Page 6 of I Married Amreth

“We must help get the most vulnerable out of this madness. We will follow shortly. Go,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Throat constricted, I gave him a stiff nod. “Thank you!”

He smiled, turned around, and took flight with his mate. A part of me felt guilty about escaping instead of also staying to help. But from experience, I knew very well how people filled with good intentions often ended up creating a lot more problems for the first responders by getting in the way instead of following instructions to evacuate when asked. I wouldn’t be one of those people.

The elderly lady Linsea had brought was already standing with the crowd making its way through the vaulted doors to thefourth floor’s northeast escape vessel. I joined them, grateful that people here were still mostly civilized, in no small part thanks to the line steadily moving forward.

With about five meters to go before I could enter the hallway leading to the escape vessel, another violent explosion rocked the ship. I fleetingly found the absence of bellowing smoke in the promenade or of any sign of apparent fires rather strange.

My jaw dropped when the Obosians suddenly stopped their crowd control efforts and all converged towards the northwest corner of the promenade on the main level, three below the one I was standing on. Where they previously cast weak Lumiak on the panicked passengers to snap them out of their problematic behaviors, this time they were blasting something that seemed lethal at targets I couldn’t see from my location.

It could only mean the pirates had boarded us.

How was that even possible when this vessel possessed the most advanced defense technology in this sector of the galaxy?

But it was what followed that took my breath away. Within seconds of the Obosians going on the offensive, they suddenly stopped casting their lightning, half of them blinking while the others flat out held their heads with both hands as if in reaction to a massive headache or shaking their heads to clear their minds. Their flight patterns became erratic, forcing most of them to make an emergency landing on the closest level of the promenade.

The invaders had to be using some kind of psionic attack on them.

To my shock, Kayog suddenly swooped in, his right palm raised in the direction the Obosians had been casting their lightning as his silver eyes glowed. Within seconds, the Obosians closest to him appeared to recover from whatever had been affecting them, and they charged forward again to fight back the invaders. Too many questions fired off in my mind. Was heusing some kind of kinetic ability or did he have some sort of psychic disrupting skill?

I knew Kayog possessed special powers that were extremely rare to his people, but this defied anything I’d ever heard about a Temern’s abilities.

Another passenger bumping into me with a bit too much force reminded me to get a move on. Forcing my eyes away from the spectacle unfolding, I took a few more steps forward only to hear a shrill scream to my right, moments before I was to enter the hallway to the vessel.

My blood turned to ice upon seeing a Darwandir female dangling from the railing. Someone must have accidentally bumped into her in their haste to come to the exit, knocking her over the rail. To my dismay half a dozen people ran past her, ignoring her cries for help as she struggled for purchase.

Cursing under my breath, I pushed past the people behind me, many glaring or yelling at me for blocking their way out. Ignoring them, I forced my way out until I could run to the woman. I reached for her overly long and skinny arms. As soon as I closed my hands around her wrists and started pulling, something appeared to snap inside the older female. She screeched like a banshee, the sound painful to my ears as she frantically tried to climb on top of me.

In a moment of pure dread, I realized she’d become too terrified, her survival instincts overshadowing any rational thought in her desperate efforts to save herself. I cried out as she sank her claws into me.

“STOP!” I shouted. “I’m trying to help you. You’re hurting me!”

But she was too far gone. She kept screeching, clawing at me as blood began trickling down my arms. I tried pulling away from the railing, hoping as I fell backward it would draw her with me in the process. Once she was safe, she would stoplacerating me. But my movement only freaked her out more. She tried to jump, pushing herself upward with her feet at the bottom edge of the railing, and digging her claws into my shoulders.

As she hadn’t given herself a strong enough swing, she fell back down, jerking me forward in the process with such force, I found myself folded in two over the railing. I shouted in pain and fear as I blindly reached for the railing to hang onto it and keep myself from falling to my death—and hers. But more terrified than ever, the Darwandir female went berserk in her desperate attempts to use me as a ladder to safety.

My head spun as pressure on my chest made it difficult for my lungs to expand and allow me to breathe. My screams as she continued to lacerate me to shreds didn’t help. I could feel my hands tingling and going numb as her claws dug in my flesh on each side of my spine. A choked sound escaped me when she rested her knee on the back of my head as she continued to climb over me.

I vaguely remembered thinking I would likely die any minute now from a broken neck or spine. Then something—probably someone running past us—violently struck my left hip. It destabilized the crazed female, sending her falling backward. She screeched in terror, further digging into the back of my thighs to propel herself forward but only achieved to throw us both over the edge.

My scream mingled with hers as we plummeted to our deaths.

In the brief seconds it lasted, a million thoughts and regrets flashed through my mind. I should have just gotten on that escape vessel. Or at least, I should have observed the safety measures when rescuing a panicked person. I should have asked for help. I should have…

I should have had a chance to meet Amreth.

Just as that thought popped into my head, and despite the haze of agony from my countless cuts and lacerations, I realized my descent had slowed, as if a force field was dampening it. I came to a full stop mid-air, then started gliding sideways, to the safety of one of the lower floors of the promenade. I couldn’t say which one as I struggled to remain conscious.

“Hush,” a female said, her voice soft although affected by the strangest vibration.

For a split second, I thought she was talking to me. I didn’t believe I was making any sound, aside from maybe moaning in pain. But the dreadful noise assaulting my ears that suddenly stopped made me realize it had been the Darwandir female still screeching.

Through blurred vision, I stared at a male from a species I’d never seen before. He had soft brown fur and ape-like features, although he appeared to stand upright like a human. Next to him, a female—also of a species I’d never seen before but different from his—observed me with an unreadable expression. Her pale, whitish-gray skin was adorned with dark veiny streaks.

Despite the excruciating pain threatening to overwhelm me, it was fear that tore a whimper out of me when the male leaned forward to run a strange device over my face. I suddenly realized it was some sort of scanner.

“She’s one of them,” he said to the female.

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