Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
He shook his head.
“Don’t try to take this on yourself, Addison. No matter where you decide to go, it’s my job to protect you. A job I failed at miserably this entire fucking mission.”
“Don’t say that! You can’t—” she began.
But just then there was a noise from outside. It sounded like muffled shouting to Addie.
“What the fuck?” Drago growled and turned on the viewscreen.
They were immediately treated to the sight of an angry mob of Vargans storming out of the palace and towards their ship. Many of them were screaming and crying and several had shaved off the Sheelash. White parts of their hair, which gave a kind of bizarre reverse-Mohawk effect.
“Oh no!” Addie put a hand to her mouth. “They must be upset about your Drake killing Sheelash!”
“We’ve got to get the fuck out of here,” Drago growled. He sat up and began working the controls. “Can you call the Mother Ship?”
“Of course.” Addie sat down in the passenger’s seat and reached for the long-range communicator. But no matter how many times she put in the sequence to call the Mother Ship, nothing happened. She looked at Drago in a panic. “It’s not working—I can’t get through!”
“Fuck! They must be blocking communications,” he growled. “Hang on—we’re going up.”
The long-range shuttled lifted into the air just as the mob of Vargans reached them and started pounding on its sides and door. Even after they were high in the air, Addie could still hear the angry shouting down below.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, sinking back against the passenger seat. “That was close!”
“Too close,” Drago said grimly. “We need to get out of range of their block before we can call the Mother Ship.”
“Can we go to a whole other planet?” Addie asked anxiously.
He shook his head.
“Crimson Moon is the only habitable place in this entire solar system. Let me pull up the charts.”
He did something to the control panel and suddenly star charts began filling the viewscreen. Drago studied them for a long moment, then nodded.
“Okay, there’s a stable wormhole. We can just…” His voice trailed off and he slumped in his seat.
“Drago? Oh my God, Drago!” Addie hopped out of the passenger seat and began slapping his cheeks. “Wake up!”
“Huh?” His eyes came open again as though with a great effort. “Sorry—so fucking weak…”
“You’re in no shape to navigate a wormhole right now,” Addie told him sternly. “We’re just going to have to hide from the Vargans until the blood replacement pills take effect.”
“Yeah, you could be right.” Drago nodded groggily. “Okay, gotta find someplace to hide…” He punched more buttons and the star maps were replaced with terrain maps of Crimson Moon.
“Just fly us into the wilderness somewhere—someplace they’d have a hard time tracking us,” Addie suggested.
“No need to hide much—we have a cloak on this ship,” Drago informed her. “We…” His head nodded again and Addie reached over and grabbed a handful of his hair. She pulled hard to wake him up.
“Huh? Ow!” he muttered.
“Stay awake—I don’t know how to fly this thing,” Addie said anxiously. “Look, just land in that field over there.” She pointed to a corner of the viewscreen where a vast field of tall purple flowers was visible. “Right there in the middle—set us down.”
Drago was clearly in no shape to argue. He did as she said, bringing the long-range shuttle to rest in the middle of the field. The flowers, which grew on long gray stalks, were so tall they shielded the ship completely, much to Addie's relief. She made sure the big Kindred had engaged the cloaking tech and then finally felt like she could breathe easy.
“Okay, I think I know what we both need,” she said to Drago, whose head was nodding again.
“Yeah? Wha’s that?” he mumbled.
“Some food. I don’t know about you but I haven’t had anything to eat since that awful blood supper last night. Well, except…” She motioned at him, feeling guilty all over again.
She was the reason her Protector was so weak right now. The fang marks on his neck where she’d bitten him earlier were still plainly visible, even though Kindred usually healed fast. Addie really hoped that the blood replacement pills would work quickly, but she also thought some solid nutrition would help.
She got up and went looking in the emergency supplies and returned with two squeeze bulbs of liquid nutrition and two protein bars. It wasn’t much but she hoped it would help restore their strength.
“Not very hungry right now,” Drago muttered when she pressed the food and drink into his hands.
“I don’t care if you’re hungry or not—you need to get some food in you,” Addie said sternly. “Now are you going to eat or am I going to feed you?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile.
“Bossy little thing, aren’t you?”