Page 21 of Silent Lucidity

It was her last thought before the darkness claimed her.

Tenthil steppedover the dead ertraxxan and bent forward, slipping his hands under the sagging terran’s arms to catch her before she fell. Her head lolled. Frowning, he swept her hair back from her face and examined her for injuries. Cullion’s blue blood had splattered on her face and chest and covered her hand, but as far as Tenthil could tell, she wasn’t bleeding herself. She did, however, have a lump on the back of her head, and her pallid complexion suggested she was exhausted.

He clenched his teeth against a fresh wave of rage; he should’ve moved quicker, but he hadn’t wanted to risk harming her. He admired the fight she’d put up, but she’d made it difficult for Tenthil to get in a clean blow during her struggle with Cullion.

Crouching, Tenthil laid the unconscious female over his left shoulder and looped his arm around her middle. He turned his face toward her, inhaled as her scent washed over him, and nuzzled his cheek against her side.

He grappled for control as his muscles stiffened and his cock strained against his pants anew. Now was not the time, but his body didn’t seem to care. He needed to get her out of this place so he could tend her wounds; there were more Starforge personnel on the premises, and it was likely the Eternal Guard had been alerted by now.

Only when she was safe—and healed—could he give in to his primal desires.

Tenthil drew his blaster with his right hand, checked its charge, and stepped over the corpses to enter the bedroom. He dialed the weapon’s power to maximum; it emitted a high hum as its core heated. Turning his body sideways to shield the terran, he extended his arm and aimed the blaster at the wall behind the wide, low bed. His target was a large recess—he suspected it was a window that had been covered at some point.

There wasn’t time to waste hoping he was correct.

He turned his face away and squeezed the trigger. The blaster’s whine intensified into an undulating buzz. A second later, a massive burst of plasma erupted from the barrel. The room shook as the blast struck the wall with a deafening boom, filling the air with rubble, smoke, and dust.

Tenthil waved the blaster in the air to clear away some of the acrid fumes as he turned toward the wall. The slowly dissipating smoke revealed a huge hole, nearly two meters in diameter, over the debris-laden bed, its edges glowing orange with super-heated metal and stone. The alleyway behind the manor was visible through the opening. He holstered the blaster; it was hot enough that he felt it through both his pants and the shielded holster.

Gently, he slid the human off his shoulder and gathered her in his arms, clutching her against his chest. He ran forward, hopped onto the bed, and leapt through the hole.

His boot touched down atop the wall; he used that point of contact to thrust himself back toward the manor, landing in a crouch on the ground between the building and the barrier. He shifted the female over his shoulder again as he rose and drew his blaster. Working with one hand, he opened the breech, slid out the still-smoking power cell, and replaced it with a new one. A flick of his wrist snapped the breech shut.

He dialed the output down to normal as he jogged along the three-meter-wide path. He and the terran needed to leave the sector as quickly as possible, and he knew of only one likely vehicle nearby.

Turning at the outside corner, he hurried down the side of the manor toward its front yard. Only as he neared the next corner did he stop to carefully lower the terran, tucking her in the shadowed base of one of the recesses along the wall. Once she was sitting—unresponsive but breathing—he rounded the corner.

Two guards stood beside the hovercar, their attention directed toward the manor’s front entrance.

“Report team two,” said one of the guards. He was silent for several seconds; his expression falling, before he turned away and spat out a series of curses in his native vorgish tongue.

“What does he mean they’re all dead?” the other guard demanded, turning to face his companion.

Their distraction was the opening Tenthil needed. Keeping low, he crept forward, reaching the hovercar on the side opposite the guards. A few more steps brought him around to face them. He fired rapidly into the nearest guard’s back. Several of the plasma bolts pierced the first guard and hit the second; they both fell within a second, releasing abrupt, choking cries.

Tenthil tugged open the hovercar’s rear driver-side door and was rounding the vehicle to return to the terran when he paused. There was a cage built onto the rear of the car. Any creature kept within would be on display to anyone nearby, like an animal in a menagerie.

His stomach sank when he realized its likely use. He hurried back to the female and frowned down at her.

Had she been forced to ride in that cage when Cullion traveled, exposed for the world to see, displayed as the property of a wealthy ertraxxan? He swallowed his anger; it would do no good now. Cullion was dead.

Tenthil lifted her over his shoulder again. Her closeness renewed his awareness of her scent, and it took a surprising amount of willpower to ignore it.

Wemustreach safety.

He brought her to the car, checking behind him frequently over the short trip, and laid her across the back seat. He had no doubt that Cullion had reclined in comfort in the luxuriously furnished cab while the terran had been stuffed in the cage out back. Fresh rage flowed through Tenthil’s body, but he did not give it control. He gently shut the door and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Dipping a hand into one of the pouches on his belt, he removed a tiny disc the size of his fingertip and pressed it onto the control panel. With an electric crackle, the device activated. The hovercar’s display flashed an error, warning that the navigation network could not be accessed; the jammer was functional. The hovercar would be untraceable for three hours.

That was more than enough time.

He pulled back on the controls, guiding the hovercar upward, and angled it toward the nearest express tunnel. Without a backward glance, he engaged the throttle and sped away from Cullion’s manor.

Even without the navigation equipment running, Tenthil knew the way back to his hoverbike; he followed an out-of-the-way, meandering route, watching for pursuit throughout. He landed the hovercar a kilometer away from the bike.

The terran’s weight was slight, but carrying her through the sometimes cramped maintenance tunnels and catwalks he used to obscure his path and avoid prying eyes proved challenging. He had no desire to harm her further, meaning he was often forced to slow his pace.

As time separated him from the events at the manor, the rational voice reemerged in the back of his mind, reminding him that there would be consequences for what he’d done. He cast it aside; his needs, at that moment, were simple—a safe location and equipment to tend to his terran—and required his full focus. Everything else could wait a while longer.

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