Hunted By The Alien Assassin by Ella Maven

Thirteen

Bosa

She wasn’t there. Her primal, enraged scream had seared me to the core. I’d closed my eyes and when I reopened them, she was… gone.

“Karina?”

“Bosa?” Her voice hadn’t moved. She remained in front of me, but she wasn’t… visible.

“What the yerk?” I whispered. “Karina, hold out your hands in front of your face.”

“What—?” her voice came again before ending on a shriek. “What the hell? Bosa, what the hell?”

“You… blanked.” I said, two words I never thought I’d utter to my human mate. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, if you don’t understand, then how am I supposed to?” Her disembodied voice trembled, and I could hear her frantically moving about on the dusty floor. “Oh my God. Wait, how did I do this? How do I undo it? How do you blank?”

“It’s like lifting a finger.”

Her breath came in short bursts. She was quiet for a long moment until she said in a calmer tone. “Bosa, I need you to blank. Even if it’s for a couple of seconds. Can you do it?”

Just the thought of blanking made my stomach roll. I didn’t want to tell her that the effort of blanking one more time could be the end of me. “Why?”

“Because I think the locks on your wrists are motion-detected. Visual.”

“How do you know?”

She paused before speaking again. “Because my ankle chain just unlocked and because you told me so. In my dream.”

The breath left my lungs on a rush. “Kotche.”

“You did,” she whispered urgently, and I wished I could see her face. “We were alone in a hut made of vines on Torin. And you told me you were glad you brought me home.”

My heart pumped faster. As much as I couldn’t believe we’d get out of our current situation, the Kaluma in me couldn’t deny her visuls. She was my mate, my linyx. Her ability to blank proved it even further, even though that seemed impossible to me. The bond had started when we met, as her visuls were proof, and I believed our mating at the Pucin farm locked in the linyx connection.

“I will blank,” I said, knowing this wouldn’t be good. “But kotche, I will not be able to run well afterward.” The old me would have resented relying on a human, but this me, the one in awe of my mate, was glad she refused to leave my side and was the strongest female I knew. “You will have to help me.”

“Of course,” she said. Her hands settled on my face, cupping my jaw, and I felt her lips press a soft kiss to mine. “I’m right here. Blank to release your chains.”

“I’ll blank as long as I can. Get us out of here and to a cruiser on the dock. Then call Gurla and she’ll tell you all you need to know to operate it home.”

“You’ll be there. You can fly, right?”

How did I tell her I’d likely be dying? “Gurla is better at technology than me.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “Ready?”

No, I wasn’t. “Another kiss, kotche.”

She kissed me again, deeper this time, and I sucked on her tongue. My cock stirred despite the pain, which surprised me. The power of my linyx. I pulled back and pressed our foreheads together. Or what I thought was her forehead. “On Torin, you find Gurla, Wensla, and Sherif. You tell them you’re Bosa’s linyx.”

“You’ll be there,” she insisted, this time with a slight tinge of panic in her voice.

“I will be, but I’ll be hurt,” I said. “Please just tell me you’ll do that.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

I let out a long breath as I gathered my strength. My body already burned with fever, and I braced myself for the pain that lay ahead of me until we were safe on a cruiser. Or at least, my kotche would be safe. I closed my eyes, and I blanked.

Pain roared through my body, but I heard a distance clink as the lock on my wrists fell to the floor. My arms fell to my sides, and I fought to remain conscious. Karina let out a whoop and helped me to my feet. I could barely stand, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to carry me, so I pushed through the dizziness and nausea. My vision swam as she knocked on the door. It flung open and a half dozen guards swarmed inside. Voices shouted as they found the room empty… or so they thought.

Karina and I slipped out of the door undetected and invisible. I couldn’t do much more than place one foot in front of the other. My shot leg buckled, and Karina struggled under my weight with my arm slung over her shoulder. I could feel the blood trickling over my scales, and every breath felt like agony. I swore I was seeing things. Gurla. Sherif. My friend Cravus. They appeared in front of me, whispering encouraging words, and when I tried to reach for them, they disappeared like mist.

Karina panted next to me as we steadily made our way toward the docks. I could see a cruiser waiting for us, and it looked like it’d been there a long time, so I could only hope it was empty. We walked past a rack of laser guns, and I reached out to grab one. Sliding it in my pants to conceal it, I stumbled forward. I could feel my scales flickering, and it wouldn’t be much longer before I couldn’t hold the blank. I’d be visible, but maybe that wasn’t so bad. They’d focus on me, and Karina could continue on.

