Page 103 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid
“Stay here,” Cordelia said. “Stay low to the ground until it’s over.”
She didn’t wait for confirmation; chaos erupted behind her.
There were three more auretian soldiers on the shuttle, now fanning out with their blasters raised. The world dropped out from under her as the biggest one trained his weapon on Rentir and pulled the trigger; Haerune shoved him out of the plasma bolt’s path at the last second. It sizzled through the air between them and seared into the trunk of a tree in the distance.
That would have been him, she thought with blank horror.Right between his eyes. He almost…
With a cry of fury, she raised her weapon and fired as she approached, splitting the male’s attention. The shots were all center mass—she wasn’t confident she could manage a head shot with a glorified pistol at this distance—and though his armor sizzled and sparked, it didn’t seem to harm him.
The muzzle of his weapon spun toward her, and she ducked, hearing Rentir’s answering bellow of rage. Rentir sprinted for the male, tackling him to the ground and knocking the blaster from his hands.
The pair rolled, and Rentir somehow wound up on the bottom. He’d knocked the other male’s mask free, revealing his snarling visage. Rentir’s scyra whipped across the male’s cheek, cutting him down to the bone, but the male’s grip around Rentir’s throat didn’t loosen.
She raised her blaster and pulled the trigger, but the weapon only beeped reproachfully at her. She couldn’t read the flashing red script on the side, but she was sure it said ‘jammed’ or ‘overheating’ or something equally damning. With a curse, she threw it to the ground, pulling the knife Melam had given her.
When she looked back up, Haerune had his tail wrapped around the auretian’s throat and both hands beneath his armpits, struggling to drag him away from Rentir. The auretian snatched a familiar shark-tooth blade off his belt and drove it into Haerune’s thigh repeatedly in quick succession; it wasn’t enough to make him drop the auretian, but it loosened his grip, and that was all the male needed to break free.
Haerune swayed on his feet, staggered a few steps, then collapsed with his hand still outstretched toward his brother. Dread gripped Cordelia by the throat.
Rentir’s struggles were weakening, his attempts with both his scyra and the plasma blade were overcome by the other male.He turned his shark-toothed blade on Rentir, punching down with his fist wrapped around the handle. Cordelia couldn’t see where he was striking, but she could tell from the way Rentir was jolting that the blade was finding its target.
“Rentir!” she screamed, unable to stop herself.
She ran for them. The male glanced her way, prematurely confident in Rentir’s defeat. Rentir followed the male’s line of sight with hazy eyes that sharpened into bright focus when he saw her. He snarled, his muscles bulging beneath his shirt, and reached for the male as he tried to rise. One moment, the auretian was glaring at her; the next, his eyes were blinking in abject confusion, and his entire lower jaw was gone. It struck him in the face a moment later, leaving a grisly impression of his own bite over his temple. Another hit, and he crumpled, slumping over Rentir.
When she finally reached his side, Rentir was mindlessly clawing at the male’s throat, covered to his elbow in viscera.
“That’s enough!” she barked, hoping the authority in her voice wasn’t tinged with the raw fear she felt at the sight of Rentir going feral.
He froze, looking up at her with dissociated blankness before his vision cleared. “Cordelia,” he rasped. He turned his head and spat blood, his nose wrinkling.
She knelt beside him, yanking the hem of his shirt out of his pants, frantic to see where that blade had caught him. There were half a dozen enthusiastically bleeding stab wounds on his left pectoral, but he was breathing strong, and it didn’t sound wet to her. His lung seemed to have been spared, thank God.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice rough. “You don’t have to?—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He did.
With fumbling hands, she fished in one of her pockets for the small first aid kit Haerune had given her that morning. Shefound the medipoxy and forced him to hold up his shirt while she applied it to his wounds. When she was done, she found his eyes on Haerune.
Swallowing hard, he asked, “Is he…?”
She threw aside the empty medipoxy, crawling in the dirt to kneel beside Haerune. His eyes were flitting back and forth behind his lids as he breathed a little too fast. His thigh was soaked with blood. She slid the tip of her knife into one of the slashes in his pants, ripping hard at the fabric. A lot of wounds, but bleeding sluggishly. She didn’t think he’d been hit anywhere vital.
“I’ve got him,” someone said, bumping her out of the way.
Cordelia looked up in shock to find Pandora kneeling next to her. She snapped on a pair of gloves, her dark eyes flitting over the injury.
“You were supposed to wait at the base!”
Cordelia hadn’t wanted to risk any more of the crew than had been absolutely necessary. She wouldn’t have allowed Lyra’s participation, either, but the heiress had kicked up a fuss, ranting in her imperious manner until Cordelia would have put her in a box with a bow on it for the Aurillon just to shut her up.
“Yes. I didn’t. Move, please.”
She turned back to Rentir as Pandora drew out a first aid kit, all business in her element. He was standing now, swaying on his feet with his pupils blown wide. She ducked under his arm, grunting as he gave her his weight.
“Poisoned,” he muttered.
