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  The door to her lab came into sight and Peyton breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled open the door before she realized that it should have been locked. Her eyes widened as she saw two hulking Oscavians tearing apart the tables and desks as if they were searching for something.

  She tried to back away slowly, before they realized she was there, but one of them looked up and pointed his blaster straight at her.

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  They cleared their way through the building methodically, checking for any wandering mercenaries or traps they’d managed to set. Worry for Peyton flickered at the back of Dryce’s mind, but he knew it would be worse if she were with them. She’d be safe in her lab, the real danger lay ahead of him.

  If only he could convince his heart of that.

  With control of the security room, they could do just about anything they wanted. This whole thing would have been over if it weren’t for the fact that the mercenaries had hostages. The mercenaries had disabled the cameras and some of the sensors where they were holed up, so Dryce and his team didn’t know exactly what they were walking into. They wouldn’t risk a full on assault until they had more information, but time was on their side. The mercs couldn’t have much food, and they’d already shut off the water to that part of the building.

  It was the mercs outside that worried Dryce the most. The team in the security room couldn’t get a firm headcount, and though they’d originally thought it was a small team, the number kept growing, now at about ten mercs, with more possibly in hiding. What they’d thought was a team of twenty now hovered around thirty. And while there were more Detyen warriors and human soldiers, plenty to match them, they couldn’t fight an enemy they couldn’t see.

  “Why didn’t they just teleport out?” Dryce asked Raze as they waited for their next move.

  “Remember what happened to Varrow last time he tried?” Raze reminded him.

  “There’s no way to disable that?” A signal scrambler made it impossible to teleport into or out of the SDA base. Varrow had tried using a teleport key that had been embedded in his skin. All the effort had gained him was hours of pain and a lot of blood loss.

  “Your girl could, probably. But someone without genius level mechanical knowledge? No chance.”

  Dryce grinned at hearing Raze call Peyton a genius. She was, it was true. Watching her mind work through a difficult problem was his second favorite thing, his first favorite that didn’t involve a bed.

  “Keep your mind on the task,” Raze chided, but he clamped Dryce on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you.” Now was not the time for this conversation, so Dryce only nodded.

  Sandon and General Alvarez had been two of the last to be freed from the lockdown. They’d quickly taken charge and when Sandon approached them, Dryce knew that it was almost time for action.

  “Security reported an anomaly in the science building. I want you, Raze, and Kendryk to investigate it.”

  Dryce’s heart stopped. He’d sent Peyton there to be safe. “Do we have any more information?” He wanted to grab Sandon by the lapels and demand information about Peyton, but he forced himself to remain still. Assaulting Sandon wouldn’t help anything.

  “That’s what you’re going to find out. Now go.”

  Dryce wanted to take an army; instead he had his brother and Commander Kendryk, a capable soldier, though Dryce had never spent much time with the man. At Sandon’s order they moved out and Dryce would have sprinted if he didn’t have the two men at his side. He’d resent this assignment if his mate wasn’t in danger. Yormas of Wreet was the ancient enemy of his people and Dryce wanted to be one of the team to imprison him, or worse, for good.

  But Peyton was out there and possibly at the mercy of the mercenaries who’d come to free Yormas. He’d sacrifice anything to make sure that she was safe.

  It was good that Kendryk and Raze were with him, Dryce distantly knew that. They made him use caution when he wanted to run straight into danger, but every minute that ticked by was a minute too long for Peyton to be in danger. They made it to her lab and Dryce knew before they got in the door that there was nothing to find. He could feel the pull of the denya bond deep in his chest. Peyton wasn’t here. And she was moving further away quickly.

  The lab was a mess, tables overturned and desks askew. They’d been looking for something, but Dryce had no idea what. He was a soldier, not a scientist, and he doubted they would even be able to tell if something was gone without a thorough search.

