Page 391 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Jenny

Deadly radiation in three minutes. The words made everything grind to a halt, wiping out the happy, elated feeling.

“Can we make it to safety?” I asked Akri, despite already knowing the answer, he wouldn’t look this horrified if he knew we could make it out of there before those three minutes were over.

He gave the minutest shake of his head, as if he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the reality that we were about to die.

Horribly, we were about to be cooked alive; it wasn’t exactly the way I’d imagined I’d go.

I sat down again next to him, folding my hand around his.

Okay, this sucked. I wanted to hold on to that future Akri had promised me with all my might.

I wanted it so badly, that life on his ship with his friends, friends who had walked into danger for him after just a single call.

I didn’t know them, but I liked them already for that reason alone.

Then again, what more could I ask for? I’d seen that alien life was real, just like I’d always imagined.

I’d even discovered that superheroes like the ones from my favorite comics existed, and I’d managed to fall in love with one, he’d even asked me to marry him.

That made me luckier than most: to have such wild, crazy dreams come true.

I clutched the hand Akri had folded around mine tightly, struggling with all the powerful feelings inside me.

It made me smile when his free tentacle curled around my neck in response, touching me and holding me close.

Eyeing the other one, I noticed that it was still hooked up to the computer console behind us with that shimmery, glass-fiber-like cable.

“Hey, Akri, can’t you stop this? You’ve done so much already. Is there no way you could change our heading? Power up the shields?” I knew I was asking a lot of him, but I’d seen him do amazing things with his mind, why not this?

His dark eyes were almost completely devoid of the star-like pinpricks, his expression dark and gloomy as he shook his head. “No, I need the Alpha code Drameil used to lock in the ship’s course. It would take a supercomputer to crack in the minute and a half we have left…”

I stared at him. “But Akri, you are a supercomputer, aren’t you?

Try! I believe in you.” His eyes went wide at my reply, and for a moment, I thought he was about to say no, but what did he have to lose?

A minute to say goodbye to me? I was okay with going without if it meant a slight chance at surviving.

Then the pinpricks in his eyes started to glow—first orange, then yellow—and then they turned so bright that his eyes seemed to glow with light.

It cast twirling shadows along the walls.

I held my breath, waiting for the moment the radiation would start to poison my body.

Would I feel it when it started? Or would it be too late by the time I could feel it?

Akri was trembling next to me, his body tight as a bow, the muscles in his thighs twitching and jumping. The right Liades had curled around the left one with the cable, almost as if it were supporting its twin. He was definitely doing something, more than he had ever asked of himself and his body.

“Shields are up. Route corrected,” the ship’s computer announced in a gentle, feminine voice. My body shook—just like his—with relief when I heard that; Akri had done it! He’d broken the code. I cheered out loud. We were going to make it! I knew he wouldn’t fail, not with this much at stake.

I expected him to be smiling too, to unhook that cable and cheer with me.

He wasn’t doing any of those things; his body was still shaking, but now it looked far more like a seizure than tension from concentrating so hard.

His eyes were glowing with light, staring vacantly at the ceiling, and his jaw was clenched up tight, the muscles in his neck standing out in sharp ridges.

“No… Akri!?” I reached over to shake his shoulder, and my fingers tingled as if I’d been zapped by electricity.

I didn’t know what to do or what was happening to him.

Was it safe to jerk that cable from his tentacle?

Would that stop this? Or would I risk trapping him in the Dart’s ship computers if I did that?

Grabbing him by the shoulders, my palms tingled so badly they were on the edge of pain; I ignored it.

“Akri! Listen to me, right now! Get back here, you did it, we are safe! Now return, damn it! Please…” There was no response, and he was clenching his jaw so hard that I feared he’d break his teeth.

This was my fault; I had asked something too big of him.

This yawning abyss loomed over my head, threatening to swallow me too.

I didn’t want to face a future without him in it; it wouldn’t be right.

I had survived much and thrived despite all that had been thrown my way, but this?

