Page 20 of Guardian’s Heart (Space Guardian’s Mate #1)

NOVA

These Morlocks , as I called them, because they looked exactly like the creatures from the old Time Machine movie, were as bountiful here as they had been in my nightmares. I watched the movie one night at a friend's house and that had been enough to fuel my imagination for a long time. Nights in the Louisiana swamps could be terrifying enough without adding fuel from nightmares. But as petrifying as the monsters had been in my dreams and imagination, the reality was so much worse, even with a powerful blaster and Zaarek at my side. Just the thought of those teeth getting a hold of me made me pull the trigger faster. There were so many of them that missing wasn't a worry, and that made it all the more frightening.

From the corner of my eyes, I noticed Nock leading the other humans to a house ahead of us while Zaarek and I cleaned up as many threats as possible, keeping our rear clear. I thanked Daddy for the relentless shooting lessons in the swamp. Never had I thought I would ever get to use them against anything other than a gator. Maybe a cottontail or coral snake, but not monsters from a movie or aliens.

As soon as Nock and his group advanced to the next house ahead of us, Zaarek and I followed, but the Morlocks were unending; their screeches echoed through the narrow alleyways as they closed in on us.

House by house, we kept moving toward the spaceport, where we would be out in the open, and I hoped Zaarek had a plan because I had no idea. No lights came from the egg houses around us, not even a sound. I was sure the people inside had to know we were fighting for our lives out here. But none made a move to help us.

I wasn't sure why Zaarek kept us moving instead of finding refuge in one or why we had left the hotel or whatever that place was. But for once, I decided to trust him. This was his home turf, not mine.

We kept on blasting the damn Morlocks, who seemed to multiply, emerging from hidden corners and dark crevices. Their glowing, bright eyes illuminated their terrifying faces and bored into mine with a ferocity that sent shivers down my spine. Everything was happening so fast that I wasn't even that scared, too focused on taking another one down and another.

The alleyway felt like a never-ending labyrinth of danger and death, but stubbornly, we kept forging forward.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we emerged from the dark alleyway into the open expanse of the spaceport.

The chaotic bustle of ships coming and going illuminated the tarmac. Had I been able to think about anything other than the many Morlocks still coming, I might have admired the incredible sight of actual freaking spaceships, one looking different from the other.

"Which one?" Nock called.

"To the left!" Zaarek yelled, blasting another Morlock. Thankfully, they weren't very fast, and far enough from us to spare us being rained on by their bits and pieces, at least for the most part.

In the light, the Morlocks looked even more chilling. No matter how many we killed, their numbers never seemed to diminish, and I was beginning to fear we wouldn't make it.

"Promise me something," I yelled at Zaarek.

He threw me a quick, incredulous look, as if to say, I can't believe you're talking right now , but I had to get it out of me.

"Don't let them eat me; shoot me first," I pleaded.

"Oh, for the love of the stars," Zaarek cursed. "Nock, the black ship." Zaarek pointed, shooting another Morlocks. "Focus on what you're doing, and don't talk foolish nonsense, female."

Focus on what you're doing, and don't talk foolish nonsense, female. I replayed his words in my mind in falsetto. I would have rolled my eyes, but I needed them trained on the Morlocks.

Zaarek yelled into his tablet, phone, whatever it was and a narrow gap opened from the spaceship, extending an also narrow gangway.

By now, more people at the spaceport had noticed the Morlocks. Cries rang out, and several aliens were pushing forward, blasters leveled, taking the monsters out. Hope flared inside my chest.

As if from a distance, I heard the stomping of naked feet on metal as my fellow ex-prisoners made their way up the plank. Just as I was ready to believe we would get away, the biggest Morlock I had seen so far separated himself from the others. Roaring, he charged straight for me.

"Nova!" Zaarek shouted in warning, firing his blaster, but instead of evaporating in a cloud of gore, that one kept barreling forward.

"Down!" Zaarek shouted at me.

I wasn't going to do that though. I would look death right in the eyes. I shot my blaster again and again, just like Zaarek. The beast was bleeding profusely, with thick, black blood that reminded me of oil or slime. Had he not been bleeding, I was sure he would have looked like a sieve.

With a curse and a cry of pain, Zaarek tackled me to the ground just as the Morlock reached me, clawing his back instead of me. Still, I could have sworn I felt a stinging pain down my shoulder blades.

With him lying on top of me, we were both unable to do anything, but it was Zaarek who was taking the brunt of the Morlock's anger as it tried to get to me.

"When I say run, you run up into that spaceship. Don’t look back? Do you understand?" Zaarek snarled at me.

I had no idea what he was trying to pull off, but whatever it was, it would be better than lying here, faceplanted, waiting for the creature to tear its way through Zaarek's body to get to me. "Okay."

I agreed, but my heart was heavy. Pain shot through me from all angles at the thought of losing Zaarek despite how annoying he was.

To my utter disbelief, Zaarek planted both of his hands next to my head, groaning as he moved up into a plank position.

