Page 29 of Marked

Without thinking, I shifted closer, drawn to him like gravity itself had changed.

My fingers traced the bare skin of his arm, and before I could stop myself, I leaned in, pressing my lips softly to his cheek.

The touch was fleeting, barely more than a breath, but I felt the way his muscles tensed beneath my fingertips, the way his body stilled.

When I pulled back, his gaze was still locked on mine, unreadable yet smoldering with something that sent heat curling through my stomach.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” he said, and I nodded as he led me to the ship he’d chosen.

The hangar was at least a block in length, lined with several different kinds of vessels that appeared to be either very old or very new.

It took a few minutes to reach the one at the very end that had caught his eye.

Having only been exposed to the possibility of space travel for a short time, the sight of it still caught me off guard.

The ship loomed ahead, its sleek, jet-black hull absorbing the faint, eerie light of the ship hanger.

Its surface was impossibly smooth, reflecting only the occasional flicker of blue and red from thin, pulsing veins of light that ran along its exterior like some living thing.

It wasn’t like the bulky, clunky spacecraft I had always imagined—no rivets or seams, no protruding thrusters or visible engines.

It looked more grown than built, as if the metal had been sculpted into existence rather than forged.

The vessel stood several stories high, its towering presence rivaling the building that surrounded it.

The sides sloped in long, predatory angles, making it look like some massive beast poised to strike.

Along the edges, faint etchings of an unfamiliar script glowed dimly, shifting slightly as if adjusting to the environment around it.

At the base, a ramp extended from a nearly invisible seam, leading up into the belly of the ship like a tongue waiting to swallow whatever poor soul stepped forward.

Had I seen it on Earth, I would have thought it was just a glorified prop from a sci-fi movie set, something directors would drool over for its aesthetic alone. But here, standing on alien soil, the truth of it settled into my bones like ice. This ship was real. Functional. Dangerous.

“This beauty is going to make our escape much easier than I anticipated,” he said happily, and I shook my head.

“Famous last words,” I muttered. If I had learned anything on Ghengra, it was to not be surprised anymore.

He scoffed and shook his head. He started to climb up the ramp, and I followed.

Once we reached the top, he scanned Needle’s badge and an entry door opened.

We entered the ship, and the door closed behind us, shutting out the world of Ghengra completely.

We made our way toward the cockpit. If I had thought I was in a science fiction movie before, it felt even more like it now.

This was very clearly the command center of the entire spaceship.

There were myriad buttons and controls that reminded me somewhat of an airplane, only there was about ten times more than that.

There was so much to see that I couldn’t take it all in at once.

When Alaric placed his hand on a pedestal next to the captain’s chair, everything lit up like a Christmas tree. A laser scanned over us and then, a robotic female voice came over the intercom.

“Welcome to the Shadow XIVX. My name is Tanika. Would you like me to prepare a full system diagnostic before we travel?” it asked.

I looked around, startled by the sudden appearance of a hologram at the front of the ship, right in front of the massive, curved viewing window.

She materialized in a shimmer of light, her form solidifying into something unmistakably humanoid, yet distinctly alien.

Her skin was a deep, royal blue, patterned with darker navy spots that trailed down her arms, across her exposed shoulders, and likely farther beneath the tight, barely-there outfit she was wearing.

The hologram stood at least six feet tall, her elongated limbs giving her an almost ethereal grace, though it was hard to focus on anything beyond the exaggerated proportions of her body.

Slender, impossibly curvy, and painfully well-endowed, she looked like she had been plucked straight from the fever dream of a teenage boy who had spent way too much time designing his perfect virtual companion.

Her breasts were unnaturally high and round, straining against the impossibly tight bodysuit she wore, while her hips flared dramatically.

I lifted an eyebrow as she walked back and forth, then glanced down her body to see that she had an ass that looked sculpted to defy gravity itself.

Even the way she moved was overly fluid, like some AI had been programmed to make every step a sultry sway.

