“Asmoded,” Jaxin barked, “Rally the troops. Something’s going down in the sky. Sin’s lady is in trouble.” More was said but it was just rushing in my ears, my blood racing, pulse pounding. I didn’t know what to do, how to deal with this. If Val was bigger and stronger, perhaps we could leap into the sky and race to her rescue. My symbiont tossed her head back into the air and howled, an angry, resentful, mournful howl.
Time seemed to freeze as I stood there, knowing I could do nothing. And then… abruptly, everything changed. Val, my ever-loyal but always painful companion, screeched in such agony that she convulsed and fell to the ground. I’d never seen that happen before, and I threw myself onto my knees at her side and scrambled to gather her in my arms. “No, Val, what’s happening? What struck you?” Nothing could do this, not as far as I knew. There was no threat a symbiont could not rise above, no weapon that could truly harm her for long. This, though… this looked like she was about to die. Her body lay limp after the initial shock, trembling from effort. She whimpered pitifully, and now I was the one who wanted to toss back their head and howl at the sky.
“What’s happening?” Jaxin asked, not unkindly. I shrugged helplessly, but Mandy had no answers for us, and Val was out cold. All I knew was that whatever had happened on the ship was bad enough to have taken out Val’s presence there. It was the only explanation for her reaction here; which meant Frederique was in deadly peril.
Then the word came that Ysa had put Frederique aboard a shuttle and sent her down here to us. Hope surged in my chest, did that mean she was safe from the threat on the ship? But no, Ysa was certain whatever deadly thing had attacked had followed the shuttle down—perhaps even hitched a ride. I knew then—knew exactly what it was we were dealing with.
“Their containment was flawed,” I snarled at Ysa through Jaxin’s comm channel. The Rummicaron yanked his wrist away from me so I couldn’t hurl more of the furious vitriol spilling from my mouth in her direction. I snapped my mouth shut—this wasn’t helping anyone, least of all Frederique or Val. “It’s from that damn water world,” I added more calmly. “A freak mutant thing. It must have been on the shuttle I returned with, which means it can survive outer space…” Which meant that if it was on the ship bringing Frederique here, it would survive that trip too. Where was she?
“Mitnick, you have the ship on sensors?” I demanded, hailing him on my own comm device. Val was rousing, shaking herself out and rising to unsteady feet. She shifted through several forms before settling back into a Gracka. She was pointing her snout in one direction and my body was turning the same way.
“Three clicks due west,” Mitnick responded immediately. “It’s coming down hard, Sin.” I was running before he’d finished the statement, throwing all caution to the wind and racing through dark underbrush, past trees overgrown with heavy sheets of vines. Jaxin was keeping pace with me—barely—while Val’s sleek hound body streaked ahead. “Coming down hard” could only mean one thing: it was about to crash.
We heard the ship streaking through the sky, then crashing into the jungle’s massive overhead canopy, but we could not see it through the dense foliage. With Val’s aid, I shaped blades for my hands and cut a path through the worst of it, cursing at every delay. And then it struck the ground, the deep blow to the earth reverberating up my legs and settling with dread deep in my gut. Too late. I was too late, again. Just like on the planet where I’d found her, I was too late to protect her.
Jaxin was still behind me and swore loudly. Then, with a roar—“Duck!”—he fired his laser cannon as I dove aside on reflex, carving a path through the dense growth. I took off like a shot next, careening through the smoking, partially burning tunnel toward where we’d heard the ship go down.
I saw the smoke before I saw the ship, and then I saw the shadows that weren’t natural—weren’t just the tree branches overhead. It was that thing again, the creature from the deep, mutated from the traitor who had brought Frederique’s ship down. He was responsible for bringing this ship down, and the bastard had now pulled her from the wreck. He was holding her in his writhing tentacles, peering down at her with his eerie, human face.
I saw no sign of Val’s other half, not even in glints of silver on Frederique’s neck and wrists. It was as if she was not there. Had that part of my symbiont truly vanished? I did not linger on the possibility. There was no way I was going to fail my mate a third time. Iwouldrescue her, and then I’d tell her everything. No doors locked, no holding back. She could ask me anything, as long as I knew she was safe.
Leaping over a broken tree onto the wrecked nose of the small flyer, I flew at the creature with a roar of fury. Val flowed over me as protective armor and pooled around my hands into razor-sharp blades. Her Gracka form leapt with me, crashing into tentacles and shadow made flesh.
Frederique was unconscious, her head lying back at an awkward angle as he held her sideways in his arms. Her body lay across the bastard’s chest, protecting him; he was cowardly using her as a shield. I was so furious, I acted on instinct rather than finesse as I attacked. My only focus was to get my mate from him, to get her back in my arms where she was safe. I should have killed this guy when I had the chance, back on that damn Earth ship. I was forever going to regret that I hadn’t.
We traded blows, but he was backing away, trying to slip into the jungle and escape with his prize. I could not risk harming Frederique, which made the task that much harder. And then, abruptly, the freak must have figured out that there was no escape. It might have been Jaxin circling around behind him, and Val coming at his flank from the left. He was trapped.
His eyes went to mine as if he knew I was the biggest threat, or the one with the most to lose. Those eyes were no longer like human eyes but black like ink, dotted with red sparks: eerie, mean, dangerous. Even though I knew I was invulnerable inside my symbiont-enhanced armor, a prickle of unease shot down my spine. I felt threatened, like that bastard intended. As long as he held Frederique, Iwasthreatened, and he knew it.
