As I rise quickly toward the ceiling, I suddenly change direction when someone tackles me to the ground, knocking the air out of my lungs. Tumbling along the floor and too stunned to move, I’m dragged beneath the arching staircase and wrapped in someone’s arms as the eerie hum of the E-One still radiates above us.
Struggling to breathe, I’m being gently rocked against the chest protecting me as someone strokes my hair. More yelling and gunfire erupts around us, but it soon wanes. Then everything is quiet. Small beams of light, from flashlights mounted on guns, hit the walls and floors, as Jax’s voice yells, “SIR?”
“Here,” Trey’s voice says behind me, his arm loosening a little around my waist. The flashlights swing to us and cause me to squint at the Cavars wielding them.
“Is she okay?” Wayra asks in an anxious tone.
“Kitten, are you hurt?” Trey asks softly in my ear, before kissing my temple while running his hands over me to see if he can locate any obvious injury.
Numbly, I shake my head before turning and burying my face against his chest, trying to hold tightly to the front of his uniform, but my hands feel weak. Approaching us, Jax and Wayra both crouch down and reach out their hands to me. Jax gently rests a hand on my shoulder, while Wayra’s hand goes to my back. Hollis, Fenton, and Drex follow suit, touching me lightly for several seconds before they move back.
Trey whispers in my ear, “That’s a sign of respect, Kricket. We do that after a battle if someone shows particular valor.” He squeezes me to him tighter. Rising from the ground with me in his arms, he asks Wayra, “Did anyone tag Kyon?”
“We tagged him, but they still got him out through the roof,” Wayra reports, sounding frustrated.
“Can he be regenerated?” Trey asks Jax.
“Possibly…he’ll need several sessions…at least half a floan, best case,” Jax replies, “If he survives the transport. We have rapid ascenders in route to cut off their trajectory,” Jax reports. Looking at me, he frowns, “We need to take a look at her. She’s really pale.”
Trey barks out orders, “Hollis, Drex, Fenton, make sure the perimeter is secure before we go for transport. No one approaches us, not even the Regent. Treat everyone as hostile until we have Kricket secured.”
Everyone snaps into formation around Trey and me, weapons drawn to their shoulders while they scan the surrounding balconies. In moments, we’re in the geometric gardens. Big, hovering machines with beefy, tank-like canons are reeking havoc on the aircraft above, pulsing huge beams of light into the sky and fracturing ALVs extracting armored Alameeda troops from the palace.
Trey moves toward several vehicles that look like oversized motorcycles without wheels. They’re shrouded from view by an ivy-covered stairway and when we reach them, I notice that they’ve got sleek, bullet-like exteriors. Speaking to a bike, Trey says, “Unlace compartment, engage ignition.” The lid opens to reveal a long seat as it rises from the ground with a soft hum. Setting me gently on the seat, Trey pries my arms off his neck, and mounts the bike in front of me.
“Hold onto my waist,” Trey says gently, putting my hands on his hips. Nodding my head, I rest my cheek against his back, smelling his scent through his combat armor-plated uniform.
“Wait,” Jax says, coming up behind me and tearing the train off my lavender gown with a grimace. “Forgive me,” he says, but I don’t respond, my arms just tighten on Trey.
“Diamond formation. Stay on the coms—any static and we disperse in teams. Jax and Wayra with me,” Trey orders before leaning forward as the compartment door encloses us in the tight space.
Using his hand to cover my clenched hands around his waist, Trey murmurs, “Kricket…I should’ve been here sooner.”
Squeezing him tighter, my voice is weak when I whisper, “You saved my life.”
Trey’s voice is less than benign when he says, “No. He chose not to kill you. Kyon was just buying time so he could try to get you both extracted.”
Fear cuts through my feeling of numbness. “What do you mean?”
