Dekkir (Galaxy Alien Warriors #1)(39)

“Of course they are. I’m not angry you remember they are some mother’s son. But you must comply. I need you focused on the task at hand, not its emotional impact.” I stared into her eyes until they focused on me.

“Yes . . . I understand.” She didn’t seem happy about it, but she lifted her chin and struggled to focus.

I sighed relief, but prematurely. For the next second, just as the pulse rifle fire erupted again, she went rigid, going ashen again. “No . . . no! The arrows . . . those bugs . . . they’re stinging me!”

This isn’t sentiment or lack of nerve. She has more psychic power than she has self-control yet, and it’s turning on her. “They aren’t! You’re right here with me, Grace. You’re not out there! You’re not dying!” I did everything I could think of to get her attention: shaking her, holding her. But all she did was go completely slack, sliding down to her knees at my feet. The emptiness in her eyes had gone from blankness to a sort of void, as if her soul were falling down a deep well. “Grace? Grace! Grace! Wake up, love. Don’t leave me!”

Deep inside, I could feel her struggling against the tide of pain and death flooding into her inexperienced mind. But then all she did was fold up into a ball and cover her face with her forearms. Her mind was retreating into itself, away from the pain, away from this ugly reality . . . away from me. And I wasn’t sure how to call her back.





CHAPTER 16 / GRACE

The remaining troops are reaching the edge of the forest.

How did they move so fast?

Their suits have some sort of jets they can use for leaping. They’re just bounding over deadfalls and everything else and heading straight at us.

I struggled to make out all the brain chatter in my head, knowing I was supposed to be doing something with it. Dekkir. I need to tell Dekkir. But my lips wouldn’t move. It was if I were frozen in a block of ice and could vaguely hear him banging on it and shouting in at me, trying to help me break out. I tried to struggle . . . but pain laid that way. The pain of so many losses. The knowledge that so many more were to come.

A bolt of white light rips through my chest and the world goes black. An insect stinger as long as my arm pierces my shoulder. I scream, try to fight, seconds before its massive mandibles close on my head. Arrows thud into my back, three, four, five—the last one pierces something vital, and the ground swings up and hits me in the face. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying, over and over, human and Lyran, no difference really in that final moment, when I go from a living, vital person to a twitching sack of meat.

Dekkir . . . help me . . .

He was holding me, as if trying to bring warmth back into my body with his own, his broad chest heaving against my face. I love you, his voice said into my ear and into my heart. I love you. Come back to me. Please, come back . . .

Dozens of dead hands clawed at my mind, gone too young, gone in the midst of rage and terror, their souls still outraged. Wanting to know why. Souls on both sides gone too soon, some of them hundred-plus-year-old Lyrans, but still—too soon, too soon. I wanted to tell them how sorry I was. I wanted to tell them I wished it had not happened. But their grief, pain, and rage was mindless, clawing at me in dead reflex, like the echo of a scream.

Grace.

I heard the voice, Dekkir’s voice, calling me back, shouting with all his strength and straining his mind. Other voices joined it in chorus: Tabirus, Neyilla, even Dorin. Joining together, boosting the strength of Dekkir’s call. Grace. Come back. Don’t stay with the dead. Don’t. You must come back, Grace.

I could feel love and concern in their mental voices, even if Dorin’s was a bit grudging. Their voices were like a beacon to me in the icy dark. I rose toward it, fighting against the clawing souls that tried to drag me down with them. But there were more important people waiting for me. Dekkir waited for me. He was my strength . . . but I was his as well, an endless wellspring the psychic backlash of so many deaths was threatening to rip away.

Come back, precious one. Come back.

Dekkir?

I’m here. His mental contact overflowed with relief, and I rose toward it, toward my skin, which itched and tingled, toward my face with its tears wet and dried, my aching eyes, and my aching head. Toward my fallen body, which he held so tenderly.

I gasped awake, eyes flying open, and looked up at him. “Dekkir—Dekkir! They’re coming!”

He sighed his relief and then set his jaw grimly. “I know, my love. I know. We’ve only been able to kill a few of them. The beasts and our weapons are no match for their armor, and the seers can only convince some to disrobe or attack each other. Most of Norcross’s force is still on its way.”

I sucked in air and sat up painfully, fighting a wave of dizziness and terror. He helped me to my feet, and we looked out beyond the battlements. A wedge-shape of armored Earth soldiers bounded across the plain toward us, rifles at the ready, faceless in their heavy helmets. It almost felt as if I were back in the nightmare in-between place again, but my eyes were wide open, and these antagonists were all too alive.

“What do we do?” I whispered breathlessly.

He set his jaw. “We fight,” he replied. “We fight down to the last man.”

Keer squawked happily as she saw us, bounding out of her aerie atop the wall and crouching down in front of us. The gigantic creature was equal parts lion, bird, bat, and lizard, covered in jet-black fur, with golden eyes and claws of shining ebony. She had gotten a little chubbier since I had last seen her—but that might have been my imagination. She rubbed her head against Dekkir’s legs, then against my belly, and crooned.