Page 14 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

“Do not run,” he told Hannah. “If you run, they will take your hamstrings.”

“I’m not running anywhere without you.”

“Good.”

Two Skarrin went for Hannah’s flanks anyway, counting on his attention remaining locked on the Dravox.

He allowed one step to sell the lie, then cut sideways and drove his heel into a kneecap.

The joint buckled. The second Skarrin snapped for his calf, found a twist of his hips and a fist instead.

Bone gave under his knuckles. He felt the break all the way into his forearm.

The Dravox charged.

He didn’t meet it head-on. To do so against a Dravox was to invite death.

He slid three strides at an angle, the rush of its charge ripping past his ribs, then pivoted hard.

The beast couldn’t turn as quickly as a man.

It skidded in its own blood, bellowing fury.

Locus took the opening, slammed both hands into the thick fur at its flank, and used its bulk against itself, abrutal throw honed in the pits of Khor.

The Dravox crashed into the fence. Metal shrieked. Sparks leapt.

“Here.” His voice was curt as he bent, hand closing on the twitching Skarrin he had dropped moments before.

Ajagged piece of bone jutted sharp from its frame.

He snapped it free and pressed the crude spear into Hannah’s grip.

“Point first. Straight for the eyes. Do not hesitate. Do not waste trying it on the chest. Just the eyes.”

She nodded, lifting the crude spear with hands that trembled even as determination settled over her. Rage built in him at the sight, fury at all that had forced her to carry such a weapon. He would end every creature that had brought her to this point. But first, the Bonewing.

The Bonewing shrieked, struggling with one torn wing as it cut across the insectile Ashmaw.

Locus hurled a stone into the resin pooling near its claws.

Fire flared, the flash making the Bonewing veer.

Its wounded hook skimmed the resin, sticky flames climbing until the wing shriveled.

The Ashmaw spat but missed, its own fire scorching the Bonewing as it thrashed.

The crowd roared—half delight, halffury.

A Skarrin lunged for Hannah’s back. She didn’t see it, but Locus did.

Too far to reach, he hurled the carcass he still held.

The bodies collided in a crack of bone and mass.

Hannah spun on intuition, ramming the jagged shard into the survivor’s eye.

It shrieked once and fell still, blood hot against her thigh.

She stood breathless, chin lifted, daring him to speak.

“Good,” Locus said. “Again, if needed.”

“Fine,” she replied in a voice that shook anyway. “But don’t call me good like I’m a trained dog.”

“You are not,” he conceded. “Dogs break sooner.”

She huffed a breath that might have been a laugh and swiped blood from her cheek with the back of her wrist, leaving a red smear across her pale skin.

The small, defiant gesture tightened something in his gut, the streak like a mark he wanted to claim.

Heat rolled through him, sharper than battle, apull as dangerous as any predator on the field.

The hulking Dravox lunged again, shoulders bunching a heartbeat before it struck.

Locus slid to the side and caught its charge on the torn wing of the Bonewing.

Claw met hook. The pale Bonewing shrieked as its own bones raked across the Dravox’s face, tearing its good eye.

Blinded, the beast bellowed and swung wildly.

It crashed into the insectile Ashmaw. Startled, the Ashmaw spat resin that splattered across the Dravox’s muzzle.

The burning mix turned to choking ash, clogging its nostrils and dragging a ragged cough from its throat.

“Now,” he said, and went for the Dravox’s throat.

He had no blade, only his strength. The Dravox lunged again, and Locus pivoted beneath it, catching its head in both hands.

With a sharp twist, he wrenched at the vulnerable joint beneath its jaw.

Bone cracked, the sound sharp and final.

The beast collapsed at once, its massive weight slamming ground, stilling in an instant.

The Bonewing wheeled low, trailing fire.

It tried to climb, but one hook caught on a ring of chain that still hung from the fallen Dravox’s leg.

The Bonewing dragged the chain and crashed to the ground in a tangled squeal.

Dirt trembled. Locus marked it fast—two Skarrin left, the Bonewing crippled on the ground, and the Ashmaw still skittering aroundthem.

