A shot seared her thigh. She stumbled and fell. Rolling over and up onto her knees, she pulled out the dart gun and prepared to shoot the Antarean that pursued her.
A laser blast knocked the weapon from her hand.
Turning her head, she squinted against the glare of the sun. A dark shadow emerged from behind a pile of rocks. Shock caused her jaw to drop open.
The person shooting at her was not Antarean.
“Parker!”
“Yeah, Parker,” said the man with a sneer. He moved to stand over her. “How do you like my new friends?”
“You dickless traitor.” Keeping her eyes on his face, Mel scooted away, her injured leg slowing her movement.
His eye twitched.
She rolled to the side just as he shot, aiming for her other leg. He missed, but not by much.
She managed to scramble to her feet, then placed most of her weight on her good leg.
“Damn, I missed.” A supercilious smirk twisting his lips, her former nemesis holstered his pistol and stalked her as she limped backwards, toward the rock wall hiding the catacomb entrance.
“I don’t need a gun to take you down, now do I?” A heated, ominous glance swept over her body from top to bottom. “Leg hurt much?” He laughed, then licked his thick lips. “You know? I’ve always wanted to do you over good.” His hands went to the zipper on his flight suit. “This is as good a time as any. Killing always makes me horny.” The look on his face was one she’d seen many times as she helped police the galaxy.
Sexual depravity etched every line of his face. He would hurt her—rape her—then slowly kill her.
“You come near me, I’ll kill you.”
“You can try, bitch. Take off your clothes.” Parker stopped two meters from her, just out of her kicking range.
“No,” she snarled.
“Then I guess I’ll have to do it myself.”
His smile told her she wouldn’t like the way he’d accomplish the maneuver.
His ugly gaze never left her as he pulled a knife from a scabbard attached to his belt.
Consciously, Mel had erected mental walls as soon as she’d sensed danger. Now, she reinforced them. She had to cut off her connection to Wulf and hoped this mental exercise would do the job. She didn’t need any lectures or distractions from her alpha-male. All her concentration had to be on winning this fight. Even worse, she didn’t need Wulf roaring down the side of the mountain in a berserker rage to save her. She could save herself by using Parker’s biggest weakness … his sense of superiority. And in doing so, she’d prove to Wulf, once and for all, that she was his equal on the battlefield.
Mel backed away until she sensed the rock wall just behind her. This should be far enough away from the Antarean ship. Slowly, she pulled a knife from her belt with her damaged hand.
Parker eyed her move like a cobra watching its prey. “Oooh, a knife fight. This should be fun.” He laughed, the sound as sick and evil as his soul.
Predictable Parker. Always so easily distracted, dirtbag.
As he kept an eye on her knife hand, she reached behind her into an outside pocket on the pack and flipped open the detonator for the charges. She pushed the button as she lunged for Parker’s knife arm.
Multiple explosions rent the air. The ground trembled. Rocks tumbled all around them. Prepared for the blast and its resulting concussion, Mel managed to keep her balance and forward momentum.
Parker lurched and stumbled as if he’d been on a week-long bender, dropping his guard. “What the fuck?” he shouted.
The dumbass never learned.
Mel slashed his wrist, causing him to drop his knife. Pivoting on her good leg, she swept around and slashed the knife across his throat before he’d even finished screaming at the pain from her first strike.
Blood spurted from the severed carotid and the major vein in his wrist. Parker fell to the ground.
He didn’t get back up.
Mel wiped her knife on his pants leg and resheathed it. Checking for breath, she found none. The knife had sliced clean through his carotid. The traitorous bastard had died too easily. At least she now knew who’d sold her out to the Antareans and led the enemy to kill her parents.
New scents of evil preceded shouts of rage. The enemy had seen her—and they weren’t too happy with her over the loss of their only means of leaving the planet.
“Time to go,” she muttered as she retrieved the dart gun then hobbled behind the rock wall and into the tunnel. She stopped only long enough to rearm the death trap.
Weak from her own blood loss and pain, she used the tunnel walls to hold her up as she traveled the path that led to the plateau entrance. To Wulf and safety.
