Page 37

Jaz

I held my breath as we lowered the ship into the water, expecting at any moment to hear Yani shouting for us to lift it out again.

That we’d managed to get the Stardrifter moving at all was a miracle. We limped along on repulsorlifts and engines barely functional on battery only. And we’d only just gotten to the lake when they drained and the engines began to die.

The Stardrifter might be well hidden here, but this could end up being her watery grave.

Murky water rose over the viewscreen as we sank beneath the surface. I gave another boost to the repulsors and moved the ship under the ledge.

“We good?” I asked Yani over the comm.

“I had to seal one little bit,” she answered. “But everything else seems to be holding.”

The silty bottom was relatively level, so I perched the ship upon it, and shut everything down. Just as my body lit up with pain.

As it radiated through me, I went rigid in the pilot’s seat, gasping.

Xandros groaned as he leaned against the entrance, then he staggered over to gather me into his arms .

“Zyair,” he breathed.

Zyair. Something had happened to him. My gut clenched and my heart felt as though it were tearing in two. Xandros’s arms tightened around me.

“Is he—” I couldn’t finish it.

“That was a stun net. Brentoq will want him alive.” The tone of his voice indicated that living under those circumstances may not be preferable. “I did not feel anything from Rhodes.”

I struggled to draw breath. “Do you think he has Rhodes, too?”

“Brentoq is not a he. That despicable manticore is a she .” His arms tightened. “I do not know if she has Rhodes. Zyair may have lured the Nirzks away. It is what he would do.”

When I stared at him in shock, his eyes gleamed a brilliant blue. “Brentoq is female. The Nirzks are run by a matriarchy. She claims she hates us because we killed most of her harem. I think her true issue is that Zyair spurned her advances. She was not impressed.”

I gaped at him as a strange surge of rage coursed through me. “She tried to genie his weenie ?”

“I know not of that phrase. But Zyair had never lain with a woman. The blood and energy of someone like him is especially sought after by Nirzks. Fortunate for Zyair, we got him the shaftz out of there before things got—ugly. Or uglier.”

I didn’t have an explanation for the anger that churned in me. But in that instant, I hated Brentoq.

“He isn’t a virgin anymore,” I snarled.

“No.” Xandros grimaced. “She will be especially unhappy.”

“Did you really kill her harem?” My voice didn’t sound at all like mine.

“What I did not dispatch, Rhodes did.” He sounded rather grimly smug as he set me on my feet and folded his huge hand around mine. We hurried down the hall. Yani met us there, her orange gaze assessing.

“We think Brentoq has Zyair,” I explained, and her eyes widened .

She didn’t question how we knew. Instead, she asked, “What about Rhodes?”

I shook my head, but Xandros rumbled, “If Rhodes got away, we need to guide him here.”

Yani simply nodded and followed us to the airlock off the storage bay. I avoided looking at Kurt in the cage, and I noticed Xandros did as well.

“What is going on?” Kurt demanded. “You can’t leave me like this forever!”

We ignored him and entered the airlock. Yani dug into the closet, fished out a flashlight, and handed it to me.

“It’s waterproof. You might be able to signal him.” Her orange stare fixated on me. “You two be careful,” she added as the door cycled closed.

“Do you swim?” Xandros asked.

I hooked the flashlight onto my belt. “Yes. You?”

“Enough.” He punched buttons on the airlock, and the external pressure equalizers opened.

Swamp water rushed in. As it rapidly rose to my knees, I wrinkled my nose. “Does the serum also enhance my sense of smell?”

Xandros exhaled hard. “Unfortunately, yes.”

I did my best to ignore it as the muck rose over my waist. My beloved Stardrifter’s airlock would stink for months to come.

“Ready?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

I nodded, and he opened the doors.

The resulting swirl of water would have pounded me against the back wall, but Xandros powered out the door, pulling me with him. He braced his feet against the ship’s hull and pushed off toward the surface.

We broke it, and spluttered. The wind whipped the water into waves as we swam to the closest tree—its root buttresses were the most solid land around.

We clambered up. Xandros removed his dripping cloak and embraced his dragon with considerable relief .

Squeezing the water from my hat, I moved close to the enormous trunk to give him enough room. When he swung his head toward me, I grabbed a spike and scrambled up onto him.

He was airborne in an instant, soaring into the driving rain. I pulled my damp hat down over my ears and held the hood of my cloak tight around my throat. But even though the wind was warm, I shivered.

