She’d still remain alert.
He was silent, but she knew he was there. He stood close.
She could feel his body brushing against hers with each breath he took, and she was getting a better idea of his size.
Big.
Tall.
He wasn’t anything like the aliens wearing the cloaks.
“I’ve secured the lower sector.” His voice was low, so low she almost couldn’t hear him. “We have to go this way. There’s a cargo chute in the upper sector that empties underneath the ship. We should be able to get out from there before Herza takes this thing up into orbit.”
Fuck, he was really helping her, wasn’t he?
Hope flared inside her and Nia slipped her shoe on her foot. Bending, she felt around for the other one.
It was the only pair of shoes she had and the last thing she owned from Earth.
She couldn’t afford to lose them.
A few panicked seconds of searching passed before her fingers brushed over the missing shoe, but she didn’t get a chance to put it back on because the alien by her side was already moving.
“This way.” He was still holding her hand and she had no choice but to move with him.
But he was going the wrong way.
Nia dug her heels into the floor, causing the alien to pause.
“Can’t go that way. It’s locked. I shut it down.” She tugged on the hand holding on to hers. “The corridor is blocked and there’s not much time. I don’t know how you got in here, but we have to go back that way.”
She tugged in the other direction.
“Ta’ii, I know you think that way is the right way, but I can assure you, if we head that way, we’d be walking straight into a nest of Niftrills. I have enough firepower to get through them, but…I’d rather not get you out of here like that. We have to go this way.” He tugged her hand again with enough urgency to tell he wanted her to head in his direction.
“You don’t understand. I locked it down. That way is blocked.” Nia tugged on his arm once more.
Hell.
He couldn’t understand her, and he was too big for her to move.
She could feel the seconds passing with each breath that she took.
They didn’t have much time.
The smoke was already clearing too, and she was sure the upper sector was going to open at any moment. Then they’d be in deep shit.
“I shut it down.” She waved her free hand in the air, a bit exasperated at the thought that even with the smoke clearing, he probably couldn’t see what she was doing. Not that they had time for a game of charades, anyway. “We have to go this way.”
He didn’t budge.
Ugh!
“We can’t—” The smoke was clearing enough now that she could see better, and her words cut off in her throat.
Nia’s gaze rose higher and higher till she was looking at the stranger’s face…or, at least, where his face should be.
He was wearing a metal mask—something like what a welder would wear.
Her heart thumped in her chest.
She knew him.
At least, she’d seen him before. Once.
Long, impossibly black hair hung over the stranger’s shoulders, flowing freely and contrasting with the stranger’s blue skin.
It was Riv’s friend who lived at a farm not far from the Sanctuary—or so she’d been told.
He was a good guy.
Then what the hell was he doing here?
He wasn’t looking her way.
Instead, his gaze was directed down the corridor and his whole body stiffened as he muttered something.
“What the phek…”
He could see it now, she supposed.
The doors in the direction she’d come from were closed.
“They’re locked. That’s what I was trying to tell you.” She turned and tugged on his hand, but it was like trying to pull a ship by its anchor. “We have to go this way—”
Her words cut off in her throat as she realized that up ahead was a solid wall. Or, rather, the doors were shut up at that end too.
“What the fuck…”
Why were the doors closed?
There was a sound like a chuckle or grunt, and when she turned and looked up at the stranger, her gaze met startling green ones through the slit in his mask.
Even in the now-thin veil of smoke, his eyes were a startling diopside.
“You shut down the sector?” The awe in his voice didn’t register because all she could do was stare up into those eyes.
They were wild…free…and a bit crazy.
It was like looking into the eyes of someone who lived life completely different from the way she did.
Things were happening behind his eyes that she did not understand…and there was interest.
Intelligence.
Amusement.
And interest.
Something moved behind the male and her gaze flicked to it.
His tail.
She’d have thought it was a snake if not for the mop of dark wavy hair at the end of it.
Like a lion’s tail, it was.
It was curling toward his leg in much the same way a cat’s tail would curl to the side of its body when it felt affectionate.
Watching it made Nia swallow hard, and she switched her gaze back to those green eyes.
His gaze was so intense, it almost made her squirm.
It was strange looking at someone directly in the eyes, without seeing any other part of their face.
His gaze was powerful, and she got the distinct impression that he could break her without even laying a finger on her.
Who was this man?
Riv’s friend, the voice inside answered, always so helpful.
But who was he really?
And how did he find her here?
“You locked down the sector. I wonder how you managed to do that…” He was still studying her, and she imagined he was frowning behind his mask at the conundrum.
Nia shook her head and broke the spell.
“Trust me, it wasn’t rocket science, and if it was, I’d have gotten a job with NASA instead of spending my time patching up people at the free clinic. I just did what anyone would have done.” She tugged on his arm. “But we
