Page 25 of Tempted By the Alien Mercenary

And then a whimper came, and none of that mattered anyway. That was Val, somehow. She was curled in a tight ball in the navigator’s seat, and I hadn’t seen her because black stained her silver coat. “Oh no, how bad is it, sweetie?” I asked, hunching over her, my hands hovering but not quite touching. I didn’t know if that would make it better or worse; she hadn’t wanted to be touched in some time.

She rolled onto her side, her belly going concave to avoid my hovering fingers. I did not see any wound, but there was an inky spot swirling across her silver fur. It hardly looked big enough to cause any harm, but blink, and it had moved; blink again, and it seemed just a fraction larger. It did not take a genius to leap to the conclusion that something from the Davidson thing had been left behind when it struck her.

“Hold on tight,” Ysa’s voice announced over the soft humming of the small ship’s engine. “I’m sending you to the safest place, given the circumstances: to Sinny.” Sinny. The way she called my big, badass Sineater “Sinny” would have made me laugh if the situation weren’t so dire. My guy was down on a planet, supposedly fighting creatures more cunning and deadly than he was. How was that safe? But I was infinitely relieved by the idea. Surely, the Davidson thing couldn’t follow me through space. Or could it? Because how the fuck had it gotten onto the Varakartoom in the first place?

The ship was moving, the readings were changing, and then the viewscreen at the front changed. The planet filled the view—green jungle and swirling white clouds. My eyes caught the comings and goings of many ships, and one huge, sprawling city glowing like a jewel of white, red, and gray among the green. Where was Sin in all that?

“By the way, pretty sure that slinky creature crawled in there with you, licking its wounds. So you’ve got company,” Ysa added, just as the nose of the small ship began to dive down. Heat shields activated as it caught in the friction of the atmosphere. I clutched at my seat to stay in place, struggling to secure the unfamiliar flight harness around me. I was barely secured when all sense of gravity failed, and I began floating up.

Next to me, poor Val mewled when she drifted up, her body limp, eyes wide and fearful. It was not a look I thought she’d ever worn before. Given her ability to withstand nearly anything, she had probably never feared at all. I reached for her, and, though I was worried I would harm her by touching her, I curled her tightly against my chest. If not, she might slam into the hull or the viewscreen as the shuttle braked and gravity reasserted itself.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I told her. “I’m going to take care of you now, sweetie,” I cooed when she whimpered and curled against me. This was my fault; she would not be injured if she hadn’t valiantly defended me from that creepy thing. As if thinking about it summoned the feeling, a sense of dread washed over me so hard and fast that I couldn’t stop myself from looking over my shoulder. I was certain he was there, but the ship was empty.

Val stretched against me, slinky silver shifting shape, a lick of black through soft Riho fur. Her ears were round and cute, her eyes huge and sad. She wasn’t making pained noises now, but staring at me as if I held all of life’s answers, or maybe just a little bit of hope. The strands of silver that had been around my throat and wrists all this time finally moved. They slid over my skin, beneath my clothing, until they reached Val and, for the first time, merged back into her shape. She sighed, blinked, and closed her eyes.

For a heart-stopping moment, I was terrified she’d just died, but she’d only gone to sleep. My breathing sawed out of me in a rush, and my whole body went briefly limp in the flight harness. Now what? The ship was leveling off, shooting straight past the huge, sprawling city, soaring over a building shaped like the Colosseum and into the jungle beyond. How long before we reached Sin? And did Ysa expect me to land this thing, or was the autopilot going to take care of it? I didn’t know, and I didn’t know if Ysa was listening. What if she was still fighting with the Davidson thing aboard the Varakartoom?

It was nightfall on this part of the planet, and shadow abruptly fell over my little ship. I saw lights in the distance, bright and clear. Another shadow flickered, and then the interior lights of the shuttle followed suit. A chill shot down my spine—what was that? It was just like the power fluctuations aboard the Varakartoom. Something on the screen was warning me about the upcoming landing, telling me to stay strapped in.

Another, deeper shadow crossed the viewscreen, briefly blocking out the approach lights. Cold fear filled me, and Val stirred against my chest, strengthening—healing—as she absorbed my feelings. What was that shadow? I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and it wasn’t good. How? This shouldn’t be possible.

The shuttle began blaring with an alarm. The comm on my wrist started buzzing then, but we were still going so fast that I was pressed back into the seat. I couldn’t lift my hand to answer the call. All I could do was clutch Val tightly to me and hope for the best. This was not going to be a soft landing.

A thick tree branch struck the ship first as we sank too low over the jungle. The lights in the distance were still too far away; they beckoned with safety, but we weren’t going to make it. Then another branch hit—this one was thicker—just enough to alter the path of the ship. I saw black, flashing light, a dozen alarms screaming and blaring, and then, for one brief second, the rapidly approaching trunk of a massive tree. After that, darkness enveloped me.