I exhaled sharply, rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all.

Designed by a man, that much was obvious.

“Not yet, Tanika. We’re going to get out into space before you do that,” Alaric instructed.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” she replied, rather arrogantly for a hologram. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. This was going to be an interesting dynamic between the two of them.

“Engage the engines and roll us out of this hangar. Then employ every system needed in order to get us off this rocky hellhole of a planet,” Alaric said. He wiped a dirty palm across his face and sighed, looking over the blinking indicators across the oversized command center.

“Got it. The system logs will show that I said differently though, prior to takeoff. Remember that,” she said haughtily. I swear I heard Alaric choke in response to her words.

Well, that was unexpected. I turned back toward Tanika and swallowed a laugh as she mimicked Alaric’s motions of wiping his face with his hand.

I grinned. Funny thing about a hologram was that Alaric couldn’t spank her like he could do with me.

I stifled a laugh at the thought, biting my lip to keep it from slipping out, but the moment I glanced up, I found him glaring at me as if he had read my mind.

I quickly turned away, my shoulders shaking with barely contained amusement, and focused instead on the glowing screen that had just materialized before us.

The holographic display stretched wide, filled with rapidly scrolling lines of alien code that flickered in unreadable symbols before translating into something recognizable.

Beneath our feet, the engines hummed to life, a deep vibration that resonated through the floor like a beast stirring from sleep.

The ship shuddered, then rolled forward, smoothly at first, then faster, gaining momentum as it raced down the runway.

Within seconds, the scenery outside the large viewing window blurred past us, the lifeless expanse of Ghengra streaking by in pale flashes of white and gray.

“Engaging anti-gravity systems,” Tanika droned, sounding completely unimpressed by the sheer miracle of space travel.

I sank into a seat as the ship lifted, a gentle but undeniable force pressing me back as we left the ground.

The engines roared beneath us, not loudly, but powerfully—something I felt more than heard, like a surge of raw energy pushing us forward and up.

Through the viewing window, I watched with wide-eyed wonder as the world beneath us shrank away.

Ghengra was an inhospitable place up close, but from above, it looked even emptier.

The surface was a barren wasteland of cracked white rock, stretching endlessly in all directions.

Jagged formations jutted up from the landscape like skeletal remains of some long-dead civilization, their edges worn smooth by constant, whipping winds.

Shadows stretched long across the terrain, cast by the planet’s eerie, twin suns—one a cold, pale blue, the other a sickly, muted yellow, both barely enough to give the surface any warmth.

There was no water. No trees. No signs of anything resembling life, aside from the scattered clusters of buildings that clung to the planet’s surface like parasites.

Most of the structures were concentrated in isolated hubs, stark white domes and angular towers breaking the monotony of the endless desert.

From above, they looked sterile, lifeless, a collection of forgotten outposts rather than a thriving civilization.

Even the largest of them—the place I had been held captive—looked insignificant against the vast emptiness beyond.

There were no sprawling cities, no lush landscapes.

Just endless rock and dust, occasionally interrupted by the movement of something huge —the Uruk-Zuk, the only native creatures large enough to be seen from this high up.

Their massive black fur covered bodies lumbered across the wasteland, leaving deep, winding trails in the dust, their sheer size making even the buildings look like toys in comparison.

The further we climbed, the more Ghengra started to look like a moon—barren, colorless, and utterly desolate . It wasn’t completely abandoned, but it wasn’t a world anyone would willingly choose to live on, either.

And now, I was leaving it behind. Goodbye Ghengra, and good riddance.

The thought sent a shiver down my spine. Ghengra had been my prison, my nightmare, but it was also the first place I had ever seen Alaric for what he truly was. What we both truly are .

I kept my eyes on the planet as it shrank beneath us, and I felt something strange settle in my chest.

Relief. And maybe, just maybe, a sliver of something else.

Something that felt an awful lot like destiny .

The ship rattled.