Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I scream and lunge forward, but I am helpless. I was at the back of the room, and all of this activity is happening at the front.
I can see the burn pattern spread across Zayne’s chest, and the leaking of his protective gel layer. He is wounded, but they have failed to calibrate their weapons to his strength, and he is far from down. That’s the first and last mistake they will get to make.
Zayne takes a deep breath and emits a plume of intense flame. Now there are armed soldiers on fire, which does not improve the situation as much as I might hope. They emit muffled screams through their full face masks and flail around, trying to put themselves out as the flames stick to their attire and make it melt to their bodies. I smell burning rubber and flesh, and both of them are terrible, choking odors.
The flames are not enough to deal to the attackers completely. I watch in horror as Zayne rips the weapon from the hands of the nearest flaming attacker and proceeds to beat all three of them to the ground before stamping out the flames on their still burning bodies with his boot.
He grabs me without another word, grasping me around the waist and throwing me up over his shoulder. I hear a squelch as we leave over the bodies, Zayne stepping on them as if they are less than dirt.
He has pulled a bag from the closet near the door, and is going through it, using his tail to steady me over his shoulder as he pulls a radio out and starts issuing commands in a language I absolutely do not speak. I’m surprised how calm he sounds. I am panting and shrieking, and there are tears running down my cheeks. I shake with shock as Zayne responds to that explosion of violence with no signs of concern. He has a plan in place, and he executes that plan like the professional he is.
Zayne
I have been growing steadily uncomfortable since we arrived here, but I never thought anybody would be so stupid as to try a full-on assault. Of all the times they could have tried it, they picked a good one. We were trapped in a room with only one entrance and one exit. By all rights, we should both be dead right now, or perhaps one of us dead, one of us kidnapped.
My chest hurts like hell, but I am more concerned with getting Lyric to safety. I hit the stairwell and move down it as fast as I can, heading for the basement where there will either be more armed soldiers, or the vehicle I have set aside for transport will be waiting.
The hovercar is where I left it. It can’t escape the atmosphere, but it can go anywhere on this planetoid. I have never, ever had to take these kind of evasive maneuvers with a starlet before. Most of my job previous to this one was simply keeping creeps away from the girls. I have never in all my years as a bodyguard encountered so much violence.
I bundle Lyric into the passenger seat. She is still entirely naked, and shivering. I hit the warmers in the hovercar in the attempt to warm her up, then I hit the launchers and we swing out of the hotel, up into the air and make for the hills.
“You’re okay,” I tell her. “We’re okay.”
“You’re not okay! You’re bleeding goop!”
“It’s a surface wound. It looks bad, but it will self-heal. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry? You were just getting done telling me not to worry when you were shot. I’m going to worry a lot. I’m going to worry… where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“How do you know it is safe?”
“Because I am going to make it safe.”
10
Lyric
Zayne’s idea of safe is a cave in the woods. We are as far away from all signs of civilization as it is possible to be. I am wearing a blanket and nothing else. This is not how I thought my tenure as intergalactic superstarlet was going to go, that’s for sure.
The forests of this alien planet are thick and dense with ferns. The hovercar is covered in foliage, making it impossible to detect from the sky. Zayne didn’t tell me this, but it is also completely out of fuel. He has marooned us in a sea of trees and god knows what else. I’ve never really liked nature. I’ve never really trusted it. Nature has a way of being alive even when you’re pretty sure it’s dead. Things happen that you can’t explain or anticipate. Nature is scary.
So is Zayne, come to think of it. The things I have seen this creature do are absolutely unspeakable. When he turns off his human-facing approach to things, and stops pretending to be a creature like me, I get to see the Thrakin, and that beast is absolutely fierce.