“Kim!” I’m livid, my blood boiling.
“Sorry! This thing is wild. Like a magic carpet ride… should I sing the song? A whole new wooorld—AHHH!”
The Chitin are racing after us, a seething, clicking monster made up of many bodies in flight. Just as they’re gaining on us, Kim accidentally twists the joystick in the wrong direction. We shoot backwards. The Chitin scatter.
“Whoops!” Kim squeaks, and shifts the controller. The skimmer shudders left, right, up, and down. “This thing is sensitive, isn’t it? Like giving a handjob… good thing I’m good with those, right?”
We plummet thirty feet, leaving my heart and stomach hovering in the clouds above us.
“Get us back to the palace,” I roar.
“Fine,” she grumbles. “You don’t want to fight up here anymore?”
“NOW!”
The skimmer continues to drop, shuddering to a halt a few times as Kim figures out how to descend properly. The jerky drop bounces me against the platform over and over. I bite my lip to keep from shouting at her. She’s doing the best she can.
She was supposed to be in the bunker, safe. I could kill her for doing this… but…
She came for me. And she saved my life.
As long as she doesn’t kill us both by crashing the skimmer. We’re not safe yet.
She overshoots the tower. A small, robed figure stands atop it, waving wildly. As we pass, I recognize him—it’s Terral. The Beta watches us zoom past, then rushes to man the guns and shoot down anyone following us.
The skimmer scrapes over the top of a wall, toppling a statue of a long-dead Alpha warrior. The platform tilts, and I grab for the side as I begin to slide off it. The arena is below us. The pink sandy ground is rapidly approaching, along with the dais and the wooden structure holding up the Gong of Honor.
“Aurus!” Kim shrieks. The skimmer hits the sand and starts sliding. The gong and platform loom closer. We’re going to crash—
Bong!
* * *
Kim
There’s a deafening ringing in my ears, but other than that, I’m fine. I crashed the skimmer—again—but luckily, it had slowed enough beforehand for us not to be seriously hurt. Good thing I hit that statue on the way in.
To my right, Aurus is lying in a pile of dented armor. For a moment, I feel a flicker of concern, then he groans and sits up slowly. It would take more than a wild ride on a skimmer to kill him.
And what a wild ride it was.
“That was awesome!” I’m out of breath, laughing. I fucking did it. I saved Aurus, and landed us in the arena. Okay, so it could have been more graceful, but that will come in time. The skimmer lies in scattered pieces on the sand. We hit something… oh. The gong. So that’s what that ringing noise was. Is. The gong is embedded in the wall a few yards away, still quivering. The wooden frame that held it up is in splinters, and the dais it was on did not survive.
But we did.
Adrenaline zings through my veins. I want to run around the arena, crowing. No wonder the Alphas love to fight! It’s fucking awesome.
“Kim!” A roar, and Aurus is on me. His huge body covers me, pinning me to the sand. I get a face full of enraged Alpha.
His teeth are bared, his dark amber eyes wild.
“What were you doing? Why did you risk your life?” He sits up, pulling me into his lap, then shakes me. “Did you even stop to think?”
What the fuck? I just saved this asshat’s life! “I had to do something!” I clutch his arms to steady myself, and yell right back into his face. “Everyone was helping—I wanted to help!”
“You were supposed to stay safe!” His roar blasts my hair back.
“While aliens tried to destroy us? I don’t think so.”