Trey tenses as he says, “Kyon wanted a priestess—that’s all you were to him when he first went to find you. But now, he won’t be satisfied with anyone else. He’ll only want you, Kricket.” Trey revs the engine of the vehicle and it purrs beneath us. “I’m certain that he was under orders to kill you if he couldn’t extract you. He had the opportunity to do it, but he didn’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I failed to kill him,” he growls with regret. “He’ll regenerate.”
The taste of fear on my tongue makes it hard for me to ask, “And then he’ll come looking for me?”
“And then I’ll kill him,” Trey promises.
“Where are we going now?” I can feel the bike rocket forward at a dizzying speed.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Where’s that?” I ask, not lifting my cheek from his back.
“Our new home. Skye.”
Something like hope sparks inside of me for the briefest of moments. My curled arms around Trey’s waist ease a bit as I lift my cheek from his back and, unable to stop myself, I whisper the word, “Home.”
CHAPTER 21
NEVER ENOUGH
Streaking through the dark night on the back of Trey’s hovercycle, we avoid Rafe troops as they scurry to rout the Alameeda extraction. We soon exchange the chaos at the palace grounds for the eerie dead silence of the unlit city streets of the Isle of Skye. Having only been here for my court appearance, I’m finding it unnerving to see the absence of anyone on the streets as we cruise through them. They’re on total blackout mode, but the city ignites with bursts of colorful light as the firefight near the palace wages on.
At this accelerated speed, the cool air streaming in the shark-gill vents of the protective hood is like water over my exposed skin. The further from the palace we get, the darker it becomes. With the only light coming from bluish headlamps mounted on the hovercycles, we could be in a submarine on the ocean floor exploring the pristine remains of a submerged city. Steely, wavering sea grass-like buildings rise out of the dark and force us to circumvent them. Around every corner, I expect some leviathan-like Alameeda ship to intercept us. I lose my sense of direction the further into this metropolis we travel and try to hold on to time instead: I gauge it to be only a score or so minutes since we left the palace grounds.
We slow when we near a blue laser wall; it reaches far above our heads, all the way up to the arcing, protective screen that covers the city. I tighten my grip on Trey. The light from the cycle’s display illuminates his face with ghostly shadows that are mirrored on the hood. “Don’t be afraid, it’s just a checkpoint, Kricket,” he murmurs. “We have authorization.” Trey’s hovercycle emits a pulse of light, which disconnects the blue beams. An arching gateway opens directly in front of us. Trey pulls the cycle through the pathway. I glance over my shoulder at the Cavars with us. They’re following closely behind.
Passing beyond the wall, the hovercycle changes, deploying wings on either side. We lift further off the ground, rocketing up and winding our way through the towering buildings until we’re swimming in a dark pool of stars. Flying through white-capped cloudbanks high above the city, the shadowy outline of a floating fortress’s hull blots out the moon. It cuts across the moonlight without the benefit of sails and the sight of it tightens my throat like the taste of saltwater.
It drifts through the Isle of Skye’s dark airstream, it’s anchor weighed, and at first it looks like just a planetary shadow against the night. As we near it though, the shadow pixelates. Blocks of different-colored blacks and grays hide the stars behind them like the intentional censoring of a deviant film image. The hovercycle sends out a pulse of light; it strobes the shadow. Then, a pulse of light from the desaturated night sky engulfs us. The cycle reacts, lurching as it’s drawn forward.
I squeak in fear and Trey immediately reassures me. “Shh, it’s okay.” He rubs my hands with his. “It’s a tractor beam
. They’re bringing us in.”
A shimmering, scrolling line etches in the sky; it carves an elaborate Victorian keyhole opening. As we pass through the keyhole and beyond the shield, the camouflage recedes and the tractor beam disengages. The light from a massive cityscape is visible on top of an elliptical, metallic base. Trey flies us closer and it’s clear that Skye’s headquarters is a world onto its own—a world incased in a floating transparent bubble. Inside this shield, Ethar’s moon is visible and so close that I can see the dark blue craters in its surface.
