by Nina Croft
He reached out with his mind, trying to get to Saffira, tell her they were here. With someone weaker, he could have punched through their defenses, but Saffira was too strong and he reached a wall. They would have to show themselves for her to realize they were there, but needed to wait for the right moment.
If there was one.
…
She could almost taste his frustration.
Her heart was slowing down. She’d tried her best not to show it, but she’d been terrified. The moment when the flames had sprouted from his fingertips, she’d thought it was all over. They were all about to come to a very messy end.
But…nothing.
And disappointment warred with her relief.
He was capable of so much. A sense of immeasurable power had pulsated in the air, but he’d denied it for too long. Or maybe it was not his to control, and they were all going to die.
She didn’t want to die.
She wanted to make love with Thorne again. She cast a sideways glance at his face. His eyes had returned to normal, or whatever passed for normal with Thorne. His lips were held in a stern line, his wings twitching. She sidled closer and slipped a hand into his. She had a feeling that everything was about to go completely to crap, and she needed his touch to ground her.
Everything would be all right. “You’ll save us,” she murmured.
He shook his head and opened his mouth to answer, then the shrill beep of another alarm shattered the air.
“Dios,” Rico muttered, striding across to the pilot’s seat and peering at the monitor. “Devlin, take a look at this.”
Devlin hurried over. “Fuck, do not do this. Not now.”
“What’s happening?” Candy asked.
“The engine is about to blow. We’ve pushed her too far. Come on, girl, just a little bit farther.”
But now the ship was jolting, shaking beneath her feet, shuddering as their forward momentum slowed.
“Thorne?”
His eyes flicked open. “She has nothing left.”
“How about we come out of stealth. Let Saffira see us. She can open a wormhole.”
“And we have no power to get into it.”
“We can take one of the shuttles. Come back for the Blood Hunter later.”
“Except we can’t get out of the docking bay doors. They’re still fused shut. I was working on them.”
“How long?”
“Another ten minutes.”
“Fergal?”
“We don’t have ten minutes. Five at the most.”
“If we come out of stealth now,” Rico said. “They’ll see us and we’ll be sitting ducks. They’ll take out Saffira and then pop across and finish us off. We don’t have the fire power to beat them. The only way we survive is by running and that’s not going to happen unless we get the engines fixed? Devlin?”
Devlin had been examining a 3-D image of the engines. “Not a chance! We’re probably going to have to tow her away. With the overrides off, she burned through both the primary and secondary engines. There was nothing to stop it.”
“I have an idea.”
Everyone turned to Thorne.
“You do?” Rico asked. “Well, let us have it, fly-boy.”
“I need to communicate with the ship.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“Even the thought-control is losing power. I’m going to head down to the engine rooms and see if I can get a closer contact.”
“Why would that make a—” Devlin broke off. Something in Thorne’s face had caused him to stop, but Candy had been staring at the screen showing the dragons getting closer by the second and she’d missed it.
“You think you can get her working again?” she asked.
“I can try. It might be our only hope.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you won’t. There might be a few explosions. We can take it—you might get hurt.” She gritted her teeth, then opened her mouth, but he continued, “I don’t need to be thinking about you right now. You distract me and I need to concentrate.”
“Don’t worry,” Rico said. “I’ll look after your girlfriend.”
She didn’t want to be looked after. But she also didn’t want to be a distraction, or the cause of everything going to shit. Or rather, even more to shit. She’d caused enough havoc in her life. Time to be responsible. She gave a quick nod, reached up, and kissed him on the cheek. “Go save the world.”
“Aw,” Rico said. “Isn’t that sweet.”
Thorne released his hold on her hand and headed away. At the door, he turned slightly, and she saw something in his face that made her want to run after him.
Rico rested a hand on her arm, his grip inhumanly strong. “Let him go.”
Then the moment to call him back was gone, and he vanished.
Chapter Sixteen
“What are you really planning to do?” Devlin asked as the doors to the bridge slid shut behind them. “Because I’m damn sure nothing’s going to fix those engines.”
“No.” He didn’t slow his pace—he wasn’t sure how much time he had, but he was guessing however long it was, it wouldn’t be enough.
“So?” Devlin kept up.
He didn’t want to waste his last minutes on Devlin. He wanted to fix that final image of Candy in his mind. She had such faith in him. Misguided faith. But he needed the engineer’s help so he shook his head and concentrated his attention on Devlin. “I’m going to let Saffira know we’re here.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“How the fuck do you think?” He flared his wings so the tips hit the walls on either side. “These aren’t just ornaments.”
Devlin stopped. Thorne didn’t, they had less than no time.
“You’re going to fly over there? Of course you are. How fast can you fly?”
Very fast. “Probably not fast enough. But she’ll hopefully pick me up on radar from a distance.”
“Unless they burn her first. Shit. Hurry.”
Devlin broke into a run, and Thorne followed. They bypassed the corridor to the docking bay and headed farther down, to the back of the ship where the emergency airlocks were located.
Devlin came to a halt and turned to him. “You need anything? I wish I could come with you.”