"Run!" he pressed out.

I scrambled out from underneath him, sending a glimpse at the creature on top of him. That thing had to weigh a good three fifty to four hundred pounds, how was Zaarek even able to push himself up?

"Nova, move!" he screamed, having noticed my hesitation. I leveled my blaster, worried I might hit Zaarek.

"For the love of all the gods in the universe, female, run!" he yelled again.

The Morlock was letting go of him and about to get up. Before I realized what was happening, the Morlock came at me at an astonishing speed. I stood frozen, staring at its snarling, agape mouth and drooling teeth.

"Nova!" Zaarek sounded exasperated, but I couldn't move, even knowing that I stood in his way of getting a good shot at the monster.

This time, it was the Morlock who was tackled by Zaarek. Staggering and bleeding, the thing went down as Zaarek brought his knife down on its neck.

Snarling to my left brought me back to life. I leveled my blaster and shot the two, too close for comfort, Morlocks, and was rewarded with a hail of gore. More followed, but not as many as before, as the other aliens at the spaceport were taking them out. No matter what though, they kept coming straight for me. I kept shooting the blaster even as Zaarek plucked me off the ground and threw me over his shoulder. It was an awkward angle, but I managed to take a few more out. The ground underneath us shook, and I realized Zaarek was taking us up the gangway. I pulled my finger off the trigger as the hatch closed behind us.

My feet hurt when Zaarek put me unceremoniously back on them. "For the love of the everlasting meteor belt, will you ever listen to me, female?" Zaarek yelled.

I tried to catch my breath, still reeling from the adrenaline rush and confused by the myriad of emotions going through me. My common sense wasn't at its best, so I yelled back, "When you give orders that make sense, I will. Had I listened to you, you would be dead. I shot the Morlocks that came after us."

"You! They were after you," he shouted, voicing his utter frustration.

"Whatever, I saved your life," I pressed out. "You're welcome."

He threw his arms in the air and huffed in irritation instead of thanking me.

"So why do you think they were after me ?" I couldn't help my curiosity and ask.

"Because you would have been a damn tasty morsel, the first one smelled you and informed the others," Zaarek filled me in, still in a clipped voice.

"How? They wouldn't have had the time to communicate…" I questioned.

"Their brains, however little they are, are connected," the smaller alien, I think Zaarek called him Nock, explained. "So if you two are done fighting for now, I think we should get out of here before others come to the same conclusion and want payback for her." He jerked one of his four fingers, which might have been a thumb at me.

"Excellent idea." Without another word or a backward glance, Zaarek marched out of wherever we were.

I concluded it was a sort of hanger after looking around the space that might have been the size of a living room. Unexpectedly, benches rose from the ground, and I took the hint to sit down as exhaustion caught up with me. Exhaustion and another emotion, one I usually only felt when I successfully broke through a firewall.

I felt exhilarated, alive. Every cell inside my body tingled with the aftereffects of the fight. I hadn’t enjoyed fighting for my life, I had been scared shitless, or had I? A deep buried part inside me told me that, yeah, running and shooting had excited me. In the same way breaking into databanks was a thrill. If I analyzed this further, I thought it might have been the same emotion I had felt when Daddy came to pull me out of the alligator’s underwater cave. Was this some kind of suppressed PTSD? My way of handling my childhood trauma?

Killing others was wrong. They started it , a pouty voice defended my actions. Let’s be honest, those creatures were repulsive, but that wasn't a reason to kill them. No, the reason was that they tried to kill me , just like the alligator had. Well, fuck me , who would have thought a GI Jane slumbered inside me?

A small reverberation moved through the bench I sat on, turning my thoughts in other directions. Were we lifting off? My stomach plummeting as if I were on a rollercoaster confirmed my suspicion. Someone shrieked, and my eyes moved to the group I had been sold with. They were closely huddled together, spread over three benches, while the smaller alien sat on another, leaned against a wall, his head back and eyes closed. It looked as if he had fallen asleep. Well, good for him , I figured.

The huddled group shot a few glances directed at me, and hushed whispers reached my ears. A woman sneered in disgust and turned her head purposefully away from me. That’s when I caught a whiff of myself. I looked down on my body to find it covered head to toe in slime and gore. I made a circle with my thumb and pointer finger and moved it down my arm, taking some gore down with it. I shook my hand in disgust as the slush hit the ground with a subdued splash.

I didn’t think I had ever needed a shower as badly in my life as I did right then. Revulsion moved through me, and I pushed thoughts of body parts, alien blood, and gore from me, unwilling to deal with the fact that I was literally bathed in it. That wouldn't change my situation. What would change it was a shower, and the only person aboard this ship who could tell me where to find it was Zaarek. Unfortunately, I had no idea where that alien was.

Fine, I would have to find him.

I stood and walked past the huddled group to the wall where an invisible door had opened earlier to let Zaarek pass. Not truly believing it would work for me, I was surprised when the wall parted, allowing me access to the rest of the ship.

