Page 122 of Reaper Said Mine

The shield tag at her collar flares violently, throwing a translucent field around her as the tail of the pulse catches the edge of its range. The force knocks her sideways. She hits the floor hard, compad skidding across the deck in a spray of sparks.

The world becomes red.

I am moving before anyone screams.

Security erupts around the room. My guards tackle Theryki behind a shield wall. Gobold draws a sidearm from somewhere inside formal dress that should not have hidden anything larger than arrogance. Wilcox drags one of her aides down by the collar. Vakka’s maintenance team returns fire into the exposed panel as something small and insectile unfolds from the wall cavity, a mechanical assassin no larger than a child’s torso, all polished limbs, sensor glass, and a focused emitter still glowing at its center.

I cross the chamber in three strides.

A second pulse builds in the machine.

I slam my body between it and Ursa.

The shot hits my shoulder with enough force to drive me back half a step. Pain burns through bone spur and skin, white-hot and familiar, but my body swallows most of it the way Reaper flesh was cursed or blessed to do. I tear the chair from the floor and hurl it. The metal mass crushes the assassin against the exposed wall with a shriek of breaking parts.

It twitches.

I reach it before it can die politely.

My claws dig through casing, wiring, and hot metal. The machine struggles in my grip, emitter sparking against my palm. I rip it free from the wall and smash it onto the table once, twice, then drive my fist through its core until the glow goes black.

Ursa is on her hands and knees, coughing, hair half-fallen from its knot, one cheek reddened where she struck the floor. Her shield tag smokes at her collar. A thin line of blood marks her temple.

Everything in me narrows to that blood.

I am beside her before I decide to move. “Ursa.”

“I’m fine,” she says, which is the first proof that she is not.

I kneel, carefully because my hands want to close around the world and break it for touching her. “Look at me.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You are bleeding.”

“It’s a scratch.”

“It is on your head.”

“Most scratches happen on places, Gnash.”

Her voice shakes on my name. I hear it. She hears it too and presses her mouth shut as if stubbornness can hold the tremor in. The bond between us surges, fierce and frightened, and I have to breathe through my mouth to keep the protective rage from becoming something that will make the room more dangerous.

Behind me, Vakka barks orders. “Seal all exits. Nobody leaves. I want that wall cavity isolated, every device tagged, and every delegate searched down to their decorative underclothes.”

Gobold roars, “You will not search Alliance personnel like criminals.”

Vakka roars back, “Someone just fired a murder bug through my wall, General. Everyone is a criminal until I am bored.”

Wilcox’s voice cuts through, tight but controlled. “My delegation will submit to station security.”

Gobold turns on her. “Ambassador!”

“Shut up, General. That pulse crossed the human press rail.”

Theryki rises from behind her shield wall with one aide supporting her elbow. Her perfect composure is cracked at the edges, but not broken. A small scale near her jaw has split, leaking green-black blood. Her golden eyes move from the destroyed chair to the hole in the wall to Ursa on the floor beside me.

“Lord Gnash,” she says. “I presume you understand the implications.”