Page 92 of The Alien Warrior's Mate

Never one to act on ‘feelings’before, Sara found herself relying on her instincts heavily. She had no idea where Korben was, but the connection between them was sound. She could feel his emotions and, if she kept her eyes closed, she figured she could find his location too. It was the intergalactic equivalent of ‘Marco-Polo’.

The neural connector sent another pulse through her brain and she shot up, causing Enthara to dip sideways. Scrambling to grip the handles and right herself, Sara stared ahead.

A sprawling city rose out of the desert in front of her. She saw shiny buildings with the most complex architecture imaginable. Hovercars zipped along in the air, coasting on top of highways that were invisible to the naked eye.

Sara would have been impressed, but she got distracted when she looked down and saw zapten footprints.

Korben had been here.

She touched down and Enthara bowed her head so she could slide off. Traipsing through the brush, Sara took note of the footprints. She noticed a bunch of long, slender prints that didn’t belong to the Plutonians.

“Must be the Heronas,” she murmured.

Glancing around, Sara kept searching until she found a smaller set of footprints.

“Korben.” She knelt and pressed her hand into the orange dirt. The wind blew the sand away and her heart ached along with it.

Enthara stomped toward her and nuzzled her side with her metallic nose. She reached out and stood with the zapten’s help. Glancing up with fire in her eyes, she curled her fingers into fists. “We can do this.”

Enthara huffed through her nose.

Inhaling a deep breath, Sara stretched her arms out to the sides. A mechanical whirr signaled the start of Enthara’s transformation. The zapten clapped her metal rings around Sara’s wrist. From there, she extended her metal plates, unfolding and unfolding until Sara was completely covered in Enthara’s metal frame. Energy zipped up her spine and she jumped once, leaping high into the and crashing back to earth so hard she left a split in the sand.

Sara lifted her head and stared at the wall. She could have scaled it with Enthara in her dinosaur form, but the entire Heronas army would have been on her back.

“If things go bad,” Korben had said to her last night, “you must use stealth.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“You do.” He’d cradled her chin. “When you fought me in the forest, your steps were so light, I did not hear you. With you, Enthara can go into stealth mode. She is indiscernible to the eye and can slip past all detectors.”

She hoped Korben was right.

Sara took off running and bent her knees low. Pushing with all her might, she leaped over the wall. Sara made sure to adjust her weight just before she landed. Now was not the time for hero landings that created craters in the sand.

She plopped lightly on her feet on the other side of the wall. Her eyes took in the Heronas camp. The Heronas looked like the aliens she was used to seeing on TV. Big, black eyes. Olive-green skin. Bodies that looked so thin they seemed to lack bones.

There were very few of the creatures on the street and those who were out and about wore big, boxy masks on their faces. She wondered at the eerie stillness of the city. For such a formidable enemy to the Plutonians, the Heronas looked extra fragile right now.

Sara shook her head and focused on the mission. So far, no one was sounding an alarm at her entrance. She reallywasin stealth mode.

Awesome.

Turning swiftly, Sara bounded through the city, following the pulses of her neural connector like a homing beacon. Her connection to Korben grew stronger and brighter the closer she got.

Sara slipped into a building and waltzed right past the prison guards. Heading down the stairs of a dark and cramped hallway, she followed Korben’s pulse until she stood in the dungeon. Torches were strapped to the wall by metal rings and heavy iron bars kept four Plutonian males caged.

“Korben!” Sara said, her voice cracking with relief.

Every head turned her way, but she was only looking at Korben. He stepped forward and she scanned his body urgently, almost crying when she saw that he was uninjured. Her eyes fell on the strange locks around his wrist. The restraints seemed to have taken root in his skin.

Did it hurt? Was that why he’d been in so much anguish?

“Denizi.” A voice stuttered from the cell next to Korben.

Sara glanced that way and saw a large blue alien with broad shoulders, long black hair and tattoos that were similar in design to Korben’s. Her heart leapt to her throat. She’d spent hours lazily tracing Korben’s tattoos and she could pick them out in her sleep.

If this alien had such a similar design that meant…

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