gave him a smile, just before someone’s arm or tail lashed against me, knocking me off balance.
Fear slammed at me full force as I fell, my knees painfully hitting the hard surface of the table. Hands, tentacles, and other appendages reached for me. They tore at my clothes, slithered under them, groping for my body underneath.
“Nadia!” Wyck’s voice was like a lifeline in the ocean of chaos. I crawled toward it, making my way through the mass of male bodies fighting on top of me. They shoved and punched each other out of the way in their strife to get to me first.
Thin, crackling sounds of laser shots pierced the noise of the crowd, followed by the stench of burnt flesh.
“Wyck!” I yelled, frantically kicking at someone’s hand gripping my ankle.
Another rough hand grabbed my arm, and I was yanked out of the pile of gyrating bodies on top of me.
“And there she is,” an errock said with a smirk, my arm painfully clammed in his massive hand. “Our bounty, at last.”
“Trox, let her go.” Wyck’s voice sounded strangled.
He lay on the ground. A dimo—Enkail, I remembered his name from the day of my landing—had his hard-plated knee planted between Wyck’s shoulder blades. Another huge dimo sat on Wyck’s back, behind Enkail. A whole swarm of kreers held down Wyck’s legs and arms. His knuckles were bloody. One side of Enkail’s face had been smashed in despite the plated armor that dimos were born with.
A yourlu lay on the ground with his head twisted aside, motionless. Quite a few other males littered the floor. Bearing laser wounds, some of them remained unmoving, others writhed in pain.
Wyck had fought hard before they’d all swarmed him and wrestled him down.
“Let’s see what she’s got.” Nocc stepped from the crowd, making my skin crawl at the memories of his hands on me.
Enkail handed Nocc the laser gun they had taken away from Wyck. Nocc already had my knife in his other hand.
A growling hiss from the middle of the room made me glance that way. Poor Lesh was tied to a cable dangling from the ceiling. A bunch of yourlu taunted him with their tentacles. They slapped him from all sides then leaped out of his reach before he could bite any of them.
Nocc pressed the gun into my belly, snapping my attention to him again. Lust burned bright in his yellow eyes—lust for both my flesh and my life.
I halted my breath, even my heart seemed to stop as terror spread in cold tendrils through my chest.
“Nocc!” Wyck growled. “You promised!”
Nocc narrowed his eyes, his jaw muscles twitched in annoyance.
“I know,” he barked over his shoulder. “I’m not going to harm her.” He slid the gun higher up my belly, between my breasts, then stuck the end of it into my neckline. He smirked, keeping his eyes on me. “She’ll live.” His words sounded more like a threat than reassurance.
I shrunk away from him, but Trox yanked me back in place.
“Nocc. Fuck!” Wyck roared and bucked, shaking the hulking dimos off his back as if they were bowling pins. “Get off me!” He rose to his feet.
His massive figure towered over the scattered males—imposing and intimidating. Hands fisted at his sides, eyes glowing with rage, nostrils flaring, the sight of him was sure to send fear into the hearts of anyone.
“You promised!” he bellowed, moving on Nocc.
A foolish kreer stumbled in his way, and Wyck swiped him aside with his fist. The kreer screeched, flying through the air, then wedged under one of the tables behind me.
Nocc promptly pointed the gun at Wyck. Faced with the approaching menace, Nocc’s expression changed from smug to worried.
“Stand back!” he yelled. “Or I’ll shoot!”
“Go ahead. Shoot.” Wyck slammed a fist into his own chest, taunting. “Or would you rather do it when I turn my back to you? You backstabbing puddle of slime.”
Nocc leaped to me, jamming the gun under my chin.
“Or maybe, I’ll shoot her first.” Some confidence returned to his voice. “Kill your pretty little toy, then no one gets to play with her.”
Wyck halted abruptly, as if he’d hit a brick wall.
“Don’t.”
Nocc smirked, no doubt feeling the power over Wyck.
“That’s better.” He tipped his chin at the youngest errock. “You stay where you are, and I’ll let you both live. I’ll keep my promise, it’s the errocks’ way after all. I know we’re a family, it’s you who keeps forgetting it, boy.”
He took a pause, for emphasis, then continued, “You’re the one