Page 9 of Akur

That set them off. Her heart stuttered for a single second as the gator-guards lunged. She only saw a blur as Meredith dove behind a console, pulling the other woman with her. Constance’s arms tightened as she fired up the shock rod again. Electricity zinged as the cramped space descended into chaos, the guards taking no care as they launched themselves on top of the equipment, claws extended, dirty, and still stained with blood from their last victims.

A deafening alarm blared as both guards focused on her, or rather, on the weapon in her hand. It was the only thing keeping them from grabbing her immediately.

Swinging the rod, she kept one guard at arm’s length as the other lunged for her. With everything she had in her, she brought the rod down on his arm. It sizzled, and he roared in pain or maybe anger. She wasn’t quite sure, and she didn’t get a chance to find out.

He didn’t retreat, even as his blackened flesh smoked. If anything, the shock enraged him further.

“Get the other two,” he growled. “I’ll take care of this one.”

A massive fist caught her shoulder, and she hit the floor hard, breath bursting from her lungs.

The rod spun from her grip, and she rolled to grab hold of it again just as a clawed foot stomped down, talons gouging the metal flooring between her fingers and the weapon she so desperately needed to grasp. In her periphery, Meredith grappled with the second guard, trying her best to shield the unresponsive woman.

When a thick claw closed around her throat, it brought her right back to the start of this nightmare. When she’d woken up on the Restitution base in the middle of the night to her roommate’s scream and a claw around her throat just like this one. The woman’s name had been Alaina…and she was probably dead, too.

Something hurt deep inside, clenching and seizing. Alaina and all the others, too. Even that cocky idiot that had come to save her that night. Akur or whatever his name was. They were all dead. Just like she would be if she didn’t find a way out of this somehow.

As the guard slammed her into the wall, agony exploded through her side. She slid down the moment he released her, dazed, as the gator loomed over her.

“Enough!” a voice bellowed from the door. Another gator-guard, even bigger than these two, stood at the entrance. He stalked in, pushing his comrades out of the way.

Reaching down, he grabbed her by the throat, and through the corner of her eye, she could see the other guard doing the same to Meredith. “Do you realize where you are,fools?”

Constance blinked, the pain shooting through her side, making it a little hard to think. But he wasn’t speaking to her. He was speaking to the guard who’d been ready to smash her head in.

Through the pain, she took in the destroyed room.

The lead gator-guard gestured at a sparking console, shouting something so gutturally she almost didn’t catch it.

“You idiots blasted a signal!” he growled.

Raw fury twisted the guard’s reptilian features as he stalked forward, not caring that he was simply carrying her along. Her body swayed, dizziness threatening as her gaze flicked to Meredith at the same moment that the other guard pulled her along. Alarm went through her as she saw the other woman on the floor. Hair still falling over her face, she sat unmoving. And even when the remaining guard grabbed hold of her, she didn’t react.

This was it? Their bid for freedom had failed so quickly?

Desperate, she reached for Meredith. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know this woman. They hadn’t been friends back on Earth. They weren’t family. Before these assholes abducted them, they’d been strangers. They were simply both thrust into this nightmare because some egotistic aliens had taken them from their home. But Meredith was human and the closest thing she had to anyone.

For a moment, they managed to grab hold of each other, both hanging on to that one grasp of each other’s fingertips as if they were each other’s lifeline. Her hands grew moist from the blood coating Meredith’s fingers, and her heart ached even more. She wasn’t sure Meredith would make it. Swallowing hard, she could see the woman fighting away the tears and the fear—a look that was probably mirrored in her own eyes.

They had only that one moment before they were wrenched apart.

“What are you doing?!” She heard herself shout the words. Heard herself speak but didn’t recognize her own voice. Raw rage and fury did that. “Have you no conscience?! Can’t you see what your masters are doing is wrong?!”

No answer. If anything, the lead gator-guard tightened his claw on her, breaking her skin.

“Meredith!”

It was all she could do as the guards marched them through corridor after corridor until she lost any sense of direction. When they stepped into a wide open space, her heart dropped through a pit in her gut.

Separate crafts waited in the launch bay. And as they pushed Meredith into one craft, then the silent woman in another, only one thing was clear. It was over.

“Foolish qrakking pilkras,” the lead gator-guard growled as he got in and slammed the door of the craft shut. “Blasting an unencrypted signal. If we anger the masters or injure these hideous jekins, we don’t get all the credits for this job!”

Gulping hard, she sat upright on the seat behind the pilot; eyes focused on the little viewport as dread filled her. This was it. She could try to strangle him now. Wrap her arms around his neck and use all her strength to—

She hardly saw it coming. Just saw the moment he turned, those horrid cold eyes finding her as if he could read her mind. The prick of the small device as it sunk into her neck had her freezing, wide eyes shifting to the thick, scaly arm that had moved too fast for her to even respond.

He’d…he’d injected her with something. He’d—

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