Page 2 of Stolen By the Wraiths (Rift Wraiths #1)

T he particle rifle rested against my thigh, its weight as familiar as my own heartbeat.

From my booth on the cantina's overhead balcony, I had flawless sight lines to the scene unfolding below.

Corvan Stryd sat across from the human female—Alix Rowe—delivering his final threats with the casual cruelty I'd learned to expect from Kess Vain's operatives.

Through my rifle's enhanced optics, I could see every micro-expression crossing her face.

The slight tightening around her eyes when Stryd used her real name.

The way her fingers shifted position on the table—not quite reaching for her concealed weapon, but preparing for the possibility.

It was the discipline of a professional warring with growing alarm.

Three days of surveillance had taught me her patterns.

How she moved through crowds tracking exits out of habit.

The way she kept her weapon concealed but accessible.

It was the training of someone schooled in survival from childhood, someone who'd learned early that trust was a luxury she couldn't afford.

But it was her scent that had made these three days hell. Even from this distance, traces of it reached me through the cantina's stale air—something uniquely hers beneath the standard human baseline.

It was clean and sharp, carrying undertones that affected my traceries and made my pheromonal glands respond in ways I couldn't control. It wasn't just attraction; it was a deeper, instinctual pull, a resonance my Tsekai biology recognized on a level my conscious mind refused to acknowledge.

Now, through my scope's magnification, I watched Stryd's hand shoot out to grab her wrist. Panic sharpened her scent, a chemical scream that sliced through the cantina's haze and coiled in my gut like a serpent, triggering every protective instinct I possessed.

She was afraid. She was in danger. And the man threatening her worked for the bastard who'd destroyed my unit, killed my brothers-in-arms, and left the survivors to die in the void.

Mission parameters dissolved. Years of training and discipline evaporated like vapor in a vacuum. The only thing that mattered was the woman below and the threat she faced.

My weapon came up without conscious thought, the sight acquiring Stryd's center mass through the scope's targeting reticle. My finger found the trigger and squeezed with steady pressure.

The particle beam made a sharp, contained crack as it discharged.

Distinct from common plasma weapons, it was more precise and infinitely more deadly.

The bolt punched through Stryd's chest, leaving a cauterized hole that steamed in the cantina's humid air.

He looked down at the wound with puzzled surprise, as if he couldn't understand how this had happened, before toppling sideways out of the booth.

One heartbeat of stunned silence. Then, chaos erupted.

"Contact, all positions," I subvocalized into my comm, the neural interface translating my thoughts into encrypted signals. "Primary target down. Initiating extraction."

The cantina exploded into violence as Stryd's three associates scrambled for cover and opened fire on anything that moved. Civilians screamed and dove under tables while my team responded as one, each member anticipating the others' actions.

I vaulted over the back of my booth and dropped twelve feet to the cantina floor, my species' naturally strengthened bones absorbing the impact without difficulty.

The familiar calm of combat settled over me.

My heart rate steadied, my breathing grew controlled, and my vision narrowed to immediate threats and opportunities.

I was designed for this, trained for this, built for this.

The first hostile rounded my cover with his weapon up, his movements too slow and clumsy for someone facing a Tsekai operative.

I put two rounds in his chest before he could acquire me, the impacts spinning him into a table that collapsed under his weight.

His partner tried to flank left, but walked directly into Jessa's line of fire from the opposite balcony.

"Threat, seven o'clock, heavy armor," Jessa's voice cut through the noise, a model of professional calm.

I adjusted my trajectory, using a panicking civilian as mobile cover while sliding behind the bar.

The armored hostile was spraying suppressive fire across the cantina with a heavy repeater, the massive weapon chewing chunks from walls and furniture with each burst. Debris rained down as I calculated angles and timing.

A primitive command echoed from the oldest part of my brain, a part I hadn't known existed until I saw her. The words were not my own, but an instinct roaring to the surface: Mine. Claim. I ruthlessly suppressed the thought. It was an animal thing, something to be caged.

I fired blind over the bar top—three quick shots to force him into cover—which gave Thoryn a clear line of sight from his position near the emergency exit.

The Tamzari's weapon spoke once with a deep, resonant boom that vibrated through the floor.

For a split second, the muzzle flash glinted off the emerald, jewel-toned scales of his arm, a startling flash of beauty amidst the violence.

When the sound faded, the armored figure was crumpled against the far wall.

I flowed toward Alix's position, moving between cover points too fast for human eyes to follow. She'd drawn her plasma pistol, but kept it low, her muzzle discipline intact even in the middle of a firefight.

When I reached her side, she looked up at me with recognition and something else. The scent of her relief washed over me, a wave so potent it momentarily staggered me. My body gave a silent, organic answer to her unspoken plea for safety.

"This way." I shielded her from the remaining threats, one hand guiding her toward our exit route.

The brief contact of my palm against her back sent a current of heat up my arm and straight to my brain, confirming what my biology had been screaming from our first encounter.

Every threat in the galaxy would have to go through me to get to her.

We sprinted down the maintenance corridor, boots ringing on the metal grating. Behind us, the sounds of pursuit reverberated, but they were moving too slowly, thinking too much. Panic made them sloppy while training made us efficient.

"Down!" I shoved Alix through a doorway as plasma fire stitched across the wall where we'd been standing. She rolled with the momentum and came up in a defensive crouch, her weapon trained back the way we'd come.

When she spoke, her voice was shockingly steady. "How many?"

"Two, maybe three. Stay low and follow my lead?—"

She leaned out and fired three quick shots down the corridor, forcing our pursuers to take cover behind a junction box. Her placement was perfect, not trying to kill, just buying us time and space.

"Move," she said, covering our retreat as we crossed to the next section. "I'll watch our six."

We burst into the private docking bay, but it was empty. The klaxons of a station-wide lockdown began to blare, their urgent cries echoing off the metal walls. Red emergency lights pulsed, casting everything in a bloody glow.

My comm crackled. "Ressh, extraction at Docking Bay 7 is blown," Jessa's voice was tight with urgency. "Station's going into lockdown. New rendezvous is Cargo Platform 9, west spire. Get there. We'll find you."