Page 78 of Nansar
Through the smoke and carnage, Nansar and Ahrick fought on, back-to-back against the Trogvyk and Romvesians too stubborn to quit or too stupid to run.
The Alliance ship became an angel of death, methodical and merciless. Each plasma blast carved through the chaos like divine judgment. The Trogvyk and Romvesians weren't soldiers anymore—they were prey, their formation shattered, their courage evaporating. Some fired desperately at the ship overhead, their weapons sparking uselessly against its shields.
I pressed myself low, weapon steady despite my racing heart, scanning for any threat to Nansar and Ahrick. A Romvesian guard broke from cover, sprinting toward them withmurder in his eyes. I squeezed the trigger. He dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Movement flickered at the edge of my vision—near the rocks where we'd first taken cover.
Declan.
Of fucking course. Of course that coward had been cowering while everyone else bled.
He slithered out from between the boulders like the snake he was, head whipping back and forth as he searched for an escape route. The instant his eyes locked on the tree line, he ran.
"No!" The word tore from my throat as I launched after him, my legs already pumping.
"Chloe!" Nansar's shout was distant thunder, barely registering through the roar of blood in my ears.
Declan was fast, but fear made him sloppy. He kept glancing back, checking if I was gaining ground. I was. My entire life—every drill, every brutal training session, every hour of conditioning—it all crystallized into this moment. This was what I'd been forged for.
Each stride felt like shedding skin. The frightened woman who'd woken in a cage. The victim who'd flinched at shadows. The broken doll Declan had tried to create.
Fuck. That.
I was ChloefuckingBlackwood. Daughter of Admiral Cullen Blackwood. Naval intelligence officer. FBI agent. I'd proven my way into one of the most elite law enforcement agencies on Earth. And now? Now I was Nansar's woman.
I wasn't running in fear anymore. I was running toward justice.
Declan's head whipped around again, and I saw the exact moment recognition hit him—the moment he realized I wasn't the same woman he'd caged and drugged and violated. The moment he understood that every needle he'd stuck in my arm,every humiliation he'd forced me to endure, every piece of my dignity he'd tried to steal had only tempered me into something harder. Something deadlier.
Something he should have killed when he had the chance.
My body was mine again. My choices were mine. My power was mine.
And I was taking every fucking bit of it back—with interest.
He was ten feet from the trees when I launched myself at him.
We collided in an explosion of momentum. Declan's eyes went wide—that delicious flash of prey realizing it's been caught—before we hit the ground hard enough to rattle teeth. He swung wild, desperate. Amateur hour. I deflected his fist like swatting away a gnat and drove my elbow into his ribs. The crack was music.
He bucked beneath me, all panic and flailing limbs. Pathetic. I shifted my weight, pinned him with my knee crushing down on his sternum, and introduced my knuckles to his face. Once. Twice. The third time split his lip wide open, painting his teeth red.
"You bastard!" Each word punctuated with another strike. His blood was warm on my hands. Satisfying.
He managed to land a hit across my jaw—a glancing blow that sent stars dancing through my vision. But I'd taken worse from sparring partners who actually knew what they were doing. This? This was nothing.
I caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted it at an angle that made tendons scream, and used his own momentum to flip him face-first into the dirt. My knee found his spine. His arm wrenched back at a position arms weren't meant to go.
"Chloe, please—" The word came out strangled, broken.
"Please?" I leaned down, my lips nearly brushing his ear, my voice dropping to something cold and sharp as a blade. "You want to talk about please? Tell me, Declan—did you listen when I begged you to stop? When I pleaded for mercy while you pumped me full of drugs and passing me around like a sex toy?"
He thrashed like a fish on a hook, but years of combat training versus his desperate squirming? No contest. Not even close.
Then he went still. Too still. The instinct that had kept me alive screamed a warning half a second too late.
Impact from my blind side—a freight train. The world spun as I flew off Declan, my back slamming into the ground with enough force to punch the air from my lungs. A Trogvyk guard, all hairless muscle and gleaming fangs, had me pinned. His claws punctured my shoulders, hot points of agony.
Training took over. Thought became action became survival.