As Trey takes us closer to the bottom portion of the fortress, we’re dwarfed by the etched hieroglyphs of modern-looking warriors. These massive carved soldiers with a myriad of deadly weaponry conceal the very real cargo doors, gun slits, and other defensible weapons that track us as we pass.
My head spins as we travel upward and pass elaborate, vine-covered terraces with living quarters, and still more canons whose barrels could swallow us whole. Finally, we reach the top of this massive orb, flying over a city of jutting skyscrapers with causeways that run between the towering structures. Ships of every size and shape scramble near us at dangerous speeds. The unfamiliarity of it all is doing nothing to ease the shock of this night.
Bypassing this city on top of the world, we descend to the other side of the ellipse. The surface of the round landing deck illuminates as we approach it. Trey quickly opens the hatch of the hovercycle. As he rises, he takes me in his arms and holds me to him for a moment. Then he kisses my temple before he crushes me to him again. I’m grateful for his arms around me because he’s the only thing keeping me from falling.
“Kricket,” Trey says my name and it betrays his raw emotion. He touches my face as it rests against the hollow of his neck. The backs of his fingers caress my cheek before his large hand slips behind my neck, tugging me to him so that our lips meet. His kisses are pure emotion, filled with a savage urgency that’s brought on by anger and fear. They speak to me with an unrestrained truth: I can’t lose you.
My heart, that I have tried so hard to make stone, beats furiously. All I want is to be in your arms, my lips convey as an answer to his. I cling to him as if someone might try to tear us apart.
The sound of the other hovercycles arriving makes Trey lift his lips from mine. “I love you,” he whispers quickly before his men come nearer. Unwilling to let me go, he picks me up. He strides along the terrace to an arching portico with Jax and Wayra close behind us. At the end of the hallway, sleek, glass-paneled doors disappear into the ceiling ahead of us as we enter a glass enclosure. Grid-like patterns of light shine on me from above, scanning every inch of my body. Next, the opaque glass wall in front of us dematerializes. This allows me a view of the bustling crowd of Cavars within the floating city.
Jax and Wayra speak to the armed Cavars stationed near the entrance while Trey lowers me to my feet. Gazing around, I’m amazed by the vastness of the fortress. It’s like some sort of elegant mall with interconnecting walkways above and pod-like vehicles that move through transparent tubes fast enough to make them just a blur of color.
“This is…”
“Skye,” Trey finishes for me.
“I should have known.”
“Why?” Trey asks.
“Because you guys are always so literal.”
A smile touches his lips, the first that I’ve seen tonight. It causes his eyebrows to lift a bit. “Yes. Is that bad?”
“Depends.”
“On what?’
“On what they want from me.”
“Agreed. I’m working on aligning those stars we talked about, but for the moment, the stars are still hot enough to scorch us,” Trey replies, leading me through the twisting luminous hallways.
I’m already lost in this labyrinth. “Where are we going?” Every passageway looks exactly like the last.
“My quarters,” he replies, and my heartbeat drums in my chest in anticipation of seeing where he lives.
The passageways abruptly become posh with wider portals, alcoves, and soft lighting. Coming to enormous double doors at the end of an elegant hallway, Trey says, “Gennet Allairis.”
Immediately, the doors lift, allowing us to enter before they close again. My mouth drops open, seeing an entire wall of glass on the other side of the room with an unimpeded view of the brilliant moon. I hold Trey’s hand as I walk over the black marble floor. Descending a few stairs to a sunken seating area in front of the glass, I peer down at the skyscrapers below.
“What is gennet?” I ask absently, not ready to look at him yet.
“It’s a rank—like general,” he replies, reaching out to touch my cheek.
“You were promoted? No more Kesek?”
“Yes, that’s right. It means that I can decide the missions I lead.”
“So, tonight was—”
“My first official mission as gennet,” he replies. “I received your message.”
“Message? I didn’t send you a message,” I frown, looking into his violet eyes.