“But you can’t.” He was on his own with this. Really, though, he’d always felt on his own. In charge. Responsible. Maybe with Candy he might have had a chance at something else—she was hardly the type to let him be the boss the whole time. Or any of the time.
“Tell Candy…” Christ, what was there to say. “Just tell her I’m glad I didn’t leave before.”
“Oh no, because this is turning out so much better.” Devlin did sarcasm extremely well. “You’d better come back, or Saffira will fucking kill me.”
“At least she’ll be alive to kill you.”
Devlin didn’t argue with that. “So do you even have a plan?”
“I’m going to intercept her. Fly in front of her and wave through the window until she goddamn notices me. Hopefully at that point she’ll open up and talk to me. I’ll tell her you’re here, and that if she doesn’t open a wormhole and disappear, then you’ll come out of stealth mode in a ship that can’t fly and the dragons will kill her, and then they’ll kill everyone else.”
“You think she’ll listen?”
He could hear the fear in the other man’s voice. But who knew? Saffira had never been particularly good at listening. She’d always gone her own way. “Yes. Then I’ll hitch a lift on her shuttle, and we’ll both vanish safely into the wormhole. The dragons will linger until they’re sure she’s gone. Then they’ll go away, and you can limp off somewhere and do some repairs.”
“Trakis Two. She’s going to need a lot of work.”
“Okay, but keep Candy off-planet.”
“I’ll keep her safe. We all will.”
“Then let’s do this.”
Devlin thumped his fist against the manual lever to o
pen the door into the first chamber of the airlock. “Bring her back.”
“Whatever it takes.”
Devlin nodded as the door opened and Thorne stepped through. Then through a second hatch, sealing it closed behind him. He glanced back and caught a brief glimpse of Devlin before turning away and facing the vast infinity of space.
He took a deep breath—though he knew from experience he wouldn’t need it—and then hit the release on the airlock. He didn’t fight as he was sucked into space and the lock snapped shut behind him. When the pressure evened out, he spread his wings. For a moment, he gloried in the sensation of being in space. But just for a moment, then he flexed his wings and shot forward.
…
Candy paced the length of the bridge, came to a wall, spun around, and paced some more.
Why the hell hadn’t she gone with them? The wait was killing her. She paused in front of the screen where she could see Saffira’s shuttle and the dragons. They all appeared to have stopped, as if in some sort of standoff.
They were too late.
Saffira was going to die, and then Thorne would lose it again, and this time he’d never recover.
She really didn’t want to stand here and watch Saffira burn. At the same time, she couldn’t turn away.
“Madre de Dios.”
She whirled around at Rico’s softly spoken curse. “What?” But she didn’t need to wait for an answer. She took slow steps across the room, coming to a halt at the screen that showed a perfect view of the rear of the ship. The open airlock.
And Thorne.
She stood transfixed, her heart racing, her palms clammy.
His wings were furled close to his body as he shot away from the ship. Rico did something with the controls and the screen zoomed in. His arms were folded against his chest, his eyes closed. For a second she thought he was dead. As his velocity decreased, his eyes flicked open, glowing violet, and then his wings spread.
“Shit. That is seriously scary. The guy looks more like a goddamn demon than a demon does. It makes you wonder…”
Candy didn’t pay attention, her focus fixed on Thorne as he flexed his wings and flew away from the ship. She turned slowly, following his journey from one screen to the next while her mind scrambled for some way she could stop him.
But it was too late for that.
He was flying through space, faster than she could have imagined possible, but how could he survive? There were two dragons, and he had absolutely no protection.
She dragged her gaze away from Thorne and over to the screen showing Saffira. The dragons were circling her shuttle now. Were they talking to her? Gloating?
How was she feeling? She must think herself all alone. How sad to fall in love and think you had forever and then have it snatched from you by your own actions.
Except Saffira wasn’t alone. Candy’s gaze flicked back to the other screen.
Part of her—the horrible, selfish part—wished the dragons would get on with it. If they destroyed the shuttle before Thorne reached them, he’d have to come back.
He might be damaged, but he wouldn’t be dead.
“He’s going to make it,” Rico murmured. “She must have picked him up by now.”
The first flames leaped across space, wrapping around the shuttle. It would hold for a short while, but minutes only. Suddenly, it was impossible. She couldn’t stand there and watch them die.
“Where’s Devlin?”
“Probably in the docking bay trying to fix those doors.”
“I’ll go and see. I can’t watch. I have to do something.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
Ignoring the words, she headed out, breaking into a run as soon as she was off the bridge. She raced down the ramps to the middle level where the docking bay was situated and saw Devlin straight away. He stood, his forehead resting against the wall, shoulders hunched.
“Devlin?”
He straightened slowly. “I can feel her. She’s so scared. She was always terrified of fire. But she won’t let me in.”
She wanted to say snap out of it. But how could she? He must be hurting so bad. But so was she, and she didn’t mean to hang around and give in to it. “Are the doors fixed?”
