Page 52 of Guardian's Soul

With a roar, I sprang forward.

"Thrax. No!" Hannah yelled, but it was too late. I hadcontrolled my urge to terminate the bastard for far too long. Now my blood screamed for revenge.

Even if Possedion hadn't been bound to the table, he wouldn't have posed much of a threat to me as my hands finally,finally, encircled his scrawny little neck.

"Thrax!" Hannah yelled my name, or at least I think she did. I wasn't in the right state of mind to notice anything. I was driven by pure, unadulterated bloodlust—the need to punish the man for what he or his ancestors did to my people.

Suddenly, a sharp pain entered my body, spasming my every muscle. My eyes turned up in their sockets, but before I fell to the ground, I saw Hannah standing there, holding a blaster in her hand.

HANNAH

I didn't wantto shoot him. I really didn't, but in the end, he gave me no choice. He was only seconds away from killing Possedion, and we still needed the Ohrur, especially after his last little revelation. Thrax would never forgive himself if he killed the little shit now.

So I grabbed the blaster from his hip, which only emphasized how far his mind was gone on killing the Ohrur. Otherwise, I would have never been able to rip it from him. With shaking hands, I put it on stun, praying it wouldn't harm or kill him.

"Thrax!" I cried out one more time. He didn't even acknowledge me. So I pulled the trigger.

Like a felled tree, Thrax crashed to the floor, and I ran forward. On the table, Possedion gasped for breath. He sounded like a sick, dying person. Not that I cared. Thrax was all that was on my mind.

"Thrax!" I reached his side and turned him over. He was out cold, but he was breathing.

Now what?

What was I supposed to do with him? I couldn't drag him allthe way to our quarters. I had a hard time pulling the Ohrur yesterday. There was no way I would even make it to the exit with Thrax.

I sank down against the wall until I sat and pulled Thrax's head on my lap, stroking his hair and cheeks, mumbling words, hoping he would come to soon.

"Untie me, female!" Possedion ordered from the table.

I ignored him.

He called out a few more times, but I shut him out, solely focused on Thrax on my lap.

"Come on, Thrax, wake up," I begged.

Possedion called a few more times for me, then began simply cursing me and finally fell silent. I thought he had dozed off, and my assumption was confirmed when a small cleaning drone flew up, hovered over him, and sprayed him with a substance that woke him up. He cursed the drone as it flew out of his reach.

I had noticed the drones before but had been too engrossed in all the other activities Thrax and I were engaged in to give them much thought, but now that I had a second, my mind was happy to think about something other than worrying about Thrax. I looked a little closer at the machine.

It looked like a Roomba, except that it was made of biopolymers as Thrax had explained, and was a lot thinner. Little lights blinked at different parts, and from what I had noticed here and there, they did everything from washing the windows to picking up trash, which there wasn't much of here. Nothing came in wrappers. Our drinks came in cups that the drones cleaned and probably restocked. They sure were handy little robots, and I bet people on Earth would have loved to pay a hefty amount of money to have one or two in their households, at least before the Cryons attacked.

A small sigh from Thrax ripped me from my revelry.

"Hey," I cooed.

"Hmm," he moaned. "Why is my entire body hurt—you shot me." His eyes flew open, and he stared accusatorily at me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. I was worried you would kill Possedion."

He sighed again, this time from deep inside his chest, as he slowly rose. "I would have," he agreed.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, feeling like shit for having done so to him.

He waved me off. "You'll never have to apologize to me. You did the right thing. I would have killed the little frygg."

He regarded me. "And I would have never forgiven myself, so thank you."

I held my hand out so he could lean on me since he still seemed a little wobbly on his legs. "Come, let's get you to lie down for a bit."

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