Page 132 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid

Beautiful, brilliant, vicious woman.

The next maneuver was violent enough to knock the rifle from his hands. He scrambled for it, cursing, but it slid heedlessly to the other side of the room.

Thalen’s scyra felled another male in his stead, preventing the soldier from reaching for Cordelia’s console. Thalen had paled drastically in only the few moments that had passed. Sweat beaded on his brow. He gave Rentir a meaningful look.

He was losing strength. Rentir feared the shot he’d taken for Cordelia had been critical.

“Make it count,” he said stoically, his voice carrying across the bridge.

When the ship lurched again, Thalen let go of the chair, throwing himself across the bridge into three clustered soldiers and slamming them all hard to the farthest end of the room. There was a scuffle among them, and a flash of plasma fire. Thalen cried out, his injuries obscured by the broad back of the male kneeling over him, but Rentir could see the flash of a plasma blade in the auretian’s hand. Black blood arced in the air as Thalen’s scyra lashed, painting the walls. When it was over, all four of them fell still.

“Thalen!” His heart clenched.

“Enough of this,” Tellefan snarled as the ship righted. Blaster in hand, he lunged for Cordelia.

Rentir leapt to intercept him with a bellow of fury. Cordelia turned toward him, her eyes widening in horror as the ship jerked again. He saw her quickly try to correct her maneuver, but it was too late—he slammed violently against the ceiling, and the world went black.

CHAPTER 54

“Rentir?”Cordelia shouted, craning in her seat to look for him. Damn it, why had he let go? “Ren!”

She popped her harness and threw it over her head, standing on wobbly legs. Half the soldiers weren’t moving anymore, and those that remained conscious were struggling to find their feet after Cordelia had spent the last five minutes shaking them like rag dolls.

Her eyes fell on a purple hand splaying out from behind a console, and she took a shaky step forward.

“Ren,” she breathed, starting toward him.

A hand in her hair stopped her dead in her tracks, wrenching her head back with such force that she feared her scalp might tear. Tears pricked her eyes. She reached back blindly to try to alleviate the pressure, clawing with her blunt nails.

Tellefan dragged her up onto the balls of her feet and craned her head until they were eye to eye. His hands were empty now, at least. She’d seen the blaster he’d been holding when he lunged for her.

“Females,” he hissed, spittle flicking at her face. “Always you damnable, detestable creatures lead to ruination. Blinding males into biddable idiocy with your pheromones!”

Even as he cursed her, his nostrils flared, his face craning down toward her throat.

This was the man who had shattered Rentir and remolded him in his own image. He was the ringleader of so much suffering, and he didn’t even have the decency to be conflicted about it. Kliath had probably done one tenth of the damage this male had, and yet he had been the first to throw himself on her mercy, to beg for some path to redemption. But Tellefan? He was only inconvenienced.

Rentir’s suffering meant nothing to him. The death, the pain, the cruel control—it was nothing but some nine-to-five slog to pay for his lordly chateau back on Auretia. That’s what all these hybrid lives were worth to him.

“They should have kept you cloistered away,” he ranted, his grip on her hair turning unbearable. “Hidden in the homes of your fathers and mates, where you belong! You have no right to influence things as you have! Parasites!”

This again?

I did not travel so many thousands of light years to listen toone more manspout his fucking misogyny.

Her fury was a cold thing, throbbing in her veins, giving her an unshakable clarity. “Tellefan.”

He leaned back, eyes narrowing on her.

“You talk too much.”

He drew a hand back to slap her, but she pressed the muzzle of her blaster against his ribs and pulled the trigger. With a crowing sound of agony, he released her, staggering back, buying her the precious few seconds she needed to turn toward the flight controls and shove them forward. She slammed the thrusters to maximum output. They all went flying as theGidalan’s engines turned over with a vengeance, nosediving for the planet’s surface.

For a moment, she was simply floating, drifting in space with no sense of orientation. Then she slammed against the floor as the ship’s gravity drive corrected, sliding toward the tangle of Tellefan and his remaining guards.

“Kill her!” he shrieked, one hand pressed to his ribs. “Kill that human bitch!”

One regained his footing and charged at her, and she pointed her blaster at him, realizing too late that her hand was empty. Her vision darted, but there was no trace of the weapon. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for what was coming, too afraid to see it unfold.