Page 1 of Taken By The Alien Warrior Pirate

ChapterOne

CARMELA

Athundering of footsteps echoed through my eardrums. Arms and legs whirled around in front of my vision like the contents of a pot of soup being stirred.

The wailing of shrill, alarm sirens harshly rang through my ears and pounded between my temples.

Hasty breath was quick in my lungs. A rushing sound of Cyburn breathing beside me provided a loaded concoction of comfort and terror.

Yes, he was here beside me, but were we going to make it back to his hover flyers, the machines that were critical to our safe return to his main ship—The Blade?

Time was ruthless. It didn’t care who it fucked over in the process. It just kept on ticking by— as a thief of sorts.

Overhead, the buzz and crackle of the spaceship’s intercom system intermittently interrupted the siren’s cry. Flashing red light bulbs that were connected to the wall and ceilings pulsed and blinked across the canvas of my vision.

A knot in my throat dangerously threaded together with the knot in my heart and stomach, creating a burn of agony and a monumental pain of fright.

I had never experienced a panic as severe as this.

Then again, I was pretty inexperienced with life or death situations.

Everything was at stake. Whether I lived or died? Well… that was still up in the air.

“Come on,” Cyburn urged.

His thick fingers coiled around my wrist as he swiftly pulled me forward to keep me up to speed with his and Nix’s wider strides.

I glanced downward. My mouth opened. A tiny gasp slipped between the cracks of my lips as they parted, but nothing more. I had lost my breath, too stunned to react.

“Don’t look.” Cyburn adamantly shook his head. “Don’t look at them.”

I couldn’t help myself.

Curiosity got the better of me.

Against Cyburn’s compelling insistence, my eyes trailed down to the grated, metal floor of the harvester ship—a ship where I’d been intended to die.

A ship where I mightstilldie.

“Carmela.” My name was like a vital prayer as it slipped from Cyburn’s tongue and rolled out into the air.

I gazed up, my facial expression frozen with paranoia and fear.

“I told you not tolookat them, sweetheart.”

I frantically licked my lips. My hand felt clammy roped around his. I had to readjust it to keep it from sliding out of his grasp.

“I’m… sorry.”

“They can’t hurt you anymore anyway,” Nix said, jogging along beside me, fully decked out in his Alesian body armor and life support equipment that worked for both fighting purposes and exposure to the outside of space.

Cyburn was dressed in the same attire as his counterpart, Nix. His white-blond hair looked almost silvery under the fluorescent lights overhead in the harvester ship’s corridor.

“We’re almost there,” he promised, beckoning me further.

What other choice did I have than to just believe him and surrender my unfiltered trust to him?

An uneasy sensation churned in my stomach, but as Cyburn held onto my hand and squeezed it a little tighter, the discomfort quelled quite a bit.

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