I didn’t let Murgen beat me, didn’t let the azhera beat me, and I’m sure as hell not letting this city beat me.
Walking with a prominent limp, she entered the rundownbuilding and headed toward the elevator. She pressed the call button and waited. The doors opened a few minutes later and Shay stood back as a group of aliens stepped out, crowding the hallway, their voices raised in conversation. There was a burly, pointed-eared borian and an ethereal, elf-like volturian, but most of them were cren, tall and leanly muscled with long pointed ears, brightly colored skin and hair, and tusks protruding up from their bottom lips. They ignored her—or outright didn’t see her—as they pushed and shoved one another, two of them arguing over what Shay gleaned was a drug one had claimed the rights to.
Without waiting, she entered the elevator. The doors closed with a grinding, metal on metal sound, and the lift creaked and screeched during its ascent to her floor, its lights flickering gloomily like she was in a horror movie. Every time she rode this elevator, she was half-convinced it would be the last thing she did. Thankfully, her floor was only the second one up, so she didn’t have far to drop if the lift failed.
Exiting the elevator, she moved down the hall toward her room. The odor hanging in the air was an alien mix of bodily fluids, mildew, and unidentifiable smells that triggered her nausea. There were holes and cracks in the walls and stains on the garbage-strewn floor. Sounds carried easily through the thin walls—voices raised in anger or passion, thumping music, people banging on doors, and alien TV shows with the volume turned up way too damned loud. It was a dump. But it was also the only place she’d been able to find that didn’t require an ID chip and wouldn’t break her budget.
When she reached her apartment, she shoved her hand into her pocket, pulled out her dinged-up keycard, and waved it in front of the reader on the doorframe. The door whooshed open.
Once she was inside and the door was closed and locked behind her, Shay stumbled toward her pallet and all but fellupon it, unsure of whether she’d be able to get back up. She certainly had no plans to get up any time soon. Her every muscle burned with exertion, and for the first time in a long time, Shay felt incredibly weak, both mentally and physically drained.
Peeling off her jacket, she laid it beside her. Her shirt was damp with sweat. Next came her boots and socks, which she struggled with. She hissed through her teeth once her feet were freed.
“Fuck,” she said, tugging up the hems of her pants. Her feet and ankles had swelled so much that there was no longer any distinction between them—she’d gone full cankle. Harsh red lines marred her flesh, indentations from her socks and boots, and she had a few spots where it looked like blisters were forming.
For a moment, Shay could do nothing but stare at her feet. Pain pulsed through them like they had their own heartbeat.
“What am I doing, Baby? How are we going to survive?” The words slipped out without thought, but they were true.
How could I think I could do this on my own?
Anger, frustration, and helplessness swelled within her and tightened her throat, making her fight for every breath.
What would Dad think if he saw me now?
Something tickled her cheek, and Shay brushed it away with her fingers. She was startled when she realized what it was—tears. She wascrying. When was the last time she’d cried?
Six years ago, when my mother?—
Another tear fell, followed by another, and another; once they’d begun, they wouldn’t stop. Shay bowed her head in defeat as she cried, taking in shuddering breaths between her sobs.
“What I am going to do?” she asked, voice thick with emotion. “I can barely take care of myself. How I am going totake care of you, too? How am I g-going to give you everything you deserve? Because you sure as hell don’t deservethis.”
Tears dripped from her chin, but she ignored them as she cradled her belly.
After her father’s death, Shay had decided that she could take care of herself, that she didn’t need anyone. Not even her mother. It had been a lie, and it was a lie she carried with her for years. She had done all right for a long while—not that most of what she’d done to get by had been particularly good. But right now… Right now, she felt like she really neededsomeone. She felt…so alone. She was scared—scared for herself and for her baby, and she knew she couldn’t keep living like this. She had more than herself to worry about now. There was a life growing inside her.
What if something happens to me?
The thought wrenched a fresh sob from her and made her cry harder.
If something happens to me…what would become of my baby?
“I’ll figure something out,” she said, stroking the side of her stomach as she sniffled. “I swear, Ipromiseyou, I’ll make things better for you.”
If only she knew how.
FIVE
Drakkal kept his fists clenched at his sides as he stalked toward Arcanthus’s workshop. Frustration, disappointment, worry, lust, and a small but resilient glimmer of hope were locked in a massive struggle, clouding his mind and making rational thought almost impossible. Currently, frustration was the frontrunner.
Somehow, he retained enough willpower to resist the most destructive of his urges—like raking the hardlight claws of his prosthesis along the wall to tear deep gouges in the material, or slamming his armored shoulder into a door to dent the metal and break the door off its sliding track, or punching a wall until his hand was numb and bleeding. None of that would provide any relief beyond a temporary, ultimately insignificant catharsis, an expelling of a modicum of the blazing, hungry energy thrumming through his body.
He growled. He’d been so close.Sofucking close.
His body had reacted to the terran; his instincts had surged the instant he’d turned to discover that the sundrinker scent on the air hadn’t been a figment of his imagination, that she wasthere, that she wastouchinghim. He might’ve maintained control had things gone differently. He might’ve maintained control if she hadn’t run.
Her flight had triggered instincts Drakkal could not ignore, had roused his desires to a feverish heat. His muscles had swelled—along with his cock—and his senses had sharpened. There’d been no choice but to give in, no choice but to give chase.