His dark brows drew together as he spoke again. She shrugged. He began muttering to himself, his eyes searching her. She looked down, following his gaze.
Her white shirt and short boxers were all but see-through, soaked and clinging to her. They were stained black and red in places, some combination of grease and blood from sliding around the ship. Her bare flesh was a mess of scratches and scrapes, and there was a cut on her left forearm that was bleeding sluggishly but insistently. She pressed it against her stomach, letting the ruined fabric of her shirt soak it up.
He said something softly, prying at her arm and turning it over to inspect it. She struggled against him again, pulling it back. He released the limb, sucking in a sharp breath andsqueezing his eyes shut as his hands hovered uncertainly in the air.
Something pressed against her butt, hard and insistent. When she made a low sound of realization, it twitched. She scrambled out of his lap, kneeing him in the stomach in her desperation to get clear of him. He grunted, but he didn’t complain.
The craft listed to one side, and she nearly head-butted him. Her hand slid into his lap as she tried to catch herself, brushing hard over what was clearly an erection. She snatched her hand back, gripping the buttery fabric of the seat to keep it from happening again.
The lights in the cabin turned red. There was an angry, insistent beeping followed by a chain of alien words played repetitively as the hovercraft bucked.
He cursed, adjusting himself roughly with one hand as the other reached for the door they’d just come through.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
He looked back at her, leaning in to tug something from over her head. Twin straps stretched over her shoulders, and he handed her what looked like some kind of metal latch. She patted around the seat between her legs until she found a place to insert the harness, and he waited until it clicked before turning back to the door.
Sitting forward, she had a clear view out of the front windshield. There was a huge, jet-black ship hovering above them, dangling a massive chain that held the waterloggedCassandraover the water. TheCassandradropped free, plummeting into the water with a gigantic splash. Water frothed and bubbled over it as it sank once more, and the chain retracted back into the ship above them.
Her alien rescuer braced his feet on either side of the frame as the vehicle jerked again, and the door popped open.Something flicked through the air behind him. Stunned, she realized he hadn’t been dangling from a rope earlier—he’d been hanging by his tail, a long, prehensile limb densely covered in dark purple spots. The last several inches closest to the tip were covered in gleaming black scales.
He pulled a strange, sleek gun a little bigger than a pistol from his thigh and aimed it at the tentacle that was warring with the hovercraft. The creature was trying to pull them under as the vehicle insistently attempted to right itself. Cordelia braced a hand against the door closest to her to keep from smacking the side of her head against it as she was jerked around like a rag doll.
A shrill droning grew louder and louder, and then a burst of red-hot energy discharged from the alien’s weapon. It seared a massive hole clean through the meaty tentacle, and the creature released the hovercraft with a shriek. The door slid shut once more, and her alien rescuer stowed his weapon, bracing himself as the hovercraft righted itself.
Straightening his clothes, he turned to grin at her, flashing a mouth full of fangs. All those gleaming, sharp teeth triggered a primal fear in her brain. When she didn’t return the smile, his withered, and he cleared his throat in a surprisingly human gesture of awkwardness.
He turned away to situate himself on the bench seat, his legs so long that even in the ample space, Cordelia felt crowded. She watched in numb silence as he deftly buckled himself in beside her. He tapped a few words on the heads-up display that overlaid the front window, and a set of controls emerged from the dash in front of him. Once he took control, they passed through the shadow of the larger ship, leaving it behind in pursuit of land.
CHAPTER 3
A female.
Rentir had founda female. He bit down on his bottom lip to keep himself from grinning with excitement again. She hadn’t liked the sight of his teeth. Perhaps it was a sign of aggression to her species.
He and the other hybrids had been bickering for two years about what was on the odd alien ship they’d found drifting through space on their radars. In the end, none of them had come close to the truth.
There were no females on Yulaira. Rentir wouldn’t have even known what she was if not for spending so much time in Haerune’s medical lab as he sifted through the limited records in the system.
She was so…alien.
Her body was all soft swells that strained against the fabric of her clothing. There were no scales nor velvety fur on her skin, which was so pale he could see the blue veins that ran beneath it. Her hair was deep brown, like the bark of the green-leaved phyla trees that littered the mountains.
She looked up at him from beneath the fringe of her lashes as though she could feel his gaze upon her. Her strange eyes weresmall and blue with an unsettling white border, and her pupils were round.
Like the Aurillon.He pushed the thought away, refusing to taint his image of her.
She was not auretian. She lacked the pointed ears, the sharp canines, the desaturated hues of their skin. No seam split her chin. When her tongue flicked out to wet her chapped lips, it had not been pointed. She was somethingother, something unfamiliar that must have evolved under similar circumstances.
He flicked the button to silence the blaring warnings that one of the propellers was damaged and on the brink of failure. The way the female was cringing made it clear the noise was hurting her ears as much as it did his.
“Rentir,” a voice barked over the intercom, startling the female.
Rentir glared at the console. “I’m here,” he replied, steering the hovercraft away from the tantrum of the ateela below. Did she know how close she had been to a miserable death?
Lidan’s remote piloting skills were second to none, but her ship had been so damaged in the crossfire with the Aurillon that he hadn’t been sure he could land it at all. They had watched the escape pods launch, assuming that the crew were all safe, but Rentir had noticed that there were still signs of life on board. Lidan had done all he could, but the best he could do in the end was crash it as gently as possible.
“Status report,” Thalen demanded.
