by S. E. Smith
“You are a very… bossy Goddess… with colorful language,” he informed her, his voice breaking as he tried to focus on not falling.
The other woman ahead of them snorted. The periphery of Edge’s vision grew dark and he blinked to clear it. The arm around his waist squeezed his side. His arm was draped over her shoulder.
“I’m too heavy,” he said, unable to do anything about it.
His goddess made a very unladylike noise. “No kidding. What did they do to you?” she asked.
Edge felt their pace slow, and the woman ahead of them murmured it was clear. Turning the corner, he braced his free hand on the wall to keep himself upright and steady. His hand slid across the smooth surface.
“Next left,” his goddess said.
“Drugs. My brain… skin… hurt,” he finally admitted.
“Damn!” the woman in front muttered.
Edge gripped the frame of the door when it opened. This room was darker than the corridor. He breathed a sigh of relief. The light hurt his eyes. The woman tugged him forward into the room.
“There’s a service lift in the back of the room, thank God. I forgot how big you aliens are,” his goddess groaned.
The other woman hurried forward and pressed the control button. The doors parted to show a lift. Edge stumbled forward into the small box. He closed his eyes and leaned against the lift wall. When the lift suddenly moved, he breathed deeply through his nose, trying to keep his stomach from expelling the churning acid inside.
“How in the hell are we going to get him across to the other building?” the other woman asked.
His goddess had guided him to the corner and was pressed up against him in an effort to keep him upright. He wanted to answer, but the effort to keep the nausea under control kept his mouth firmly closed.
“He’ll make it,” his goddess replied. “He has to.”
“He doesn’t look so good, Lina,” the woman remarked as the lift began to slow.
His goddess didn’t answer. Edge cracked his eyelids open when the lift drew to a stop. The woman with them stood to the side with a laser pistol leveled at the door. His goddess had stepped in front of him. She was standing protectively with her back pressed against his chest and her hands gripping another gun. The doors silently slid open to another dark room.
The woman by the door peered through the opening before she cautiously stepped out of the lift. A second later, she motioned for them to follow her. Edge automatically lifted his arm when his goddess turned and wrapped her arm around his waist again. Leaning heavily on her shoulder, he stumbled forward.
They were halfway across the room before he spoke. His throat was dry from dehydration and his voice rough from lack of use. Still, he could feel the danger surrounding them and knew he was a liability. His mind and body were shutting down.
“You… need to… leave me,” he croaked in a raspy voice.
“Shut up,” his goddess hissed in response.
A frown creased Edge’s brow. Anger began to build inside him. No one told him to shut up.
Licking his lips, he tried again. “I said… you need… to leave me… here. It is…. It is too dangerous… for you,” he insisted.
The woman glanced up at him with a scowl. “And I said shut the fuck up,” she replied, scanning the empty room.
Edge could feel the muscle in his jaw twitch at her response. A low growl of disapproval rumbled in his chest. Goddess or not, she needed to understand that he would not risk her life for his own.
Focusing inward, he commanded his body to listen to him. He felt the woman’s body stiffen in surprise when he straightened and tried to pull away from her. Her arm tightened around his waist while her fingers curled into the vest he was wearing.
“I will not endanger you,” he growled.
Her fingers curled against his side. “Don’t go getting all huffy and noble on me now. You can do that after we save your ass. Trust me, Trivator, we aren’t doing this for any other reason than that we need you, otherwise I would have left your ass to the Waxians,” she snapped.
“Roof is clear,” the other woman said.
Edge was surprised when he felt his body being turned and shoved up against the wall. The woman pressed her free hand against his chest. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that she was surprisingly strong for someone so small. Her eyes flashed with a warning that made him want to smile. That astonishing fact registered in his tortured brain. He wanted to smile!
“I need you to keep your shit together for this next phase. We have to get across to the other building. We doubled the planks, but it is still too narrow for Andy or me to support you. You have a choice. You can either walk or we can try to carry you. If you screw up, it is a fifty-foot drop to the ground. It is only a matter of time before they discover you’re gone. Can you do this or not?” his goddess bit out in a soft, cold voice.
Edge gazed down at the face staring up at him. In the dim light, he saw her features better than he could before. Shoulder-length, dark-brown hair framed a face with a long nose, full lips, and fierce dark-brown eyes. Her black shirt and jacket highlighted the creamy column of her neck and the slight curve of her breasts, while her form-fitting black pants and boots showed an undeniably feminine figure.
“Why are you doing this?” he quietly asked.
The woman’s expression hardened. She slowly dropped her hand and stepped away from him. Lifting her chin, she stared at him with a look of challenge in her eyes.
“We need you. You are bigger than I remembered and there is no way Andy and I can carry your ass out of here. So, here’s the deal, if you want to get out of this dump, you need to prove it. It’s your call,” she stated in a voice laced with steel before she turned toward the door.
Edge watched the woman walk through the door. He took two steps and paused to grip the doorframe to steady himself. His gaze remained focused on her as he pushed away from the door and began to follow his Goddess.
He ignored his body’s demand that he stop and give up. Instead, he focused on the woman’s back as she walked away from him. He needed to stay with her. She was important. He needed… to help her… to protect her.
