by Kate Rudolph
How anyone who’d met Xandr could believe he resembled the monster she described, she didn’t know, but Mebion was practically dancing with glee when he left the room. He promised her that he’d see to her return journey to Earth just as soon as the situation with Xandr, or Karday Xandran, was “settled.”
Hours had passed since she’d first woken up, and she didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious before that. Xandr had to know she was gone by now. Mebion hadn’t given her any hint as to whether Keana had fallen into his clutches as well and Andie hadn’t asked. It wouldn’t fit in with the story she was trying to sell and she didn’t want Mebion out looking for her if Keana had gotten away.
The longer she was stuck in the office the more likely it was that Mebion and his team would apprehend Xandr. She had to get away in case he was coming for her. She was split in two between hoping he did or didn’t come. Her heart wanted him there, wanted him to sweep her up into his arms and promise that nothing bad would ever happen to her again. Her head wanted him to run away as far and as fast as he could. Mebion didn’t seem inclined to hurt her, not yet anyway, and if he wasn’t lying then she might be able to talk her way out of his clutches. She was a bit player and the duke had no idea just how deep her relationship with Xandr ran.
Though could it run that deep if she still didn’t know why the duke wanted him? He’d seemed ready to launch into a screed at one point but had held himself back, seeming to realize that she wasn’t someone he should be ranting to.
As minutes ticked by into hours, Andie’s hope for some miracle escape dwindled. She stared at the wall and eventually gave up on the hope of suddenly developing eye lasers that would cut a hole for her. A girl could dream. But dreams weren’t plans, and only a plan would get her out of there.
First step: get out of the damn office. If she wasn’t stuck behind a locked door, she had a better chance of making it outside. Even if all she did was cause trouble for a while, it would be better than sitting docilely and waiting for her fate. The Andie that did that had been left behind on Ixilta. She was in control of herself now and she wasn’t going to let go of that just because the situation had gone to shit.
Steeling herself for opposition, she marched towards the door and started banging. That had brought Mebion before and she was almost certain someone was outside to here it. “I have to use the bathroom!” she yelled, latching onto the best reason she could think of on short notice. “Come on! I’ve been in here for hours and it’s getting urgent!” The slavers who’d abducted her from Earth all those years ago hadn’t cared about bodily needs, but Mebion was trying to play the part of a gentleman. Hopefully he didn’t want her pissing in a corner.
It took a few minutes, but the door finally opened to a glaring guard. “What are you yelling about?” he demanded.
“Bathroom.” Andie glared right back, putting as much challenge in her eyes as she dared. “Please,” she added as an afterthought.
The guard stared at her for several moments before grabbing her arm and jerking her out of the room. Another guard stood several meters down the hall and watched them dispassionately as Andie was shuffled down the hall, around a corner, and into a small room. The guard followed her in and her eyes widened. That wouldn’t do at all.
“Really?” she demanded. “I just have to pee. You can’t expect me to do it when you’re standing right there!” She had to keep her eyes trained on him to keep herself from looking for an escape. The chances of there being a second door or something weren’t that high, but if the guard knew what she was thinking there was no way he’d give her the time to look.
“Just go,” he commanded, nodding towards one of the toilets.
She could tell standoffish wasn’t going to work. She let her shoulders slump and cast her gaze down to the floor. “Please,” she said, putting a little bit of whine, a little begging, into her words. “I don’t think I can if I know you’re watching. I’ll be quick. I promise. I just need to do it alone.” She sniffled and wiped at her eyes as if she was about to cry. Pathetic. Weak. Cowed. Exactly the type of person who wasn’t trying to escape.
The guard stared at her, his electric blue eyes devoid of anything but frustration. Violence lurked there and she wondered if Mebion had told them not to hurt her. Would he care? If he was operating honestly, he would, but she had no reason to think he wasn’t a liar.
“Make it quick,” the guard growled at her before backing through the door and slamming it behind him.
Andie sprang into motion. She was looking for any way out, whether that meant finding a window and climbing or finding some sort of tool and using it later she didn’t yet know, but she would. The bathroom was fairly simple: dividers placed between three toilets and a trough sink along one wall. The only door she saw at first was the one she’d come through, but then she noticed a second, smaller door off to the side. She tried the handle, but when it swung open she faced a small closet with no exit. Stacks of towels and cleaning supplies lined the shelves. She shut the closet door gently and spun back around to face the room.
There!
Just above the sink trough was a narrow window. Andie smoothed her hands over her hips and hoped she could make it. But first she had to see if the window would open, and figure out if going through it was suicide or not. Things weren’t dire enough to consider jumping off the building. Not yet.
