Page 9 of Bonded

“Ten minutes ago.”

Vryek and I opened the pod, and it was empty. “Dammit, Ship! Her vitals!”

“Vitals are well within normal range. She asked for sustenance, and so we have led her to it.” A light strip led to the walls, and the back paneling opened.

“If she went to the mess hall, there might be a riot! There hasn’t been a female present in years!”

Ithran and I moved. “Vryek?”

Vryek dashed to the panels, following the lighted path that led toward the interior of the ship. “I will follow this way. Perhaps she walked slowly and has stopped along the way.”

I nodded. That was an excellent strategy.

We were only a few paces from the med bay when the first war cry echoed down the hall. We bolted toward the mess hall, and I contemplated how many of the warriors would die today.

PRIYA

Awhole wave of jostling erupted as crew members who had been enjoying some fun camaraderie turned on each other. One of the more savage-looking ones with a huge under bite and curling tusks hurled himself over the rabble in an acrobatic move that I wouldn’t have thought possible with his bulky body. He landed, armor over his shoulders, a battle axe in hand.

Roaring. At them, at me.

Whatever he was saying didn’t translate well, since all I could see in my mind were bloody battlegrounds. He wasn’t attacking me, and his body angled to face the others. But the dismissive hand wave for me to move toward the wall was universal enough.

Oh. Shit.

I turned to walk back the way I came, but shadows of approaching figures seemed to come from there.

Gizmo prodded me, then pointed to a ladder set into the wall beside me. I needed no more prompting. I climbed up the ladder faster than I thought possible. There was a ledge that was invisible from the ground. Smaller robots that looked like small, 8-legged lizards lingered along the edge, reticulating their sidewinder bodies in front of me.

The ladder I’d just climbed melted back into the wall.Whoa.

The rabble rose to a fevered pitch. One large male exited the path I’d used to get to the mess hall. He had to have been bent down nearly in half in order to get through that way. When he stood, he sneered at the crowd. Then a look came over him.

I couldn’t stop looking at him. It was like I recognized him but couldn’t put a finger on why or where from. After all, I’d grown up in protected colonies under the Legion’s asylum laws for humans. The Intergalactic Republic was full of colorful races, but mainly humanoid still.

These guys were a horned, tusked, winged motley crew, and all of them were huge. Though still well-muscled, especially by human standards, this newcomer was of leaner build than most of the others. His horns wrapped downward along the side of his head. He had small ridges that lined the top of his forehead against his hairline, almost as if he wore a crown.

As if he felt my gaze, he drew his head back, finding my hiding spot easily. He blinked up at me as if stunned, and then moved toward where I was. He was at the wall, and it responded to him, a ladder appearing for him as it did for me.

Hell. I moved, shimmying on my hands and knees, the lizard robots moving with me.

“Wait! Please stop! You’ll hurt yourself.”

I heard his words, but I couldn’t stop moving.

Far ahead, there was another panel that opened that would just fit me. If the guy wanted to follow me, then he’d have to crawl on his stomach.

Then again, I was only halfway across this catwalk, and the guy was gaining on me. Why was this entire universe so much bigger and faster than humans?

The main doors of the mess hall opened, and in came two of the largest brutes yet. One had four arms, a pronounced neck angled forward like a horse, and looked like he was a cross between a dragon and an orc with a vibrant red stripe down the middle of his hair that was gathered in large braids that looked like thick ropes. Slim, blackened horns lined his hair, made more distinctive since the sides of his head were shaved with red whorls tattooed upon the exposed skin.

The one who came up behind him was also horned, though his horns were larger and spanned down. Bronze cuffs wrapped around his thick wrists and gleamed on the tips of his horns.

His presence tugged at me as well. It was like a compulsion to look at him.

He must have felt the same, because he craned his head back and pinned me down with his stare. “What are you doing up there?”

His voice boomed, and I jumped with a squeak.

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