He shook his head as though the question didn’t quite make sense.
“The doors, Devlin?”
He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. “The inner door is done but the outer is still fused shut. It will take a few more minutes.”
“We don’t have a few more minutes. It will be over by then.” Her mind worked furiously. She searched the docking bay for any ideas, anything that might help, then stared at the doors as though they could somehow give her the answer she needed so desperately. The inner was open.
She licked her lips. The ship was fucked anyway; this would only fuck it up a little more. Tannis would forgive her. While the captain hated damage to her ship, she hated losing crew members more.
Candy raced toward the rows of shuttles, shouting back over her shoulder as she ran. “I’m going to blow the outer doors. Lock the inner ones as soon as I’m through.
“The blast will damage your shuttle.”
She looked around and selected the smallest shuttle; there wasn’t going to be a lot of room to maneuver. As she reached it, she paused and turned around to say, “I don’t care. I have to go. I have to save him. If I don’t try, I’ll never live with myself.”
She thought he was going to argue, try to stop her, but he gave a quick nod. “Okay. I’ll lock the doors behind you, stay as far back as you can, send a concentrated laser blast right to the center, then hit the thrusters with all you’ve got.”
“Thank you.” She turned back and raced up the ramp. “Open.”
The doors slid open and she hurried inside. This was a small shuttle, meant for a single person, with one seat facing the console, a small bathroom, and that was it. She flung herself down in the seat. “Engine on.”
The ship vibrated under her feet, and she felt the power build up. She switched to manual and rose to a hover, turned the shuttle, and flew through the inner docking bay door before she could have second thoughts. She halted. Through the rear monitor she could see a last image of Devlin standing at the doors, and then they slowly slid closed. She backed the shuttle up so the stern was snug against the closed inner doors, then she drew in a deep breath. Likely she was about to blow herself to pieces, but she was doing this.
She aimed for dead center of the outer doors, gritted her teeth, and slammed her hand down on the blaster control. A narrow beam of light shot out and the doors exploded, and at the same time she pressed the forward thrusters to maximum and aimed for where she hoped the opening would be. She could see nothing through the smoke and flames—Tannis was going to be so pissed—but then she was through and into space.
“Stealth mode,” she muttered and a ripple ran through the shuttle. Then she staggered to her feet, stumbled across to the small bathroom, and threw up.
She wiped her face then wobbled back and collapsed into the seat. The monitor showed everything—Saffira, Thorne almost there, the dragons. One breathed out a great gust of crimson fire, engulfing the shuttle.
So here she was. What the fuck was she supposed to do now?
Unable to come up with a better plan, she aimed for the middle of the fracas and resisted the urge to screw her eyes up tight.
…
As he flew, a wild exhilaration filled him, and for a brief while, he forgot why he was here.
He rarely did this—flying through the infinity of space. Maybe he’d known deep down that the lure to keep going would be too strong.
Ten thousand years.
In his youth he couldn’t have dreamed of what that would be like. And much of it had been as though in a dream, just time passing, nothing happening, his mind stagnating. It was only since returning to this universe that he’d realized how shut down he was, simply doing his duty and getting through the years.
Now, if he was going to die after so long, then he would do it in style.
He slowed slightly, brought the images before him into sharp focus. The lead dragon sent a bolt of fire out across the hull of the shuttle. She could take a few of those, but not many, before the skin of the ship melted and left Saffira vulnerable.
He sped up again, until he was so close the sharp sulfur tang of dragon fire stung his throat and nostrils. As the second dragon opened his huge jaws, Thorne slammed into him with all his strength.
He was a tenth the size, but his momentum knocked the dragon off balance and they rolled through space, his hands gripping one scaly wing. He felt the force of its will then, battering his mind.
And something else.
“Thorne!”
Saffira. About bloody time.
The distraction cost him, and the dragon shook him free, tossing him off so he spun across space, past the shuttle. He opened his wings to put on the brakes.
“Go!” He aimed the word at Saffira and yelled as loud as thoughts would allow.
“I have to do this.”
“No, you fucking don’t.”
His anger was rising. Why the hell wouldn’t people do as they were fucking told? Saffira, Candy…
How the hell was he supposed to keep them safe when they wouldn’t listen?
The dragon was getting ready to blast again, jaws opening…
Fuck that. He hurled himself at it, this time drawing back his fist and slamming it in the jaw. Shit.
The dragon spun away from him as pain shot down his arm.
How long could he keep this up? She had to go, and now.
“Saffira, go. You don’t have to die. We’ll find another way to stop them. Together. You’re the last of my people. The daughter of my heart. Open a wormhole and leave.”
“Not without you. They’ll kill you. And it will be my fault. Watch out!”
She aimed the shuttle between him and the dragon as a blast of fire shot from its open mouth, surrounding her. The barrier protected him from the worst of the flames, probably saving his life. Even so, the heat licked his body, searing his skin, and the sharp pain awoke something dormant inside him. At the same time, he felt a flicker of another consciousness deep in his mind, triggering some ancient knowledge, waking a sleeping power.