She climbed up on top of the sink, wincing when her foot knocked against a faucet and made a sound that echoed through the room. It felt like she’d been in the bathroom for hours and her guard had to be getting impatient. The window looked out onto a courtyard only a floor or two below. The fall might hurt, but it wouldn’t kill her, at least she didn’t think it would.
Opening the window took a good bit of force and a few grunts, but Andie finally made it and managed to shimmy through, wincing when her hip dragged over something sharp that tore her clothes and scratched her skin. She really hoped no one was looking at the courtyard right now. She didn’t hear any calls of alarm, but she only had minutes before the guard realized she was gone and with the window open her direction of escape would be obvious.
She’d deal with that later.
Andie dangled from the ledge outside the bathroom by the tips of her fingers, skin burning as her full weight settled there. She looked down and snapped her head back up. It hadn’t looked like that great a distance when she was in the bathroom, but dangling in the air it felt like three hundred meters.
It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t, and she’d never been particularly afraid of heights before. Now wasn’t the time to develop nerves.
Go, she whispered to herself. Do it.
She sucked in a deep breath and let go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GETTING INTO THE FACILITY was easier than expected thanks to more than a few favors Xandr had called in. He’d been surprised when the entire crew agreed to participate in the rescue. Most hadn’t seemed too interested when he made his plans known, but they’d rallied. Keana was the only one brave enough to tell him that he could never hope to pull it off alone.
It was good to have a first mate who was honest.
As with the rest of the port, they couldn’t rely on their normal comms. Each member of his team had one of the beepers where they could rely their pre-determined signals. Once Xandr had Andie, they’d get out of the building and off the planet as fast as possible, and then it was time to talk to Andie... and to the rest of the team. They had to be noticing that skirmishes with Mebion were getting worse, and his people needed to know what they were getting into. It was one thing to let them work in ignorance when chances of running into the duke were slim. When he showed up on every job and started abducting crew, that crew needed to know.
It wouldn’t make the telling any easier. And he doubted that Keana would be in favor of his plan. But even if she called him a thrice damned fool, she’d back him up. It had always been more his secret than hers, no matter how entwined their pasts were.
He put those thoughts out of his mind. Getting preoccupied with the future would only make him mess up now. His contact didn’t know exactly where Andie was being kept, but had narrowed down the possibilities to one wing of the building. It could take hours to do a thorough search, but Xandr didn’t trust his luck to last for that long. The place was teeming with Oscavians, and while that meant he fit in to a certain extent, it also meant that plenty of guards were on the lookout for him. If they looked too closely, they’d see he didn’t belong.
He had to act fast.
The least secure way into the correct wing was through a central courtyard. Xandr had the path mapped out and memorized, and it was embedded in his communicator. He couldn’t use the device to contact the team, but it still had its uses. He’d just made it to the door to the courtyard when the door swung open. He cast his gaze down and stepped to the side, hoping the shadows would hide him well enough from whoever was coming.
A curse told him it hadn’t worked, but the familiar cadence of that word had him snapping his head up, his eyes widening in surprise and delight as he saw Andie.
Her own surprise wasn’t as happy, even as she reached for him and clutched his arm as if she couldn’t believe he was really there. “You’re here,” he harshly whispered, full of disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get you.” Had she doubted that? The question sat on the tip of Xandr’s tongue, but now wasn’t the time to ask. Mebion and his guards could be lurking around any corner. “We need to leave now.” He used his beeper to give the signal that he’d found Andie. Nothing came back in confirmation, but he couldn’t worry about that.
“They’re going to be looking for me soon. I snuck out of the bathroom.” Andie’s gaze darted around, looking for any lurking threats. But they were alone for the moment.
Xandr couldn’t resist tilting her chin up and sealing his lips against hers. It had been hours since their last kiss and he’d worried that he wouldn’t see her again, that Mebion would part them for good. He wanted to put every word, every emotion he hadn’t said into the kiss, but there wasn’t time. Xandr tore himself away and stared at Andie for a moment, hoping that what he saw in the depths of her eyes was everything he hoped.
“Your duke friend asked a lot of questions. I lied my ass off, but I don’t know if he bought it. He could be around here somewhere and I’m worried this place is like a maze.” Andie was a little breathless as she spoke and she hadn’t let go of him. Danger thrummed in the air, the risk of discovery imminent.
“I’ll get us out of here. It’s going to be okay.” Hands clasped together, they took off running. Xandr’s steps faltered when his beeper went off with a series of insistent beeps, one of the team’s pre-determined signals.
They’d just turned a corner and had to dive for cover as a wandering Oscavian started coming the other way. “What is it?” Andie whispered, the sound almost swallowed up in the ambient noise of the building around them.
