Page 39 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight

Chapter 10

A gentle hand on her shoulder shocked Lishelle awake.

Except for her one night with Tynan, she’d slept—and awakened—alone for so long now that her skin prickled in warning. She almost tipped herself off the benched seats where she’d retreated to get away from her abductor, her one-night stand, a god…

“Easy,” he murmured, steadying her on the bench. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Sitting up, she pushed back his hand and the thin but warm cover over her. Where had that come from? From him, of course. There was a small open box—an emergency kit, she guessed—next to the bench; he must’ve gotten the coverlet from there.

She knuckled at her eyes. “How long did I sleep?”

“Long enough to get to the inner habitable planet.” He stepped back. “I want you to buckle in. The windson approach can be tricky.”

She wanted to be cranky that he’d poked her awake. Hell, she had arightto be cranky about so many things. But curiosity lured her back to the cockpit to peer out the viewport. It was incredible to think that when he’d been a warlord and the Thorkons already had spaceflight, humans on Earth hadn’t quite gotten around to writing down Christianity yet. Her aunties would’vebeen very disapproving, saying he was much too old for her.

She’d seen the ducal estate planet of Azthronos from above and been impressed by its well-tended cities and landmasses sculpted over long eras of habitation, looking very much like the Thorkon aesthetic of geometric patterns. On this smaller inner planet, though, the continental coastlines were ragged, the lighted areas of cities smallerand separate. Their trajectory quickly carried them around the planet. To darkness.

Her spine prickled. “This part looks empty.”

“I haven’t been here in awhile,” he murmured.

Oh right. Like not inmillennia.

Why did it have to be night? As he eased the shuttle toward the planet, the projected view didn’t show anything beside a rapidly approaching mountain range. No artificial lighting atall.

The shuttle bucked, and she gripped the harness over her shoulders reflexively. “I didn’t know you lived in the middle of nowhere.”

“I didn’t.” His tone was clipped. “I had an army, a town, a kingdom…”

None of that seemed left.

When he finally toggled the view to a true exterior scan, rain lashed the shuttle, swirling with a force that sent them jolting sideways.

Lishelle swallowed backa gasp. He’d survived such trips in more primitive shuttles, right?

Of course, he’d ended up dead eventually. But not from crashing.

And now he was back, and so was she, in the hands of the alien who had abducted her. Even if the heart and mind were different.

How could she believe him? Her aunties would be muttering right now.

The shuttle hopped in the air like a frantic mishkeet, as ifacting out—or mocking—her inner turmoil. Too late anyway. They were going to land, one way or another.

His expression tight, Tynan eased the shuttle between the mountain peaks indicated on the nav map. The landing lights picked out only the silvery fog of heavy rain, blown into fitful white-out curlicues by the wind. She shivered, already feeling that chill biting at her skin.

“Almost there,”he murmured, as if he’d noticed her apprehension even while battling the elements outside their little ship.

The shuttle bounced hard one more time, and with a defiant shriek of its engine—which fortunately muffled the gasp she couldn’t quite contain—they landed.

He powered down, his hands steady, although it seemed to her he lingered just a little longer than really necessary. Then, lettingout a short grunt, he stood.

“It’s storming,” he said, like she couldn’t see that. “You wait here while I take a look around.”

Her lingering doubts about whether he was Blackworm evaporated. A bad guy wouldn’t leave her in charge of the blasterandthe shuttle on this dark mountain.

As he strode toward the hatch, she scrambled after him. “I want to go too,” she said. “Just wait a sec.”

Ifanything, his expression was more grim than when he’d wrestled down the buffeted shuffle. “I don’t know what’s out there,” he said curtly. “I don’t remember it like this.”