  “It looks like they left abruptly,” Kendryk said, his tone so detached that Dryce wanted to punch him. The man wasn’t soulless; he still had all of his emotions, but from his tone, he might as well have been. “Either they heard Dr. Cho and fled, or she stumbled upon them and they took her with them.”

  “This is my denya you’re talking about,” Dryce bit out. “Show some respect.” He took a step towards Kendryk, but Raze held him back.

  “He’s being respectful,” Raze told him with a warning look. “We will find her. Never fear.”

  “And if it was Sierra?” The walls were closing in around him and he needed to run, needed to hit something. If Raze didn’t get out of his way, he would do.

  “I’m on your side, brother, but watch what you say.” They stared at each other for a charged moment before Dryce gave a minute nod. Now was not the time to upset Raze, and he couldn’t alienate Kendryk either, not if he wanted to get his mate back.

  “I can sense her,” he told them. “And she had no reason to leave this room, not unless they took her. Even if she were hiding, I’m sure she would have found a place to stay put. They have her.”

  He waited for one of the men to argue. It was conjecture, but Dryce was certain of it to the root of his soul. Peyton wasn’t the type to take unnecessary risks. She’d only be on the move if the mercenaries had her or if they were chasing her. Either way, if they found her, they’d find their targets.

  They left the lab as it was and Dryce followed the tug in his chest, taking them out into the courtyard behind the building where they were forced to slow down. Enemy mercs were outside somewhere and moving without caution would get them dead.

  The pulse of the denya bond grew stronger and Dryce wanted to run towards it, but he tamped down that urge with all the discipline that had been enshrined in him over his entire life. But the closer they got, the harder it was to fight the urge, and when he heard a feminine cry, nothing could have stopped him from running towards it.

  They found Peyton under guard of three mercenaries, two of them with their blasters pointed at her. A bruise was blooming on her cheek and she’d been forced down onto her knees next to the door of what Dryce vaguely recalled was one of the auxiliary hangars.

  The fight ended before it began, with Raze and Kendryk each taking out a merc with their blasters. Dryce launched himself at the third, taking him to the ground and pummeling him with fists and claws until his hands were covered with Oscavian blood and the beast within him was satisfied that his mate was safe. Bloodlust pounded in his veins, an unquenchable thirst for vengeance for any who dared to lay a hand on Peyton.

  And it was only Peyton’s hand that could pull him back from that edge. She murmured soothing words into his ear and placed her hands on his shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m safe now. You saved me.”

  He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to take her to bed and prove to both of them that they were alive and nothing would harm them again. But there were still mercenaries running around, and no place was safe for Peyton until they were taken care of.

  He looked up to find Raze and Kendryk waiting patiently for him to recover from his outburst. There was no judgment in Raze’s eyes, though he couldn’t expect Kendryk to understand. “Let’s finish this,” he said. He was ready to take his mate home, but first it was time to take care of the enemy once and for all.

  PEYTON EXPECTED A FINAL showdown to be more exciting. Not that she actually wa
nted any more excitement in her life. One unplanned expedition to an enemy spaceship was more than enough. But as the standoff ticked over into the third hour, Peyton was actually a little, well, bored. She was sitting in the middle of a freaking hostage crisis, her face still smarted from the bruise that regen gel was rapidly healing, and she knew she’d have nightmares for years to come of seeing those mercenaries in her lab.

  If Dryce hadn’t shown up when he had...

  No, she didn’t want to think about it. She’d been able to stall them for long enough, sure that Dryce, or someone, would find her. They’d wanted her to open the door to the auxiliary hangar where they would be able to find a vehicle to get them off the planet. Whether they had a plan for breaking Yormas of Wreet and Brakley Varrow out, Peyton hadn’t determined, and she hadn’t cared that much. All she’d wanted to do was survive.

  Now all she wanted was to go home. Or at least to take a nap, but she didn’t think that would go over well. She’d always thought that a battle would be a pulse pounding, edge of your seat affair that was over as quickly as it started. And maybe a battle would be, but that wasn’t right now.

