I exhale, ignoring the screaming. Ignoring the fire building all around. I look through the scope. I inhale.

Hold it.

My finger brushes the trigger.

Hold it. Wait.

I squeeze.

The turrets begin to shoot, and for a sick, sinking second, I think I’ve fucked up, I’ve missed. I should have practiced on Sueva. Should have done something besides mope.

The turret glows, and the Roth destroyer dips slightly.

“Get underground, now,” Nydo snarls, tucking me into his body. He jumps with me, into the gaping hatch, his huge arms holding me and the rifle tight.

With the hatch doors closing, I tilt my chin up just in time to see the Roth destroyer list to the right, flames soaring up the turret, through the weak point in the auto-aim.

The doors close as it explodes overhead, lighting up the sky like the fourth of July.

Nydo’s feet slam on the ground beneath, and my teeth rattle in my head.

I suck in a great breath and whoop. The underground area is well-lit and futuristic, with huge hydroponic gardens flourishing all around. The entire aboveground village was a farce, I realize. This is where most of the people at the settlement live, for reasons like the one we just blew up.

We blew it up! I took down the auto-aim, and then Nydo blasted it with his fire, and we won. We took out a Roth destroyer.

Holy shit.

“We fucking did it!” I say, shoving my rifle in the air, the Roth from the hall cheering more. Several are bleeding, but for the most part, it looks like everyone evacuated unscathed. “I took out the turret, and you blew up the ship. That’s teamwork!” I’m elated, adrenaline coursing through me, along with relief at seeing Billie and Piper in one piece.

“The destroyer blew up?” Roghat asks, and I’m annoyed to see a hint of regret in his face.

“Yeah, yeah, no dying in battle for you tonight, asshole. Unless you’re asking Nydo to murder you, am I right?” I snort, so keyed up I’m hardly paying attention to the words streaming from my mouth.

Nydo doesn’t say anything though, and I nudge his ribs with my elbow.

Something warm and wet coats my skin, and I glance down in confusion.

Blood.

So much blood.

“Oh my god,” I say on an exhale, terror coursing through me. My gaze rakes over him, searching for the wound. “You’re hurt.”

He frowns at me, his grey skin slightly greenish.

“It’s bad, oh no, Nydo,” I say. My hands shake as I run them over his torso, his blood hard to see against his black shirt. “Oh no, no, no.”

“The turret got me.” His smile is fierce, his face lit up once again. “But you made it possible for me to take down their entire ship.” He raises his voice. “My blood is a small price to pay for our first victory against the Overlord!” he shouts, and the Roth all around us take up the cry.

As for me, I press my hand against his hip, where the wound seems to be, and when he flinches, I know I’m right.

My knees slam against the metal floor and I lift up the hem of his shirt, trying to get a better look at it.

“There’s so much blood,” I mutter. “I need a medic!”

“You know,” Nydo purrs, and I glance away from the plas pulse wound to his face. “If I knew a little blood was all it took to get you on your knees, I would have used that against you a long time ago.”

I glare at him. “You’re obviously fine if you’re going to make a joke about me sucking you off right now, my king.”

I wipe some of the blood away with the hem of my dress, and he flinches even at my gentlest touch.

“I have to say, I would prefer if you weren’t into such rough foreplay,” Nydo grits out.

As far as I can tell, his wound already seems to be clotting. The Roth’s fast healing, something that made us despair on Earth, isn’t something I ever thought I’d be grateful for.

But I am.

I am massively grateful he’s okay.

“You can kiss it better, if you like,” he offers.

“I hate you, you smug ass,” I tell him, standing up. I have half a mind to slap his wound, but I don’t like him hurt.

I don’t like it at all.

He catches me in his arms, pressing me up against his huge, hot body. “No, you don’t. Not even a little, you pretty liar,” he murmurs.

When I kiss him, really kiss him, it takes us both by surprise. His mouth opens as I press my lips to his, and I welcome the fiery taste of him, the feel of his hands in my hair.

Nydo feels right, like this… for all our nonsense, we made a good team when it counted.

We make a good team.

Why the hell have I been resisting him so long?

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY

OceanofPDF.com

NYDO

Leigh kissed me. She. Kissed me. My lips burn with the memory of hers, the teasing taste of her still on my tongue.

A small smile edges up the corners of my mouth.

I didn’t have to coerce her, or pretend we needed to… All I had to do was take a plas pulse to the abdomen to get her to acknowledge she might actually care for me. My plan worked out better than I ever thought possible. Not only will the vids of me destroying the Overlord’s ship make the rounds, but I earned a kiss from Leigh’s sweet lips.

She cares for me. For me.

The look on her face when she saw my blood… she was frantic.

The white med bay’s ceiling sprawls above me as a medic sprays some kind of cleansing solution on my wound. It should hurt worse than it does, but everything pales in comparison to knowing Leigh isn’t as disgusted by who I am, what I am, as I thought she was. She doesn’t hate me, not even a little bit.

All it took was an unintended consequence of my own actions, one that, judging by the medic’s lack of concern, is already healing nicely.

My half-smile turns into a full-fledged grin.

I wouldn’t take it back.

It makes me the worst kind of being, the worst kind of male, to put my mate in danger and not regret it one bit.

Leigh bursts into the med bay, her black ceremonial war gown replaced by tight black pants and a black shirt that bares her stomach, her shoulders… the tops of her perfect breasts.

I never want her to leave my sight. I want her at my side, and I wave the medic away.

“How bad is it?” she asks.

I pretend to wince as I sit up, and she sucks in a breath, her gaze darting between the bandage on my bare torso and my eyes.

“He should be fully healed by tomorrow morning. Twelve hours or so,” the medic tells her cheerily, before catching my dark look and fleeing from the room.

Finally. Alone with my mate.

“Oh,” Leigh says, her nose twitching as she frowns. “That’s not so bad.”

“It could have been much worse,” I say grandly, glad it wasn’t all the same.

“It could have killed you,” Leigh adds, worry lighting her eyes.

I shouldn’t revel in it, in the fact she bothers to worry for me, when her fragile human body wouldn’t be able to handle the same wound at all.

“I shouldn’t have stopped to shoot the auto-aim,” she mutters. Her eyes well with tears, and my brows rocket up. It shocks me, that she is this upset.

“If you had not shot it, I would have had a much harder time exploiting the destroyer’s weakness with my energy blast.” I love that she’s given herself even more credence with our people through her actions and skill with the rifle. They will eat the vids up back on Roth, paving the way for our glorious return.

“It’s my fault you’re hurt,” she says, and a solitary tear drips down her cheek. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, but not before I see it. Not quick enough.

Guilt rips through me, but I’m not stupid enough to admit to anything. Not now.

Maybe not ever.

“Did you shoot me?” I ask her, cocking my head, feigning ignorance. “Was it you who fired the shot?”