The Alien's Equal (Drixonian Warrior #7) - Ella Maven Page 0,49

the doorway of the pod to find a silver figure appear through the dark smoke. Bloodied, with a cut on his cheek I knew I’d made with my own boot, the Uldani face shredder who I’d wrestled on the floor amid the chaos charged toward us, a blade glistening in his hand.

“No!” I shouted as he raised the weapon. There was nowhere for us to go, pinned against the railing without enough time to dodge his swing. I anticipated the icy slice of the blade in my chest but just as I was about to close my eyes, Nero shoved me to the floor. He ducked the Uldani’s swing, and the alien, unable to stop his momentum, hit the railing above me at full speed. I covered my head as he flipped over it, but of course we weren’t in the clear. If he was going down, he was taking Nero with him. He grasped my mate’s neck and the two of them tumbled off the edge of the railing.

I screamed and reached for Nero. My hand caught the edge of his pack, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep him on the edge. My fingers tangled in the straps, and I slipped off the edge of the platform too.

The three of us careened to the ground in a flailing freefall. Nero’s panicked eyes met mine, and for a split second, his purple irises shone in the laser fire lighting up the sky all around us. For a moment, it was beautiful. I should have been crying and screaming because in about half a minute I was going to be a smashed pancake on the ground of this city, but all I could think about was that we’d done it. We’d completed the mission. My only regret was not getting the chance to tell Nero the visions of our future was the only thing getting me through.

I hoped we didn’t suffer and died on impact. Nero’s arms closed around me, smashing me to his chest. Vehicle headlights shone in my eyes and I blinked at the brightness. “What—?”

With a sickening crunch that jarred every bone in my body, we landed on something hard just as Mag’s voice rang out over the hollers of the battle below. “Got you!”

Twelve

Justine

Beneath me, Nero groaned, and blood trickled from his lips, but he was alive. And so was I. We lay on the roof of a hover vehicle, somehow caught in mid-air by Mags, who poked her head out the driver’s side window to peer up at us. “Get in!”

Except with dawning horror, I realized we weren’t the only ones who’d landed on Mag’s car. A groan reached my ears, followed by a low growl. The Uldani had landed on the roof of the car with us. The fucking stowaway. He hadn’t been invited on this rescue. The bastard just wouldn’t die.

With a war cry I didn’t know I was capable of, I picked up his blade which had clattered beneath us on the dented root. With a slash of my arm, I aimed for the Uldani’s face, but he dodged it at the last minute, lips twisted into a snarl.

His fist lashed out, catching me in the jaw. I might have blacked out for a second, because when I came to, I’d slid down onto the windshield, while Nero stood on the hood battling the Uldani.

Through the windshield, Mags’s eyes were huge, and she fought to keep the hover car steady, so Nero didn’t slide off. A hand grasped my leg, and I fought it for a moment until I realized the hand belonged to an Uldani sitting next to Mags. His head was out the passenger-side window. “Come on,” he shouted over the rush of air. “I’m trying to get you inside the vehicle.”

Wind whipping my hair and clothes, I crawled inch-by-inch across the hood of the car. “Don’t look down, Jus,” I whispered. “Don’t look down. Don’t look down.” I reached the edge and… I looked down.

The ground was … really far away. The figures who ran through the streets looked like ants. My head spun as vertigo took my breath away. My world flipped and suddenly I was tossed bodily in the back seat. I sat there for a moment, unsure how I got there, when the Uldani in the front seat shot me a look. “You wouldn’t move, so I pulled you in.”

“Oh, um, thanks,” I muttered.

A thud echoed from above me just as a dent appeared right above