Page 44 of Alien Devil's Wrath
“That bitch is still alive, I see,” Slade said, his voice taking on that instructional tone he used when explaining how much smarter he was than everyone else. “Plenty of time to make her comfortable in my private quarters. I have such plans for her. That brilliant mind. That approach to violence. She’ll be my newest project.”
Rage gave me enough strength to tense, to start moving?—
The blade pressed harder. A line of fire across my throat.
“Any last words?” Slade asked. “For posterity? Your squad had so much to say at the end. Begging. Crying. Calling for their mothers.”
Warmth suddenly spiked in my chest. Not thought, not words, just pure sensation flooding my system. Recognition. Awareness. She was there, deep in transformation but somehow present. The feeling was electricity through exhausted nerves, hope through despair.
“They died as warriors,” I said, voice rough from dehydration and screaming. Each word scraped my throat raw. “You’ll die as a coward.”
His face twisted, features contorting into rage. The blade pulled back for the killing stroke. He’d swing for my neck. Quick decapitation. Make a spectacle of it. Another trophy for his collection.
I kept my eyes open, staring at him. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch. I sent everything I couldn’t say—love, apology, a promise to haunt him if such things were possible.
Slade raised the blade high, making sure his audience could see. “Goodbye, Zarek.”
The blade descended toward my neck.
BRONWEN
Slade never saw me coming.
My hand closed around his wrist just as the plasma blade would have kissed Zarek’s neck. The bones ground together under my grip. His radius cracked first—a clean snap. Then the ulna, slightly lower pitch. His fingers spasmed open. The blade fell, deactivating automatically before it hit the floor with a metallic clatter.
“Hello,” I said conversationally.
He tried to scream. I covered his mouth, feeling his jaw work uselessly against my palm. His terror scent exploded—acid and ammonia and prey. Through my new vision, I watched his pupils dilate rapidly. His pulse climbing. Capillaries in his sclera were dilating from stress, creating delicate red patterns. Beautiful fear responses.
“Shh.” I turned him to face me without letting go of his broken wrist. The bones ground together, creating vibrations I could feel through his tissue. “Let’s be quiet. I want Zarek to see this.”
His pale eyes widened further. So many physiological tells—micro-tremors in his facial muscles, sweat beading despite thecool air, his expensive cologne unable to mask the sharp stench of his terror.
“You kept him fighting for eighteen hours,” I said, examining him from angles my new vision allowed without moving my head. Seeing him in spectrums beyond human perception. “Such dedication. Exhausting himself to keep me safe while I transformed. While I became this.”
I smiled, letting him see the small fangs my transformation had given me. Not as prominent as Zarek’s, but sharp enough to tear.
“Would you like to know what eighteen hours of transformation feels like?” I tilted my head, watching his pulse in infrared, seeing his blood pressure spike. “Every cell dying and being reborn? Every bone dissolving and restructuring? Every neuron rewiring itself? I was conscious for most of it. Floating in and out, feeling everything.”
His guards raised their weapons. The Mondians’ scales rattled—threat display. The Krelaxian’s finger tensed on the trigger.
“Don’t,” I said without looking at them. “Not unless you want to see how fast I’ve become.”
I released Slade’s mouth but kept his wrist. He gasped, tried to speak. What emerged was a whimper—the frequency of universal distress.
“You were going to hurt him,” I continued, walking him backward. Each step calculated to increase his instinctive prey response. “Then do things to me. Plans, you said. Projects.”
We reached the wall. I pressed him against it, feeling his ribs compress just to the edge of cracking. His breathing went shallow, rapid.
“Here’s what’s actually going to happen,” I said. “You’re going to die. Quickly, because unlike you, I have other priorities. But I want you to know this first.”
I leaned close, lips nearly touching his ear. His terror spiked into transcendence.
“You created this. Your need to hurt Zarek, to make him suffer, that’s what triggered my transformation early. Your cruelty called me back from unconsciousness. You literally created the thing that’s going to kill you.”
Tears gathered in his eyes. Not even interesting. Autonomic response to extreme fear.
“Any last words?” I asked, mimicking his earlier question to Zarek.
