Sea of Stars (Kricket #2) Read online

  “Nothing happened,” I reply, but I know what I just said is untrue. I can’t remember the last couple of days. I woke up and it was Fitzmartin—Wednesday. I’ve lost time. A deep ache forms in the pit of my stomach.

  “Something did happen, Kricket,” he replies. “It started soon after you were taken from your cell.”

  “What started?”

  “After I escaped, I looked for you. I hacked the Ship of Skye main systems. The location and surveillance of your interrogation was encrypted with a security code I couldn’t decipher without some of my more advanced programs. I didn’t have access to the tools I needed to find you—they were stored in my wrist communicator.” He holds up his wrist to show me his watchlike device. “I had to get it back, but it was in my apartment. I’d dropped it when they came to arrest us.” I remember him taking off his wrist communicator so he could use it to help me focus on trying to project into the future. “I couldn’t infiltrate the system to look for you until I retrieved it. It took me several parts—my apartment was being guarded—they were looking for me. When I did get it back, and I was able to scan the system for you, I found their recording of the interrogation sessions with you in the ship’s database—”

  I shake my head. “I . . . I don’t remember anything—I only became conscious a few hours ago—I mean parts ago.”

  His expression turns angry. “I don’t know if I saw all of it—if there were more sessions—but I saw enough. I heard your screams—they tortured you, Kricket.”

  I shake my head in denial. “I would remember—”

  “Turn around. Let me see your back,” he orders, his lips flattening in a grim line.

  “My back?” I ask numbly.

  “Yes. Show me your back. Lift your shirt.”

  Slowly, I turn around in the doorway of the silver transport. I stare over the metal guard railing ahead of me. It’d be a long fall to the bottom of the detention area should I slip over it. I let the red trench coat slide off my shoulder. Pulling back the collar of my shirt, I hear Trey’s intake of breath. I glance over my shoulder at my exposed skin and see a thick bruise that’s turning from black to yellow. It looks like it was really bad at one time, but it’s healing now. Abruptly, I pull my collar back up and cover my shirt with the red trench coat once more.

  I shake my head slowly, trying to clear the fog from it. “I don’t know how that happened. I’ve been trying to escape—the dishery—” I turn back around to face him.

  “They used hallucinogens mostly—drugs—when they questioned you, so that’s probably why you don’t remember it,” he interrupts. “When you didn’t answer a question, you were struck.”

  I blanch and ask, “What did I say?”

  “You spoke about Earth—mostly—and me,” he replies solemnly.

  “Oh,” I murmur, unable to come up with a suitable reply.

  “At one point, I thought they killed you,” Trey confesses in a rough voice.

  I shake my head again, trying to think. “No. Not yet.” I don’t meet his eyes because I might cry if I do. Instead, I laugh; it doesn’t contain a hint of humor, though. “Despite their best efforts, I’ve managed to outlive my expiration date. If it’s any consolation, most of them are getting pounded by the Alameeda now.”

  “It isn’t, but if it’s any consolation to you, the one who beat you is dead.”

  “He’s dead? How?” My voice shakes. I can’t help it.

  “I couldn’t find where you had been taken after the interrogation, but I located Rutledge’s apartment.”

  “Rutledge—the Brigadet guard who brought me to my cell?”

  Trey nods. His voice hardens as he says, “He was on the recordings of your interrogation. He was easy to find. He wept when he told me he didn’t know where Geteron had taken you after he’d interrogated you. Rutledge didn’t live long after that.”

  My body turns toward Trey’s, instantly straightening from its stooped posture in total awareness of him. Without hesitation, Trey takes me in his arms; one of his hands extends to the nape of my neck while the other snakes around my waist. He weaves his fingers in my hair, pulling me to him possessively. His nose brushes the column of my throat to my ear as he breathes me in. The gentle, masculine scent of him envelops me. My own breath catches; every nerve ending within me reacts to him at once. Warmth curls through me all the way to my toes. I’m suddenly weak, and my knees bend. I lean into his rigid chest, melting against him.

