Her hand moved to the cuddwisg she wore on her wrist. The air around her shimmered like heat rising from desert sand, rippling and distorting, and suddenly the towering form of the Alliance Prime collapsed inward, folding and shrinking. Where the seven-foot Vaktaire female had stood, Ellie now appeared in her human form, small and fierce and utterly herself. The ornate robes that had seemed to perfectly fit the Prime's frame now hung loose and oversized on her smaller body, the fabric pooling around her feet like water.
For a heartbeat, the hangar went utterly silent, the kind of silence that preceded an explosion.
Declan's face—the President's face—went slack with shock, his eyes widening until I saw the whites all around, his jaw dropping open as he stared at Ellie. Then his expression twisted into something feral, something that had nothing to do with the woman whose body he wore, all pretense of humanity stripped away.
"Kill them!" he screamed, his voice cracking with rage, the sound shrill and desperate. "Kill them all!"
The Secret Service agents moved as one, but not with human fluidity. Their movements were too sharp, too angular, jerky like puppets with cut strings. As they raised their weapons, their forms began to shimmer and distort. Thanks to Xytol's interference, the cuddwisg disguises flickered and failed like dying light bulbs, revealing the hulking, gray-skinned Trogvyk beneath.
In keeping with the disguise, they carried Earth weapons. The sound of handguns barked in the enclosed space, sharp cracks that assaulted my ears, the sound deafening, bouncing off every surface until the world was nothing but noise. Thankfully, my comrades were like me and mostly immune to such paltry munitions, our physiology shrugging off the impacts.
Adtovar's warriors responded with the precision of a well-oiled machine, moving in perfect coordination. Xytol's programming of our cuddwisg devices covered not only our skin and clothing but weapons as well. The blasters sang to life with that distinctive high-pitched whine, a sound that made my teeth ache. I watched purple energy bolts slice through the air like deadly ribbons of light, meeting the hail of bullets in a cacophony of sound and light. The first Trogvyk went down hard. A smoking hole punched clean through his chest, the edges cauterized and black. Another stumbled backward, his meatyhand clutching at his shoulder where the flesh had been seared away, revealing charred muscle beneath, his mouth open in a silent scream.
The hangar erupted into absolute chaos. A maelstrom of weapons fire, shouting, and the acrid stench of ozone and burnt flesh that filled my nostrils and coated the back of my throat.
Outside, I heard more shouting, Abernathy's voice, sharp and commanding, cutting through the din like a blade. The hangar doors rattled violently as someone tried to force them open from the other side, the metal shrieking in protest. Through the narrow gap between the doors, I caught a glimpse of more Secret Service agents, more Trogvyk in their true forms, their gray faces twisted with determination as they tried to push their way inside, clawed hands scrabbling at the gap.
But Cullen was there, his broad shoulders blocking the entrance like an immovable wall, his feet planted wide, his own weapon drawn and ready. Several of Adtovar's warriors flanked him on either side, blasters trained on the door, creating a defensive line that would be suicide to breach.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged animal trying to escape as I spun around, searching frantically through the chaos, through the smoke and the bodies and the flashing lights.Ellie.Where was Ellie? Panic clawed at my chest, threatening to overwhelm me.
Then I spotted her, crouched behind a stack of wooden crates, pressed low against the floor. Relief flooded through me so powerfully my knees nearly buckled, my vision blurring for a moment. She'd gotten to cover the moment the shooting started, with Adtovar standing nearby for both defense and protection, a fact for which I was immensely grateful.
I moved toward her, keeping low, my body bent almost double, my speed worthless as I fought my way through a seaof Trogvyk to reach her. I was still several feet away when movement in my peripheral vision made me freeze.
Declan.
He'd abandoned the pretense, and seeing the six-foot male dressed in female attire, the President's tailored blouse and pencil skirt, would have been amusing under any other circumstances.
The bastard had somehow circled around during the firefight, using the chaos as cover, and now he crept along the shadows behind Adtovar's position. BehindEllie. My blood turned to ice in my veins, my heart stuttering to almost stopping as I watched him lunge forward, his hands reaching for her throat, fingers curved like claws.
"NO!" The roar that tore from my chest was primal, raw, and animalistic, something that came from the deepest part of me. I launched myself forward, shoving bodies aside, but there were too many between us, too much distance, and I knew with sickening certainty that I wouldn't reach her in time. I screamed for Adtovar, but his clash with three Trogvyk kept him from responding.
Declan's fingers closed around Ellie's throat, and for one terrible, heart-stopping moment—a moment that stretched into eternity, a moment where the world stopped spinning—I thought I would be forced to watch her die, to see the light fade from her eyes.
But my mate wasn't some helpless female. And I found myself gifted with the moment of watching her turn from a simple leader into a warrior queen, fierce and magnificent.
She twisted in Declan's grip like a snake, her body moving with a vicious grace I didn't know she possessed. Her leg shot up, her knee driving straight into Declan's groin with enough force that I swear I heard the impact even over the weapons fire. A meaty thud that made me wince in sympathetic pain. Declan'sface went from triumphant to agonized in an instant, the color draining from his cheeks, his mouth opening in a silent scream as his hands fell away from her throat.
Ellie didn't stop there.
As he doubled over, gasping like a fish out of water, clutching at himself, Ellie's fist came up in a perfect uppercut that connected with his nose with a satisfyingcrunch. Blood exploded across his face like a crimson flower blooming, and he went down like a sack of bricks, hitting the floor hard, his head bouncing once against the concrete.
By the time I reached her, she was standing over Declan's groaning form, her chest heaving with exertion, her hair wild around her face, and her eyes blazing with fury and adrenaline, bright and fierce.
She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"Ellie!" I grabbed her shoulders, pulling her against me with perhaps more force than necessary, my hands running over her frantically, checking for injuries, feeling for broken bones, or bleeding wounds. "Are you hurt? Did he..."
"I'm fine," she said breathlessly, but her hands were clutching at my jacket just as desperately as mine were holding her, her fingers digging into the fabric. "I'm okay."
"Glad to see you remember those self-defense moves I taught you," Cullen chuckled as he strolled over, his weapon still drawn, hauling Declan to his feet by the back of his collar like a misbehaving youngling.
"You made me practice enough," Ellie quipped. Though she was grinning, I felt the faint tremors running through her, the adrenaline crash beginning, her body shaking against mine.
Cullen jerked his chin over his shoulders toward the entrance. "All Declan's men are either dead or in custody."
"Our people?" Ellie asked, worry flooding her gaze as her eyes searched his face for bad news.
