Free Captured Rapture: 3 (Mercy) by Lexxie Couper Page B

detonator was active. With a simple release
of pressure, he’d turn every living being within a two-mile radius into a
brain-dead vegetable. Pretty much everyone on Port Mercy. He gave me another one
of those snide, smug laughs. “You don’t think I was suspicious about the
Bo’aa?”
    He stepped closer to me, detonator
held out as if it were the most wonderful present I could ever hope to receive.
I stood my ground and glared at him. I had nowhere to go. Behind me was the
viewing wall.
    “ No one trusts a Bo’aa
unless they’re stupid,” he spat.
    Another wave of black fury rolled
through me. A wall of heat hotter than a furnace. The tips of my fingers
tingled, as if I’d plunged them into an open flame. “Stupid?” I cocked an
eyebrow at him, not even remotely trying to hide my contempt. “Who’s holding
the neuron detonator, dipshit?”
    “I’d rather take out everyone on
this hole of a spaceport, including myself, than spend the rest of my life in a
GU prison.” He laughed again, taking another step closer. Close enough for the
end of my disruptor to press against his forehead. Close enough for me to smell
his breath. Ugh. Crazy-ass masturbating criminal and oral-hygiene deficient. A
winner all around. “So you’ve got two choices, cop,” he went on, lifting his de-atomizer
up to my face and tapping the tip of its barrel against my bottom lip. “Open up
and say ‘ahh’, or turn everyone on this hunk of metal to—”
    He stopped talking.
    His mouth fell open, his eyes grew
wide, practically bulging from his head, and he staggered backward, gaping at
something over my right shoulder.
    Something beyond the unbreakable
glass.
    Something—by the expression on his
face—absolutely terrifying.
    Mine to claim.
    I heard the thought before I felt
the tingle in my limbs, the swelling throb in my sex.
    An ear-piercing screech shattered
the air. The viewing wall behind me rattled. The floor vibrated. I didn’t have
to turn to see what was outside. My body—no, my heart and soul—told me.
    Torr. My Wyvernian had come for his
mate.
    “Gods, gods!” the perp gasped,
backpedaling like crazy. “What is that? What is that ?”
    I aimed my disruptor right between
his eyes. “That,” I said quite calmly, “is my boyfriend.”
    The perp squealed, his eyes bulged
some more and, just to prove how completely fucking insane he was, he lifted
his left arm higher, the one holding the brain-liquefying bomb, and swung it
forward.
    He was going to throw the neuron
detonator.
    There comes a point in every tale
when the narrator—in this case, me—just has to admit to not having a bloody
clue what went on. This is that point.
    I saw the spice dealer swing his
arm. I saw the blood flow back into the tips of his fingers as he began to
relax his grip on the small metal sphere. I saw the detonator’s tiny red glow
flicker green. And then I heard one simple thought.
    Mine to protect .
    It was my thought.
    And before I even knew what I was
doing, let alone how, I drew all the molten, blazing fury burning through me
into one thick spear of untouchable heat and sent it out. Incinerating the
neuron detonator to ash before the perp’s fingers could release it.
    Incinerating the perp’s hand at the
same time.
    The bastard screeched, the end of
his left arm a scorched, blackened stump, and swung up his right arm, leveling
his de-atomizer directly at my chest. “Die, cu—!”
    His head exploded in a puff of
disintegrated matter.
    “Ah, shut up, fucker,” came a
barely audible croak near my feet.
    I started, jerking my stare down to
the bleeding, wheezing lump of Bo’aa on the floor. “Take your bloody time,
partner.” I dropped to my knees beside Fraz. The perp had shot him in the
shoulder, charring and melting part of his upper arm and throat and the side of
his head. He looked bad. Real bad. And for a Bo’aa, that meant he looked
positively hideous.
    “Hey, I came back from the dead…to
save your ass, Enforcer