Chapter 8

"Shoo-vo! I—" She looks panicked as I pull her across the room. "What are you—I can't just leave."

You can, I tell her with my eyes and a sharp nod.

"No. She'll come after me." Nita digs her heels into the floor, trying to slow me down, but I keep pulling her along. "I'll be hunted, and she won't hesitate to kill you trying to get me back."

I scoff at the thought of anyone killing me. They can certainly try. My kind aren't impervious to death, but we're kurving hard to kill.

I shake my head. I try to tell her with my body language that she has nothing to worry about. Instead, she grips my hand with both of hers and forces me to stop.

"Shuvo, I'm serious. I can't," she insists, glancing back at where her pink friend is staring after us with her mouth hanging open. "I chose to stay here once, when I had a chance to leave, but now—I want to go, but I can't. She has me trapped."

All I hear is the way she says I want to. She thinks the Madame who runs the station can stop me, or her, but she doesn't know. She doesn't understand that I'm immune to her rules. Placing a finger over my lips, I give her a teasing smile before I turn to mist.

Her eyes widen, and she looks all around for where I might have gone.

I wrap myself around her with my incorporeal body until gooseflesh pebbles her arms, then I nudge her until she's forced to take halting steps across the room to the large door.

"It's locked," she says without trying to open it. This tells me she knows it to be true from experience. But no matter.

My form strokes around her body once more, and then I easily slip through the cracks to the other side. The hallway is empty, so I solidify quickly and open the door from the outside. She stands frozen, staring at me, and I wave my hand with a flourish, inviting her to step over the threshold to join me. When she hesitates, I reach through and pull her across. I'm pushing the door closed when her friend appears.

"Cybele!" Nita reaches for her. "Explain to him that I can't do this. It's too dangerous."

Instead, her friend shakes her head. "Go with him, Nita. I'll do what I can to buy you some time."

Nita's eyes gloss with tears, and she covers her mouth with her free hand. "What are you saying? Are you sure? What if?—"

"I want you to go. Be happy." Her large blue eyes dart from me to Nita as she reaches past her and grasps the edge of the door, pulling it closed between us and her. "Live a good life."

Nita's eyes fill with tears. "Thank you."

Cybele offers her a sad smile. "I'm gonna miss you, but I hope I never see you again." And with that, she closes the door softly but firmly.

My Nita lets out a soft whimper, then she takes a deep breath, steeling herself for what's to come. "This is a terrible idea," she mutters. Her eyes flick nervously around. "Madame Althea already lost two humans; she's going to lose her fucking mind when I disappear too."

I grip her wrist and pull her down the hall after me. I don't give a fuck about the Madame. I'm taking my female, and no one is going to stop me.

When we get to the end of the hallway, the female at the desk looks up and then does a double take when she sees I've reappeared from the hallway I just left from moments ago, this time pulling one of the females behind me.

"Uh. Wait, you're not supposed to…"

Nita gives her a shrug as I hurry us into the lift. The female at the desk is still staring after us, slack-jawed when the doors slide closed.

The moment we're alone, Nita turns on me. "This is insane! You can't just take me out of here. Someone is going to get hurt."

Before she has a chance to finish her little tirade, I fold my arms across my chest and lean against the side of the lift. Watch me, I tell her with a tilt of my chin and a smirk.

"Please," she whispers, even as she reaches for me. "You don't understand. I couldn't handle it if something happened to Cybele," her throat bobs when she swallows, "or you."

I take a step toward her so our bodies are flush and cup the side of her face. Trust me, I try to tell her.

The lift comes to a stop, and as soon as the doors slide open, I hear the unmistakable whine of blasters charging.

"Release her," a Pizat guard growls.

Nita jumps back, pressing her back to the wall, and I quickly step in front of her, blocking her with my body as a low growl rumbles from deep in my chest. I was hoping to get a little farther into the station before being approached by security. No matter.

I bare sharp teeth at them just before slipping to mist. Nita yelps when I vanish, and while security is stunned at my disappearing act, I work quickly to disable their blasters. It's a simple thing. I merely use my mist to corrupt the power connectors. When I solidify behind them, it takes a moment for them to realize, and another moment to take them out, managing both before they ever know what hit them.

Stepping over the writhing pile of bodies, I reach my hand out for Nita.

"How did you do that?" she asks as she takes hold of my hand, letting me pull her out of the lift and into my arms. Her eyes dart back to the scattered bodies and then up at me with a burning heat I'm not expecting. "I'm not gonna lie, watching you just now was kind of hot."

I shrug and then give her a smug smile before pulling her after me to hurry down the concourse.

"This won't work, Shuvo," she insists again as she tries to keep up with me. "Besides the fact that you're already on security's radar, my biometrics are going to trigger the alarm the second I try to leave this station."

I nod at her as we hurry along. She's right. That means we'll need to be fast.

"Shuvo, are you listening to me—eeeekkk!!" She squeals when I lean down and flip her onto my shoulder without so much as breaking my pace.

"Shuvo! Please, this is crazy!" she grits when I start jogging.

I pat her plump ass and focus on making our way across the concourse and then through the atrium like it's an everyday thing to have a stolen female over my shoulder.