through her, giving her a sudden burst of energy despite the exhaustion that had been wearing her down until she felt like she was nearly flying at Kaylar’s side as they sped toward the building’s exit with Beverly close behind them.

The main part of the lobby was suddenly thrown into sharp visibility from the sunlight saturating it, the light growing in rapid intensity the closer they got to the door. Meg’s eyes watered as she squinted against the glare and then suddenly they broke out into a blinding whiteness that gradually faded and reformed into something recognizable as they rushed into the forest. Meg had a moment’s disorientation when Kaylar suddenly let go of her hand, but she understood immediately as watched him slash at the prickly growth along the narrow trail with his claws, clearing the way the best he could for the smaller human women following behind him. Even with his large body breaking through the excess growth, branches and leaves still slapped at Meg, leaving stinging welts and scratches on her hands and neck—and she was certain she felt a few on her face.

But poor Beverly. Raising her hand to shield her face, Meg glanced behind back at the woman behind her. Unlike Meg, who was covered pretty thoroughly in the thick material of the alien suit, Beverly’s thin clothes offered little protection against the thorns and sharp brambles. Cloth caught and tore, revealing even larger swaths of skin that were rapidly covered in red welts, some scratched deeply enough to leave thin red lines of blood. Catching her concerned look, Beverly waved her ahead, indicating that she was fine. Meg bit her lip, not all that certain but the distant sounds of something surging into the forest behind them gave wings to her feet as she ran with renewed determination for the beach. Though the forest seemed to stretch on for an eternity like a hellish landscape of pain that sought to slow and catch them, they continued to run as E302’s barking shriek echoed through the forest as the creature began its pursuit.

It was the first glimpse of sand and water from between the trees that made the tightness around her heart ease but that didn’t last long. The crash of snapping branches and toppled young trees filled the forest with the sound of violence racing after them. Her breath was coming in sharp pants and she was gradually becoming aware of a painful stitch in her side that radiated in pulsing agony through her, but she couldn’t stop. It was impossible to stop when death was on their heels. They ran toward the glimmer of sunlight on water and sand but it was the sudden appearance of Kaylar’s ship stretched across the sand as they arrived near the edge of the tree line that made her cry out in both welcome and in terror at the sudden clamor that rose in the forest just behind them.

E302 hissed shrilly and numerous trees cracked with the frantic whipping sounds of its body as a throaty Argurma snarl joined the fray. They were close. Far too close. And suddenly the ship felt much farther away and depressingly out of reach.