He pulled back quickly enough to keep from getting killed, but not so fast that he was able to avoid my blade entirely. I caught him on the shoulder of his sword arm and hit it hard enough that the blade sank into the joint, sticking briefly in the bone when I tried to pull it back out.
The red leader let out a wail as his weapon clattered to the ground.
I let go of my wound and grabbed the bounty hunter’s discarded blade, my fingers on the hilt slippery with blood from my wound.
Armed now with two blades, I pointed one at each bounty hunter. “Don’t follow me.”
They both glared at me sullenly, but neither made any move to come after me as I backed toward the door. As soon as I hit the main room of the bus station, I paused to survey the enormous space, searching for Amelia and the green Khanavai bounty hunter who had followed her.
I didn’t see them at first, but a feminine scream echoed through the room, and something clattered loudly. Whipping my head around, I caught a glimpse of Amelia going down under the green Khanavai male as he tackled her. In their chase, they had ended up on the far side of the terminal, knocking over tables and chairs—tiny, human-sized things—that any self-respecting Khanavai male should have been able to leap over.
A moment after Amelia hit the floor, she yelled again, and this time I could make out words.
“Help me!”
The primal part of me that had been growling at every male who came close to Amelia burst forth like a wild animal let loose from a cage, and I responded with a wordless roar of rage.
Lifting both my sword and the bounty hunter leader’s smaller blade into the air, I leaped forward, brushing tiny humans out of my way as if they were annoying Blovitia flies.
I would kill the male who had dared touch my mate.
Chapter Five
Amelia
As the green Khanavai holding me figured out what was happening, he dropped my arm and raised his hands in the air, his sword clattering to the ground as he began backing away from the rampaging pink alien charging toward him.
The pink Khanavai descended on the green one like some kind of avenging angel, speaking to him in the Khanavai language, something that sounded to me like an old-fashioned record player being played backward, the lyrics garbled and incomprehensible, but somehow entrancing.
The other two Khanavai men who had accosted me in the bathroom came staggering out, both patently injured, but equally obviously determined to join their partner in any battle against the pink one.
Seeing where I was looking, Pink Guy’s gaze followed mine. He spat out something harsh to Green Guy, who dropped to his knees and clasped his hands behind his back. Frowning irritably, he swatted away the small silver globe that hovered in the air around him, darting this way and that. I finally realized it was almost certainly a recording device for the Bride Games.
Shit. Now the entire world—the entirety of two worlds—will see me. Everyone will be watching for me.
Then Pink Guy turned to me and said something unintelligible, but he pointed at the ground as he said it—clearly, he was ordering me to stay where I was.
I don’t take orders well. Surgeons rarely do—we’re used to being in charge in the operating room, working either as the sole surgeon or at least as part of a surgical team trained to work together, with people we recognize as equals.
No matter how unbelievably gorgeous he might be, this was just some alien warrior.
He doesn’t have control over me. He isn’t in charge.
So the instant his attention turned back to Green Guy, who still knelt on the floor, I began inching away, ending up far enough out of his line of immediate sight that I felt safe to turn and dash toward the door.
The cheerful sunshine outside made me glad I wore my sunglasses, even though it was nothing compared to the blazing brightness of the sun in the Nevada desert.
I glanced frantically to the left, then to the right, uncertain where to go next. Then I realized it wasn’t important. It didn’t matter where I went, as long as it was away from the aliens trying to capture me—presumably to transport me to Station 21 where I would be forced to take my place in the Bride Lottery and participate in the Bride Games.
The first chance I had, I ducked down a side street. Seconds later, I heard a shout in Khanavai from somewhere behind me, followed by my name.
Good. At least I’d lost them. For the moment, anyway.
Finally taking a look around, I realized that I had ended up in an alley of some sort, created to cut between two streets.
There wasn’t anywhere to hide here, so I continued to the end of the tiny lane, peeking out around the edge of a building to make sure none of my potential pursuers were there.
All I saw was a mostly empty sidewalk with a few humans walking briskly to their destinations, so I chose the direction that would take me as far away from the bus station as possible. As I moved, I pulled out the oddly dyed shirt I had stuffed in there.
It was wrinkled and smelled funky, and it didn’t cover my now-distinctive hair, but at least it might disguise my clothing so that anyone reading a “last seen wearing” bulletin might not realize it was me.
My stomach clenched at the thought. If that really had been a camera drone filming everything that happened, everyone in the world would have plenty of visual images of me. Cutting and dying my hair had been for nothing.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I ducked into the first convenience store I saw, hoping to find something, anything, to cover my hair.
Lucky for me, a few Chicago White Sox caps hung sadly on a stand at the end of