Surviving without him? No, I couldn’t do that.

“You promised me we’d get married…” I whispered.

“I can’t do this without you.” Leaning close, I pressed my mouth against his strained lips, my breathing shuddering out of me.

I hadn’t cried once since I’d been abducted from Earth, but big fat tears were rolling down my cheeks now, sobs wrenching from my chest. No, not Akri, I couldn’t lose him too.

I’d have to try pulling the cable and hope for the best. This couldn’t go on like this, he was suffering.

He didn’t deserve that. Reaching up, I stroked my hand along his Liades until I reached the tip.

My fingers touched the shimmering cable, and I nearly jerked them back when the tingling turned into an outright shock.

“Oh…” I moaned, but I closed my fist, ignoring the pain.

The pain disappeared before I had even started pulling, and Akri’s body stopped shaking immediately. Not daring to hope, I shifted my eyes to his face and was startled to see his eyes open but not glowing—just that normal starry-sky appearance of black velvet dotted with pinpricks of white.

“Are you hurt?” Akri said, his voice like magic to my ears. I pressed one hand over my mouth to muffle another sob—this one of relief—and then I threw myself into his arms, my hands slipping around his neck to hold him tight.

“You’re back! I thought I’d lost you!” I cried.

Emotions I hadn’t known could be this powerful filled me, relief, shock, and so much fear still unresolved.

I wanted to pet him all over, so I did, letting my hands glide along the bare skin of his chest and under the leather of his long coat.

He was no longer tense; he didn’t make my hands tingle, and he actually laughed when I brushed my fingers along his ribs, as if it tickled him.

“I am fine. I’d never leave you, my Jenny,” Akri assured me. He was petting me, too, his hands running along my back, his thighs shifting so he could pull me into his lap. He was really back, and he didn’t even seem injured. “I promised you a wedding, and a wedding you shall have.”

My laugh sounded shaky and a little wet from the tears.

“Yes, soon,” I said, and then I reached up and kissed him.

“But I’m never asking you to do something like that again!

That was definitely too much adventure, even for me.

” I never wanted to see him experience that kind of pain—that kind of distress—again.

He was acting as if nothing had happened, but that must have been horrible for him, even more horrible than it had been to watch it happen.

“Affirmative,” Akri husked against my lips.

“No more code-breaking for me. But you were right, I could do it. I did it, and now we are all safe.” I kissed him as he spoke, making his words sound muffled against my mouth.

Then I nibbled along his jawline and pulled one of his Liades down so I could kiss that too, stroking him along the satiny-soft skin.

He moaned when I nibbled on the tip, swirling my tongue around it, heat shocking me when it moved, seeking out my mouth.

“Get naked, Jenny. I wish to feel all of you,” Akri demanded.

His hands gripped me by the hips, lifting me to my feet, and I stumbled, my legs a little weak.

He was up immediately, righting me before I could fall.

I knew I’d been playing with fire when I kissed his Liades the way I had, but I wasn’t expecting this.

We had to get off this ship, meet his friends, and he wanted to have sex with me right now? He kissed me fiercely. “Stop thinking. We survived; we need to seize the moment. Isn’t that your philosophy?” Well, when he put it like that, who was I to say no?

He shucked his long leather duster, and I yanked my shirt over my head, followed by my bra.

That second task became much more difficult than it should have when his Liades kept trying to cop a feel before I’d gotten the thing off.

I laughed, still shaken up by the near-death experience—followed by his even more extreme near-death.

Yes, he was right: this was exactly what we needed to feel alive, to celebrate our survival against all odds.

“Akri, let me get my pants off first.” I was trying to yank down the fabric over my hips, but he had stopped undressing and was following the example of his tentacles.

Calloused palms slid over my sides, down over my hips, and into my pants to cup my ass.

I went on tiptoe when he squeezed with both hands and pressed me into his body.

The heat of his erection seared into my bare stomach, the hard bar still trapped in his pants.