Page 5 of The Dreamer and the Deep Space Warrior (Xaal Alien Romance #1)

Isobel

By the time Isobel reached the crash-made clearing, the sun had fallen well below the horizon of trees. It left the sky bruised with deep purples and gray shadows. She felt only the briefest concern about the falling darkness and her half-hour trek home before inquisitiveness overpowered it.

Isobel peered at the wreckage from between two trees. This close, the crashed objects were even larger than she could have imagined.

Were these what shooting stars looked like when they reached their final destination?

A metal-on-metal sound rent the night, the only noise that differed from the crackling and hissing coming from the doomed objects themselves.

Odd—they almost reminded her of … ships?

Stepping further into the clearing, she looked between the two vessels, trying to figure out where the noise originated from.

Smoke as black as night danced off the obsidian one, so she gave it a wide berth.

Only when she rounded on the second craft did she find what was making all the racket.

Well, who, actually .

She froze. She hadn’t considered that people could be on the objects burning through the sky. Was that even possible?

Not twenty paces from her, the aforementioned who was attempting to pry a piece away from the silver vessel, which groaned in protest. Isobel’s mouth went dry at the sight of him.

She didn’t know men could reach such sizes—he was huge.

It was extraordinary, really, and he was thick, so unlike the lean gentlemen of Dorsent.

Stranger still, he wore dark and unfamiliar garb that followed the contour of his body, and a helmet that covered his entire face.

It was as though he were wearing a suit of armor, except he appeared nothing like the knights she read about, either fictional or historical. Whereas such suits didn’t show a hint of the wearer’s strength or form, his shaped to every curve of muscle.

No, not a knight. Instead, he reminded her of the ancient gods from myths she’d devoured in her youth.

He simply seemed otherworldly, his presence all-consuming.

But something about him also screamed predator.

Danger exuded from him, setting off some primal instinct that her mind didn’t know but her body remembered.

She shook off the feeling before her imagination ran wild. “Sir, are you—” she started, raising a hand to wave, but the smoky air made the words crack and die in her throat.

Isobel stepped closer, but then he looked at her. His helmet fully concealed his face, but she could tell where his eyes were as the covers over them burned a fiery red. He tilted his head expectantly, but she couldn’t seem to find her manners.

She had the very sudden feeling that she was being observed in a way beyond her understanding.

The stranger came to some decision as he turned back to his task at hand, bracing a foot against the side of the craft and prying at the metal.

She stepped closer to him just as he forced the thick piece away.

He looked her way again briefly before tossing the debris aside like it was nothing.

Then, with what sounded like a snarl, he swiftly disappeared inside.

Clenching her fists, Isobel considered what she should do.

Logic warred with emotion, creating a jumbled mess inside her mind.

Whatever had happened, whoever was here, this disaster probably required medical personnel and people with more expertise than her.

Should she go back and alert the proper authorities?

She worried at her bottom lip as she weighed her options. Retrieving a doctor from Cinder would take some time. Besides, something told her to investigate, and her quickly beating heart was a chant to follow him.

She moved forward determinedly, only to step in a muddy puddle. “ Oooh ,” she hissed, pulling up her skirts and stomping around it. She would have to attempt to sneak in the back door when she got home if she didn’t want to hear about her dirty shoes from Henry.

“Hello?” she called into the dark interior. Crackling preceded flickering lights that came from above with no discernable flame. However, they revealed a circular chamber filled with odd coils and sealed crates.

Isobel was certain that stars held no such items. The closest thing it brought to mind was a blacksmith’s dark storeroom, or the cargo hold of a ship.

But why had such a thing been flying? That was the real question.

“Hello? Are you well?” she asked into the flickering darkness. When no one answered her, she stepped fully inside.

Following a short pathway around a bend, she found the man who’d been outside framed in a threshold. Before she could reach him, though, he pushed into the space ahead of him.

“Excuse me,” she said as she stepped over some mangled thing she couldn’t identify.

A rumbling noise came from him. It sounded like words, but none she had ever heard of before. A foreigner, then. That would explain the strange attire, at least.

It didn’t, however, explain anything else.

Someone else responded to him, the sound muffled and full of gurgling. Whoever it was, she couldn’t see them past the broad man before her.

Managing to get within two steps of him without tripping over the uneven floor, she noticed dark liquid dripping from him. She followed the drops up to his arm and tilted her head, peering closer at it.

Dark Armor looked over his shoulder at her.

“You’re hurt,” she said hoarsely, reaching out to almost touch his arm. But his head snapped up as something banged and clattered in the hallway behind them.

Isobel didn’t have time to take in what was happening before Dark Armor circled her waist with his huge hands and picked her up. He pivoted, then set her down again with a little shove that sent her tumbling to the floor unceremoniously.

Before she could recover, another fully armored man collided violently with Dark Armor.

In contrast, the newcomer’s apparel was silver, making it easy to tell them apart.

Not that it did her much good. They wrestled in the enclosed space, and a sudden need to move, to escape, overwhelmed her senses.

She crawled backward, away from the brawl, only to collide with—

Another person. She’d forgotten Dark Armor had been speaking to someone beforehand. Said person—also dressed head to toe in silver—pushed up from a high-backed chair, brandishing a crude knife.

Her heart dropped at the sight of the blade—far too close for comfort. So, it was Dark Armor alone against these two .

What was happening? This was unlike any brawl or duel she’d heard about. She needed to get out. Now.

Before Isobel could move, though, the silver giant swiped her away with his boot. The shove sent her sliding sideways so aggressively she hit a wall with an audible thunk .

The impact shook Isobel out of her uncharacteristic shock-filled state.

Damn it all. She forced herself upright, untangling her skirts as the cramped interior echoed with snarls and violence.

