Page 19 of Bought and Shared
There was no chance in hell that I was leaving my mate in the hands of another Voltan warrior. Aurora was my responsibility! It was my duty, and honor, to keep her safe. I’d rather cut off my right arm than leave her fate up to another male when I am more than capable of taking care of her myself.
My mind began to pull at the threads of the story I’d been told then. What happened to that bus? If I remember correctly, and my memory was exceptional, this wasn’t the first “accident” that the transport had encountered. Four months back, there was a report that the bus had some kind of technical issues that the driver was able to fix enroute to their final destination. But the damage was suspicious, and our mechanics had never pinpointed the origin of the issue.
This coincidence itched at the back of my thoughts. Mainly because I didn’t believe in coincidences. I had an inkling that these two events were somehow related. And, as soon as I got more details about the crash, I was going to explore why that was.
Aurora
“Is everyone okay?” The Captain asks as he rises to his feet as best he can.
As tall and large as the Voltan warrior is, that’s not an easy task. The bus is on its side, with the windows smashed against the pavement beneath us. Those on the right side are being crushed by the weight of the others that have tumbled down on top of them. There’s a lot of shuffling and reorganizing, as people get over the shock of the accident and try to shift off of those buried on the bottom, of which I’m one. A slew of mumbled replies belatedly answer the Captain’s query. Cadence is sprawled on top of me, but she seems unharmed.
“Aurora, you’re bleeding,” she exclaims, her voice higher pitched than usual.
It must be the shock. I’m suffering from it too. I need several seconds to collect myself before I can audibly reply.
I wiggle my arm out from where it is pinned and touch my forehead. Thick red smears stain my fingertips. My head stings, but I think it’s mostly a superficial wound. It probably happened when the glass shattered. One of the shards must have come loose and cut me during the crash, and I hadn’t even felt it given all that was going on around me.
“I’m okay,” I assure her. “It looks worse than it is, I’m sure.”
I hear the men outside our wreck shouting at one another. Because the bus is resting on the main door, the attackers are effectively blocked from entry. This wasn’t something they’d planned for and they sound seriously upset about it.
The Voltan soldiers, blaster guns poised and at the ready, are stationed at the only two other entrance of the bus: the rear door and the small hatch on the roof, which is not oriented to the side. Arguing amongst themselves, our attackers are trying to figure out the best method of getting inside the bus without catching one of those deathly rays.
The attackers move to the front of our transport where the driver is awkwardly slumped hanging by his seatbelt. Though I’m blocked by many bodies, I see maybe ten or twelve human men waving their weapons about, telling the poor driver to get away from the window before they shoot it out.
“They’re armed with the firepower to successfully do it,” I overhear Tarlov say to Dunkan. “Depending on how many of them there are, we might have to change our defensive strategy.”
As soon as the driver gets his seatbelt released he tumbles into the cavity where the stairs are and the men raise the hood of the bus to block our view of what they’re doing.
“Don’t pull the trigger until they give you no other choice,” the Captain says from the rear of our transport. “We don’t want to do their job for them by blasting out these windows and providing them easy entry inside.”
I’m shaking now, more terrified than ever. What do these men want? Well, I know what they want: us. The women. I just don’t knowwhythey’re doing this. Were they trying to prove somepoint to the Voltan? And if so, did they not see that they were risking wounding their own people in the process?
The sound of power equipment can be heard behind the hood of the bus as we wait with bated breath for their next move. I’m not sure what the men are doing, but they’re working hard at it, and it terrifies me.
“They’re using the thickness of the metal to block our blaster guns,” Tarlov shouts over the noise to his Captain.
Sure enough, the hood begins to move and ram against the glass of the window. It doesn’t break on the first hit. Or the second. But by the third, an intricate web forms along the sturdy windshield. By the fifth blow, the glass gives entirely and topples into the bus, leaving us completely exposed.
“They’ve breached the bus,” Tarlov narrates, and feminine cries rip through our enclosure at the magnitude of what that means.
“Damn right, we’ve breached it!” Someone calls back from outside the bus. “And we’re coming in. If anybody tries anything stupid, we’re going to shoot first and ask questions never! You got me, freaks?”
The Captain bellows, “You have no honor if you threaten to harm innocent women!”
“Don’t talk to us about honor,” the human man counters. “Your kind doesn’t know the first thing about it. Now, put your hands up, Voltan scum, and march yourselves outside of this bus so that nobody gets hurt.”
“He’s a fool if he thinks Voltan warriors will be surrendering to his weak show of human force,” Tovar grits out, looking disgusted.
The Captain and Dunkan both nod. “The last thing we’re going to do is leave these women helpless against a bloodthirsty mob. If they want a fight with real males, however, I’ll be more than willing to give it to them.”
“I second that,” Tovar agrees.
The Captain nods as he motions his men to the front of the bus to take up defensive positions, and orders the women to make their way toward the back as best they can. “Everyone needs to get behind us.”
Too stunned to react, the women take a second to process the request. Amy is the first to act. “Come on everyone. Get off your asses and do as Quinn says! He knows what he’s doing and he’ll keep us safe.”
Quinn smiles affectionately at her. When she stands up, balancing on the sideways seats to show the rest of us how to navigate this disorienting space, he leans back and says, “That little speech of yours just earned you several mind-blowing orgasms later tonight.”
