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“That means I’m going to die here, doesn’t it?”
Kaio let out a roaring laugh. “Don’t fret, my little frishon-bird. All it means is that you never went back to your timeline.” He frowned. “Or perhaps you did, and this is a new offshoot of your timeline.” He shook his head. “Time travel theory has always confused me.”
The Almighty King Kaio was admitting there was something he didn’t understand?
I’m astounded.
He shot an irritated glance at me out of the corner of his eye. “No need to be…snarky?”
That was clearly a term he’d just plucked out of my brain.
“Okay, Your Highness, please tell me about the killer mist and man-eater plants in the valley below.”
“The plants do not limit themselves to males.”
I opened my mouth to correct his assumption but closed it again almost immediately.
Why bother?
His expression darkened, but he didn’t say anything, either. Instead, he scooped up a couple of the remaining fabric pieces from the ground. “The mist is dangerous only when inhaled. If we tie this fabric over our mouths and noses, it should protect us from the gas.”
“Oh, wait! I have something that might help with that.”
I flipped my samples case back open and dug around under my pumps. Pulling out a package of N-95 face masks.
Thank goodness for medical offices still requiring visitors to be masked. Never thought I’d be grateful for the plague that had hit Earth so hard.
In my timeline, anyway.
The thought still boggled my mind.
Kaio examined the masks carefully. “I still think we should tie the therma-cloth cloak strips over our face.”
“No reason we can’t do both.” I paused, about to close my samples case but changed my mind at the last minute. “What about the plants? What kind of damage can they do, and how?” I couldn’t imagine I had anything else in my case that might help, but it was a good idea to find out, I decided.
“Don’t touch any of them. They’ll get your scent. And if that happens, you’ll die.” He shrugged in a way that made my stomach clench.
Would he really let a plant eat me?
“Not if I could help it, no.”
“Are you sure that’s even the way we need to go?” I asked. “Why couldn’t we just take off in some other direction?”
The enormous midnight-blue alien monarch stared at me steadily for a long moment, and then bent over and scooped a rock up in his hand. It would’ve taken me both hands to lift it, but he cupped it in his palm as if it were a pebble.
“Watch,” he told me, as if I didn’t have my gaze glued to him already.
Turning away from the canyon, he hefted the rock in his hand a couple of times, then tossed it straight out. It bounced in the air as if it had hit a wall and came back toward us. I flinched, even though it came nowhere near making contact with us.
“No matter which direction I threw that stone, it would hit the forcefield. This is the beginning of our course to get to the gladiator arena. The only way to get there is through the valley below.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why do we have to go at all? Couldn’t we simply stay here and refuse to move?”
Kaio ran his hands through his hair, and it fell back perfectly in place as if he were in a shampoo ad or something. “My agreement with Bloodworm requires me to participate. If I don’t, my people are forfeit.”
I frowned. What the hell was he talking about? Why was the king of a whole planet participating in the gladiator games in the first place? I opened my mouth to ask, but he was already preparing to head out. “I will do my best to save you, Gwen Mitchell—but I also won’t hesitate to sacrifice you if it means saving my people in your stead.”
The truth of his statement echoed in my head.
