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The smile slid off Jasmine's face. "Thank you. Can't I just come up to the clinic? All I need to do to get there is walk up two flights of stairs, and I didn't see anyone stationed there to stop me."
Aha, so she'd tried to push her boundaries already. Margo didn't blame her. She would have done the same.
Bridget smiled indulgently. "There are surveillance cameras in all the public spaces, and if you had tried to go to the upper decks, someone would have intercepted you. You are welcome at the clinic any time, but there is no one there at night. That's the reason I told you to inform Lina so she could find a way to get in touch with one of the doctors."
Frankie was staying in the clinic overnight, and Margo wondered who was going to watch over her if all the medical staff was at the wedding. Dagor would no doubt be there, but he was not a healthcare provider.
Bridget must have realized what she was thinking because she patted her arm. "Don't worry about your friend. I can see all the readouts from the monitoring equipment on my phone, and if anything goes wrong, the application will sound the alarm, and I'll be there in moments."
"That's good to know."
"What's wrong with Frankie?" Jasmine asked.
"She was bitten by a snake and had a reaction to the venom." Margo somehow managed to say that with a straight face. "Frankie is a little embarrassed about the circumstances of that bite, so she doesn't want to talk about it, and I can't really say more."
Bridget snorted. "That's a good one, Margo."
Jasmine frowned. "What's funny about a snake bite?"
"Nothing." Bridget snorted again. "It's just a little insider joke."
22
NEGAL
A loud ringing pierced through the haze of Negal's restless sleep, and as he tried to figure out whether the sound was in his dream or in the real world, he debated whether he should force himself to wake up.
He knew that he was dreaming, but it still felt realistic as hell. Well, hell was precisely where he'd gone in his dream, and it wasn't a product of his imagination. He'd served on that gods-forsaken colony, and his experience there had been pretty close to how humans described the afterlife of sinners.
It was one of Anumati's less desirable settlements, where volcanic activity was the norm, and creatures similar to the dragons of human lore were wreaking havoc on the meager existence of the colonists. After endless requests for help, he and his team had been sent to secure the large engineering crew that had been tasked with building better defenses against the flying lizards. Their job hadn't been to kill the creatures. In fact, they had been instructed to refrain from doing that unless it was necessary to protect the building crews.
The creatures were the apex predators of the planet, and the powers that be had decided that hunting them into extinction was not a good idea because they kept the predators further down the line in check. Without the dragons, the others would rapidly multiply and cause even more trouble to the settlers.
At least the dragons didn't reproduce as readily as the other indigenous nasties, of which there were plenty. Also, the winged lizards were highly territorial and destroyed each other's eggs if they could find them, ensuring that no new hatchlings grew up to encroach on their turf and further reducing their population.
Dragons went to great lengths to hide and protect their nests, which Negal didn't hold against them, but they were also destroying crops, eating livestock, and sometimes roasting entire villages. Most of the gods recovered thanks to their rapid healing, but not all. It was also one of the places the Eternal King sent those he was displeased with, increasing the chances of them meeting with an untimely demise.
Still, the undesirables were just a small fraction of the planet's population. The majority of the settlers were just unlucky to have been randomly picked from the pool of Anumatians destined for the colonies.
As the ringing stopped, Negal released a relieved breath and turned on his side, but then the noise resumed, and he was forced to open his eyes.
Perhaps it was better to wake up instead of returning to the nasty dream. But why weren't his roommates opening the door?
As the cobwebs of sleep receded, Negal remembered that there was no one in the cabin when he'd gotten in bed. Dagor was probably in the clinic with Frankie, and Aru and Gabi might have returned but were busy in their room.
He grabbed his phone off the nightstand, found the application that controlled the lock, and brought up the camera view.
His eyes widened when he saw Gertrude standing outside the door, decked out in an evening gown and tapping her foot on the floor.
Was he late?
What time was it?
He shifted his gaze to the clock display and sucked in a breath. He had overslept, and Gertrude had been waiting for him for the past twenty minutes.
She'd asked him to share a drink with her before the wedding, and he'd promised to meet her in the bar on the main deck.
Why hadn't she called first?
