Page 123 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy
I force myself upright despite the agony trying to tear me apart from the inside. The shard shifts deeper when I move. My vision flashes white again.
Anita grabs my arm instantly. “Don’t move!”
“We have to.”
“You’re bleeding too fast.”
“And the bridge is collapsing too fast.”
The chamber lights pulse red now.
LOCKDOWN INTEGRITY FAILURE.
The translated ruin warning flashes across Anita’s scanner.
Choir soldiers close in through the smoke.
I raise my weapon.
My arm trembles.
Anita sees it.
That frightens her more than the blood.
She presses both hands against the wound instinctively, trying to slow the bleeding while glaring at me with furious desperation. “You stupid, reckless—”
A plasma shot slams into the railing beside her head.
I drag her down against me before the next one hits.
The motion tears a groan from my throat I cannot suppress.
Anita freezes against my chest.
The fear in her expression changes shape completely.
Not abstract anymore.
Not intellectual.
I can feel her heartbeat hammering through both our bodies where she presses against me in the smoke and falling sparks.
“Ghar,” she says softly this time.
I touch her face with blood-slick fingers. “You are safe.”
Her eyes shine instantly. “You are literally dying in front of me.”
“Exaggeration.”
“That word has lost all meaning.”
Brakk pops up from cover and fires wildly downrange. “Tender emotional crisis later! Murder monks now!”
He is correct.
Unfortunately.
