Slag: Book Four in the Galaxy Pirates Alien Abduction Romance Series (Shifter) Alana Khan (love letters to the dead .txt) 📖

He reaches over and slides his fingers through my hair. “You’re too modest, my KJ. You’re a protector.”

“Changing the subject . . .” I don’t know why I’m embarrassed by his praise. “I’d like to teach you how to use our weapons. Sextus gave me a tutorial when you were . . . out of it. I want to get you up to speed.”

“As a slave, I grew to hate weapons of any kind, but you’re right KJ. I’ll learn.”

Great. I thought he might be resistant. “Before we do that, though, I’d like to call the women on the ship. Want to say hello?”

He nods.

I bring the comm out to our picnic table. Our wrist-comms are amazing devices and are ten times more powerful than a smartwatch, but they’re not built for interstellar communication. This device, the size of a shoebox, is designed to let me talk to another sector of the galaxy without so much as a crackle.

Tonight, though . . . crickets.

I try several channels, just as I was taught, but nothing.

“Something’s wrong, A’Zul. I know it in my bones.” This isn’t good. I have a bad feeling. They said Daneur Khour is one of the meanest males in the galaxy. From what they told me, Sooma Ryone deserves a Nobel Peace Prize next to Khour—that’s a chilling thought. Lexa said Khour was in the process of skinning her mate alive when Sextus got the upper hand and managed to disable and permanently disfigure him.

Flayed alive! Who does that? Psychopaths, that’s who. And now I can’t hail the Ataraxia. Not good.

A’Zul looks worried, too—his brow is lowered as he gets up to pace. I clear the table and return to the cabin to make short work of cleaning up.

“There’s nothing we can do to contact them tonight. We’ll try tomorrow,” he says when I close up the cabin. He must see the concern etched on my face. “Let’s get back to the barn and bed down.”

He glowers, reminding me he’s not happy that I’m choosing to sleep with him in the barn instead of a comfy bed inside the house. It’s funny, after the mine and the cave, the clean hay-filled barn is going to feel like the lap of luxury.

As we walk through the thick canopy of trees between the cabin and the barn, A’Zul slips his arm around my waist and leans to kiss the top of my head. I love being with—the ground shakes under my feet as the roar of an explosion rings in my ears.

Flames shoot up behind us. Something in the house exploded! A’Zul’s hand clutches mine as he pulls me toward the barn.

More blasts pierce the evening’s quiet. These aren’t accidental explosions, this is weapon fire! We’re running at top speed now.

We stop short when we get to the edge of the trees. There are fifty feet with no cover between us and the barn.

“We have to get to the weapons!” I’m panting, knowing I’ll need my breath for the race from here to the barn.

“Stay here. I’ll grab them,” A’Zul says.

As soon as he takes off running, I follow. We left the barn as soon as he woke up on that stretcher. He has no idea where they are. I never uncrated them and they’re locked to my biometrics.

Whoever is bombarding this planet seems too focused on the cabin to notice A’Zul and me. We both make it to the barn without a problem. In less than a minute, I locate the plastic crate with the weapons, open it, and search its contents.

My pulse is pounding, my heart is leaping, and my thoughts are racing to figure out what is going on.

My stunner is still in the holster at my waist. I fling the weapon to the hay-strewn floor and replace it with a laser pistol, then grab a laser rifle and toss it to A’Zul.

“This,” I say when my own rifle is in my grip, “turns it on. When your finger hits this trigger, it fires.”

It’s quiet. Maybe too quiet. I lean my rifle against the crate and rummage to find A’Zul a holster and laser pistol.

“Put this on,” I say as I shut the heavy lid and hear it auto-lock.

“You should run and hide,” he says quietly as if he’s not sure that’s the right advice or not.

“Like hell,” I say as if I’m a hero in an action movie instead of a woman who spent her whole life avoiding confrontation.

I’m rewinding the conversation I had with Sextus when he was giving me lessons. He tried to tell me the laser rifle’s range, but I had no frame of reference for the units of measure he was giving me. It doesn’t matter. Our weapons will either reach whoever’s attacking us or they won’t.

“I think we should get to the cover of the trees,” I tell A’Zul. They targeted the cabin. The next place they’ll hit will be this structure.

“Right,” he agrees.

It seems this whole parcel of land was heavily treed until part of it was cleared to make room for the structures. If we run in any direction we’ll hit forest.

We race in the opposite direction of the cabin, and I realize we’re on our way to the waterfall. Perhaps there’s a ledge inside the divot where we can safely hide.

“Now would be a good time for your inner stallion, or even better, your dragon to come forward,” I say through panting breaths.

“I’m trying,” he says.

I’m sure he is. If there was anything he could do to better protect me, he would.

A laser burst strikes behind us with a boom and the sizzling of leaves as they burst into flame. It’s not close, but whoever is attacking