Page 49

Zyair

Leaving my brothers with those vicious manticores was one of the most difficult things I had ever done.

But the only way Jaz would go is if I went too. If I was honest with myself, I was no shaftzing good to the fight like this. Even if my wrists had not been manacled, my cursed body would betray me.

So, we ran away like cowards and left my brothers fighting Brentoq’s vicious Nirzks.

The wind gusted, and suddenly I was engulfed in Jaz’s intoxicating scent. Rigid with lust over which I had no control, I wanted to pin her up against a wall and…

My state flooded along our link from me to her, causing her to stumble and gasp. That desire was followed by cramping pain within my thigh muscles that almost drove me to my knees.

Pain, and pleasure—the great paradox of manticore venom. When Jaz shot me a look, her face was flushed, and I sensed my wall idea was more than halfway supported.

Too bad a quickie—that’s what the human romance books called it—was not written in the Drake physiology.

I grimaced. “Sorry. I cannot seem to get control. ”

“How much did they shoot into you?”

I shook my head. “Enough.”

She hesitated. “Will it wear off?”

I really did not have an answer to that. Brentoq had certainly filled me with enough of her venom, but it was designed to disable slowly. On the other hand, the alpha’s strike had been meant to kill.

Jaz’s concern had me giving her a reassuring reply. “Drakes have excellent recuperative abilities.”

The look she gave me was less than convinced—one disadvantage to being linked, she read the undercurrents well. But her mouth straightened as we hobbled along the street.

Forms came and went in the murk—most offered curious glances, nothing more. My cloak covered the manacles, and my decrepit state could be written off as inebriation. Besides, it did not pay to get involved in a place like this.

Our progress, however, was anything but swift. Even if we made it to the Stardrifter , we still had to get out of the dockyard and off the planet. I struggled to get my mind in gear past the pulses of lust and piercing pain. Because we needed a plan.

A ship passed overhead through the swirling dust. I caught just a glimpse, but it was enough to trigger a thought. Not as large as the Stardrifter , but rigged for space travel.

“I don’t think I sliced deeply enough,” muttered Jaz.

“We do not know that,” I said, but my mind raced. Was Brentoq dead, or merely disabled?

“We need a red herring, or we’ll never get off this rock.” She met my eye.

“What is a red herring?”

“Something that will send the Nirzks down the wrong path,” she explained.

Yes! Her suggestion fired my imagination. In that moment, she linked with me, and snatched loose my idea. Hastily, she’d sent a pulse to Xandros. Of a ship, with him piloting it .

“Manticore ships,” I gasped, and floundered through the pain for the right descriptor. “Are concatenated to their pilots.”

“Con—what?” The violet gaze was distinctly puzzled.

“The ship is DNA synced to the pilot, for reasons of security. You need a manticore, or part of one, to get it to do anything.”

We received an answer along the link. Not a question, but a confident confirmation.

“He’s on it,” she murmured.

A rush of warmth coursed through me. Fate had sent me a true match—she was everything I could ever wish for, a meeting not only of body, but of soul…

And of mind.

Propped beneath my arm, she stumbled as powerful emotions—straight from my heart to hers—surged along our link. The venom twisted it as all-encompassing lust almost took me out at the knees, sending us reeling into a wall.

My gaze rose to where the starhoppers searched for us in the blowing sand. “Do Red Herrings usually die? Because I think this one won’t have long to live.”

Her gaze gleamed at me—a brilliant, metallic violet that was more Drake than human. “Good thing, then, that we have someone who would rather die than stay with us…”