Ka'Cit's Haven (Riv’s Sanctuary #3)

She couldn’t afford to lose them.

A few panicked seconds of searching passed before her fingers brushed over the missing shoe, but she didn’t get a chance to put it back on because the alien by her side was already moving.

“This way.” He was still holding her hand and she had no choice but to move with him.

But he was going the wrong way.

Nia dug her heels into the floor, causing the alien to pause.

“Can’t go that way. It’s locked. I shut it down.” She tugged on the hand holding on to hers. “The corridor is blocked and there’s not much time. I don’t know how you got in here, but we have to go back that way.”

She tugged in the other direction.

“Ta’ii, I know you think that way is the right way, but I can assure you, if we head that way, we’d be walking straight into a nest of Niftrills. I have enough firepower to get through them, but…I’d rather not get you out of here like that. We have to go this way.” He tugged her hand again with enough urgency to tell he wanted her to head in his direction.

“You don’t understand. I locked it down. That way is blocked.” Nia tugged on his arm once more.

Hell.

He couldn’t understand her, and he was too big for her to move.

She could feel the seconds passing with each breath that she took.

They didn’t have much time.

The smoke was already clearing too, and she was sure the upper sector was going to open at any moment. Then they’d be in deep shit.

“I shut it down.” She waved her free hand in the air, a bit exasperated at the thought that even with the smoke clearing, he probably couldn’t see what she was doing. Not that they had time for a game of charades, anyway. “We have to go this way.”

He didn’t budge.

Ugh!

“We can’t—” The smoke was clearing enough now that she could see better, and her words cut off in her throat.

Nia’s gaze rose higher and higher till she was looking at the stranger’s face…or, at least, where his face should be.

He was wearing a metal mask—something like what a welder would wear.

Her heart thumped in her chest.

She knew him.

At least, she’d seen him before. Once.

Long, impossibly black hair hung over the stranger’s shoulders, flowing freely and contrasting with the stranger’s blue skin.

It was Riv’s friend who lived at a farm not far from the Sanctuary—or so she’d been told.

He was a good guy.

Then what the hell was he doing here?

He wasn’t looking her way.

Instead, his gaze was directed down the corridor and his whole body stiffened as he muttered something.

“What the phek…”