His tentacles rose around him, swirling in the air. Jaxin was shouting at him to drop Frederique or he’d shoot, and he’d even put down Bex, his laser cannon, to make the threat with a pistol.That was good, because one shot from Bex would obliterate my mate, and it might not even kill this freaky, tentacled bastard. Val snarled, adding to the tension, and then Frederique stirred, her head lifting, eyes blinking in confusion.
He struck so fast that the tentacle was a blur, even to my sharp eyes. I roared, leaping forward, Val’s armor around me shifting and extending—anything to reach her before he did. But I was too slow. The tentacle struck her chest, and she gasped, shooting up in his arms. I was certain she’d spew blood, a gaping hole appearing in her chest. A deadly blow, far more than my fragile little human could take, or my symbiont could heal.
Striking fast, everything I’d extended from my armor sliced while my hands reached for my mate and hauled her to safety. I didn’t even look to see if the creature was dead, the threat neutralized; all my attention was on Frederique. She was still gasping, struggling for air, and by some miracle no blood stained her mouth. I raked my fingers through the sweater she wore, which was soft and fluffy and stained with soot. It tore like paper, revealing one of my silk shirts beneath, but no gaping wound.
I would have torn that open anyway, just to be sure, but she caught my wrist with a weak, trembling hand. “I’m fine,” she wheezed at me, sounding anything but fine. I snarled, terrified that she was dying, but I somehow couldn’t see the wound. “Look,” she added with a gasp, and her hand dropped to the collar of the shirt. And there, curled against her skin, was the rest of Val, the tiny piece of her she’d left behind with my mate to guard her.
Oh… Blazing stars. She was fine. Val had been there, protecting her from the blow. She was just winded from the force and probably already being healed. She was fine. I yanked her close, tightly against my chest, my breathing as ragged as hers. I could barely believe it—the moment that bastard struck her still flashing through my mind on a loop. He had meant to kill her, and he’d nearly succeeded.
“I’m okay, Sin,” she said again, and still the words didn’t sound real to me. I had to check again, my hand gliding over her uninjured chest and belly, feeling the sleek warmth of Val protectively shielding her skin. That piece of Val hadn’t died, hadn’t disappeared; it had just hidden. I stroked her flesh again, feeling the edges where Val began and where it was just soft human skin beneath her clothes.
I scanned her face, but even her breathing had begun to ease. Her curls formed a messy halo around her head, her face was smudged with ashes, and her green eyes were huge. She was beautiful, and I was damn well never going to leave her side again. I’d chain her to me if I had to. “You stole my shirt,” I snapped, because damn if I knew what to say at a moment like this.
Her eyes grew soft, filled with tears, and I was certain I’d said the wrong thing. Of course, snapping about my shirts was the worst thing to say, and it didn’t matter one bit. She could have all my damn shirts, tear them, wrinkle them, sleep in them. I opened my mouth to rush out something else, anything had to be better than the mess I’d just caused after she’d nearly died. Sensitive, sweet words—that’s what she deserved—but I didn’t know any of those.
“I love you too, Sin,” she said, in one blow striking all thoughts from my mind and sending me into a tailspin I couldn’t possibly escape. Love you too? She said that as if I were the one who’d said it first, as if she knew what was in my heart when I had not even managed to think such sentiments to myself. That brazen, bold, beautiful female. She said she loved me, like it was simple, easy, and as if I deserved it.
I must have stared with my mouth open like an idiot for a bit too long, because she smiled. Her hand was still trembling when she raised it to cup the edge of my jaw. “It’s really okay, Sin. Now let’s get out of here, shall we? I think we need to talk—privately,” she added with a pointed tone and narrowed eyes when she realized Jaxin was right next to us, shamelessly leaning in to catch every word.
I rose to my feet slowly, and I did not let go of my mate. Thankfully, she did not protest, but curled herself against me, arms draped around my neck, breasts pressed against my chest, her head coming to rest against my shoulder. That felt good. She said she loved me. She acted like that was a fact of life, not something so absurd it couldn’t possibly be true. I had to have heard her wrong, and my voice was gruff, angry that she might have fooled me that way. “Say it again!”
She did not pretend not to understand, her eyes going soft and sweet, so damn sweet it made my stomach grow all twisty and hollow. “I love you, Sin,” she said, repeating what I wanted to hear without a hint of self-consciousness and, bravely, also without any worry I’d reject her. I couldn’t. Doing that had not worked out, and I was never making that mistake again. Selfishly, I wanted all that love she was offering so freely, Iwanted it, even if it would make Val more sick, and how terrible was that?
Jaxin made a coughing noise, drawing our attention discreetly, and I growled at him in reflex anyway. “What?” I was already tucking Frederique more tightly into my arms and urging more of Val to slide over her protectively. Nothing could harm her if I held her this way. To protect her, I needed to get my head back on straight. We were on Xio, and that tentacled freak was not the only danger on this world.
I scanned around us, just as Jaxin pointed with the barrel of his laser cannon. The area around the crashed flyer was smoldering and smoking, but the fire was going out. Between the trees where I’d sliced the water world freak to ribbons, his body still lay in a pile of black, pink, and blue. It had already begun to smell, foul and penetrant. The scent was utterly revolting and powerful. It masked anything else that might be present inside the jungle. But then, whatever was watching us from the shadows had no scent to track anyway.
Most of Val now coated my mate and me, but she was still maintaining the small, dainty shape of a Fantreal horse. Her tail flicked, and her sensitive ears pointed forward in the same direction Jaxin was looking. “What is it?” Frederique asked, noticing the same. She spoke in a whisper, well aware of the sudden danger that clung to the air.