My gut was tied in a knot that wasn’t likely to loosen anytime soon. Brentoq had Zyair. I had no real reason to be so absolutely certain.

But I was.

Piloting via the navcube was a very different thing from flying blind into the teeth of the storm, but I was sure Xandros was taking us back along the route we’d just traveled with the Stardrifter . Carefully, staying high amid the clouds and dropping to peer through the rain.

Despite the gloom, my newly enhanced eyes could make out a surprising amount of detail on the ground. We did a dive below the clouds, and I spotted the commotion almost at the same time he did.

The little clearing where the Stardrifter had rested was a hive of activity.

Two flying fighters sat within the space, and cloaked figures bustled around, as if we could have hidden the ship beneath the ground.

By the broken branches and uprooted trees, we had clearly been there.

But it was also evident that we were gone.

Xandros banked swiftly away, flying in an arc around the site. If Rhodes was returning to our original hiding spot, he’d fly right into those guys.

Unless we could find him first…

I’d thought we’d lurk there to wait for him, but the presence of the Nirzks changed everything. Xandros seemed to have a plan, flying a straight line away from the clearing.

Toward Dangos?

I didn’t know how he knew where he was going, but he seemed to. Mind you, we could be flying in circles in this damp darkness, and I wouldn’t have a clue. But Xandros’s wingbeats remained steady, his sharp gaze fastened straight ahead.

The wind gusted, and I blinked through the rain. What were the chances we would spot Rhodes in this mess? I closed my eyes, trying to use my new ability, but sensed nothing. So instead, I unhooked the flashlight, turned it on—and began to rotate it through the roiling clouds.

If the Nirzks spotted it, this would get interesting very quickly…

Maybe if I tried to focus on him? I closed my eyes again, and pictured Rhodes.

His height and the lean build, the piercing dark eyes, the aura of danger that clung to him.

I hadn’t bonded with him, but he was Xandros’s brother .

And if Fate was right, we were meant to be together… surely that meant something.

At first, there was nothing. And then, a glimmer…

I leaned forward, closer to Xandros’s ear. “Go left,” I said.

He banked left, and I got another tickle of sensation. Of wind and rain and a feeling of desperation as I flew farther and farther from the one I’d left behind…

“Up,” I urged.

He rose, and the air grew colder. But I ignored the goose pimples running over my damp skin, and shone the light ahead of us.

Suddenly, a shape came at us through the clouds. Huge wings braced with a whoosh of displaced air, as Rhodes braked to a hover. The dark dragon regarded us with wide eyes.

“She has Zyair?” Xandros yelled to confirm.

“Yes,” Rhodes snarled.

“Can we get to him?” Xandros asked.

In response, Rhodes rose, taking us above the low clouds. I huddled against Xandros’s warm neck as we glimpsed what blackened the sky far above us.

We only stayed for a second, before the dragons dropped back into the clouds. But what I’d seen had frozen my heart.

The battleship was breaking orbit. And I had little doubt it was taking Zyair away from us .

“Where will they go?” I yelled through the driving rain.

A rolling growl emerged from deep inside Xandros.

“Givnia,” he snarled. “They will take him to Givnia.”

Yani and I worked feverishly on connecting the power core to the Stardrifter .

Every moment wore on me, and I could tell that Rhodes and Xandros felt the same way. Now clad in cloaks, they paced back and forth in the engineering bay until Yani waved them out.

“This won’t go any faster with you two looming. I’ll let you know when she’s ready to fly.”

Rhodes shot her a look through which the hostility shimmered, but he spun and left. With a glance to me, Xandros followed him.

Yani gestured me toward the control panel. “We need to calibrate it.”

“Can it wait?” I asked.

“Only if you want to blow up the first time we boost the engines,” she snapped. “I am going as quickly as I can.”

“Sorry,” I said, tugging Yani’s spare set of coveralls out of my butt crack as I moved to the panel. My hips were definitely curvier than the Drolgok’s. But at least they were dry. I hadn’t wanted to take the time to fish new clothes out of my quarters.

Yani’s brightly sweatered front half disappeared back into the cabinet, and while I ran the calibration sequence, I called the results to her. When the final connection was tweaked, the regular lights within the bay came online, and the emergency ones finally dimmed.

“I only need to check the initiation sequence on the starboard engine,” she said. “Go talk to our friends and find out our next move.”

I hurried down the hall to the bridge, where I found Rhodes sitting in the pilot’s seat and Xandros pacing. The vibes coming off the big Drake were erratic as hell and put me immediately on edge.