“Nice,” Jenny muttered. She turned back to the window. “Now, what do we do about that?”
His shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. “Nothing. Not anymore.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Uh, no. That’s not an option. What do we do, Karuk? What can they do to you? For real?”
“Kill me.”
“No!” she cried out and started pushing him toward where, she wasn’t sure. The bathroom maybe? Someplace where he’d be out of sight. Where they wouldn’t be able to find him.
“Jenny, there’s nothing we can do. I told you. They would find me.”
“They weren’t supposed to find you the day after we become a couple! It was supposed to be years, maybe even decades later. I will not let you go without a fight. You’re mine!”
“I have been on borrowed time since before I came to the station,” he said. He put his hand on her cheek and leaned down.
The kiss was bittersweet.
Or it would have been, if Phil hadn’t taken that moment to cry out and swing her bat at Karuk.
This time, though, when Karuk caught it, he jerked it out of Phil’s hand.
“Can’t you just stay down, you worm,” Jenny said, glaring at him.
Karuk spun the bat in his hand and was about to hit him with it when the other Dalgurians came in.
“Freeze, Karuk.”
He held the bat in his hand up and turned. “Falkin.”
Falkin shook his head. “Don’t kill the Earthling. We don’t have time to deal with that.” He, like the others, had the gold flecking in the skin, though varying skin tones, but they all looked scary.
Maybe it was the armor.
Or the glowing swords they all carried that vibrated like an unstable lightsaber.
“How did you find me here?”
Falkin raised his eyebrow. “You shouldn’t get listed in galactic databases when you’re trying to hide.”
Karuk sighed and glanced at Jenny. “Tell Re-lee she needs to be more careful with her databases.”
“Oh, she and I will have words. Lots of them,” Jenny said. Because what the hell? Re-lee lied about the database? That’s just dumb. A dumb thing to lie about, and now Karuk is going to die.
Great.
Just perfect.
“It is time for you to go home.”
“No.” Karuk said.
“You don’t have a choice,” Falkin said. “The king is demanding your return to Vorjan House.”
“I would rather you just kill me here.”
“If that is his choice,” another one of the Dalgurians said, and moved forward.
“No,” Jenny said, stepping in front of him. “You can’t have him. Karuk is mine! I’m his mate, and you can’t take him from me.”