She smiled at the irony of her thoughts. For all her independence, knowing she had a Prime warrior to back her up was comforting. She had no doubt that, even now, if she had to she could defend herself. But why waste the energy and risk further injury when she had a Prime male jonesing to take care of her? Maybe this “mating” deal was a win-win situation.
Of course, she’d never tell Wulf that. His male ego and bossiness needed no supplementing from her. A battle-mate had to have some secrets from her man.
After slowly traversing two levels of tunnels, she realized she wasn’t going to make it. She had to sit down. Rest. Wulf would have to come to her.
Looking around she realized she was near the conjunction of two of the main catacomb corridors. She couldn’t stop here. It wasn’t safe. So far she’d lucked out and hadn’t met any Antareans.
But they were near. She could sense them.
Now, how to get to a safe place so she could take down her mental barriers and let her mate know she needed him? To this point, she’d been successful in blocking her close call, the resulting injury, and her exhaustion from Wulf. She’d been fairly sure he’d cut corners, become careless in an attempt to get to her, and she didn’t want his death or injury on her conscience.
She’d have to find a place to hole up and then send him a “little help” call. With her hidden and safe, he could methodically make his way to her.
Mel wondered if all battle-mates had had to cater to their mates’ over-protective tendencies. She sighed. Just like most male-female relationships, the woman had the harder job in the Prime imprinting. And damn, Mel hated compromise.
Turning a corner, she spotted the markings for an access to another higher path shielded by one of the waist-high curtain walls.
Gritting her teeth, she reached for and found the first handhold with her uninjured hand and began the laborious, approximately six-meter climb. About half way up, her injured hand gave way, pushed beyond its limited capabilities. Only her strong hand and tenacity kept her from falling. She breathed heavily as she hugged the cold stone wall.
She was so close to the top, but wasn’t sure she could make it the last few feet.
Echoing down the tunnel were the unmistakable sounds of the enemy.
Her senses flew open. Four Antareans heading her way. Fast.
Dammit. She was stuck like a fly in a web on this damn rock wall.
Her strength diminished, she gave in and reached for Wulf. Compromise was better than dead.
“Wulf? Uh, a little help here.” She sent him a mental image of her predicament.
“Lubha?” His angry growl reverberated through her mind. “You’re injured!”
“It’s fine. Just tired.”
His mental muttering in Prime didn’t come across their link as clearly as his growl had, but she got the message. She could almost feel the spanking he promised. She choked back a totally inappropriate laugh. She thought she might just like a spanking—
from him. And that growl made her womb ache with need. She must be perverted.
“Ansu bhau, lubha. Get up the wall, woman. ”
A phantom hand planted on her ass practically shoved her up the rock face. As she struggled over the curtain wall with her last bit of energy and the aid from the mind-body connection, ghostly fingers caressed her bottom as they released her.
Safe, she lay on the rock ledge, gasping for breath as the cavern spun around her.
“Thanks, Wulf.”
A warm caress swept over her back, imparting warmth and strength. “I’m on my way.”
After several long minutes, Mel dragged herself along the upper path in a belly crawl, away from the sounds of the approaching Antareans. She ignored her injured thigh as it scraped along the rough floor, leaving a bloody trail. She used her forearms to pull her along.
There was a hidden room just ahead. A safe room, her father had called it. It had water and light and warmth. She’d played in it as a child, the perfect, secret hideaway for a young, adventurous girl.
Finding the unique rock glyphs that indicated the entrance, she triggered the door mechanism. The sliding panel opened as silently as the day it had been built. She crawled inside and pulled herself upright. Touching a pressure pad, she closed the door and then hit another sensor and turned on ambient lighting.
She limped to a chaise her father had placed in the room and sat down. She shrugged off her pack and let it fall. Pulling it to her side with her good hand, she snagged her water bottle and drank the rest of it. Placing her pack and the bottle on the floor next to the day bed, she lay down, carefully arranging her wounded leg, cradling her wounded hand against her chest. The bleeding had stopped on her hand, but her thigh had been traumatized during her crawl. It needed tending. She couldn’t find the strength to do it.