Hotter.

Sharper.

Something wicked and sultry.

Something she’d never felt before.

Simone gulped, closing her eyes to get her body in check and explain away that sudden jolt of desire. The attraction she felt was the effects of a near-death escape. The blue alien had shown her kindness. He’d taken bullets for her and risked his life for her without even knowing her name.

The tingles meant nothing more than gratitude.

Yes.

And shock.

Of course.

Definitely.

Her eyes fell on the lush landscape before them. The sprawling expanse was earth-like in the thickness of the trees and the fineness of the sand, but the colors were all wrong. Blue instead of green for the foliage. Orange instead of brown for the dirt.

Whatever.

She was safe for now.

Stuck with this brutish blue alien.

And the rest…

“Denizi,” the blue warrior snapped under his breath.

Simone glanced up and saw his lips tightening into a frown. He squeezed his eyes shut as if he were meditating and the metal dinosaur gained speed in response. Feeling his urgency, she twisted around and peered over his shoulder.

Seven big hovercars—like the ones that she’d been transported in—rose from behind the walls they’d escaped from. Her heart galloped and she dug her fingers into the sword in her lap.

A second later, glowing bullets started flying at her head.

Six

Zar

Those blasted Heronas.

If he didn’t have the female in his arms, he would face them. He would tear them all limb from limb until their eyes bulged and their lips gurgled as they begged for mercy. He would pierce them until his scales ran red with their blood.

His finger itched to blow the roofs off their hover cars and start a massacre. Zar could already see himself plummeting into the cabins and ending the lives of every Heronas inside. He would take command of the vehicles and steer them into the hovercrafts that followed him. The Heronas would perish in the collision.

And maybe the burden in his heras would lessen with their deaths.

The female whimpered softly at the sights of the hovercrafts and his fantasy was blown to ashes.

Abandoning his zapten and enacting such a plan would spell the end of this female. She could not steer his machine and, even if she could, the bullets would pierce her fragile flesh and she would die.

Zar gritted his teeth. Neh. He had put himself in death’s way countless times. He was not scared to face what Destin had waiting for him on the other side. But he refused to put this female’s life in jeopardy chasing the peace that eluded him.

Zar braced himself for the shock of the bullets that fired from the Heronas’s machines. He had not expected them to attack in full force. After all, he was far from the first Plutonian to bust out of their prisons.

Their desperation to apprehend them bothered him, but he did not have the time to linger on such a small thought.