Page 4 of Chased by the Alien Mercenary (Monster Mercenary Mates #6)

Solear

I knew something was off. Every bone in my body ached with the feeling, and I couldn’t put my finger on it, couldn’t explain why.

Aramon was flying our shuttle, following the low, daring path I’d set out for him to the letter.

Each dip of valley and rise of hill was traced by the nose of our shuttle.

Behind us, the second shuttle followed a slower, much less stealthy path, counting on us to lay the groundwork for the first surprise.

“I know,” Aramon said under his breath, a response to the anxiety rattling inside my brain.

This wasn’t my normal pre-battle excitement.

It wasn’t about being eager to start blowing things up and breaking things apart—though there was that, too.

That was always a good way to express myself without holding back the avalanche of things inside my head.

But whatever I was feeling now was much bigger, much heavier.

I had no name for it. I wasn’t good with feelings, let alone analyzing what I felt. I hated it.

If I sat with my feelings too long, I always felt the urge to break things, to kill things.

Lash out first, so it couldn’t strike me where it hurt, so I wouldn’t need to feel so soul-crushingly alone.

That made Aramon’s thoughts turn dark. I could sense the spiral in his mind the way he could sense mine.

Guilt—always, he felt so much guilt—and no matter what I said or did, it didn’t ease.

I knew it wasn’t his fault that it had taken weeks to dig me out, but he seemed to think it was. That who I was now was his fault, too.

“I’m scanning, but there’s no sign of change,” Aramon said. Then he smirked. “Too bad, we could have used a challenge.” I wanted to hiss at him, so I did, warning him that he was going to jinx the whole damn mission by asking for trouble. He laughed, and laughed louder when I growled at him.

“I will scan,” Mitnick interjected from behind us, and Aramon snapped his mouth shut abruptly, turning dangerously in his seat to glare at the hacker.

Of course, I knew that my twin would never crash this ship, even if he wasn’t watching the sensors while he flew.

There was no one more talented at flying any vessel—it didn’t matter what.

Give him a damn kite and he’d make it soar.

The same went for hacking and Mitnick: give him a device and he’d crack it in no time at all.

Slapping Aramon on the back of his head made him face forward, but I didn’t need my eyes on the sensors to read the navigational data.

It was a trick—one I’d practiced hard at—because I hated being blinded to my surroundings.

I would open my eyes and see not the computer’s data streams as I processed and calculated the ship’s most optimal route, but what was around me.

I couldn’t do it on the Varakartoom; that ship was too big, the data too massive.

But the tiny shuttle was fine. So, I squinted at Mitnick as he perused data on his datapad.

Those wings made my shoulders itch, pale but streaked with red, taking up so much space.

His presence always made me feel like I could end up buried beneath all those feathers, so I kept him at a distance, warned him away.

He was a good male, though—loyal, honorable.

I knew in my heart that he would not have left me buried in the rubble any more than my captain or my brother had.

He was on task now too, eyes focused on the data on his pad and the data flicking over the holo visor covering one of his razor-sharp eyes.

Then they flicked up, those bright yellow orbs with their darker golden streaks.

They met mine directly, as if he’d known all along that I was staring at him.

My spine tingled, my body growing tight with tension—tighter still—and, in the back of my mind, the calculations of the computers ebbed and flowed.

Was he being confrontational? Itching for a fight?

If so, I’d give him one he’d never recover from.

Or was he just curious, like that damn pink Nelly?

I hated not knowing, so I snapped back in my seat, skin twitching with unease, and focused on my job.

The rustle of wings and feathers, then Jaxin’s sharp and commanding voice: “What is it, Mitnick?” I wanted to look over my shoulder again, uneasy at not knowing what was going on, filled with the ever-growing feeling that something was going to go really wrong any minute now.

Our Weapon Master was the one in charge of the mission, and he stood braced at the center of the shuttle, his laser cannon cradled in his arms. The sturdy Rummicaron seemed to think seat belts were optional, and, truthfully, the way he withstood the forces of the tight turns and dips that Aramon took the ship through, he certainly made it seem that way.