  The mercenaries had freed Yormas and Varrow, but they were trapped in the third basement of the central building. The Detyens and humans had cut off all avenues of escape, but they hadn’t yet advanced. The mercenaries were holding Toran and two others, a Detyen and a human that Peyton didn’t know, captive. Once they moved against the mercs, the hostages would almost certainly be killed.

  Peyton kept hearing snatches of plans for extraction, but there was no way in or out, not any stealthy way, at least. If this were a media show, someone would be able to climb through a conveniently placed vent and the day would be saved.

  “What are we seeing? Has our status changed?” General Alvarez asked one of the Detyens over the comms to the security room. Even after working at the SDA for so long, it was hard to believe that she was standing near such a legend. He’d singlehandedly saved Mumbai from an alien attack.

  With a jolt, Peyton realized that someday people might say her name with as much reverence as they spoke of the general. She shuddered at the thought and prayed that her part in this whole mess never got out. She wasn’t some big hero, she’d just been doing her job. It wasn’t that difficult to reprogram a freaking teleporter.

  “No change, sir,” the person in the control room answered back.

  She heard a muttered curse. Peyton felt invisible. After recovering her from the mercs, there’d been no question about Peyton staying with the large group of armed soldiers who could ensure she was safe. And though she wished Dryce could be by her side, she understood that he had work to do. But everyone was so focused on the problem in front of themselves that they may as well have been looking through her anytime a head turned her way. For her part, she was trying to stay as quiet as possible.

  “Unless you can get me into a locked room without using a door, this ends one of two ways: the mercs turn on their bosses in exchange for leniency, or everyone ends up dead. Do you see another option?” She wasn’t sure who Alvarez was talking to, but his words echoed into her head.

  Get me into a locked room without using a door.

  “We need a distraction.” Peyton didn’t realize that she’d spoken until every eye in the office turned to her.

  Alvarez stared at her expectantly but Peyton wasn’t sure what else he wanted. “Yes, a distraction would be useful.”

  “Dad,” Sierra said in warning tone. Peyton hadn’t realized that she was in the room until she spoke. It was crowded enough to be stifling and sweat made Peyton’s clothes cling.

  She didn’t have an idea for a distraction, but Alvarez looked ready to tear into the next person who crossed his path, and she’d accidentally put herself in his sights. She scrambled for anything she could give him, immediately dismissing half a dozen ideas. If there was already something in the room they could use, they would have thought of it. From what she’d heard, they had a visual feed into the room, but the audio was being scrambled and none of the hostages had their communicators or any other way to maintain contact.

  They needed to get something into the room, and they couldn’t get it through the doors. “Why don’t we use the teleport?” She had teleportation on the brain, but it had worked in her favor so far, so why not keep at it?

  “Teleportation doesn’t work on the base,” someone said, as if she had no idea how the tech work.

  But Peyton dismissed them with the smallest wave. She pushed out of her seat and started to pace. There was a small sliver of space by the wall where she was able to manage it. “Teleportation is only scrambled if you’re trying to get off the base. We’ve used them on base before since it’s the easiest way to move some of the larger equipment.” And sandwiches when the lab staff was too lazy to walk all the way to the mess hall, but Peyton didn’t say that part out loud. “We can’t move people, the scrambler is strong enough to interrupt any signal that large, but we could get a weapon to our people. Or...” what else would be useful, Peyton wasn’t sure, “a smoke bomb?”

  “Why didn’t you suggest this two hours ago?” one of the Detyens demanded, rounding on her. She had long dark hair and blue skin, but Peyton didn’t have a name to go with the face. She’d met more Detyens in the past week than she had in the entire time since they’d come to Earth.

  “That doesn’t matter.” Alvarez stared at her like he could see deep into her soul. “What do you need?”