He brushes my hair back from my face and smiles down on me. “I was uninvited to your swank…Manus let me know that it was by your insistence that I not attend. You wouldn’t have done that unless something really bad was going to happen.” His fingers trail over my cheek and down to my neck, making me shiver.
“How did you know that?” I ask breathlessly with my eyes on his lips.
Leaning near my ear, he says, “I know you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Then what am I thinking?” I try to stop the tears from clouding my eyes.
“I had Victus lie to Manus—I’m no longer engaged to Charisma.”
“You’re not?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I knew things were bad for you. I knew that Manus was forcing you into the engagement. I was trying to make things easier for you by letting him think I was still engaged until I could find a way to get you out. You didn’t believe that I’d walk away from you after everything we’ve been through—after the promises I made to you when we were last together?”
“I didn’t know—”
“You can trust me with your heart, Kricket,” Trey says as if he’s speaking directly to the organ in question. “I won’t allow Manus near you. All the wealth in the world won’t keep us apart, I promise you,” Trey says. He takes me in his arms and hugs me again.
“What about your family? Manus told me that he’d crush you and them if I didn’t agree to be his consort,” I explain, feeling desperate.
“I’m a Gennet of Skye. I’ll crush him if he tries.”
“Of Skye? Not the Cavars?” I ask, my eyes going wide.
“I’m still a Cavar. I’ll always be a Cavar, but now I’m a ranking member of Skye as well. Skye controls all branches of the Rafe military: the Cavars, the Armada, the Air Brigade, Infantry and all the distinct branches of intelligence.”
“Like a defense department?” I ask.
“That’s right. I’ve been assigned to lead the Special Operations Command in our defense department—in Skye.”
“So what will your job entail?”
“It’s covert ops, Kricket, but because it’s part of Skye, I’ll have every branch of the military and intelligence community at my disposal—not just Cavars—it’s joint component command.”
“Inter-service coordination?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Where would an Alameeda priestess fit into all that?”
“Special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, unconventional warfare.”
“Which all fall under—”
“Special Operations Command.”
“Which you help lead?”
“Which I help lead,” Trey affirms.
A little of the fear I’ve been harboring dissipates for a moment until I remember Kyon. His eyes had been filled with pure malice after I stabbed him. I know that look—it promised revenge. “You don’t think Kyon is dead? You’re sure that I didn’t kill him?”
“You didn’t kill him.” Trey answers slowly. “You were so brave, trying to face him on your own—with a knife. What were you thinking, Kricket?” Trey’s face is a mixture of pride and distress.
“I saw what would happen. I tried to warn them, Trey, but Manus wouldn’t believe me,” I explain, my voice cracking. “He thought I was lying to him when I told him that Kyon was coming tonight to kill him.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” Trey rubs my back soothingly.
My throat feels raw. “No it’s not! Those people died tonight because of me.”
“No, they died because the Alameeda want to start a war and will go to any lengths to do it.” Trey wipes the tears from my face with his thumbs. “You were caught in the middle of that and the valor of your actions speak volumes.”
“No, I did everything wrong,” I whisper.
“Aella told us what you said to her—how you practically begged her to leave for the night and take as many people from the palace with her as she could.”
“Aella said that? When?”
“We tracked Aella and she told us what you said to her. That information warranted the immediate mobilization of troops, mechanized weapons, and constant surveillance of the palace as well as the airspace surrounding it.”
“How did they get through your defenses?” I ask, overwhelmed by what he’s telling me.
“They have priestesses, Kricket,” Trey says softly. “They can find holes and make holes with misdirection and the power of persuasion. But, they didn’t realize that we knew they’d be there. We were able to engage their troops the moment they hit the ground. Otherwise, it would’ve been a complete massacre.”
Seeing that I’m on the verge of an emotional breakdown, Trey picks me up again. He moves toward a door on the far left of the room.
“I need you to say your name,” Trey murmurs in my ear.
Under Different Stars Page 28