Deigning not to argue any further, Jurzed gave him an amused smile. “Tell me, was it worth my punishment for us to visit here?”
“Já,” Skars admitted without embarrassment. “But don’t forget you benefited from our trip as well.”
After Reva had told him that he would marry a human, it had been a constant worry of his that he wouldn’t know how to make love to her. Confessing to Thorsen and Jurzed during one of their drunken bouts, they had devised a way for him to get the experience he needed to please a human wife. They searched for any knowledge they could find about Earth, and what they had found out was there was no way for them to go unnoticed. Jurzed had been the one who had found a holiday that a portion of Earth celebrated in which they could blend in—Halloween—and the best place where he could find success of having sex in the short time he would be able to spend there—Las Vegas.
Both men looked out over the destruction of the city.
“I wasn’t surprised to find the bombs the humans used against each other weren’t targeted here.”
“Neither were we.” Dismally, Skars remembered the once massive structures now broken to pieces. “Pity those who came to attack Earth didn’t have the same day we had.”
“Or night,” Jurzed drawled out in amusement then grew serious when they saw Raine climb out of the window. “She is straying farther away from her hiding spot.”
Skars’ lips tightened in a grim line. “I have left her human food where it can be easily found, yet she never searches where I place it for her to find.” Skars shook his head at the haphazard way Raine would pick which building to search.
“You have more willpower than I. I would have dragged her back to my ship by now.”
“Two more days, and I will.” Skars clenched his jaw when Raine tumbled down a pile of debris she had tried to climb to reach the entrance of a building.
“Tradition or not, I would have broken the rule of not being able to see or speak to her for a week before your marriage.”
“She is angry at me. It will give her time to cool her temper.”
“So would a sound spanking.”
“I want to win her trust.”
“Trust me; she would learn not to endanger her life if she were mine.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Wait until you try to win a woman’s heart—” Skars cut off the end of his sentence, seeing Jurzed was no longer listening. He had moved away to the corner of the building to look in the direction where he had been staring when he had first arrived.
“Do you see …?”
Jurzed stiffened then turned to him. “Order Bjorn to get your woman; he is closer,” he told him, already running to the doorway which led downstairs.
Skars ran after him, his hand going to his suit to message Bjorn.
“What did you see?” Skars shouted at Jurzed as they ran.
“Grones!”
Chapter 27
Skars
Running out of the building, Skars saw Bjorn already fighting off several grones. Arne, farther away, was engaged with two of the vicious aliens and wasn’t doing well.
Seeing Jurzed running in Arne’s direction to help, Skars frantically searched for Raine. He had lost sight of her when he had run down the stairs.
“Raine?” Bellowing at the top of his lungs, Skars surveyed the area for her.
“Here!”
Hearing her voice, he saw her climbing onto a broken piece of concrete, which had been a massive statue the size of a towering building that had crashed to the ground when the aliens had attacked. Three grones were on her heels as she climbed.
Reaching the block, Skars used his ax to chop a dangling leg off one the grones who hadn’t managed to completely hoist his short body up. The high-pitched squeal had him wincing. Using his ax to sever the ugly head from the body stopped the painful sound, to his profound relief. Next time, he would chop their heads off before they could make the noise that pierced his brain like a spike.
As he climbed onto the block, he saw Raine was continuing to climb higher on the tilted statue using twisted metal which used to be a roller coaster. Aware of how frightened she must be to be scaling the statue, he controlled his instincts to climb in the same direction. Instead, he swung his body to the side and managed to catch a metal cord hanging from inside the statue. He could reach her quicker. The drawback was, if the grones reached her before him, he was leaving her defenseless.
Putting the handle of his ax in his mouth, he started pulling himself upward. From the corner of his eye, he saw Raine kick the grone closest to her in the face. The resulting squeal had him pushing past the pain to heaving his body up the cord.