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Kairen steps into my line of sight. “How many access points to this area from the outside?”

“Technically, you can find your way here no matter where you enter from,” I reply, shaking my head. “However, the nearest surface access point is in the direction you entered from. If they pick anything else, they’ll have to fight their way through my men and drone turrets.”

Kairen looks at the little white mech. “Kiko. Head down the opposite corridor and hail me the instant you detect a threat.”

The machine chirps and darts away.

Kairen then turns back to Tara. “Stay here, stay safe.”

Tara reaches up, grabs the alien prince by the jaw, and drags his mouth down to hers for a rough, desperate kiss. “Be safe.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Kairen whispers.

Interesting.

Then he vanishes down the corridor, a blur of impossible speed.

The siege hits the tunnels three minutes later.

Gunfire becomes a deafening roar echoing off the concrete. I stand ten paces behind my front line, pistol gripped in both hands, barrel aimed at the floor. Panic gets people killed. Discipline keeps them breathing. Tara stands just behind me, her weapon raised but her finger off the trigger. Smart girl.

The Ghorvek arrive, hulking nightmares of gray-green muscle and serrated teeth.

Two of my men—Dawson and Haines—are caught in the first swing of a massive, clawed arm. They go down in a spray of red. I clench my teeth together, filing their loss alongside the thousands of others. The huge Ghorvek then charges straight for us.

Before the beast can reach us, two streaks of light come up behind the Ghorvek.

Kairen is one. The other is a stranger in matte-black armor, glowing with veins of molten orange. The prince catches the beast, rips off its arm, and hurls the appendage at the next attacker. That one rears back, straight onto the plasma blade the stranger is already swinging up.

The newcomer moves like a blade of grass in the water. He ducks a sweeping claw, severs the knee of the next one, and spins a full circle to decapitate another before it realizes it’s under attack.

He kills with a terrifying, fluid grace.

Within moments, the corridor is a graveyard of alien corpses.

The Avaren retract their armor, and Kairen crosses the space to Tara, checking her for injuries she doesn’t have.

“Earth to Kairen. Why are you looking at me like that?” Tara asks.

He touches her cheek. “I thought I told you to call me Kai.”

I watch the exchange, cataloging dynamics, before motion catches my eye.

The second alien approaches, stopping two paces from me. His eyes are a striking, burning amber—like molten glass trapping entire galaxies. Bold dark brows sit over kohl-dark lash lines. He is, objectively, the most handsome creature I have ever seen.

The Avaren sidles up, tilting his head with a predator’s lazy curiosity, and scans me slowly from my practical heels to my sensible hair.

“Well,” he purrs. His voice is a silky, theatrical whisper with the volume turned up. “You must be Maggie.”

I refuse to shift my weight. I refuse to grant him an inch.

“Well,” I echo flatly. “I don’t recall telling you that you may call me that.”

The alien’s grin is positively deadly.

By evening, the blood is scrubbed from the floors and the dead are counted. I sit at the head of the dining table, wearing a pressed blouse and a fresh layer of deep-red lipstick.

Tara, Kairen, and my generals, who all received their own language nanites, occupy the sides. The new alien—Orien, the spymaster—sits directly across from me. He has spent the last hour observing my people with a level of charm that borders on psychological warfare. He smiles, and humans trip over themselves to agree with him.