Page 26 of Chased by the Alien Mercenary (Monster Mercenary Mates #6)

Then Goldie stepped around me and spread his arms, a grin splitting his handsome face—charming and almost kind, if you could look kind while presiding over death.

He launched into some kind of speech all about the good things their master did for them, how he repaid their loyalty, and their disloyalty.

That’s when he turned on me, and that kind expression turned gleeful, the unholy kind.

Grimly, I met his golden eyes, avoiding looking at the crowd behind him, who definitely looked like they were attending a funeral.

No, not all of them—Keya and the others, certainly—but some of those Krektar looked excited. Yup, I was about to die.

Goldie reached out a hand and curled warm fingers around my shoulder, a gentle squeeze that slowly turned tighter and tighter.

“You still need to learn this lesson about loyalty, human. But you will.” So I wasn’t dying, but I was in a world of hurt.

When he nodded, a Krektar shuffled closer, the cold mountain air whipping away the alien’s nasty smell.

He snorted through his flat, disk-like nose as he offered his boss a long, coiled strip of leather with a smooth wooden handle. A whip.

I flinched away instinctively, but Goldie still had a tight hold on my shoulder, and two Krektar still flanked me.

They yanked on my arms at their boss’s command, forcing me to turn and kneel.

I could feel Goldie move closer, though I could not see him now.

It felt like the crowd was collectively holding its breath, awaiting what would happen next.

Well, so was I. It was too tense a moment to really pay attention to what I was feeling, just fear.

“You really thought you could hide in that dank little cave with your stolen comm, and we wouldn’t find you?

” Goldie said coolly, like I was an idiot.

I had not even considered that the communications device wasn’t safe, and clearly neither had Solear.

At least now I knew I had made the right call leaving that place.

I should have done so sooner, and they might not have found me.

Then again, the comm was still tucked in the waistband of my pants.

They could have simply kept tracking me.

I didn’t answer the bastard; there was no point.

He thought he owned me, that he was teaching a slave a valuable lesson in loyalty and obedience.

Well, screw that. But it was harder to stay that kind of indignant angry when I was certain they were about to yank my coat from my body.

That would make the next step—and the pain they had in store for me—all too real.

A loud crashing noise interrupted the silence that had followed Goldie’s words, and the Krekter never got to the actual ripping or tearing.

With my back turned to the mansion, I could not see what had happened, but people were screaming.

I heard dozens of footsteps as people scattered left and right, and Goldie was loudly screaming at his guards to raise their guns and shoot.

In the chaos, the guards had released me, and I took my chance, surging to my feet and running.

It was dark, the cobblestones were slippery, and people were running around like headless chickens.

I ducked under an arm, nearly collided with a Krektar who was just raising his gun at something behind me, and then the roar vibrated through the air.

Dropping to the ground, I covered my head with my arms, certain an earthquake had just struck—or perhaps a bomb had gone off.

My temples ached, heat brushed across my skull, and then a sensation followed that I couldn’t describe.

It felt as though my head had broken open like a freaking egg or something.

Then I heard him: “ I’m coming, Lyra. I’ve got you. ”

His voice wasn’t like the husky, rough growl he had used for my name or to say yes.

It was smooth, dark, and still raw with emotion and power.

Yet I knew without a doubt that it was him.

He’d finally gotten through; finally, he’d managed to reach me.

Instead of running from the chaos, I turned and faced the mansion, at last seeing what was happening.

Solear stood on a second-floor balcony overlooking the courtyard, a gun in hand that he fired relentlessly into the crowd.

With the mansion lit behind him and darkness cloaking everything else, he looked like some kind of demonic apparition—his skull-like features pale and catching the light, the rest of his large frame cloaked in shadow.

Goldie had rallied some guards, and they raised laser rifles to fire at him, but Solear was already jumping off the edge like it was nothing.

I screamed, certain he was about to break his freaking ankles, but he landed with a thud, then charged at the males.

“ Don’t worry,” he said inside my head, his voice filled with amusement.

“ I’ll teach them a lesson.” And he did, barreling through Krektar and tearing at them with his claws.

Goldie turned and ran, and Solear gave chase, long legs eating up the distance.

I cheered out loud when Solear pounced on the bastard’s back from behind, and I could sense how that amused my feral alien.

He’d heard me, and now he’d managed to connect with me telepathically at last…

I heard him too, loud and clear. Our eyes connected, even with almost the entire courtyard between us, and heat sizzled down my spine.

He was okay! Whatever he’d been doing, he’d gone undetected, and now he was here to save the day. “Yes,” he agreed inside my head.

The Krektar came out of nowhere, suddenly rising from the darkness, tusks quivering.

He snatched my arm and pressed a knife to my throat.

“Scream,” he said, “and I’ll cut you.” I didn’t need to scream, though.

As he started hauling me around a corner, using me as his personal shield, I already knew Solear was coming.

Like I could sense him, though I could not see him.

An avalanche barreling down on this bastard, crashing through the crowd in the courtyard like it was nothing.

A bull stampeding, that was my Solear, and he was coming for me.

I couldn’t describe what it felt like to know that I had such a fierce protector so solidly on my side.

