Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

Maxxon

I had stumbled from Allie's apartment building, the acrid stench of smoke instantly assaulting my nostrils. All around me, humans ran screaming as the Kronock battleship rained down plasma blasts, reducing buildings and vehicles to smoldering rubble.

" Grek ," I swore under my breath. How had those reptilian bastards broken through our defenses? The Drexian fleet was supposed to be impenetrable. Our blockade of the solar system containing Earth had held for decades. Not only that, the Kronock were supposed to be in retreat. We had weakened them. Or had we?

I curled my hands into fists, fury coursing through me. The Kronock were known for lying low and hiding their military capabilities, but had they truly been able to pull off an attack of this magnitude with no warning?

I imagined the panic that would be consuming Drexian High Command, the rage that would be fueling the Drexian warriors, and the fear that would be filling all the humans on the space station. I tapped frantically at the comms unit on my wrist, trying to reach the station. I knew my ship was gone, but maybe there was another way off this planet.

Nothing but static. The Kronock were clearly jamming our frequencies. I shoved my device in the pocket of my pants.

A woman's piercing scream cut through the air as a Kronock fighter strafed the street in front of me. The blast sent a car tumbling end-over-confusedend, headed straight for me. I dove and rolled, feeling the whoosh of air as the flaming vehicle sailed over my head and slammed into the side of a building.

" Grekking hell!" My heart pounded as I scrambled to my feet.

I had to do something, but what? My mission to retrieve human brides suddenly seemed laughably unimportant. Right now, my only thought was survival—for myself and the innocent humans caught in the crossfire of an interstellar conflict that never should have reached them.

A high-pitched whine grew louder, and I instinctively threw myself to the ground as another blast obliterated a house across the street. As the dust settled, a chill went through me.

The Kronock attacks were getting closer to me. Almost as if…

I snatched my device from my pants and threw it into the middle of the street. Were they tracking me by the communication signals I had sent to the station?

Then a glowing red laser beam sliced the ground directly in front of me and I leapt back, landing hard on my back.

Or did they have a way to track Drexian bio-signatures? I knew the whispers about the Kronock taking Drexian warriors and retrieving DNA. Was it possible this was why?

Cold dread settled in my gut. If this was true, I was leading death right to any human near me. Right to Allie.

My heart pounded as I considered leaving. She would be safer if I left her. But I'd promised to return. I'd vowed to myself that I would protect her. I would not abandon her. I would not leave, never knowing if she survived or forgave me.

Without another thought, I sprinted back into the apartment building and burst through her door.

Allie stood with her cat in her arms. Neither appeared harmed although neither appeared pleased either. Her gaze raked over me, and it hit me that I'd lost my sunglasses when I'd leapt for cover and my hair had come loose when I'd done a dive roll. There was no hiding my amber eyes or my mane of long, dark hair. At least my shirt was still on. The nodes running down my back would have been a dead giveaway that I was not human.

I didn't have time to worry about how I looked, even though her startled expression told me that my ruse was falling apart.

Crossing to her, I put my hands on the side of her arms so that she peered at me. "Is there anywhere nearby that's underground? Tunnels, caves, anything?"

She furrowed her brow, clearly struggling to make sense of my question. "U-underground? Um...there are some caverns about ten miles north of here. Crystal Caverns. They take school kids there sometimes for field trips."

I nodded and let out a breath. That would work. "Good. We need to go there. Now."

"To the caverns?" She clutched her cat closer. "How?"

A bone-rattling explosion muffled any response I might have given, and dust sifted onto us from above. Another hit might bring down the building.

"Never mind," she said. "Let's go."

She grabbed a tote bag hanging on the back of a chair and carefully placed her cat inside then swung it over one shoulder. Without another word, I led her from her apartment and outside the building.

She drew in a sharp breath at the chaos—overturned vehicles, smoldering rubble where buildings had stood only minutes earlier, panicked people running in all directions. "What is happening?"

There was nothing I could say to explain the Kronock. There was no reason for their violence aside from the need to dominate and destroy. The only thing we could do was to run and try to survive.

My gaze caught on a gray vehicle at the end of the street. Gray and covered in scale-like panels. Fear and fury iced my body as I realized that the Kronock had deployed ground forces.

I grabbed Allie's hand. "Now would be the time to pray to whatever Earth gods you believe in that we can reach those caverns before the Kronock reach us."

She returned my grip with a hard squeeze, and for a heartbeat I marveled at how small her hand was in my grasp. Small but not weak. My pulse spiked, an overwhelming urge to protect her slamming into me. It was more than just Drexian duty or honor. Allie had awakened something in me I'd never experienced, and I would die before I let any harm come to her.

"Stay close to me," I ordered as I backed away and pulled her with me. "And if I tell you to do something, you do it without question. Understood?"

"Understood." Her brows flicked up in a moment of challenge. "For now."

The ground vibrated as the Kronock vehicle rolled forward, one of the mounted canons on the front swinging toward us.

"Run!" I roared as a blast of energy sizzled past us so close the heat of it seared my skin.

Allie kept up, even though her strides were shorter, and I was practically dragging her as we reached the corner. We dove into the alley as another blast hit the brick wall and crumbled it. I rolled to my feet, pulling Allie up beside me. "Keep moving."

She didn't speak as we ran deeper into the twisting side streets, but soon the sounds of destruction faded behind us. Even if we had outrun them for now, the Kronock would find us, would find me. Our only hope was to go underground so they couldn't track me.

I glanced at Allie as we paused to catch our breath. Her face was streaked with sweat as she checked on the cat in her bag, managing to speak to her in soft tones between panting.

She looked up and locked her gaze on mine, shooting a nervous glance behind her. "Now what? We're still miles away from the cavern."

"Do you think you can run the rest of the way?"

She barked out a laugh then slapped a hand over her mouth. "Not a chance." She gestured to her bag. "And Dinah hates running."

Before I could tell her that the animal's comfort was the least of our concerns, a nearby blast made me grab her hand again. They were closing in on us.