10 Rowkin

I'm on my last fuel canister when the ship signal I'm following turns for a spaceport.

I've called Scrapper and Zoshun but Abr and Terran security have locked down the grounds. No one is allowed to leave until orbit is deemed safe. I'm on my own out here.

I hope she okay. If she's not, I might be killing a Novark tonight—or ten. Or a hundred. I don't care. If anyone has laid a finger on my female, I will break every bone in the one who harmed her.

I've read most of Kikila's profile on the frustratingly long journey. I'm not in a star jumper ship of any kind. I have to wait for the other vessel to dock somewhere to get a chance to steal her away again.

The thing that stops me in her profile is the video replay of her answers to the additional questions.

She'd rather sleep under the stars. That's where I spend most of my time.

She'd rather make amends with an enemy because they could work together to save others.

Her remark grips my hearts in a way I hadn't anticipated. I think of Scrapper and how strongly he fights his attraction to Lanika. He knows I don't trust him after his last female left him. But it's partially because he's human, and I struggle to accept that human men are strong enough to care for female Alustri. He is not my enemy, and yet I doubt him.

Still, he endured as long as the toughest of us in the last battle.

The thrusters of the Novark's ship dim as it sets down at the spaceport. I'm surprised it hasn't tried to fire at me. But my stolen ship is small and may not register on their scanners. Novarks are known for their brutal weaponry and massive engines but not for their security or defense systems.

I know from many first-hand battles with their kind that they'd rather us get on board so they can corner us, isolate, and shred us than have to engage in a space battle.

In the glow of the spaceport, I get a clear look at the pitchy ship. I dock at the closest door the port's security give me to the landing Novark Nemesis. My hands shake with repressed rage, eager to find his throat and crush it. But I cannot be so rash when I am inside. I have to be careful.

Alien Bride Race is not the only international stage. Though fights breakout at spaceports all the time, I do not want to make a scene that could threaten relations we desperately need. And yet part of me doesn't give a fuck as I exit the transport into the packed station.

I cannot find her scent in the soup of so many, and that irks me. Perfumes and colognes mix with scents of cooking food and sweets, hot engines and the plastics of vendors that line the hallways.

Desperation claws at my insides. There are too many people and other species to sort through without help. I find a nearby information kiosk and purchase a human's holo-vid visor. The clear band slides over my eyes.

"Isolate humans."

An orange light highlights the shapes of the humans in my vision. I can easily pick out the people as I wander the station now. But I also know I need to blend in, and I look like the carnal version of my kind. I'm certain it's a problem when I get a suggestive look from a passing Klaphos female.

My skin ripples and tenses, but I don't think it's because I've found the enemy. I'm sure it's everyone in this place.

I don't need to draw any more attention to myself if I'm going to slip in and find her. As I push through the station in the direction of the ship that docked with Kikila on it, I covertly snatch up a leather jacket from the back of a chair outside a café.

When I see her blonde hair fluttering in the air as she's dragged away by an arm through the station, my whole being swells with urgency. I push between people and aliens without a care.

They scoff and sometimes shout. I dodge a security guard and bound over a passing transport carting people and luggage from one side to the other.

I have to get to her.

I glimpse her head through the others, and it's like a beacon, calling me. The one who pulls her along is dressed in black and has his hood pulled up.

They weave back between the clusters of shops and carts into a narrow alley that fills with others like him in armor that suggests their jobs are less than reputable.

I sneak between the food carts and pick up a dropped hat which I slap over my head. My skin is a dead-giveaway in this zone of mostly Novarks and some Deranso.

How they manage to hide in this region of the Sol Federation's territory, I'm not sure. Few planets patrol interplanetary space, and it makes me wonder why. I have to figure we just don't have the resources to spare because of the empire eating away at our supplies and cutting down our populations.

The two guards outside the entrance Kikila is hauled through make me pause. I can't get inside with them in the way, and I don't have a clue where their backdoor might be this deep in the station. So distraction is the only tactic I have.

I sneak a fruit from a nearby food cart and toss it down the adjacent walk way to the entrance. The closest guard turns, raises his rifle and sneaks back into the corner to take a look. The other leaves his post on his side and crosses to the other, giving me room to sneak into the club behind him.

Lights flash in the dark space to the deep bass notes of electronic grunge. Novarks, Denarso, and other species forbidden from the Sol Federation, mingle and dance throughout the large, tiered room.

The sides descend in partial levels and then rise again to a central platform like broad steps. A bar gleams at the far end of the room, the bottles backlit in a blue-white light that draws my attention to it and the woman it glazes.

"Kikila—"

The Novark still has a firm hand around her arm, and it burns me to see another male touch her. My Rev roils inside me as I squeeze through the others in the room, making my way toward them, wondering who they're there to meet. They'll be a threat if I want to get her out of here.

The guilt that I didn't hold on tightly enough or shield her from the attack—or sense it more clearly—has me in knots. My capabilities as a soldier seems almost null when I look back.

I have to get her back in my arms, under my protection, and out of here.

But as I scan the space for another way out, I'm not certain there is one. The place is packed, and it looks to be nestled into the guts of the framework of the station. It's likely how they're managing to go undetected.

Rounding the last table, I slow as I look down at her and frantically make a plan for escape. A hand grabs me.

"You can't be in here." A guard tugs me back.

Kikila's head turns just as I'm dragged off, fighting and throwing guards off of me. Four pile atop me, and I know I'm getting dragged out.

I hope she saw me. I pray to the stars that she knows I came for her. I do not want my mate to feel abandoned or hopeless.

I hear her cry out and quiet as I'm dragged out by four guards. It takes that many to subdue me.

They toss me out another door that drops me three stories into a sticky back alley. I hit a railing on the way down, taking a punch to the ribs, but I find my orientation and land on my boots.

An old man sits behind me, smoking and reading a tablet. He looks up surprised. "A live one?"

I peer up at the door far above me. It is smooth with no visible handle or way in. A growl shakes me from deep within.

"Snuck in, did you?" he asks.

"One of your kind abducted my mate," I snarl.

"Your woman?"

"Yes."

He rests his tablet in his lap, and I notice a bloodied shovel and a mop leaning up against the wall behind him. "Level 29 N."

The man lifts his tablet and clearly won't give me anything else useful.

"Thank you." I think.

He ignores me.

I turn and run down the alley toward the nearest stairwell and hope he hasn't sent me into a trap. If it is, I'm going to need to arm myself and be prepared for battle with an unknown number of combatants. I better make a few calls before I start an interplanetary war.