Wrenching the blaster from the guard’s hand, I twisted to get a lock on the guard who hadn’t entered the cell. Then my heart sank.
Skye was lying limp on the floor, her arm outstretched and the blaster only a fingertip’s distance out of reach. The Zagrath in the corridor stood with his blaster leveled at me and a cold smile on his face.
“She’s only stunned,” he said. “We do need her alive.”
I calculated the odds of shooting all three guards before the one holding me at blaster point could shoot me, but not even I was fast enough to raise my weapon and fire before he did. And I didn’t know if he would stun me or kill me outright.
“Three armed imperial soldiers against two unarmed prisoners?” The guard shook his head. “I give you full marks for bravery and stupidity.”
The guard I’d disarmed last was already on his feet and snatched his blaster from me, muttering curses under his breath. The other guard got to his feet, shooting me dark looks while he limped around Skye and retrieved his weapon.
“We’d planned to leave you in peace while we took the woman.” The guard aiming at me shook his head. “But that’s not going to work now, is it?”
“We can’t ki—” another guard said.
“I didn’t say I was going to kill him,” the first snapped back. “But we also can’t have him causing any more trouble.”
My gazeslid back to Skye, who lay crumpled on the floor. She’d been right that my plan wouldn’t work, and now she’d paid the price for it. A wave of shame washed over me that I’d failed to protect her—again. She might be a huge thorn in my side, but she didn’t deserve this.
The sight of her unconscious form fired fury in my blood, and I swung my gaze back to the imperial guards, who were now all facing me. If they’d been ordered not to kill me, maybe I had another chance to overpower them. Maybe I could?—
My thoughts were cut off by the sound of a blaster being fired. I recoiled, only realizing as I was falling back that the blaster had been fired at me. I wasn’t recoiling from the sound; I was recoiling from the impact to my chest.
Time slowed to a crawl as my arms flailed for balance and my feet left the ground. Then I was dropping, the guards falling from view as my back slammed to the floor first, followed by my head striking something hard. The metallic clang was the last sound I heard as my vision narrowed, the edges of sight blackening before everything went dark, and nothingness consumed me.
Chapter
Five
Skye
Imoaned as I woke, my entire body aching. I hadn’t thought sleeping on the steel bench in the cell would be a party, but I hadn’t imagined it would make my head throb and my limbs boneless. I attempted to swallow and almost choked. Had I been chewing on cotton?
Trying to sit up, I found my arms pinned to my sides. Blinking heavily, I forced my eyes open.
I wasn’t on the bench in the prison cell. I wasn’t in the prison cell at all.
Blinding light shone in my eyes that didn’t come from any sun, and my arms and legs weren’t heavy from sleep. They were strapped down.
Memories came rushing back to me. The imperial guards coming to the cell, Kolt disarming one and me diving for the blaster on the floor. Then sharp pain and nothing.
I squinted down at myself and saw that I was strapped to some kind of reclining bed or platform. “What the actual fu?—?”
“Ah, you’re awake.”
The voice from the darkness wasn’t rough and hard-edged like the guards, but my gut told me I’d prefer them to whoever was behind the measured tones. I clamped my mouth shut, irritated with myself for revealing that I was conscious.
“Apologies for the way you were brought to me,” the voice continued, irritation clear in his clipped tone. “The plan was for you to be conscious. Not dragged in with blaster burns.”
I flinched at this. Blaster burns? I’d been shot? I couldn’t feel any wounds, but my entire body ached, so they could have been anywhere.
“I don’t blame you. I blame those thugs we call guards.” Anger seethed in his words. “They’ve been properly dealt with, though. That will not happen again, I assure you.”
I still hadn’t responded, and my gut instinct that this man was more dangerous than any of the imperial guards I’d encountered had only been confirmed. Whoever this was, he held power, and he didn’t like to be disobeyed.
The haze in my brain was clearing as the effects from being hit by a blaster faded. Maybe I could use my take on this stranger to my advantage.
“Who are you?” I asked.
