Page 115 of Shielded in the Shadows

Keela and I had not yet discussed whether we might have offspring. As long as I’d worked for the GAIS, such things weren’t possible. Well, they were possible, but I would never have sired a child and then returned to undercover assignments leaving their mother to raise them alone with no contact for long periods of time.

But now I was no longer an operative. I was no longer simply surviving day to day. I had a beautiful mate and an extended family. The possibilities for our future suddenly seemed endless.

The mental image of Keela lying in our bed with her belly rounded with our offspring stole my breath. And the thought of an infant with my mate’s lovely green eyes and red hair, and perhaps my wings and a tiny tail, nursing at her breast…I nearly staggered.

With effort, I dragged my attention away from that captivating picture and back to Vos.

“I am sure Keela would like nothing more than to love and care for your younglings,” I told him. “I would be privileged to do so as well.”

Vos extended his hand. “Thank you, brother.”

An alarm blared. Something punched me in the chest.

And everything went black.

CHAPTER 28

KEELA

The alarm cut off a fraction of a second after it began.

The Nivilus and everything in it went dark and silent. The only illumination in the cockpit was the lavender-hued daylight filtering through the front window.

Dread and fury washed through me like a wave of icy water.

My wristcomm was dead.

My ship was dead.

Our plasma weapons and everything else with circuits or datachips or power of any kind were dead. Smoke and the stench of melted circuitry stung my eyes and burned my nose.

And worst of all, where Jarrix’s ever-present warm reassurance lived in my chest, there was a sudden, terrible, echoing silence.

Moving as one, Calla and I pulled our daggers and raced back toward the sound of plasma shots coming from the cargo bay. Through the open doorway, I caught sight of Vos and Jarrix taking cover behind a stack of cargo crates filled with all the supplies we’d brought from Trakhan.

Or rather Vos seemed to have taken cover, and dragged or carried an unconscious Jarrix with him, along with what looked like most of the contents of our weapons cache. Those tentacles were certainly useful.

I didn’t see Zwee anywhere. Hopefully she’d hidden herself and was safe.

Before we reached the cargo bay entrance, Calla yanked me sideways through the open doors of the medbay.

As we hid out of sight, I glimpsed three males with spiky blue hair and long fingers tipped with claws advancing up the ramp into the bay. I didn’t recognize the ones on the left and right with rifles at their shoulders, but I knew the male in the middle wielding a truly enormous plasma-edged sword and a smile colder than the surface of the ice planet Aloris.

Sjer.

I had no time to wonder how he’d found us or feel remorse for leading a privateer to my sister’s refuge. I couldn’t even grieve for my damaged ship. All my focus was on those males and their weapons.

Thanks to the illegal disruptor they’d deployed, we were severely outgunned. Ninety-nine percent of the ship’s weapons and defenses were out of commission, along with my mate. Jarrix’s ability to manipulate electrical fields had been an enormous boon right up until two minutes ago.

Now, thanks to the very same genetic advantages that had saved us on Ghira and Saistea, the disruptor had rendered him unconscious and vulnerable.

Sjer was a dead male, and it was going to be my hand that put an end to him.

“We are here for Tal Noku and his female,” Sjer said, his voice unnaturally loud in the silence of my ship. “We have no quarrel with anyone else.”

“This is not true,” Vos said. “You have targeted me as well with this attack.”

I’d thought Sjer was cold, but he had nothing on the frozen wasteland that was Vos’s tone. It sent a shiver up my spine.