Page 11 of Klora (Mates of the Mylos #6)
CHAPTER 11
KLORA
“Stay close to me,” I said, holding out my hand to help him off the portable bed so the medics could place it back into their mobile emergency response unit. He took it, smiling tremulously at me. If my scales hadn’t alerted me otherwise, I’d have believed he was innocent and happy to have me around as protection. Well, two could play that game. I’d play the dedicated hero until he grew careless and slipped up. I just hoped he didn’t mess up until after our friends’ wedding because they deserved to have the day of their dreams, even if they were having to share it along with their mate’s best friend and her match.
He glanced around nervously. Oh, yes, he was very, very good indeed. “Do you think they’d try to come back and kill me so I can’t testify or make a statement? They kept calling me a species traitor.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Thank goodness they had no idea that Ty was not a human Mylos kid, but an actual alien kind of Mylos.”
“We do not distinguish between the two,” I told him coldly. “It only matters if biology comes into play and adjustments have to be made for differences.”
He blinked up at me, startled. “Oh! No, I didn’t mean it like it was. But they’re pretty nuts, hating aliens in general and Mylos in particular.”
Ah. So what he’d been trying to say was he thought they’d have harmed the young if they’d known he wasn’t human. As much as it angered me, he was probably right.
“I thought he was coming down with something,” he continued. “But when he had a chance when they wouldn’t overhear, Ty told me the truth and that he wasn’t running a fever. We kept up the ruse that he was though. I was hoping they’d drop him off at a hospital or stop to get him some medicine or something somewhere people might notice the van.” He looked down at the tattered, dirty shoes on his feet. “I was feeling a bit desperate actually.”
Oh, I bet he was. Desperate to keep Tyrone thinking he was his friend so he’d play along with whatever he asked. Then when they realized we were all around them, closing in, he’d hatched the plan to stage an escape. Only the female hadn’t been swift enough to evade the eagle-eyed customer who knocked her to the ground, spilling her drink all over the floor as she did so and burning her own arm. Or had he betrayed them, deciding to play victim to the end while throwing them under the multi passenger human city transport?
This was a web of deceit worthy of Hercule Poirot or Benoit Blanc, or even Atticus Pünd. It was also potentially physically dangerous, so perhaps it was more in the vein of Jack Reacher. Just let those assholes try to take me or anyone on my team out. They’d meet the wrong end of my sword or eat a power up from my blaster that would send their souls back into the ether.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing that,” he said, looking over my shoulder and breaking me out of my brief reverie.
Shit! I needed to pay better attention and not let him lull me into complacency. I’d been so busy thinking of things other than the here and now that I’d not noticed the hum of the shuttles arriving over the noise of everything else around us.
“Yeah, well, you’d be surprised,” I told him. “I thought the same thing about the slideway around The Ethereal City when we visited it on vacation as a reward for me graduating at the top of my class.”
He looked at me, his eyes curious. “The Ethereal City? That sounds like a fantasy place name.”
I shrugged, trying to desperately ignore the itching around my hips and waist. “It looked like one too. It floats in a sea of clouds, all tall, slender spires and arched doorways. The entire city is a soft pink and gold and there’s only pink, gold, and light purple tiled walkways to be seen between the buildings. All mechanized traffic is underground, which is organized in a grid that has small carriages you get in that move along them in only one direction, so you hop on and off different ones to get where you’re going.”
“And that’s the slideway?”
I shook my head. “No. That’s a glittery ring that runs along the outside rim. You get on it and stand or sit and picnic, enjoying the view as it rotates at a slow pace around the whole city. There’s a forcefield along the edge that prevents anyone from falling off into the clouds below.”
He shuddered. “Yeah, I’d not wanna fall and go splat.”
“No splat. It’s a gas giant and there’s a secondary forcefield that maintains the atmosphere around the city. You’d be vaporized by it upon contact.”
He stared at me, open mouthed. “Wow,” he finally said, gusting the word out along with his breath.
“Come, The L.T.C. is gesturing for us to board.” He hurried ahead of me, completely unaware that I was herding him, to make sure he didn’t try to bolt.
Sachuu was on the ball, as usual, standing in the open hatchway.
“Take a seat there,” he said, pointing to one. “Klora will help you with your harness. The medic told me you were hungry. Do we need to get you a snack here or can you wait an hour and a half or so?”
“I think I can wait,” he said as his stomach rumbled out a protest at the lie.
“I’ll go get him something,” our pilot said, ducking out. I rolled my eyes. He wasn’t going to die of starvation before we got to Honolulu. Though we really couldn’t very well not pander to him a bit if we actually wanted to sell him on the notion that we were his friends and protectors and that we felt the need to care for him and keep him safe and comfortable.
I reached over and began fastening the straps. I’d just finished and sat down in the seat next to him when our pilot reappeared. “Would you believe some guy with a taco truck sent a bag of tacos over via a policeman?” he said, holding up his prize.
“How many are there?” I asked happily, spotting the same logo as before.
“The pilot peered inside the bag. “Eight.” He passed one to McDuffie. ”Here you go. I’ll leave the bag here with Klora. Just ask him if you want more. And there’s some bottles of water too,” he added, toeing a second bag he’d set on the floor before giving him the wrapped spicy goodness.
“Thanks,” McDuffie said.
I finished fastening my own harness and took out a taco. Maybe its spices would burn away some of my anger.