Just as she cast about to orient herself toward the exit, the one with the knife staggered a step forward, toward Dark Armor.

Dark Armor was fighting fiercely but hadn’t noticed the second opponent stand up.

“Look out!” Isobel called instinctively.

She didn’t know why she did what she did next. Some strange loyalty to Dark Armor because he’d ensured she wasn’t in the way, perhaps, or a sudden onset of insanity—but she stuck her foot out in front of the man with the knife.

He tripped.

Or almost did. He caught himself heavily on his other leg. Then his head snapped to look at her. A red haze around his eyes, similar to that of Dark Armor’s, illuminated his shiny helm. It made him appear like the Devil himself.

She was incredibly foolish.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked as he turned fully toward her. Curiosity truly would be the death of her; she could practically hear Henry’s lecturing tone ringing in her head.

But just as the silver-clad brute brought his weapon up to end her life, Dark Armor swung around, bringing his current opponent with him and shoving him into her assailant. The three of them crashed to the floor beside her, making the entire structure shake with the impact.

Go, go, go , her hammering heart urged. Keeping her eyes on all three huge men, she side-stepped toward the exit. The space was considerably smaller than it had seemed, especially with all of them filling it, and she wanted to be as far away from them as possible.

She’d made it only four steps when Dark Armor’s first opponent gained his footing. The other remained motionless on the floor. She swallowed hard, looking for any rise of his chest, but found none.

He was dead.

And she had helped murder him.

Bile burned her throat as she stepped back, her eyes unable to leave the dead body.

Dark Armor closed in on his remaining adversary with his own weapon now drawn. He was much larger than his opponent, so it was easy to imagine he might have the upper hand. But as he swung, Silver Armor kicked him, sending him stumbling back. Isobel tried to move out of the way, but—

She stepped on the hem of her gown and slipped. The fabric made an awful rending sound as she crashed into the interior’s metal siding, her temple and cheek colliding with a sharp edge.

Agony shot through her head and down her face.

Stars exploded in her vision. She felt herself tilting against the siding, and barely caught herself before falling completely.

It took her several excruciating seconds to regain her sight and what was left of her balance.

She brushed shaking fingertips over the injury.

They came away covered in red.

That would be nearly impossible to explain to her brother.

If she made it home alive.

A cry drew her attention to the wrestling pair again. Dark Armor brought his blade down into a weak point in the other’s chest plate.

It sank to the hilt .

Silver Armor’s roar was deafening, even as it cut off with a gurgle.

But he wasn’t dead yet. As he reached blindly for something to the side, Isobel followed his grappling fingers to a table covered in and filled with flickering lights and knobs. He tapped a sequence, and the table made a noise like an ill-tuned piano.

Finally, a groan shook his chest. Then he crashed to his knees and slumped over.

Dead.

Dark Armor growled something and turned as the metal panel began to steam and pop, filling the space with a burning smell. It was melting.

“How the devil…” Isobel cursed. She wanted to move, to run, but her body didn’t obey any of the commands she gave it.

That was until Dark Armor pinned her with those glowing red lights where his eyes should be. Her survival instinct finally kicked in, and she backed away, only for him to approach her quicker. He grabbed her without hesitation.

She screeched as he picked her up and threw her over his very broad shoulder. As she struggled against him, she lifted her head. It wasn’t only the panels and tables melting, she realized with horror. The men he’d killed—as well as everything surrounding them—were melting, too.

Dark Armor’s long, sure strides took them out of the metal storage room quicker than she would have been able to move on her own.

And by the time they were outside, halfway between the two wrecked vessels, there was very little left of the one they’d just escaped.

The only indication that it had been there at all was the caustic aroma it’d left behind.

Things didn’t simply melt without flame. Things also didn’t fly. Nor did they fall out of the sky with violent, armored men on them, either.

The severity of the situation sank into Isobel’s bones like winter’s cold bite. “You killed two men. And I witnessed it, became an accomplice, even, and they’re going to—” She suddenly felt quite hysterical and dizzy as she sucked in a deep breath.

She’d witnessed a homicide. And said murderous giant was carrying her away.

He was going to kill her. “Put me down at once,” she hissed through heaving exhales.

When he made no response nor movement to do so, she hit his back with a fist. He was covered in armor, though, and all she managed to do was come away with an aching wrist. The blood from her wound streamed into her hairline, and she could feel her strength waning.

She was going to die.

Still gasping like a dying fish when he abruptly released her, she fell in a heap in the darkly lit interior of yet another craft. His craft, she had a feeling. He turned his back on her, opening a compartment and rummaging around inside of it.

Isobel got her feet under her and stood up, quite unladylike, all while keenly aware of the predator mere paces away.

Her heavy breaths echoed ominously in the space.

No one knew where she was. Clara and Henry wouldn’t be home yet, and if by some chance they were, they’d assume she was abed and wouldn’t bother to check.

Bolting and running all the way back to the house was her only option.

Attempting stealth, she tried to inch around Dark Armor. She could partially make out the hatch they must have entered from. When she looked to her captor to see if his back was still turned, he was staring at her with that damn glowing gaze. Shivers skittered down her spine.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, her voice cracking.

That was when she felt the novel she had tucked into her sewn-in pocket.

She pulled it out, which only earned her a head tilt from her captor.

It wasn’t much of a weapon against his armor and blades, but it was better than nothing.

She cleared her throat. “My family will be looking—”

Jagged, gnarled words came from him.

Right, a foreigner. She pointed to the exit and took a large sidestep toward it.

It was a small mercy that he wasn’t standing between her and it.

Not that it mattered. His body tensed, and she knew he was preparing to pounce on her and probably crush her to death beneath the sheer weight of himself, so she did the only thing she could think to do.

She threw the novel at his face.