Primal Heat. Crystal Jordan

help from the Vishra. A shout sounded nearby and Farid looked up to see the soldier who had passed them had circled back around. He lifted a pistol, aimed it at Bren, and Farid saw in excruciating detail how his finger squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flashed. Farid’s heart contracted, adrenaline exploding in his veins. He reacted without thought, with the lightning reflexes of his feline nature, launching his comm. into the exact path of the bullet. The imager burst into little more than metal debris. His other hand came around and he fired his razer at their attacker. The soldier screamed, dropped a small, round object to the ground, and convulsed as electricity sizzled through his body.

      Time rushed ahead at light speed, and Farid’s pulse raced to match. Bren blinked. “How the hell did you throw—”

      Run! His senses vibrated with danger, shrieking at him that six more of the enemies sprinted at them from multiple directions.

      Bren was already on her feet, her boots kicking up dirt as she obeyed. She shouted over her shoulder, “Did you kill him?”

      This is a Class Three razer. At full charge, it can only cause unconsciousness. He’ll be fine. Worry more about your own hide than his and move faster. Now! He watched her flip a rude hand gesture at him, but she obliged him by pouring on more speed. Another aircraft was coming—he could hear it whirring in the distance. More soldiers to come down ropes, more light to seek them out in the dark, and more enemies to hunt them. They dashed through the trees until they found themselves moving along a ridge that dropped into a wide, rushing river.

      While Farid’s superhuman speed could easily outdistance their pursuers, he wasn’t going to leave his One’s side. Sweat made his tunic stick to his back and dampened his hair. His muscles shook as his instincts screamed to run faster, to get away, and his lungs burned as he sucked in oxygen.

      They broke into a wide clearing and were nearly halfway across when he knew they’d neither be able to escape nor evade confrontation with the humans. One came out of the trees in front of them, three more to the side. Trapped. Farid knew going back the way they’d come was futile, and the river boxed them in. The soldiers began to circle their prey. One of the aircraft reached them, circling overhead to shine a blinding beam down on them. Farid hissed, his feline eyes aching at the adjustment to fluctuating light.

      Squinting against the glare, he focused his psychic power on the nearest soldier and shoved in the image that the man’s arm was on fire.

      “I’m on fire! Oh, my God. My fucking arm is on fire!” He screamed, slapping at his shoulder frantically before diving on the ground to roll.

      Spinning to level his weapon on the next soldier, he watched the man pull out the same kind of small, round object the other soldier had dropped. Bren gasped. “Oh. Shit.”

      He grabbed her arm and shoved her behind him, bracing for an explosion. It didn’t come. Instead, a high-pitched squeal rent the air, and Farid felt as though something vital had suddenly numbed, a shocking blow that left his ears ringing. Something he’d always known was there was blunted, ineffective. A white-hot blade sliced through his mind. He staggered, his claws and fangs exploding forward. A deep roar issued from his throat, the feline taking hard, abrupt control of his body.

      His vision tunneled to one focus, one purpose. He would kill now, the beast had been unleashed.

      “Arjun!” Bren sprayed gunfire at the feet of the soldiers to send them scrambling back for the cover of the trees. She launched herself forward, plowed all her weight into Farid, and sent them both careening over the sheer drop into the river. Reflex made his muscles tense, his hand gripping his gun. Blind instinct made him reach for his One, and he wrapped his arms around her in the single heartbeat it took to fall.

      Sanity returned with a cold slap as they hit the frigid water. The river dragged them under, whipped them around in dizzying circles before he could propel them to the surface. They broke through, sputtering and coughing up fluids. His hold tightened on both his weapon and his One for fear of losing either in the rushing current. His heart pounded so loudly in his ears, it almost drowned out the roar of the river.

      White foaming water slapped him in the face with the force of a battering ram when they hit rapids. He tried to kick, to take the brunt of the glancing blows from protruding rocks. Agony made his body arch, made a chilling feline scream burst from him. Bren gagged when they went under again, screamed and clung to him, her grip as desperate as his was. The only truth he knew was that he could not allow her to die, too. Not his One. They dipped in the river’s eddies, spun weightlessly, helplessly, jerked in any direction the water would taken them.

      Endless miles sped by before the currents calmed, and his muscles shrieked, his body trembling. He swam with the stream, directing their mad flight through the water. Bren scissored her legs to help him, her expression one of grim determination. They braced each other to be able to stand upright and maintain their footing as they stumbled out of the sucking current. His wet clothing felt as if it weighed more than the Vishra as it threatened to drag him to his knees.

      They staggered to the relative cover of a copse of trees, sobbing for breath, vomiting up water. He caught one hand on his knee to keep from slamming face-first into the forest floor and shoved his pistol into the holster at his back. Every inch of his body shuddered and cramped, pain taking on a new definition in his mind.

      When he managed to look up again, it was to see Bren sagging against a tree with her eyes closed. She gasped raggedly. “Are you all right, Arjun?”

      “Fine.” Honing his senses in on her revealed scrapes and bruises but no serious injuries. Relief wound through him with an intensity that alarmed him. Shaking himself beastlike to fling as much of the water off him as possible, he pushed away the feeling and focused on something safer—the events in the clearing. His voice emerged a rough croak. “What was that device they used?”

      “It was—” Her low whisper cracked and broke off. She cleared her throat, her expression closing to tell him nothing. “All I know is it was designed to target the wavelengths in the Kith mind and nullify psychic power.”

      “Madness,” he breathed, horror cresting within him. “The psychic power is what allows us to control the rampaging animal side of our nature.”

      “So I saw.” She pushed herself upright, a low groan breaking from her. “Since you have your psychic mojo back, you can contact your ship and tell them to send a shuttle.”

      “I cannot.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It is too far for my powers to reach. I would be unable connect with them from here.”

      “You make it from your ship to Earth just fine when you connect with me.” Her gaze called him a liar, though the word didn’t escape her lips.

      He looked away, unable to meet her brilliant blue eyes. “It is different with you.”

      “How?” Combing her fingers through her tangled hair, she squeezed out the water, worked it into a long, thick plait, and fastened it with a tie she pulled from her pocket. She flipped it over her shoulder and arched her eyebrows at him. “How is it different, Arjun? I’m not even Kith to…you know, boost your power source from the other end.”

      “You would not understand. It’s complicated.” Outside of that, he wouldn’t tell her the truth. He never intended to initiate the One bond, so she had no need to know. “Suffice to say, we must wait until they realize I am no longer gone of my own accord.”

      The Sueni would search for him soon, but he was far from the site of his landing and out of range of any ability to contact his people. He sent psychic distress calls up and outward, pushing his power as far as it would go. Nothing happened. He shook his head and sighed. With the exception of Kyber, no Kith had the ability to reach so far with their mental power. And Kyber had been more than a little distracted of late, so Farid had no idea when the emperor might be open to contact. He snorted. At this point, he wasn’t even sure where his cousin was. Back on the Vishra, still on Earth, possibly bonding with his One?

      “Well, we can’t stay here. They’re going to search the river for us.” Her lips twisted in an unpleasant imitation