Page 36 of Urzra

Waiting until they were all within her range, she unleashed her might on her enemies.This time, she twisted their emotions in a different direction.Paranoia swept through the soldiers and the mercenaries.One of the humans started gibbering in fear and fired at a red-eyed alien.The bullet nicked his cheek and he bellowed in rage.

“Come on, Urzra!”Bria said and took his hand.Even with a bullet lodged in his knee, he kept pace with her as she raced away from the hail of bullets.

They fled from the fracas and avoided the humans standing guard at the bridge that led to the Bronx.Urzra laced his fingers with hers, wincing with each step he took, but he didn’t slow down or complain.

“We’ll stop long enough to grab our gear, then we’d better put some distance between us and our enemies,” Bria said when they reached the tall apartment building.

“You found my base?”he asked in surprise when she preceded him inside.

“It was dumb luck,” she said, then frowned at his injury.“Wait here and I’ll get your stuff so you don’t have to climb all the stairs.”

“I’ll keep watch, female,” he said with a warm smile she knew she didn’t deserve.

Bria raced up the stairs to the top floor and retrieved his backpack and the ham radio.She stuffed the radio and murder mystery books into another backpack, then hurried back downstairs.“The place I stayed in last night isn’t far from here,” she said, then took the lead.

Urzra remained at her side as she sprinted to the house and grabbed her duffle bags.They took off, heading westward as darkness fell.It helped to cloak them from any possible pursuers.

Bria stopped when the phantom pain in her knee became too much to bear.“I don’t think they’ll find us here,” she said as she chose a house at random.The door was unlocked and she sensed the building was empty.

Urzra closed and locked the door, then followed her to the dining room.He sank down onto a chair with a relieved sigh.“I need to dig the bullet out,” he said, peering at the bloody hole in his trousers.

“I’ll do it,” Bria offered.“I owe you one for removing the bullet from my shoulder.”

“Do you have enough light, female?”he asked, crossing his arms and slouching in his chair as if the throbbing pain in his knee didn’t bother him at all.

“I’ll light some candles,” she said, glancing around and spotting some candles on the mantlepiece.Closing the drapes first, she carried the candles to the table and found matches in a kitchen drawer.Soft light soon lit up the room, not that she really needed it.Taking the first aid kit out of her duffle bag, she sterilized the tweezers, then knelt in front of the knight.“Can you tear your trousers open?”she asked, then glanced up at him.

Stark desire stood in his dark blue eyes.“Of course, female,” he said huskily, reaching down to rip the hole wider.He was hard, probably because of the visual of her kneeling in front of him.

Rolling her eyes in her mind, she realized the wound had partially healed.“I’ll need to cut you open,” she warned him.His response was to pick up the scalpel and hand it to her.She sterilized it, then held her breath and sliced into his knee.Blood welled and she hissed at the phantom stinging pain.Urzra didn’t even flinch and his wood didn’t deflate.“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled beneath her breath.Bria wasn’t sure whether she should be impressed or alarmed at the size of his bulge.She’d seen him naked, but she’d been too busy getting a tourniquet on his thigh to pay a lot of attention to his shaft.She remembered he was larger than normal, though.

Urzra remained stoic as she inserted the tweezers into his wound and removed the bullet.His pain immediately began to ebb and they both relaxed slightly.Bria cleaned his injury and stuck a plaster on it, then stood up.His eyes remained on her as she cleaned up the mess she’d made.She knew he had questions and she still hadn’t worked out what to say to him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

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