Page 3 of Star Claimed Omega
It was too late; her squad was already on the move, weapons hot.
They exploded into action with no hesitation, lunging at the stranger in a feral, vicious attack.
The man moved like vapor and steel.
One lazy, effortless hand swatted three warriors into the wall, their bodies hitting the metal with a sickening thud.
The others charged. He dipped, pivoted, and twisted, and in a breathtaking dance of light and shadow, incapacitated them with mere touches, pressure points, and necks, all collapsing like sacks of grain.
They were not dead, only unconscious.
She turned to run, but she didn’t get far.
Her body froze mid-step, suspended like prey in a hunter’s trap.
An invisible force held her.
His spectral energy glimmered closer, wrapping her in an energy band of hot electric silk, binding her limbs and pressing on her lungs.
‘I’m not sure what to do with you,’ the timbred rasp reverberated, now inside her head and all around her. ‘Capture? Or release?’
She thrashed against the unseen bonds, a useless struggle.
‘I’m wondering,’ he drawled, rounding to face her, a swirl of apparitional smoke curling off his chest. ‘Should I send you andyour crew so far across the Expanse you’ll need a map and a prayer to crawl back? Or fling you back to that cobbled rig you call a ship with the understanding you’ll never set foot on Signet property ever again, Red? Or perhaps we duke it out. You and I?’
‘I ain’t got time to bleed,’ she snapped, intentionally misreading his words.
Under her calm mask, anxiety kicked in. She could not agree to his terms.
He didn’t know what her failure would cost.
Her heart rate drummed in her throat at the thought of the penalty of this miscarriage.
Still, she met his gaze, defiant in the face of her impending ruin.
Her chin lifted, her lips curled in scorn. ‘I’ll give you no such promise,fokker.’
He leaned in.
The heat of him, of his power, swirled in her face, making her breath catch.
Her skin prickled.
Her heartbeat thudded a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
‘You’re a spitfire. Ifokkin’ adore that. I’d love to keep you around.’
His smirk deepened. ‘However, Red, you’ve outstayed your welcome. Tell your handler he needs better pilferers. Goodbye.’
With that, his sinewed arms came around her and carried her to the airlock.
She kicked hard, but it was to no avail.
He was freakin’ strong.
With a grin, he slammed a hand on the compartment’s controller, and with a salute, she was thrown out of the depot like a comet, her scream lost in the roar of sound and energy.
Her squad followed, slammed through space, until they crashed one by one onto the open rear deck of their hidden ship.