"I think you should stay here," a woman voiced.

"Let her go. She already got us in enough trouble," the man next to her advised.

I arched an eyebrow at the couple and looked the others over. Was that what they were thinking about me? That I was trouble?

It wasn't totally unjustified from their perspective, I suppose.

I shrugged and moved on. I didn't owe these people anything. I didn't even know their names. It didn't bother me that I didn't; in fact, I preferred it that way. I hated baggage, especially the emotional kind, which was ultimately the end result of spending too much time with others.

The opening doors exposed a narrow hallway illuminated by… I didn't see any light fixtures, but the walls on both sides seemed to emanate a soft glow. I passed more built into the wall doors, but none opened as I followed the hallway. At the end, I found a narrow opening with a steep ladder leading up. With a shrug, I climbed it curiously. When my head poked out, I was eye-level with another, shorter hallway. Climbing all the way up, I followed that hallway for a few more feet until blinking lights drew me into what was obviously an alien spaceship's bridge.

Zaarek stood in the center of it, hands moving over translucent screens that seemed to hover in midair. My heart stuttered for a moment; even though he too was still covered in gore, he was a sight to behold, maybe more so because the goo covered up his strange coloring and emphasized how incredibly tall and muscular he was. I was still mad at him, yet my body was drawn to him as if he were a magnet.

I forced my eyes away to take in the bridge; four seats were arranged in a semi-circle, facing forward toward two triangular, large windows. It was there that my breath caught in my throat. Space. We truly were in space. I swallowed hard. I thought I had gotten used to the idea of aliens and not being on Earth any longer, but it seemed my brain had yet to fully catch up.

"I thought I told you to stay and wait." He sighed without looking at me or stopping to tap on the six screens hovering in the air.

"I thought you would know by now that I don't follow your orders," I shot back.

This time, he looked at me; a loud exhale was meant to show his irritation, but just then, my eyes caught sight of something spectacular on the other side of the window. "What is that?"

"A galaxy?" he remarked, raising my ire.

"I can see that. I mean those two planets above and below… " I squinted my eyes. "Those aren't planets, are they?"

It was hard to describe what I was seeing. It looked like two ginormous bubbles floating in space. Inside each bubble—one the exact mirror image of the other—was a galaxy, swirling with beautiful colors and what looked like two suns or very, very bright stars. Dividing the two bubbles from one another was something disc-shaped, something like one of Saturn's rings, only much, much more colorful, it almost looked as if the bubbles were emerging from the disc.

"Oh, the Twin Hubs?" He shook his head. "No, they're galaxies, forming from the Celestial Portal."

"Celestial what?"

Was he talking about the ring/disc thing in the center?

Finally, he turned his full attention to me. "It is pretty spectacular," he agreed.

I arched an eyebrow. It was a bit more than pretty spectacular , but hey, this was my first glimpse of real space, so who was I to say there weren't more amazing things out there?

"Elucidate," I demanded.

He laughed, actually laughed, and it lit up his face, making him look younger, more carefree. Someone I could really, really fall for if I wasn't careful. As if the strange attraction and tattoos weren't enough already. He was by far the most handsome man I had ever seen; add in the newfound charisma, and he was captivating to my senses. Fuck, heart, be still, quit beating like crazy and stomach, quit that fluttery shit. I'm still mad at him.

"Elucidate?" He chuckled. "What you see is one of the celestial ports. In layman's terms, it's where galaxies are birthed."

I didn't know much—or anything—about space and stars, suns, universes, and the likes. But one thing I remembered from class was, "I thought galaxies were birthed in nebulas."

"Nebulas birth stars," he corrected, gently enough not to raise my hackles. "See that there," he pointed at one of the bubbles, "you can see nebulas right inside, birthing stars, even as the galaxy itself is just being formed."

Goosebumps rose over my skin; that was incredible. I didn't remember learning this, but then again, I hadn't paid that much attention in my classes other than math. Plus, whatever I might have learned about the universe in school was probably only based on educated guesses from educated people. Theories. And how often over the course of history had they been revised? Point in case, the eternal debate about Pluto being a planet or a moon or a dwarf planet. The story changed so many times, I wasn't sure what it was anymore. So, I was more inclined to listen to Zaarek on this.

"Why are they in a bubble?"

He shrugged. "The bubbles will dissolve eventually, once the galaxy is mature. Maybe to protect it? Here," he handed me a device that reminded me of a tablet, but before I could take it, he pulled it back, "hold on… what's your language?"

"English." I watched him tap something on the tablet before he handed it to me. I tapped a few icons and was amazed when it did indeed give me information in English.

"You can either tap or tell it what you need, and it'll find it for you."

Something fell out of my hair and slipped down my neck, and I shuddered in revulsion.

"Shower," I said, "find me a shower."

"I can help with that; let’s get the others, and I'll show you to your rooms," Zaarek offered.