  Something in my own chest tightens as my respiration becomes fluttery. My fingers dig into his strong biceps, looking for support. It’s there; his arm tightens around my waist, holding me up now. “Trey,” I say breathlessly. He must notice, but he continues to nuzzle my neck as if he’s unaware of the exquisite havoc he’s creating inside of me. His mouth shifts to my temple, kissing it tenderly. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. Trey pauses. He scans my face, trying to read it. “If it weren’t for me, this would never have happened to you. It’s because of me—I was never welcome here,” I manage to say.

  Trey tenses. In the same soothing tone that he used before, however, he murmurs, “We were never welcome here—”

  “It’s because of what I am. There’s too much history for some of them—people like Telek. To him, I’ll only ever be Alameeda—his enemy.”

  “Then I’m their enemy,” he growls. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you again.” It’s a simple statement of fact, but one that soothes some of the ache in me. With his hand on my back, Trey holds me to him. I wrap my arms around the nape of his neck. Leaning down, he kisses me. His voice is raw as he confesses against my lips, “I thought I’d never see you again.” He uses both his hands to cup my face. When he looks in my eyes again, his thumb traces my bottom lip. His other hand draws a path over my cheek, then skims down my body as he bends and kisses me again.

  Color infuses my skin while his tongue strokes mine. The breathless feeling I had is gone, replaced by my increased respiration and a building sense of need within me for more. He raises his head so that his lips are just above mine. “Do you know what I thought about after they took you away?”

  “No.”

  “I thought about all the opportunities I allowed to pass without showing you what you mean to me. I’m not going to make that mistake anymore.”

  “You’re not?” I rest my forehead to his lips.

  He murmurs against my skin. “No, I’m not.” He moves; his nose skims down against mine in an intimate caress. “I can’t ever feel that way again.”

  “What way?”

  “The way I felt when I thought you were gone forever,” he answers harshly. “I’ll do whatever I have to do so that never happens again.” He kisses me. When he stops, I feel needy, burning for their return.

  As I reach my hand to brush Trey’s hair back from his brow, an arm wraps around me from behind. It rips me away from Trey, squeezing the air from my lungs. I’m seized by another arm around my waist and pulled from the doorway of the silver transport orb. A jet-pack-clad Alameeda Striker clutches me to his chest as we rocket upward. The soldier holds me above Trey’s head for a moment, hovering in midair, before he flies with me over the catwalk and metal railing into the open-air abyss.

  Dangling me in the middle of a coliseum of detention cells, my feet stop kicking him as I look down. Panic seizes me. If he drops me, I’m dead; the fall goes on for several hundred stories! I whimper.

  Another Alameeda Striker joins us. I can’t see the soldier’s eyes, concealed as they are behind the mirrored navigation visor of his helmet, but his wide, pearly-white grin speaks volumes. “You found her!”

  “It’ll mean a commendation for sure—for both of us!” the one holding me says near my ear.

  Distracted as the soldiers are by me, neither one of them is paying any attention to Trey. As I lift my chin and look toward the catwalk, Trey lunges forward, leaping into the a
ir. He plants one of his feet on the bottom rung of the metal railing and steps up, his other foot touching the top rail. Pushing off, he jumps toward the idling Alameeda soldier near to us. Sensing Trey’s movement, the soldier in front of me tries to raise his weapon at the last moment, but he doesn’t have time. The back of Trey’s knee wraps around the Striker’s throat, snapping his neck, while pulling him down into a horizontal position. Trey tears the navigation helmet from off the dead soldier’s head, placing it on his own. The limp Striker turns over on his back. Trey lands with both feet on the Striker’s supine chest. He widens his stance on his enemy, riding the jet-pack-clad corpse like a skateboard.

  Then Trey grabs the Alameeda gun and brings it up to his shoulder. He aims near my head, firing a blue laser strike over my shoulder. I feel a jolt as the soldier behind me is struck in the face. His head snaps back and his arms loosen around me. I slip from his arms, falling toward the bottom of the ship as he flies upward.

  In the next instant, I’m caught by Trey. He clutches me to his chest with his arm beneath my legs. The jet pack beneath the dead soldier at his feet makes a turn, and we surf back to the railing of the catwalk, navigated by the helmet on Trey’s head. Once we’re there, Trey lifts me over the railing, placing me on the grated metal pathway. After he lets me go, he pulls himself over the railing as well to join me.

