Fleeing in terror wasn't something Elyn Castel did. People
usually ran from her, not the other way around. Besides,
after she'd spent fifty years as the slave of a sadistic
sociopath, there wasn't much anyone could do to inspire
terror in her.
But Elyn ran now, and she ran hard.
She darted down the concourse in long bounds that made the
humans gape, leaping over tables filled with diners,
spinning around astonished space station security guards,
ducking the angry clawed swipe of a huge A'vi warrior.
Her sensors revealed Jarl "Blade" Bladin was still behind
her, matching her stride for impossible stride. But when the
ill-tempered A'vi tried for him, one swing of an armored
fist sent the massive alien down with a crunch and a
started, agonized "Chik!" The pursuing security guards had
to stop to help the injured A'vi.
Never piss off a guy named Blade. Her own master could have
told the A'vi that, had Blade left the vicious fuck alive.
Elyn had heard that Blade did a very thorough job on Kruz.
She would have thanked him for that, if only he hadn't
targeted her next.
Just that instant, Elyn's cyplant whispered, and she shot in
the direction it indicated, a service corridor that snaked
out to one of the station's ten huge cargo holds. She could
lose Blade there if she got lucky, or kill him if she had
to. Or die if she failed.
Odd. A few months ago, Elyn would have viewed the prospect
of dying as a relief. But Kruz still trapped her then,
vicious blight that he was. Now she had no interest in
dying. She was curious about what life would be like as
something other than a vampire's slave.
Elyn might not deserve to live, but she wanted to give
freedom a try.
As she ran for the service corridor, she was acutely aware
of the distance between her and her target. Cold
star-flecked blackness lay beyond the towering transparent
walls of the Kring Station concourse, along with the elegant
white shapes of the great passenger liners and cargo vessels
that orbited alongside space station. Beyond the ships lay
the vast blue arc of the planet Cameron, with its landmasses
in a hundred shades of green and brown. A thoroughly
beautiful view, had she not been running for her life.