Page 2 of Monstrous Hunt
:I can’t wait to find out,:I replied grimly.
However, the blue energy zapped out, closing the jump hole and simultaneously severing the sauropod in half. We staggered backward, caught off balance by the weight change. Snryx and I released our hold on the dead beast but Lohr didn’t retract his fangs quickly enough. Buried beneath the dead weight, he ended up flipped over on his back beneath the corpse.
I waited for one of them to make a joke. That’s how we typically coped with pumped up adrenaline after a fight. Yet no one said a word, not even on the grid. I didn’t think I could handle a joke right now, let alone a kind word. Not after losing Natalie.
Crushing pain filled me, as if the BGR had seized me in his jaws and smashed all my ribs into dust. The raptor left me in a rush. Crumpled to my knees, I slumped beside the blackened ring where the jump hole had singed the ground.
One by one, the rest of my squad shifted and joined me. Lohr rolled out from beneath the dead sauropod, his head hanging low. “I failed to protect her. Please release your rage on me and allow my corpse to rot with them.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t your fault. Even if you’d managed to get her inside, Axxol would have been able to bring the whole fucking house down on your head. I failed to reach her in time.”
“She’s likely still alive,” Snryx said.
I lifted my head, eyes narrowed. “How? He ate her.”
“Heswallowedher,” Snryx corrected. “There’s a difference. In fact, I’d say for a BGR he was extremely careful in how he scooped her up.”
Clenching my hands into fists, I thumped my thighs with frustration. “Why, though? Where would he take her? He could be anywhere.”
“She’s his mate too,” Lohr said.
I had both hands wrapped around his throat before I even realized what I was doing. “Never.”
He stared back at me and rasped out, “He’s still squad.”
“He fucking betrayed us!” I jerked my hands away before I tore his fucking head off. I’d regret it later, even though I was pissed. “Not once but twice, because he stole our mate. Our fuckingpregnantmate. How the fuck did he even find out about her?”
“He’s probably been watching us this whole time.” Rizan lifted his hands soothingly as I whipped my glare around to him. “I never saw him. I don’t know for sure. But think about it. He could have used the other squad’s attack to eliminate you, but he didn’t.”
“He fucking took her!” I bellowed. “Even if she’s not dead or hurt, she’s scared and alone.”
My voice cracked, and my raptor roiled inside me, clawing and rending my organs with impotent rage. Unable to stay still a moment longer, I surged up to my feet and took my fury out on the dead sauropod. Using my x-ray vision, I scanned his corpse for any useful hardware we could make use of, and then ripped my way through the meat to tear the components free.
Silently, Riz tapped into the bloody chip and began downloading everything that hadn’t already been wiped to our grid. Dyni were rigged to self-destruct upon our death. The bodies would decay rapidly, creating a caustic chemical reaction that’d destroy the cybernetic enhancements as well. Unless we salvaged them first.
Hopefully we’d find a clue to why we’d been selected for termination in the first place. Though any lingering hope that our decommissioning might have been a clerical error was now eliminated. HQ had sent an assassin squad to kill the assassins. Not a specialist among them, and even the communications expert had been designed to take out a BGR.
We needed to know how much intel they’d gathered on us before the attack. Then we needed to get the fuck out of here in case they’d deployed multiple squads.
Pain and grief and worry gnawed at me. My poor little human had to be scared to death. I ignored the voice that said,“If she’s still alive.”
I’ll find you, baby. No matter what it takes.
* * *
NATALIE
Blackness squeezedaround me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move more than my fingers and toes. Evidently, I was stuck in the craw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s throat. Good. I hoped the motherfucker choked to death on me.
I crooked a finger and dug the tip of my nail into the tight muscular tissue, trying to tear it open. Or at least tickle his throat enough to make him throw me up. What I wouldn’t give for a pocketknife right now. I’d slit his gullet open.
I refuse to go out like this. Devoured by some asshole hulking alien super-soldier who’d dared take me away from Kroktl.
A sob lodged in my throat.I have to find a way to survive until he catches up.
He would find me. I refused to believe anything else.
The muscles convulsed around me, making my ribs, shoulders, and hips ache with strain. Fucking hell. Was I going up or down? If he managed to get me all the way down to his stomach, there’d be a shit-ton of acid. I didn’t think I’d survive long, and without some kind of weapon, I couldn’t cut my way out. My lungs burned, aching for air. Something popped in my shoulder, sending a wave of pain through my body. My opposite knee. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, trying to hold my breath. Not open my mouth. Screaming would lose the little bit of air I still had.
