“Good luck, General,” Vanity tells Saxon. “May your mission be bloody.”
It’s a traditional Vilaxian war ritual to wish for a bloody mission.
Lila wrinkles her nose but keeps her mouth shut.
“We aren’t expecting any trouble. I’m pretty sure if there were any more moles left on the ship, they would have left with Lester and Smith, but just in case, stay alert,” Xavier says.
“Let’s go. It’s nighttime in Nevada, and I want to use the cover of darkness to slip into the tunnels unseen.” Brannock leads the way down to the teleporter room and programs the coordinates. He’s having it drop us a few hundred yards from the tunnel, and we will make the rest of the trek on foot. He isn’t sure if they have security cameras covering the tunnels and wants to be certain before we breach the compound. There is no point in setting off the alarms before we even set foot in it.
The team steps up onto the platform, and I see Lila shiver. Xavier puts his arm around her. “Use the emotions and adrenaline to fuel your righteous fury,” he tells her.
He can obviously feel her reluctance to kill and is giving her a pep talk. I grab the remote that we need to send us, and then I return again, shoving a couple of extras in my pocket just in case. They are automatically programmed to return to the ship in case of an emergency, you just hit the red button.
My heart races as Brannock steps up onto the platform, his eyes glazed with anticipation and his body primed with adrenaline. He shed his glamour, and his spines shiver with agitation. It wouldn’t take much to push him into berserker mode.
“Hold it together a little longer,” I tell him, clamping a hand on his shoulder next to one of the lethal spikes.
He nods, and we dematerialize. He’s about to see his precious girl for the first time in months, and God help anyone who gets in his way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lila
We materialize in the desert, setting down at a spot slightly away from the tunnel entrance. The cold, crisp, fresh air hits my senses, and I drag lungfuls of it in as we assess our surroundings. Breathing fresh air again makes me realize just how much my life has changed over the last six months.
When I was getting dressed, preparing to assault a military base and free some captive aliens, it really hit me that my life has changed dramatically. Gone is the drifting, unhappy female who didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, and in her place is a mother, a wife, and a CEO of a large corporation who will defend her family and way of life at the expense of everything else.
I got a message while I was doing up the laces on my combat boots. It was a note from Cronus and Xylene, wishing us luck on our incursion. It also contained a picture. The photo was of the two of them and the two people I now recognize as my parents. They are dressed up in Halloween costumes as the Scooby gang. Cronus and Xylene are Fred and Daphne, and my parents areShaggy and Velma. In their arms is a toddler dressed as Scrappy Doo, and Xavier stands in front of them in a Scooby costume with a scowl on his face. Everyone is smiling at the camera but Xavier. His pout would put Hali to shame.
We always came to Earth to celebrate Halloween with your family. We liked to go in group costumes. Xavier was not a fan of this year’s costume, but you looked adorable. Your parents would be so proud of the woman you have become, as are we.
A tear trickled down my face as I read it. Xavier’s parents really are wonderful, and I’m blessed to be a part of their family.
I studied the photo, smiling even though I don’t remember it. My dad was the spitting image of my grandpas, and it was kind of weird to see. He wore his hair slightly shaved at the sides and longer on top, and in this image, it was completely tousled to mimic Shaggy, but his eyes were the same shade of green as mine.
My mother looked to be wearing a black wig. I’m pretty sure Gigi said I was the spitting image of her, so she must have had hair the same color as mine used to be. Her eyes were hidden behind black-rimmed glasses, but I thought they were hazel. She was shorter than my dad and curvy in all the right places much like I am.
Although I was happy to have the image, seeing it was bittersweet. I’m never going to know these people. Looking at them hurt, but someday, it wouldn’t, so I saved the image, closed the tablet, and finished my preparation.
“Lila, are you okay?” Ghosie asks me, bringing me back to the present.
“Yeah. Sorry, just getting my bearings and breathing in the fresh air. It’s a shock every time,” I tell him, and he nods, some of the worry in his eyes fading.
I look around, and the guys are all on high alert. The moon is full and bright in the sky, lighting up the landscape like a floodlight. Brannock has a pair of binoculars in his hands and is looking at something in the distance.
Zeydan is glowing again, drawing in as much power from the earth and surrounding vegetation as he can. He didn’t want to drain the bio level, but here on Earth, he has an unlimited resource.
“What’s the sitrep?” Saxon asks as Brannock lowers the binoculars.
“I don’t see any cameras around the entrance, but I could be wrong. Can you feel with your magic?” he asks Xavier, who nods and sends out a burst of lilac mist. It creeps across the ground like fog, spreading to cover a large area before it drifts in the direction of the tunnels.
“That will alert us to anything in the surrounding area that has an electrical current running through it. It’s also searching the ground for land mines and trip wires and deactivating any of them.”
A small squeak escapes me before I can stop it, and I clamp my lips tightly together in the hope nobody noticed, but alas, that was not the case.
“Are you okay?” Tirrian asks, smoke drifting out of his nose. His dragon is riding him hard. I bet it wants to come out and eat everyone, but this mission is strictly for two-legged forms.
“Yeah, I guess I wasn’t expecting land mines. How naive of me,” I reply dryly, watching Xavier’s mist move eerily across the space between us and the tunnel entrance.
