Page 16

Chapter

Sixteen

Sasha

M y lungs burned as we sprinted up the final ramp to ground level, Deklyn's hand wrapped around mine with an iron grip that made me want to punch him squarely in his perfectly chiseled jaw.

His black hair whipped behind him as he pulled me along like I was some helpless woman rather than a decorated combat pilot.

After so long in captivity, my legs weren’t as strong as they’d been, and the muscles twitched painfully from the exertion.

I cursed the fact that Deklyn needed to pull me, even though I noticed that he’d started to grimace.

Maybe he wasn’t as unaffected by being held prisoner as he wanted me to believe.

"This way," he hissed, yanking me around a corner as heavy footsteps thundered somewhere behind us.

My mind was still reeling from the insanity of our escape.

Playing sick was the oldest trick in the book, but one that apparently worked on reptilian guards with superiority complexes.

Deklyn's execution, however, had been flawless.

The way he'd moved, deflected, and struck with such precise force had been impressive. I’d never seen anything like it.

Not that I'd ever admit that to his face. His ego was already big enough.

We ducked into an empty storage room, the door sliding shut behind us with a soft hiss. The moment we were hidden, I yanked my hand from his grasp, bristling at the presumption.

"You need to stop treating me like some damsel in distress," I snapped, tossing my hair over my shoulder. After months in captivity, it hung past my shoulders in a tangled mess. "I'm a fighter pilot, fully capable of taking care of myself."

Deklyn's lips curved into that infuriating grin that somehow managed to be both mocking and seductive at the same time. "Is that right? Remind me again how many Kronock guards you took down before I arrived?"

I glared at him, hating that he was right. Without him, I'd still be rotting in that cell. As much as it galled me to admit it, I hadn't been able to escape on my own.

"We make a good team," he added, his voice softening slightly. "There's no shame in that."

I rolled my eyes, unwilling to validate his point with a response. My father had drilled self-reliance into Ariana and me since we could walk. "Bowman women don't need rescuing," he'd say during our pre-dawn training sessions. "Bowman women do the rescuing."

The memory of my father sent a familiar tension coursing through my body.

What would he think of me now? I’d been captured during my first major engagement with an alien enemy, imprisoned for months, and required rescue from a cocky alien warrior who seemed to think charm was a tactical advantage.

Not only that, but my dirty uniform sagged from my flesh because of the weight I’d lost, and I was no longer in peak military condition.

Failure, his voice whispered in my head. Not good enough. Never good enough.

I pushed the thought away, focusing instead on Ariana. My little sister who was always so stubborn, so relentless, and so determined to catch up to me. According to Deklyn, she was the reason the Drexians had mounted this rescue operation at all.

A smile tugged at my lips despite our dire situation. For all our childhood rivalry and competition, for all the times I'd wished she'd leave me alone and stop trying to match my every achievement, I was finally grateful to have a pain-in-the-ass sister who never let anything go.

"Tell me more about your mission," I said as we waited for the corridor to clear. "It seems odd they'd send just one person to extract me from a Kronock prison."

Deklyn leaned against the wall, his eyes never leaving the door. "They didn't. I was one of several scouts sent into enemy territory to locate you. Once I confirmed your position, I was instructed to leave and report.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Which you didn’t do.”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t let them continue to hold you while I flew back to safety.”

That would have been touching if it came from anyone but him. I knew it was arrogance and recklessness that drove him. “And the other scouts?”

He shrugged. “Weren’t as good as me.”

A spike of panic shot through me. "My sister wasn't part of the recon mission, was she?" I could easily imagine Ariana insisting on participating, throwing herself into danger with the same reckless determination she'd shown since childhood.

"No," he assured me. "Only Inferno Force warriors were deployed for the initial scouting."

Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by a contradictory wave of disappointment.

As much as the two of us had fought and competed over the years, Ariana was the one person I'd missed most during my captivity.

The one face I'd conjured during the darkest moments to remind myself why I needed to survive.

"You said Ariana is teaching at the Drexian Academy?" I asked, trying to picture my firebrand sister in an instructor's role.

"That's what I heard," Deklyn replied. "My brother works there too, though in a very different capacity."

Something in his tone caught my attention, a slight edge that hadn't been there before. His expression shuttered, the easy confidence replaced by something I couldn't quite read.

Before I could probe further, he was taking my hand again and tugging me toward the door. "Time to move."

I gritted my teeth but didn't resist. Once we were safely away from enemy territory, I'd have plenty of time to remind him that I didn't appreciate being manhandled, no matter how impressive his rescue skills might be.

We moved quickly down the corridor, the Kronock facility echoing with steady footfalls. It sounded like the enemy wasn’t aware of our escape. Not yet, at least. It seemed too good to be true, but I wasn't about to question our luck.

Deklyn slowed as we approached what appeared to be an exit. He pressed his palm against a panel beside the door, and it slid open to reveal the outside world. I frowned at the murky, fog-shrouded landscape that looked almost as inhospitable as the prison.

I prepared myself to rush into freedom, already imagining the feel of unrecycled air in my lungs, no matter how swampy or frigid.

Then I heard a scream. A human female scream.

I grabbed Deklyn's arm, yanking him back from the doorway. "There are more humans in the complex," I said urgently. "We can't leave without them."

For a moment, indecision flickered across his face as he glanced from the path to freedom back toward the interior of the facility where the scream had originated. Then his jaw set in a grim line, and he nodded.

"Do not ever say that you don't get your way," he muttered, checking the charge on his stolen Kronock weapon.

I fought back a smile, refusing to let him see that his acquiescence had raised my opinion of him ever so slightly. "Never crossed my mind."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You know we're probably walking back into a trap, right?"

"Probably," I agreed, taking the lead for the first time since our escape. "But leaving someone behind isn't an option."

"You're as bad as any Inferno Force warrior,” he grumbled, falling in step beside me.

I shot him a sidelong glance. "I'll take that as a compliment."

We retraced our steps deeper into the complex, moving as quietly as our surroundings would allow. The closer we got to the source of the scream, the more tension I could feel radiating from Deklyn's body.

"Do you recognize the voice?" I whispered.

He shook his head. "Not Drexian.”

Another scream echoed through the corridor, closer this time, and my resolve hardened. Whoever these people were, they were suffering the same fate I had endured for months. I couldn't leave them to that nightmare.

"You know, most people would be running in the opposite direction," Deklyn observed dryly.

"I'm not most people."

"I noticed."

I ignored the flutter in my stomach at his tone. This was neither the time nor the place to contemplate why his bad-boy arrogance affected me so strongly, or why the dangerous glint in his eyes made my pulse quicken in ways that had nothing to do with fear.

"Focus," I reminded myself and him, as we approached a heavily reinforced door. I reached for the control panel, but Deklyn caught my wrist, shaking his head.

"We can't just burst in there," he whispered. "We need a plan."

I was about to argue when the door slid open on its own, revealing a Kronock guard stepping out. We flattened ourselves against the wall, barely avoiding detection as the massive reptilian walked the other way.

Before the door could close again, Deklyn wedged his foot in the gap, holding it open just enough for us to see inside.

What I saw made my jaw drop.