Page 42 of Marked
I wasn’t going to allow that.
I snarled loudly and skidded to a stop, tiny rocks skittering across the hard surface. I threw myself forward and pivoted back toward the Uruk-Zuk that were rushing our way. I heard Alaric come to a stop behind me. He snarled something about continuing to run, but I neither heard the words nor did I care what they were.
I had to save my family. I had to save us.
I roared with anger and he stopped talking.
I got my first real look at the Uruk-Zuk then. They were big. Almost as tall as an eighteen-wheeler and maybe half as long. Gengry had been right in calling them similar to Earth bears, but that wasn’t really true either. They had six pairs of legs that were thin and scrawny like a spider’s but that terminated in hooves. Their torsos were covered in thick black hair that reminded me of a mammoth, but their scraggy heads had the appearance of an ox. Long noses led out to thick nostrils that flared open and shut with the exertion of running toward us. Their mouths had fallen open, and I could see sharp, jagged teeth that were the size of my forearms lining their jaws.
But their eyes were the most alarming.
Alaric had mentioned mind control, but he hadn’t mentioned how that meant that the Uruk-Zuk had the very same eyes as the Ghengrills, the same sickly yellow. A Ghengrill rode each one of the six Uruk-Zuk, seated in thick leather saddles specially made for such monstrous creatures.
Some sort of contraption connected the two species from the top of the Ghengrills’ shiny bald heads to the backs of the Uruk-Zuk’s scalps. It looked like a rope.
I wondered if that was how they were controlling them.
One of the Ghengrills lifted something that looked like a rocket launcher and pulled the trigger. A blast of red laser soared toward us, and I quickly dove and rolled to the side, before pushing myself back up to my feet. I growled in their direction, and my anger grew stronger.
It turned into fury.
Uncontrollable, destructive rage.
Alaric moved to grab my hand, and I shook him off, watching as the Uruk-Zuk pounded toward us. My upper lip rolled as I stared them down. The Ghengrill holding the laser launcher lifted it once more and it was too much. I lost it entirely.
I screamed and my wrath exploded into something physical.
The wind whipped up and something that sounded like a sonic boom split the air around us. The tiny little rocky bits of the ground lifted up into the air and then burst upward in a solid barrier, effectively blocking the blast from the launcher. The bright red laser burst into fragments, raining down on the ground instead of tearing us into pieces.
Alaric took a step back.
I screamed again. I couldn’t stop whatever was about to happen.
Rage personified.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I could feel myself growing stronger. It was as though I controlled the very fabric that held the air together. Alaric had protected me before. He’d rescued me from the Ghengrills and freed me from their clutches. Now it was my turn to return the favor.
I needed to defend my family. My mate. My baby.
Nothing was going to come between us ever again.
I screamed and the sound cut through the air with so much force that the ground began to rattle with it. The Uruk-Zuk kept running, hurtling toward us at a furious pace, but when I roared again, a much deeper sound began to echo below us.
The surface of Ghengra began to shake, and small fissures began to crack open on the surface. They grew wider and deeper. The tiny pieces of rocks rattled on top of the hardened surface, sounding like raindrops splashing down all around us.
More anger hurtled through me. More of it built up around us and crackled in the planet beneath us. It became stronger, almost like a physical, palpable force, and then it collapsed in on itself.
Those tiny fractures quickly developed into much larger cracks, splintering the surface with astonishing speed. All at once, Ghengra split open before us into a deep chasm that felt like it had ruptured the very planet in half. My eyes drew down, and I couldn’t see the bottom. For all I knew, I’d broken Ghengra apart straight down to its core.
A clap of thunder echoed piercingly loud overhead, and the Uruk-Zuk struggled to slow down before they plunged over the edge. When they finally were able to come to a complete stop, they were only about one hundred feet away from us. They stared back at us, cut off from reaching us with their land-based mounts. Their putrid yellow eyes stared back at me with a fury all their own.
I didn’t care. They’d asked for this. The Ghengrills were the ones who’d stolen me in the first place. They’d taken me almost the very moment Alaric had finally come back for me. They deserved whatever bad thing happened to them.
I had tried running, but it was too late now. It was time to fight, and I was going to destroy them.
Then we were going to get the fuck off of this godforsaken planet.
The Ghengrill with the launcher lifted it again, and I roared with anger. The tiny rocks that had been swirling around us lifted high into the air and came together in the shape of a massive white spear. I watched as it petrified above my head, hardening into a formidable weapon of war. Before the Ghengrill could pull the trigger, another scream had escaped my throat and the newly formed missile hurtled toward him. He didn’t even have time to dismount off his Uruk-Zuk before the spear skewered him straight through his chest with enough force that he flew backwards at least ten feet before he slammed into the ground, a broken bloody mess of dead alien.