  Peeling the helmet from his head, he tosses it over the side. Striding to me, his large, rough hand grasps mine once more, before he gazes down into my stunned eyes. “Are you okay?” he asks urgently.

  I nod my head, unsure of my ability to speak. All at once, the walls of the cells surrounding us evaporate. Trey looks around, “They did it, Kricket. It’s time to go.” He pulls me back in the direction of the silver transport orb.

  Coming around the arch of the catwalk, we run into a battle between more jet-pack-clad Strikers and a recently liberated contingent of Rafe’s most wanted, whom the Cavars have freed from another section of the detention center. The Alameeda birds with blue, fiery OMS tails rise above our catwalk, diving and firing upon the hive dwellers, scattering them. Swarms of freed prisoners rush about, mingling with the Cavars that were once my bodyguards.

  I spot Jax fending off an inauspicious Alameeda birdman. Trey drops my hand. With the gun he took from the soldier he killed, he takes aim and shoots the Alameeda Striker harassing Jax. He doesn’t stop shooting but picks off several more Alameeda; their jet packs go berserk, flying off in every direction as their navigation is skewed.

  “Stay behind me,” Trey orders. He moves along the catwalk, killing enemy soldiers with exacting accuracy; he never misses. I keep my hand on his strong back; his muscles bunch and strain beneath my palm.

  Without warning, Kyon drops down behind me, forcing me out of his way. I fall against the metal railing, my ribs aching as I hurt that tender spot once again. Trey glances at us over his shoulder, but before he can react, Kyon lifts him up off his feet and throws him over the side of the catwalk. I scream as Trey falls from sight. My knees buckle and I kneel before Kyon on the catwalk in stunned agony with my hand clutched to my side.

  “My little savage,” Kyon murmurs, raising his mirrored visor so that I see the wicked gleam in his eyes, “have I finally brought you to heel?”

  CHAPTER 8

  BENEATH THE CLOUDS

  Kyon lifts me from my knees, pulling me to him. I look up; the dark tattoo circles on his neck wink at me, watching me like a many-eyed beast within. I can’t answer him; I’m incapable of speech. His eyes darken at my expression. I must be very pale; my heart hardly beats. He clutches me tighter. “If you’d learn to obey me, you wouldn’t have to witness this. I’d have protected you from it.” I don’t respond—nothing works in me at the moment. After a few seconds, Kyon picks up on my unhinged state. He frowns and growls, “You shouldn’t be here at all. I’ll see you home.”

  Home? Who’s home? What home? I think, but it’s all a jumble in my mind. My worst thoughts were just realized. Trey’s gone—over the edge—I never saw it coming.

  Kyon doesn’t release me. He drops his visor over his eyes before he bends and leans toward me. He activates the harness of his jet pack, and belts snake out of it like sidewinders, wrapping around me and securing me to him. As he straightens, my feet leave the ground. I can’t see anything; I’m pinned to him, facing his chest. His scent is everywhere—it wouldn’t be an unpleasant smell, except I associate it with him, so now it’s like I’m smelling raw fear. It makes my stomach ache. Trey’s dead.

  I turn my face, attempting to breathe in deep gulps of air to the side of us, but instead, I retch. I heave again, but nothing comes up; there’s nothing in me to expel. I try to hold back my choking gags, but I can’t. Kyon notices that I’m ill. He reaches down and extracts a sharp dagger from the outer sheath on his black boot. Quickly using it, he slices off my hair below the base of my skull. Instantly, my hair regrows and my queasiness lessens. He strokes the blond waves of my hair gently, murmuring, “Better?”

  I stop trembling and my nausea ebbs a little, but I shake my head with a grim expression, denying that anything can ever be better again. He says nothing more but replaces his dagger in his boot before straightening. He signals to a few Strikers near him. They snap to his command, coming nearer to us. Kyon’s eyes are fixed upward.

  I turn my face to the side again, needing to breathe. From underneath Kyon’s arm, I spy an Alameeda Striker rise from the level below our catwalk. His head lolls forward, arterial blood pumping down from his slit throat. I recognize Trey, latched onto the Striker; he’s piggybacking the dead Alameeda soldier. A navigation helmet covers Trey’s head; the mirrored visor denies me a glimpse of his beautiful eyes. With one hand, he aims the confiscated Alameeda gun at Kyon and pulls the trigger.