Hannah reached him then and caught his shoulder. Her breath came fast against his neck. He turned into that heat without thinking and caught her waist. She was shaking now that the Dravox had stopped moving. Shake first, then move. He approved.

A Skarrin’s chitter yanked at his attention. Two remained, starving and frantic, eyes rolling white. They had chosen badly. They had chosen to sprint for the smaller prey because men yelled at them from the fence, because men loved the show of a scramble.

Locus moved without thought, stepping between.

The first Skarrin leapt for Hannah’s face, but he caught it midair and hurled it into the second.

They hit hard, bodies collapsing in a heap.

He drove a kick into one skull, then wrenched free as the other snapped weakly at his arm.

With a sharp twist, he ended it cleanly.

Both went still at his feet. He drew a fast tally in his mind—the Dravox killed, the Bonewing down, though not yet dead, the Skarrin scattered and slain.

That left only one enemy moving. The Ashmaw.

Hannah pressed close to his back when fear told her the next strike would come for her. Her heat came through the blood and ache, the line of her shoulder to her hip lighting every nerve. He closed his eyes once, hard, then opened them back on the feral glare of the field.

The Ashmaw circled. Even though clever and patient, its reserves weren’t endless. Spit took resources. He needed itdry.

He lifted a fragment of bone fallen from the Bonewing. “Throw this,” he said, and tossed it to Hannah. She caught it awkwardly. “At the resin when it pools. Do not let it thicken. Break the surface and it will flare hot and fast. We want it thin.”

“Why?”

“Because if it thickens, it clings. Break it early and it burns out fast,” he answered, eyes never leaving the circling Ashmaw.

“Got it.”

Locus moved, keeping the Ashmaw focused on him, drawing it into spitting at a run so it missed or wasted.

Hannah broke the pools with bone and stone as fast as they formed.

Short flares lit her face in angry orange, then died.

She didn’t flinch after the second one. She learned the timing, hit the spread before it clung.

“Good,” he called, and this time she didn’t tell him not to sayit.

The Bonewing tried one last climb, one wing guttering, one hook dragging chain. It couldn’t get clean air. It fell in a hideous arc that ended with a wet slap and a final shudder. The torches threw its shadow across the fence in a wide black cross. Men booed or cheered according toloss.

The Ashmaw spat and found nothing to ignite. It spat again, thinner now, threads rather than clots. The threads cooled before they kissed dirt. It hissed, asound like steam trapped in stone.

“Done,” Locus said. He steppedin.

The Ashmaw lifted its head and fanned its mandibles to make itself large.

He didn’t see large. He saw joints. He saw the hinge where the lower plates met, the soft seam behind the second row of teeth.

He went low, slid under the mandibles, and drove a shard of Bonewing hook up into that seam.

The shard punched through cartilage and into wet dark.

The Ashmaw convulsed. Resin spilled and ran back over its own throat.

It choked on its own weapon, body sawing in tight arcs until something inside tore free with a sound like a belt snapping.

It slumped. Resin pooled and cooled under its head. It smoked thinly.

Silence fell hard. Then the preserve exploded with sound. Men who had bet against them cursed until they ran out of curses. Others shouted his name like it tasted good to them. Drones floated close for the bloodshot view of a man and a woman still breathing.

Hannah stood with the bone shard in her hand and blood on her thigh, breathing hard, eyes blazing.

He went to her and took her wrist and pressed his mouth to the inside of it once, hot and brief.

Not a kiss, not a claim, avow laid on a pulse.

She jerked in shock, then stared at him like he had torn out thesky.

“Do not die,” hesaid.

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Her voice failed brave and came back fierce. “You either.”

“Agreed.” He let her go before his body insisted onmore.

The headman’s voice rolled across the preserve, oily and triumphant. “Look at that, boys. Not even our best could chew them. But beasts are not men. Let us see if the alien bleeds the same when the teeth come on two legs.”

Hannah’s fingers found his again. They weren’t gentle. She looked up at him, pupils wide, mouth set, fear skating through her voice. “We’re going to have to face men next.”

He turned his head just enough for her to see his eyes. The torches painted the amethyst a hard light. “Then we will kill men.”