I frowned as a barrage of images spun through my mind.Shit! My freaky mind meld ability had kicked in again. This executioner whose name was Blorp for God’s sake, was in cahoots with Ziyn.I flashed Kaelen my discovery and played dumb.“Who?”
“Glump.”The executioner stuck a tentacle in my ammonium nitrate mixture and tasted it.“Very tasty.”He stuck another tentacle into the mixture.
I smacked his tentacle.“Stop that, and I don’t know who this Glump is.”
An image of Glump formed in my mind.“Oh, you mean Wiggles.”
“Yes.”
I shrugged.“Dunno.”And I didn’t. His bits and pieces were floating about somewhere in the vastness of space.
“Keep him distracted,”Kaelen commanded on our private link.
“Okey-dokey.”
The executioner moved closer.“When we pursued Ziyn he was still on this ship.”
“Did you catch Ziyn?”
“We did not.”
“I bet Qa’a is pissed. Shouldn’t you be out looking for her? That is your job, isn’t it?”More images poured into my mind. Getting him angry was working.I now knew Ziyn was hiding on a moon called Zog.
A tentacle grabbed my shirt and yanked me above the table.“I do not answer to pitiful humans. Where is Glump? His ability to teleport had been damaged. He could not have left this ship.”
“If he were still here, don’t you think he would have eaten me by now? But hey, you’re welcome to look for him.”I pried at his tentacle.“Put me down.”
A mouthful of jagged white teeth appeared in the executioner’s cowl.“You will tell me where he is, or I will eat you.”
I grimaced. His breath smelled like rotten eggs. “While you guys were fighting, I saw several executioners eat shapeshifters. Why don’t you talk to your buddies?”
“You lie.”His mouth grew bigger and bigger.
“Stop! Blorp!”Kaelen commanded.
The executioner dropped me on the floor and spun to face the Battle Commander.
I blew out a relieved breath and blinked. There was a black kitten perched on Kaelen’s shoulder. My eyebrows rose. That was no kitten.“Ziyn is hiding on a moon called Zog, Qa’a.”
Poof! The kitten transformed into a gigantic mouth that promptly ate Blorp.
Shit! That was something you didn’t see every day.
The mouth burped loudly and vanished.
Kaelen hugged me tightly.“Life with you will never be boring.”
Chapter Fifteen
Trojan Horse...
Kaelen piloted our Trojan Horse toward the Tai-Kok and Rodan battle fleet. He was still pissed that the Tai-Kok had coded their sky charts to keep their enemies from finding their home world. In other words, the Coletti Empire still didn’t have a clue where Earth was located.
I sat in the co-pilot’s chair, making sure our illusion of a full crew of Tai-Kok soldiers held. Nerves knotted my stomach. If this went south, so many people would die.
The Tai-Kok high command had demanded to talk to Captain HoHot, so Qa’a had assumed his form. I couldn’t quit staring at him. A profusion of metal spikes protruded from the captain’s head and back. He belonged in a freak show, and the monster’s claws were also painted a bright pink. The Tai-Kok considered pink a sign of power. Go figure.
Qa’a was a clever interrogator, and he had Hebei, the head monster, blabbing about their plans and bragging that they had captured a pregnant Askole female who they were going to serve at the Feast of Eid Nowruz.