“I think Solear is right,” Mitnick said.

I just knew his eyes were on the back of my head, and I ran my hand over my hairless skull, fingers brushing along the port at the base, where a wire currently connected me to the navigational console.

I had never said a word, but the hacker had inferred from what Aramon had said that I was the one with the gut feeling.

“There is something different at the target location, more heat than I expect from a dormant household. We should tread carefully.”

More heat? That could mean many things—machines running, a drug plant, for example—or it could mean more people.

My gut churned, but there was nothing we could do now.

This mission was important, and Jaxin wasn’t going to call it off unless he had concrete evidence; a bit of extra heat wasn’t enough.

It was too late anyway, Aramon was pointing the shuttle around a final tall mountain capped with snow, and abruptly, a beautiful, sprawling mansion came into view.

I held my breath as we spun around it in a tight circle while Mitnick released a horde of drones from the cracked hatch at the back of the shuttle.

“Three dozen guards,” he murmured immediately.

“More inside. There’s a large ship landed several clicks from here, powered down so it didn’t show on our scans.

” He raised his head, and we were all looking at him now as he declared, “Some bigwig is visiting—maybe even Jalima. Do we proceed?”

Then a shot fired past our bow, and Mitnick dove back into his machines, working to disable them.

Jaxin snarled as he hailed the Varakartoom, but Aramon whooped as he spun our shuttle into a landing, right on top of the fancy marble swimming pool.

“Fuck yes!” he shouted. “What’s a few dozen more, right? ”

Right. My mouth practically filled with saliva at the thought of Jalima being there.

Was today the day I’d finally wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him?

There was a long line of people eager to see him dead, but if he was here, I’d make sure I was the one to kill him.

Heat scored my veins as the urge to fight became all-consuming.

Yes, kill the bastard. Kill him for what he did to me, to Aramon, to our father.

And yes, for what he did to our captain, too.

I shared a look with my brother, and his eyes reflected my own, his feelings mirroring mine.

“Today,” he said. Any worries about the mission or the strange feeling of unease that had filled me faded to the back of my mind.

Yanking the plug from my head that locked me into the navigational computer, I leaped to my feet.

Aramon was at my side, weapons drawn, claws flexed, teeth bared.

We leaped from the shuttle and onto a patio to the sound of shouting from our crewmates behind us, but neither Aramon nor I listened as we charged into the house and faced the first line of defense.

“Yesssss!” I snarled as I shot one Krektar and leapt onto the next, wrenching his neck with a sharp twist. Now we were fighting, the prospect of vengeance within my grasp.

“ Our grasp!” Aramon reminded me along our telepathic bond, the words crisp and sharp.

He did not want me to leave him behind, to take this for myself.

But when I smelled something enticing—something powerful—I ducked into the hallway without him, leaving him in my wake, separated by fighting guards and Varakartoom crew.

This scent, this was it! This was what I was after.

Instincts took hold of me, riding me so hard that nothing mattered but the hunt.

The chase. Tracking that scent until I could pounce.

What I’d do after I’d pounced, I had no clue.

Roll around in that luscious scent? Cover myself with it?

Kill it and eat it? Was it Jalima? Was it someone else?

Some thing else? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.

All that mattered was that I hunted it down.

I was no longer aware of Aramon, my crewmates, or the raging fight.

I only saw the obstacles between me and my prey. Closer. So close.

***

Lyra

A muffled boom sounded, the noise distant, muted by the thick stone walls that surrounded me.

Was it an earthquake? A bomb going off, or the blast of a laser cannon?

I had not spent my career chasing stories in warzones, so I wasn’t familiar with the sounds of battle.

But I had visited a mining planet once to investigate the ‘top notch’ tourist lodgings and views, but also to report on the massive scandal the mining company was involved in.

I still recalled the way the ground trembled and the explosives boomed as they carved deep tunnels into the planet. This sounded similar.