Once again, the instinctive knowledge of who she was flashed through the haze threatening to overtake his mind. The one thing a warrior craved above all. She belonged to him, his Amate. Adrenaline surged through him when the distance between them increased and he picked up speed to close the gap.
Chapter Four
As much as she wanted to, Lina resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder to see if the Trivator was following her. She could sense that his body was shutting down. As much as she would love to feel sympathetic toward him, such a feeling now wouldn’t do anything but get them captured or killed.
Too many times in the past, she had noticed the same situation among those fighting back home. Hell, she’d even felt it herself on more than one occasion. Sometimes there had been an overwhelming urge to just give up and let whatever was going to happen occur.
Lina shook her head at Andy when her friend turned to look back at her with a worried expression. If there was one thing she had learned when fighting these bastards back on Earth, it was that they didn’t give up—ever. Her hope was that somewhere deep inside the man behind her, there was a steel spine and a cast iron will to survive.
Andy slowed as she reached the low wall running around the roof of the building. The buildings on this section of the Spaceport butted up against the floor of the section above it. Stacked like the game with the wooden blocks, all it would take was to move the wrong one to make it collapse and bring the entire Spaceport crashing down.
Lina paused when she heard the echo of shouts from below. Glancing over the side, she saw several men running down the alley toward the entrance to the building, frantically issuing orders for the guards to spread out. Their attention was momentarily captured by the Waxian angrily striding down the alley five stories below. Fortunately, neither the Waxian n
or his guards had looked up yet.
“Life is about to get very exciting,” she said, nodding to Andy.
Andy grimaced and looked over the ledge. “Tell me about it,” she said, turning to look back at the open door. “We need to bar the door. You get our ticket out of here across to the other building, I’ll try to delay them as best I can.”
Lina started to shake her head, but realized Andy was right. The Trivator seemed to have bonded with her and was more likely to follow her lead than Andy’s. Turning, she faced the warrior whose eyes were glued on her.
“Follow me,” she instructed as she shoved her gun into the waistband of her pants and reached out her hands.
She breathed a sigh of relief when he automatically gripped her hands. Pulling him forward, she stepped up onto the planks they had laid across the yawning gap between the buildings.
Lina slowly walked backwards. “Focus on my face,” she ordered.
Behind him, she could see Andy disappear through the doorway again. Her gaze moved back to the Trivator holding her hands in a surprisingly gentle grip. He stepped up onto the plank.
Her stomach twisted when she felt the uncontrollable trembling in his hands. Sweat glistened on his brow, and his face was very pale under his naturally dark complexion. She could see the wild expression in his eyes and knew he was fighting to maintain the fragile hold he had on his control.
“How long have they been drugging you?” she asked, moving backwards, taking one step at a time.
“I don’t… remember. It… it feels like forever,” he admitted.
Lina squeezed his hands when she saw him start to look down. “Focus on my face,” she sharply ordered before softening her tone. “How long have you been here?”
A shudder ran through him. “Too long…. I… Everything is a blur. My head…. It feels like…,” he started to say before his voice faded.
He shook his head. Lina could immediately tell that was a huge mistake when he groaned and started to sway. Fear swept through her. If he fell, he’d take them both down.
“Close your eyes,” she ordered.
He started to shake his head again, but stopped. “I can’t…,” he started to say.
Lina stopped and pulled him closer to her. She tightly squeezed his hands. Her gaze remained locked on him.
“What’s your name?” she asked in a soft voice.
He blinked. “Edge. I am called Edge,” he replied.
“Edge, I need you to trust me. Please, we are almost there. Close your eyes,” Lina insisted.
She watched indecision and confusion flash through his dazed eyes. Behind them, she saw Andy thrust a metal bar in the door panel before running across the roof. Andy paused, her concerned gaze locking on Edge. Lina jerked her head for Andy to come forward.
“We’ve got to move, Lina. What I did won’t hold them for long, and they are bound to work their way up here,” Andy warned, coming up behind Edge.
Lina felt Edge stiffen and start to turn. She gripped his hands and pulled him closer to her again. He was very close to losing it.
“Edge, honey, I need you to close your eyes and trust Andy and me. We’ve got this. We won’t let anything happen to you. I promise,” Lina said.
“You should leave me, little goddess,” he murmured, closing his eyes.
Lina saw Andy’s eyes widen and her mouth silently repeat the words ‘little goddess’ with a raised eyebrow. Rolling her eyes, Lina shook her head at her friend. They were in a critical situation. Now was not the time to go into the political correctness of words.
“Andy is going to hold you steady while I guide you across,” Lina continued.
Andy made a face at her and quickly shoved her gun into the waistband of her pants. Lina nodded grimly, and they began working their way across the plank to the other roof. It seemed to take forever before Lina felt the drop off to the roof.
Stepping down, she quietly instructed Edge to step down after her. Once they were all down, Andy took his one side and she took the other. Edge was done.
“The planks…,” Andy said, looking over her shoulder.