“Trouble.” One of the crew was trapped somewhere in the building and requesting a distraction so they could get out. There was no way to know who the signal was coming from or where they were trapped, but Xandr wasn’t going to sacrifice one member of his crew to save another. He risked a glance and saw the Oscavian they were hiding from had disappeared. “Come on, change of plans.”
“I thought the plan was to escape,” Andie hissed after him but followed close behind.
“We’re not losing anyone in here,” Xandr responded.
They made it down two hallways, Xandr keeping his eyes out for anything he could use to make the necessary distraction, when a blast rocked the building. Alarms went off overhead, lights beeping, and a calm, computerized voice urged them to be calm while the fire was contained.
“Change of plans again,” Xandr growled. This beeper system really needed to be improved so that the entire team wasn’t converging to make distractions at the same time.
They turned back around to come back the way they’d come and were lucky for the fire, which seemed to have sent everyone scurrying to safety points. They were close to being home free, close to getting off of this damned planet and back to their lives.
And when a giant door crashed down in front of them, cutting off their escape, Xandr cursed.
“Fire suppression door in use, please proceed to your assigned evacuation point,” that same computerized voice announced.
“We’re trying to evacuate, you piece of—”
“Xandr, come on!” Andie tugged him back and they got turned around again. He didn’t want to go back the way they’d come, it was too likely that they’d run into guards. But with the door cutting off the main avenue of escape, there wasn’t much other choice.
His skin crawled like he was being watched and Xandr stopped to look around. He’d learned long ago to follow his instincts; they were sometimes the only thing that stood between him and the wrong end of a blaster. So when he tilted his head up and spotted the camera with the blinking light, his blood ran like ice.
Mebion was in this building. He had access to the cameras, he had to know that Xandr and his team were here. They didn’t have much time.
And they didn’t have a way out. His backup route was cut off by another fire door and the third option was swarming with guards who were heading to an evac point.
“There’s got to be a way out of here,” Andie said, voice going frantic as they dodged out of view of guards with less than a second to spare.
But Xandr was growing less sure of that by the second. He looked at his woman and knew that there had never been another choice, even if any option to save her left them both trapped in this building. He pulled Andie close and kissed her. “There’s something you need to know.”
“Is it the way out?” She didn’t look ready for any heartfelt confessions, and Xandr couldn’t blame her.
“It’s why Mebion is after me.”
For half a second she looked intrigued, then she shook her head. “After. The second we’re free, you tell me. Come on.” She tugged on his arm and they moved again.
But the ways out kept being blocked and every turn they made started to feel as if it were planned by someone else. As if they were being herded.
They made it to a split in a hallway and Xandr’s map didn’t show any good escape. “One of us has a better chance of making it if we split up.”
“If you think I’m going back to Keana and telling her I lost you, you’ve gone mad. Let’s go right. Come on.” But as she stepped the fire suppression door slammed shut, cutting off the path. Andie stepped back and turned towards the other hall, and that path closed off as well, leaving them in a sudden dead end.
Shadows moved towards them, coming from the way they’d entered, a marching bevy of guards, their steps echoing menacingly.
Half a dozen guards stopped and pointed blast rifles at them, daring them to move. And when Mebion stepped through the wall of flesh, he grinned as if he’d just won the best prize the Oscavian Empire could offer. He glanced between Andie and Xandr, one brow raised, but didn’t comment on the rescue mission. No, all he said were the two words that would bring Xandr’s life crashing down around him. Two words he’d been fleeing for a decade.
“Hello, brother.”
Want to know what comes next for Andie and Xandr? The next volume of the Alien Outlaws series is available here!
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Alien Outlaws
Rogue Alien’s Escape
Rogue Alien’s Woman
Rogue Alien’s Secret
Rogue Alien’s Legacy
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Keep reading for a sneak peek at Soulless.
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The Alien’s Winter Gift
The Alien Reindeer’s Wild Ride
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Mated to the Alien Volume One
Alien Outlaws: The Complete Series
Stealing the Alpha: The Complete Series
The Mate Bundle
Sci-Fi Romance
Crashed
Mated on the Moon
Mated to the Alien Dragon
Alien Outlaws
Rogue Alien’s Escape
Rogue Alien’s Woman
Rogue Alien’s Secret
Rogue Alien’s Legacy
Mated to the Alien
Ruwen
Tyral
Stoan
Cyborg
Krayter
Kayleb
Shayn
Braxtyn
Doryan
Detyen Warriors
Soulless
Ruthless
Heartless
Faultless
Endless
Zulir Warrior Mates
Synnr’s Saint
Synnr’s Hope
Paranormal Romance
Marked
Bear in Mind
Alpha’s Mercy
Gemma’s Mate
The Mate Bundle
The Alpha Heist
Entangled with the Thief
In the Alpha’s Bed
Find more by Kate Rudolph at www.katerudolph.net
About Kate Rudolph
