The severity of the situation sank into Isobel’s bones like winter’s cold bite. “Youkilledtwo men. And Iwitnessedit, 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 killher.“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.Hiscraft, 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 wasstaring 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.
Chapter 5
Ved
Ved had been in countless hand-to-hand battles in his life. Had seen a variety of weapons and fighting styles all across the galaxy. But never had his opponent wielded a tome like a weapon, much less thrown it directly at his face.
The idea was so difficult to comprehend that the book hit true to its mark, thudding against his helmet. He caught it in his hand, and the small female’s eyes widened. She then dashed, rather slowly, toward the exit of his ship.
“An impressive hit,” Exxo commented, humor coloring his artificial tone.
Ved grunted.Exxo had witnessed enough violent encounters to know that not just anyone dared to start a fight with him. Hardened warriors had cowered before Ved in the past. The fact that this tiny female had taken him by surprise was more of a feat than she would ever realize.
Her form, glowing bright in his thermal vision, moved across the crash site, heading straight toward his cloaked dead opponent. A yelpsounded a moment later as she kicked the body’s armor-plated shin and tripped. When she gathered herself again, she was limping.
She reminded him of the gentle grazing creatures who had somehow found their way to the harsh planet of Runus trying to run from the vicious vorgs.
When he’d first spotted her, he hadn’t been expecting her to follow him inside the Clan Rax ship. In that moment, he’d been too fully taken with bloodlust to care what she did. Then she was behind him, chattering in her strange language.
“Her self-preservation took three percent longer to kick in than most species. That does not bode well for the survival rate of her kind,” Exxocommented, breaking Ved’s concentration. “But as exhilarating as this has all been, are we going to do something about her?I would like to analyze her linguistic and biological compositions further. The data may help me understand our location.”
Ved had been tracking her with his thermals, but as she rushed into the surrounding trees, her form became spotty amongst the vegetation. Activating his cloaking mechanism, he set off after her.
Once he crossed the clearing, he spotted her once more. She had halted, as if stuck, before she took off again, considerably slower this time. When Ved reached the spot, there was only a muddy puddle with something stuck inside. Crouching, he pulled the item up. It was covered in soft material the same light blue color as her garb, although it was now stained from the sludge.
Footwear? But it was so small.
Tossing it aside with a huff, he stood back up.
Though her heat signature was nowhere to be found, he had little concern about locating her. She couldn’t hide from him. Her breathing was too loud, her scent too strong. A strange scent it was, too. He couldn’t quite pinpoint the elements of it. Beyond the bitterlayer of fear, there was something floral and delicate there. Such scents didn’t cling to the bodies in Cleave. There, it was salt and metal, blood and dirt.
It wasn’t much of a hunt, but he found her all the same.
He rounded on her hiding spot slowly, studying her as he did. She sat on the ground with her back pressed against a tree, taking off her other shoe. Her chest heaved heavily from running, and her eyes darted every so often to her surroundings. Searching for him. She blew a thick strand of dark hair out of her face—hair that coiled like the vines cloaking the forest near Cleave. Her efforts were pointless as the curl fell back into her face.
When she stood, he took it as his cue and decloaked paces away from her. The moment she spotted him, she was drenched with dread. The scent was out of place on her, wrong. But more interesting was the curiosity sitting as a question in her dark eyes.