Lina shook her head, grunting under Edge’s weight. “Doesn’t matter now. We won’t be coming back here. Get him to the chute. He needs medical attention,” she huffed.
Andy nodded, looking at Edge’s pale features. “Do you think Bailey will be able to help him?” she asked, staggering under Edge’s collapsing weight.
“I sure as hell hope so or we are going to be living in the sewers for a very long time,” Lina replied.
Lina slid around behind Edge and supported his upper body, while Andy grabbed his legs and lifted them onto the lip of the chute. Slowly crab-walking forward, Lina pushed Edge’s now unconscious body as far as she could into the chute without losing her grip on him. She would have to slide down with him. There was no way she was going to risk him breaking his neck now that they had made it this far.
“Follow me as fast as you can. It won’t take them long to figure out what we did once they reach the roof,” Lina ordered, climbing into the chute and wrapping her arms around Edge.
“See you at the bottom, Lina,” Andy said, pushing on Lina’s back to give her momentum.
Lina locked her hands together around Edge’s broad chest. She could feel the bones of his ribs through the leather vest. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she used their weight and her legs to help guide them down the chute and as a way to slow them down when they reached the bottom. Less than a minute later, Mirela and Bailey were helping her lay him down and cover him up in the cart. Andy handed her a cloak. All hell was about to break loose and they were all anxious to get out of there before it did.
Chapter Five
Clear,” Andy murmured, stepping around the corner onto the crowded street.
Lina nodded to Bailey and Mirela and they pushed the cart out into the gathering of pedestrians. They each wore the elaborate headgear of the traders who frequented the Spaceport and masks depicting an alien visitor’s face. Mechelle had created different costumes for each of them so they could move around the station with ease.
Lina merged into the crowd with several people between her and the cart.
Their small group had become experts at blending in over the past two years. They worked as a team, each scanning the crowded lane. Shouts sounded behind them and the crowd slowed as most people tried to glimpse what was causing the commotion behind them.
Lina gripped the pistol in her hand as she peered through her mask.
“Move out of the way,” a harsh voice ordered.
A patron who was standing behind Andy was shoved aside by one of the Waxian’s guards. Andy turned and stepped to the side to avoid a collision as the men swarmed the market.
Mirela and Bailey continued to push the cart at a steady pace several yards ahead of them. Lina bit back a curse when she saw the Waxian striding down the lane. People parted like the Red Sea, quickly moving to the side. Anyone who didn’t move fast enough was tossed aside or shot.
“Search every cart! Find him,” the Waxian ordered.
“Yes, sir,” one of the guards replied as he lifted his hand and signaled the others in the hunting group.
Lina’s eyes moved to Andy. Her friend had already slipped into the shadows and was working her way through the crowd and down a narrow alley.
Turning to glance down the lane, Lina’s mouth tightened when she saw that Bailey and Mirela were ordered to stop. Both women stopped and bowed their heads. Lina pushed her way through the crowd toward them.
Fear washed through her when the Waxian paused by their cart. His penetrating look ran over Mirela and Bailey before he turned his attention to their cart, and he reached out to pull off the cover on the top.
As he yanked off the cover, Lina lifted her gun. Two guards moved, effectively cutting off her view of the cart and the Waxian. Frustrated, she pushed between several patrons so she could get a clear shot. Her eyes widened when the Waxian turned back in fury.
/> “Find him!” the Waxian yelled.
The guards pushed past her while the Waxian turned and retraced his steps. He had only gone a few feet before he stopped and slowly swiveled in her direction. Lina hurriedly stepped into the shadowed recess of a doorway and froze. After a few seconds, the Waxian pivoted on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.
Releasing the breath she’d been holding, Lina turned back toward Bailey and Mirela who were again proceeding down the lane. Where in the hell had they hidden Edge? He should have been in the cart!
Lina quickened her step until she was even with the two women. They turned down the next lane and Gail fell into step next to her. Near the end of the lane, Mirela and Bailey abandoned the cart they’d been pushing and grabbed the handles of another cart waiting in front of a cloth vendor. Andy nodded and fell in behind them.
The small group continued, sometimes close together and other times spread apart. Two dozen turns and three levels down from where they had started, they slowed as they neared a series of grates barring access to the internal workings of the Spaceport.
The third grate from the end swiftly opened. Mirela and Bailey pushed the cart inside. Lina, Andy, and Gail turned to make sure no one had followed them, then nodded to Mechelle, and swept past her. A moment later, the grate sealed behind them.
Only after the second door had closed behind them and the lift descended deeper into the belly of the Spaceport did Lina look over at Mirela and Bailey. She couldn’t see their faces behind the masks, but she could feel their excitement. The lift slowed and opened into a dark tunnel.
Andy and Gail took the lead, Mirela, Bailey, and the cart were in the middle, and Lina was in the rear. In the year and a half that they had been in hiding on this Spaceport, they had never encountered anyone down this far. Still, there was always a chance it could happen. The engineers or whoever had designed and built the Spaceport had used the remains of a small moon that had been locked in orbit around the Waxian home planet. Lina and the others had discovered this section which had been built with surplus supplies after the Spaceport’s main construction was completed.