  A blue bubble-shield activates as the laser strikes nears Kyon’s head; the bubble-shield repels the shot, causing it to bounce off. Kyon turns so that I have to move my head again to see Trey. With a gesture, Kyon orders his escorts to move on Trey.

  In the very next instant, my hair slicks back from my face as Kyon and I launch straight up from the catwalk. Passing thousands of empty cells on our way to the surface of the ship, they become a blur as I struggle to focus. Casting my eyes downward, Trey and the Strikers become smaller and smaller until we pass through a connecting tunnel, leaving them behind.

  I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I know I’m being jostled from the jet pack harness and caught up in Kyon’s arms. He holds me to the black Kevlar-like armor that covers his chest. He calls out, “Curer! I need a curer!”

  He lays me down on a cool floor. The sound of running feet and the buzz of voices sway around me. Kyon takes off the jet pack from his back; he bends again to pick me up in his arms. Someone leans near my face, shining light into my eye. “She has violet eyes,” a male voice murmurs above me. I try focusing on him, but I just see flares of light.

  Kyon ignores his observation. “Where’s the med-station? She’s ill.”

  “This way—I’m a curer,” he says. We move at a clipped pace, my head lolling against Kyon’s broad chest. I open my eyes, trying to regain my wits; I can’t keep them open. Shapes and colors move around me until I feel myself being lowered onto a soft cushion. My cheek lies close to the edge; I’m on some kind of hover cot in a partitioned area. Next to me, a bandaged Alameeda soldier lies unconscious and still on his floating bullet-shaped bed.

  “Who is she?” the male voice asks.

  “She’s why we’re here. Find out what’s wrong with her and fix it.”

  “Yes, Brother Kyon,” the male responds with a military tone, knowing exactly who Kyon is. I feel a dull pain stick my arm. The blond male hovering over me says, “I’ve injected her with nanobots. They’ll circulate in her bloodstream. I should know what ails her momentarily.”

  “I’ve cut her hair twice in the span of less than a
few parts. Nothing should be ailing her,” Kyon says, and he sounds worried. About me?

  “Is she the rogue priestess? The one we’ve come to rescue?”

  “She is. She’s also my intended consort,” Kyon says between his teeth. “If she dies, I will make sure you follow not far behind her.”

  All business now, the curer responds with a clinical tone, “We can’t assume her physiology is exactly like that of other priestesses. She deviates from the norm with her impure Rafian DNA. She needs to be studied.”

  “Your only concern should be in keeping her alive. As I said before, your life depends upon it.”

  There’s a pause while the curer scrutinizes a handheld gadget as it makes sporadic blips and beeps in his hands. He exhales a breath. “She’s dehydrated. Cutting her hair wouldn’t solve that. Her electrolytes are depleted and she’s anemic—when was the last time she has eaten?”

  “I don’t know,” Kyon says sullenly.

  The curer clucks his tongue in a shaming way. “As her intended consort, it’s your job to know. She has an abnormal amount of adrenaline in her bloodstream. Has she suffered a shock of some kind?”

  Kyon grabs him by the throat. In a sinister voice, he says, “Rehydrate her and give her a nutrition supplement.”

  “Right away,” the curer rasps. When Kyon releases him, the Alameeda medic gets up from his knees next to me and hurries away.

  Kyon sits beside me on the floating cot; the fingers of his hand brush mine once, but he doesn’t move to entwine them. His touch is feather-light, almost wistful. “We’ll be home soon. It’s peaceful there—on the Loch of Cerulean. You’ll be safe. I’ll train you to obey me so this never happens again.”

  I bite my tongue. He moves his hand away from mine when the curer returns.

  “This is a rehyde-pack,” the curer explains, holding up a chrome cylinder the size of his palm. It’s time-release.” He holds the cylinder against my skin. From the bottom of the tube, a small, needlelike tail elongates before it digs into my skin, finding my vein. “She should be fine as soon as this runs its course.”