  DRYCE WASN’T IN THE front line to go through the door once they had the signal, but he was still close enough that the astringent smell of smoke tickled his nostrils and sent a shot of pride through him. The first and second groups of soldiers wore gas masks to keep the soporific drugs from clouding their senses.

  Once they called the all clear and had Yormas of Wreet, Brakley Varrow, and the rest of the mercenary team secured, the team in the security station engaged the HVAC system to clear the gas from the bomb. By the time Dryce and his team entered, there was nothing more than the faint scent of smoke in the air with a hint of something sickly sweet he wouldn’t have been able to name if he didn’t know what had happened.

  His mate was not a woman to be messed with.

  It hadn’t taken long once Peyton realized she could rig a teleporter to transport something small into the room where the mercenaries had holed up. And when Sierra suggested that they use a drug that many Sol Intelligence Officers were familiar with to knock out the enemy, it hadn’t taken long.

  Dryce was satisfied to see Yormas of Wreet and Brakley Varrow returned to their cells, both left in manacles so as not to risk another escape. They’d be moved to separate holding facilities once the base was secure, but until then, they’d be under twenty-four hour guard and heightened surveillance.

  Seeing Toran lying unconscious wasn’t something he’d like to repeat, but a medic was already tending to him, and he’d wake with little more than a headache in a few hours.

  The next hours were spent routing out any lingering mercenaries and securing the base. Dryce wanted to steal a minute away with his denya, but by the time he managed to get near her, she was ensconced in conversation with several Detyens and a few humans and was so focused she didn’t notice him.

  Day wore on into night and he was commanded to catch a few hours of sleep before he dropped, but Dryce knew he’d been more rested than anyone who’d been caught on base when the whole ordeal began so he switched off a ship with a young Detyen who practically cried in relief when she was told she could grab a few hours of sleep.

  When morning came around again, Dryce admitted defeat and crawled into one of the on call rooms, startling awake sometime later when a warm body burrowed in next to his, but it was Peyton, and he slung his arm around her and relaxed as they both fell into sleep once more.

  She was gone in the morning, but when he was summoned to the largest conference room the building had to offer, he saw her sitting near General Alvarez and a few other humans. She gav
e him a tired smile and he took a seat beside Toran, who looked much better.

  “Exciting day?” Dryce asked with a smirk. “I heard you passed out at the end of it.”

  Toran glared at him. “Some of us were called from our beds earlier than others, and neither I nor my mate would like to be reminded of it.”

  Dryce bit back a laugh and schooled his face into a more sober expression when Sandon stood and began to speak. The debrief was long and tedious, even if hearing everything Sandon and General Alvarez imparted sent waves of relief through Dryce.

  The Oscavian mercenaries who hadn’t been involved in the attempt to liberate Yormas of Wreet and Brakley Varrow were confirmed to have left the solar system. The Oscavian Empire disclaimed all knowledge of the attack and already had diplomats on the way to soothe ruffled human feathers. Yormas of Wreet would be given to the Detyens according to their laws, and Brakley Varrow would be tried in human court.

  All signs indicated that the weapon that Peyton had teleported off the planet was the only one of its kind, and with Yormas in custody, they didn’t fear another one being produced. He’d guarded the secret so closely for a century that it was difficult for anyone to believe that he’d shared it widely. And if he had, they’d deal with that later.

  Hours passed and Dryce had to pinch himself to stay awake a time or two. But when it was done, he stood up and looked around the room. There were a few soulless warriors at the meeting, their expressions as blank as always, but every other Detyen in the room seemed to be thrumming with energy, no matter how tired they were.

  It was hope, Dryce realized. The kind of hope they hadn’t dared dream about since the destruction of their planet. They had a new home on Earth now, and their people’s greatest enemy had been defeated. He was no longer a shadow. And though they didn’t yet know why he’d targeted Detya or eventually turned his sights to Earth, Dryce hoped that they’d one day figure it out.