Free Warlord Reunited: 3 (Barbarian Claims) by Cynthia Sax Page A

into the corridor and her bullets glided along the wall, tearing strips of metal away from the panels. “I can’t reach him.” She retreated into the alcove.
    “I can reach him. Keep him trapped in his hole.” Berke surged into the corridor, firing both his guns. Ellie’s bullets rushed along the wall, pinning the clone in place. “We—”
    Ellie’s triggers clicked. “Empty.” She tossed the guns onto the floor.
    Before she could draw new guns, the clone rushed away from them, zigzagging from alcove to alcove. Berke raced after him, shooting, his prey shockingly fast.
    He must be genetically enhanced. Berke’s muscles ached and his lungs burned. He exchanged weapons, not breaking the rhythm of his gunfire.
    The clone hesitated at the end of the corridor, looking from left to right, his long black hair swinging over his shoulders. Berke shot him in the shoulder blade and he spun around, a gun dropping from his twitching fingers, the barrel clinking against the metal floor.
    “Do you surrender, clone?” Berke approached him cautiously, both his guns aimed at the clone’s scarred face. He saw the resemblance to his father now, his features achingly familiar. A clone of a clone of my father.
    “Never,” the clone sneered, his eyes as hard as Chamele 1’s ice crust. “And my name is Twelve, not clone. Scream that when you die.” He dived to the right, raising his remaining gun.
    Berke lunged toward him, pressing his triggers in rapid succession, riddling the clone’s body with bullets, inflicting wounds too deep and too severe to heal. The clone, Twelve, shook on the floor, blood dripping from his thin lips, his death noises slowly fading.
    “Gotcha,” Berke uttered one of Ellie’s favorite phrases.
    She didn’t respond, the silence eerie.
    “Ellie.” A sheet of heart-stopping cold swept over Berke. He pivoted on his boot heels and froze, a band of pain constricting around his chest.
    “Gotcha.” Tolui grinned, the humor not reaching his black eyes. Blood streamed down his right leg, his leg coverings torn. He stood with his feet braced apart, his left arm slung across Ellie’s frail neck and a gun pressed to her side. She pulled at his arm and kicked her feet, her boots not touching the floor, her eyes wide.
    “This is between you and me, Tolui.” Berke struggled to contain his rage, his claws pricking his skin. “Don’t hurt her.”
    “Lower your guns.” Tolui shifted his grip, lowering his arm, and Ellie gulped air, gasping and sputtering. “And I’ll let her go.”
    “He won’t let me go.” The rawness in Ellie’s voice escalated Berke’s anger. “Shoot him, Berke. Aim for his shoulder if you can’t bring yourself to kill him.”
    “She’ll be dead before you press the trigger,” Tolui warned, shaking Ellie’s small body, rattling her teeth.
    Berke tightened his grip on his guns. Tolui living was no longer an option, not after the clone threatened and hurt his gerel .
    “You could end the war right now, Berke.” His rash female continued to talk, risking her life by invoking her captor’s ire. “You’ll save lives, your people’s lives. Think of your people.”
    “My people?” Berke stared at Ellie. “I can’t think of my people now.”
    “You can. You love your people.” A sheen of moisture covered Ellie’s brown eyes.
    “I love you more.” Berke crouched, setting his guns flat on the floor. “I’d give up everything for you, Ellie—my planet, my people, my life.”
    “Berke, no,” she pleaded.
    “So the great Warlord does have a weakness.” Tolui smirked, loosening his clasp on Ellie. Her boots touched the floor, her heels ringing on the metal.
    “I’m not a weakness. I made an error,” Ellie explained, her tone defensive. “I didn’t know Tolui was so fast. I was distracted and he surprised me.”
    “He did more than surprise you,” Berke muttered, blaming himself, not his mate, for this situation. He’d left her alone to face Tolui. He fixed his