“Don’t even think about,” she hissed next to me. “Hold your blank, Bosa. We’re almost there.”

Gattrix were everywhere, running in all directions as Frenz stood on the dock overseeing the search party—for us. He called out commands to search every inch, and I began to get nervous that someone would bump into us. I could picture a hundred Gattrix opening laser fire on our location. We’d be dead in no time…

My blank flickered again, and I gasped. “Bosa!” she hissed next to me, and I hated the panic in her voice. “I know it’s hard, but please…”

I did the only thing I could think to do. I withdrew the laser gun from my pants just as my body gave up on my blank. With the last strength I had, I aimed at the putty on the underside of the cargo ship, barely visible, but still there. Firing, I held my breath.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the cargo ship erupted in a conflagration. Fireballs shot out from the burning hull, hitting the contingent of Gattrix on the dock, including Frenz. They went up in flames, screeching and shrieking as they fell with sickening crunches to the ground below.

“Holy shit,” Karina muttered next to me before beginning to run. I kept up, running on pure adrenaline as I watched the insect who’d threatened to cut out my tongue burn to a crisp. We sprinted up the dock, and we’d just flung ourselves into the empty cruiser when my vision darkened.

I gasped, curling into a ball as pain settled into every muscle, every bone.

“Bosa!” I heard a voice cry. “Stay with me. Oh God, please. I need you!” Her body flickered in front of mine, and I caught one last look at her beautiful, tear-streaked face before pain shot up my spine and everything went black.

* * *

Karina

His body went limp, and I thought I was going to lose my mind. Outside the port window of the cruiser, I could see the fire creeping down the dock toward me. I knew I had to get this cruiser in the air, but Bosa was… Not okay. His scales had paled to an off-white, and while I could just barely detect a heartbeat, his chest didn’t seem to be rising and falling.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I whimpered. I’d lived alone all this time on this planet, but now that I’d met Bosa, I couldn’t imagine life without him. “Hang on, baby.” I murmured as I dug in my pocket for the comm device.

I glanced around the cruiser. It was small … very small. The area where I stood wasn’t much larger than a sedan and straight ahead was a one-person cockpit. I’d managed to get inside and shut the door by myself which seemed like a massive accomplishment. I had a basic understanding of ships because of my time skipping from space station to space station, but I’d never been responsible for flying one.

I pressed the small button on the comm and slipped it into my ear, ignoring the flakes of Bosa’s dried blood.

There was no ringing, just a staticky sound that made me wince before a voice came on the line, expectant and a little frantic. “Bosa!”

I glanced at him desperately, wishing he would magically wake up. “Um, hi. I’m not Bosa, but he’s here with me.” There was a long moment of silence, and I panicked. “Please don’t hang up! I mean disconnect. Or leave!” I could just barely hear breathing on the other end. “Is this Gurla?”

“Is Bosa okay?” she asked slowly.

I muffled a sob into my hand. “No.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I need help. I’m on a cruiser with him and I need to get off this dock before the fire reaches us.” I glanced at the window to find the flames closer, and a small army of Gattrix trying to extinguish the flames to get to me. “Bosa said I can call you and you’d help.”

“You’re the human?”

“Yes. I’m Karina.”

In a muffled voice, Gurla said something to someone else, then came back on the line with a clear, determined tone. “Okay, Karina. Let’s fly this cruiser. I need all the information you can find.”

I scrambled to the cockpit and read off everything with symbols I could find. Most made no sense to me, but Gurla was able to look up the cruiser details and find the flight manual. The cruiser was a basic model used by many different species in the galaxy.

With Bosa laying motionless behind me, I separated the cruiser from the dock with Gurla’s detailed instructions. Laser fire from the Gattrix pinged the cruiser, but I ignored it, too focused on getting into the air and off this damn planet.

“What’s your destination?” Gurla asked once we made it out of the atmosphere.

“Destination?” I hadn’t expected that question. “My destination is home.”

Gurla let out a long breath. “I’m sorry, Karina. That cruiser won’t take you to Earth.”

“No, not Earth. Torin. Bosa’s home.” I nibbled on my lip. “He talked about Torin a lot. He mentioned you, Wensla, and Sherif. He said he hadn’t been home in a long time…” I didn’t tell her his reasons. That was his story to tell, and dammit he would because he would survive this.

“I want him home,” Gurla said. “We all do. Even if he can be annoying.”

I let out a small laugh. “He really can be, can’t he?”

