Page 74 of Alien Prince's Claim

Cayah nodded, but it was distracted with Nisa on the sofa.

“I have a ship,” he said. “If we can reach it, we’ll have a chance of getting out of here.”

Yaltah threw up his hands. “I have a ship. They have ships stationed outside waiting to swat us from the sky. We’ll never get out before they strike us.”

“That’s true,” Cayah said, raising his eyes to lock onto Yaltah. “If you don’t have a Reflector.”

I had no idea what a Reflector was but evidently Yaltah did.

“They’re outlawed in every quadrant,” Yaltah said.

“Every quadrant,” Cayah said happily.

“What’s a Reflector?” I asked.

Yaltah didn’t take his eyes from Cayah. “They’re devices that allow your ship to mimic the identification code of any other ship in the system.”

Well, that went over my head! “Which means…?”

Yaltah tore his eyes from Cayah and focused on me. “It means we can make a ship appear to belong to the Goblar fleet. They won’t be able to tell us apart, and by the time they do, we’ll be far away.”

Cayah dabbed at Nisa’s cheeks before dropping the cloth into a bowl of icy water. “But in order to do that, I have to get to my ship. And with you fighting alongside me, I’m sure we’ll have no trouble— Urk!”

Yaltah, faster than a striking cobra, leapt forward and snapped his hand around Cayah’s neck, shoving him backward and slamming him into the wall.

It happened so fast I was caught by surprise and stumbled back.

“What… What are you… d-doing?” Cayah snorted between ragged breaths as Yaltah choked the air from his throat.

Yaltah glared at him. “You’re going to tell me the name of your ship and I’m going to take it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Ngh…. No!” Cayah grunted. “We… We work as… a team!”

Yaltah shook his head and spat to one side. “I don’t work with Shiax. Not when you’ll bury a blade in my back the first chance you get.”

“Why… Why would I… do that?” Cayah struggled. “If you die… we all die…”

I placed a hand on Yaltah’s back.

He started, surprised I had crept up on him.

His attention remained on the creature he had pinned to the wall.

“Yaltah,” I said softly. “He saved our lives. The least we can do is trust him.”

“His species knows nothing about trust. He’ll betray us the moment he gets a chance.”

I looked between Cayah and Yaltah.

Was he right?

Or was there some latent animosity between their two species?

Somehow, Yaltah glared even harder. “Ship. Name. Now.”

Cayah glanced toward his mate on the sofa and his bulging eyes rolled back in his head. “If I tell you… She won’t survive… Then… I might as well… die.”

---