I wasn’t even scared of the bastard hauling me with him, he was a dead man walking.

This wasn’t the same place as the Alpha Quadrant, where, in some ways, I’d always been protected by the UAR forces that had colonized any planet I’d visited.

Here, the rules of the jungle applied: kill or be killed.

Survive at any cost. Out there, I’d never needed anyone to watch my back, but I knew it was different here.

Luckily, I had the biggest bad to watch mine.

The hot amusement that washed over me made me realize Solear might actually be able to read my thoughts.

Did he find the “big bad” descriptor funny?

Did he like that? The Krektar was oblivious to this inner dialogue, hauling me roughly with him, though I wasn’t protesting.

In the distance, the gate and the rolling hill with its predatory flowers loomed.

I hoped that Solear would get here before we got there.

I didn’t feel like a repeat of that hike, my legs still throbbed from the numerous cuts.

It still sounded like there was fighting going on behind us, but it had turned confusing.

Gunfire, lasers that whined as they struck, things that shattered, screams. But we’d turned a corner, so I couldn’t see.

Was that all for Solear’s progress across the courtyard?

I did not think so. The sound of humming engines and the lights that flashed from up high—spotlights on hovering vehicles—seemed to indicate something else.

Then Solear barreled around the building, sprinting flat out, a blur of black, while his ghoulish face caught the light in flashes.

I saw the glow of his red eyes, felt the rage of battle that carried him forward.

“You’re dead,” I said, causing the Krektar holding my arm to jerk his head down toward me, still unsuspecting of the danger heading straight for him.

Now I could see that it was the very bastard who had yanked me out of my stasis pod on my first day on this godforsaken planet.

His tusks had a green hue, his breath utterly foul as he exhaled in my face.

The knife glinted, but he wasn’t holding it to my neck anymore.

“What?” he demanded, his footsteps still carrying us forward, his grip punishingly tight around my arm.

Above our heads, a skimmer wheeled through the sky and abruptly darted away, launching rapidly upward with a tight spin.

Whoever was flying that was in an awful hurry, and they weren’t headed toward the landing strip but in the opposite direction.

Fleeing the scene. The loud sound of its powerful engines only roared above us for a brief second, that’s how fast it shot away.

When it petered out, Solear was suddenly there, launching out of the shadow and yanking the Krektar off me.

“That,” I said, as, with a cracking noise, Solear snapped the asshole’s neck and carelessly dropped his body to the ground.

That. It echoed in my mind, but I wasn’t sure if that was my alien thinking it or if that was just me.

Then he hauled me into his arms, his hands frantic as they roamed my back and arms, growls rumbling from him when he discovered the blood that stained my pants.

He wanted to know who did that, and when he glanced back toward the sounds of fighting beyond the outbuilding, in front of the mansion…

it was obvious he wanted to dive back in and punish those responsible.

“It was the flowers. Let’s get out of here!

” I said, cupping his face with both my hands.

I could feel the rapid pounding of his pulse in his neck, feel the wetness of blood on his skin, and didn’t care.

I was too happy to see him. He’d come for me, saved me again, and I hadn’t known I needed someone like him until I found him.

“ Always ,” he said inside my head, his lips never moving.

It was a short, simple statement, but it was loaded with feelings, with promises.

More than just a word, it was a portal into what he truly felt.

And that one word was a vow he intended to keep, to always come for me, to always protect me, to be my protector forever.

Despite the precarious moment—the urgency to flee this place—I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him.

Our mouths collided, clashed, tongues tangling.

This wasn’t so much a kiss of passion as it was an explosion of reaffirmation and gratitude that he was here.

He was the one who broke it, lifting his head to growl toward the mansion, where chaos still erupted.

Then he lifted me higher, cradling me bridal-style against his chest, and began to run.

He was heading in the direction of the landing strip, but in the dark, I couldn’t tell if the big ship was still there or how heavily it was guarded.

What the hell had happened back there? It sounded like a freaking warzone!

I was insanely happy we were moving away from it.

“ The Aderian officials got involved, ” Solear said to me telepathically.

I needed to get used to this, and wow, was he reading my mind?

“Yes,” came the answer almost immediately, but it was accompanied with a sense of “right now,” like that wasn’t a permanent thing.

That was good, because I was pretty sure I didn’t need him to read my thoughts all the time.

That could get pretty awkward real quick.

He didn’t need to know when I was thinking about his sexy ass, for instance.

Damn it… “ I do, ” he growled inside my head, but out loud it was a huffed noise, and he jerked to a stop to peer down at me with gleaming red eyes set deep inside his pale face.

I’d made him laugh. Though his face remained unsmiling, I could sense the laughter inside my head, and I kind of liked that.

Solear should be happy. I wanted him to be happy.

He’d paused near a large boulder that offered some shelter from the wind and blocked the view of the mansion in chaos.

It would have been romantic, if not for the fact that I knew those pretty flowers surrounding us packed a mean bite.

There was starlight shining down on us, enough for me to see by and notice the idyllic hillside and the wild, untainted nature that surrounded us.

Then, an explosion reverberated and echoed between the mountains, shattering that illusion even further. “Let’s get out of here.”