She gave me the coordinates to fly to Torin and land near their settlement.

“Keep him alive, human,” she said. “We’ll see you soon.”

The call disconnected and I leaned back in my chair, running my hands through my hair. Soot felt gritty on my skin, and my dirty clothes felt like burlap on my skin.

As much as I wanted to curl in a ball and sleep, I had other things to do. Content that the cruiser was on autopilot and heading in the right direction, I crawled to Bosa’s side. When I leaned down and placed my ear above his mouth, I could just barely detect the soft puffs of breath leaving his parted lips. He was alive… for now. The blanking must have been the last of his energy.

I searched the storage panels of the cruiser, finding cleansing cloths and some food. As I munched on a stale tein bar, I wiped Bosa’s body, taking special care around his injuries. I found some topical medicine as well and squeezed the jelly contents onto his wounds.

I dribbled some water in his mouth, which he swallowed, but his eyes remained closed, and he made no other sign of consciousness. After using a portable cleanser that extended from the wall, I settled down again at his side. Using the cleansing cloths, I wiped down his hair. Combing it out with my fingers, I braided it neatly and tied it at the ends with a strip of leather.

After that, I pulled a blanket down on top of us and only then did I sleep.

It went like that for days. I found a powdered energy drink and mixed that with some water so Bosa could ingest some calories. He drank it and moved his lips as if trying to speak. His eyes flickered behind his eyelids, but that was all. I had hope he’d survive as his body seemed to be in some sort of stasis.

I didn’t dare eat or drink too much, worried we’d somehow be knocked off course and I’d be stuck in this ship in the inky blackness of space without food or water.

Bosa’s body was warm, so I spent most of my time cuddled up next to him, staring out of a small window in the roof of the cruiser. I couldn’t get the sight of the women out of my head, and I wished I could have saved them all. I had no idea where they were kept, and if they were even still at the station. I hadn’t seen many other buildings. I couldn’t save them, but I hoped I’d saved others who would never know about the Rinian galaxy.

Then my thoughts turned to my future. “What will your people think of me?” I asked Bosa, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer. “And if something happens to you…” I swallowed. “Will they let me stay? Will they make me find another man or something?” I shuddered thinking about anyone touching me but Bosa. I curled into his side and closed my eyes, using his biceps as a pillow. “I’m scared,” I whispered. “I’m trying to be brave. Gurla seemed nice, but I’m scared Bosa. You were terrifying when we met, and now I’m going to meet potentially dozens more like you?” I nibbled on my thumbnail and then scrubbed my face. “Stop it, Karina. It’ll be okay. Or you’ll make it okay. All that matters is getting Bosa home and healthy. He blew up the cargo ship for you.”

I would never forget as long as I lived the sight of a flickering Bosa lifting the laser gun with a grunt, squinting one eye, and firing. He refused to let what had happened to us be in vain. He’d killed Frenz too.

I ran my hand over his chest. “We’ll get you well, Bosa. I promise.”

Lulled by the soft sounds of his breathing, I fell asleep.

* * *

“Kotche,” Bosa’s voice whispered in my ear. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Yes?” I hummed as the cool water washed over my swollen ankles.

“What are you doing?”

I looked behind me to see Bosa leaning against a tree trunk, his massive arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m hot.” I couldn’t stop the whine in my voice.

“I told you not to go anywhere alone.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” his smile faded slightly, “there are lots of deadly things here in Torin.”

“I’m not that far from the settlement.”

He straightened, and this time his expression was dead serious. “Kotche, listen to me. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

I blinked at him and then once again peered over my large belly to wiggle my toes. “Okay, Bosa. I’m sorry.”

His smile was back as he waded into the stream after me. “Come on, I’ll carry you back and give you a rubdown.”

“A rubdown is how we got into this mess,” I mutter as he heaved my bulk into his arms.

He laughed at that. “I like seeing you like this.” He nuzzled my ear. “There will be many more rubdowns in our future.”

I couldn’t say I was unhappy about that. I sighed as he made his way to the bank. He had taken one step in the mud when the ground started to shake. I clung to him, peering around frantically. “Bosa? What’s going on?”

He gazed down at me, his expression calm. “We’re home, kotche. We’re home.”

* * *

I opened my eyes to find myself slumped in the chair of the cockpit. Outside the large window, I no longer saw black space and distant white stars. The window was full of blue trees and green dirt, rushing toward me like a rocket. I braced for impact just as something hit the side of the cruiser, sending it rolling end over end until a hard object hit my head and knocked me out.