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“Yes, princess,” I say. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
Any other time, I might’ve sounded snappy. But at that moment, I mean every word.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FIONA
When we first got on the Wrath, I knew Kye was going to get us out of here.
Then something happened. His heterochromic eyes glazed over. I put my hands on his shoulders, expecting him to shake me off, but he did no such thing. He just stared ahead, as if he was looking at something else.
And then I wrapped my arms around him, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do, and now he’s back to piloting the ship. There’s alarm written all over his face as his gaze darts between Nereus and I.
“Is everyone here?” he asks thinly.
“Yes,” I say. “We all made it back.”
“Barely,” Nereus says. I pick up my head to look at him, flashing him an angry look, but I don’t think he’s trying to be sarcastic. He looks shaken. But I can handle how Nereus feels later; right now, I need to get us out of here. As far away as possible.
“We need to leave, Kye,” I say.
“I know,” he replies, his voice serious. “The ship needs to be airborne before I put her on hyperdrive and something is pulling her down. It’s…”
I can feel the floor of the Wrath vibrating under my feet, but he’s right. We’re not taking off. The ship appears to be struggling against something—but it’s too large to be pushed down, and I don’t understand it.
“I don’t expect we’ll be the first people trying to leave this forsaken place,” Ryker growls.
“Give me some space, okay?” Kye says. His voice rings out around us, and I gesture for the rest of the crew to leave the cockpit. Once everyone but Nereus and I are gone, Kye speaks softly again. He doesn’t look back at us to address us, he can probably feel us from interfacing with the Wrath. “Not you two. I need you both to stay here.”
Nereus and I exchange a look, and I hear Kye take a deep, shuddering breath.
“If Xanthos manages to get in my head again,” he says. “I won’t be able to break out without your help. And I need you to keep touching me to anchor me to reality.”
Nereus drapes a hand over Kye’s cybernetic shoulder, his grip tightening around him. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Kye exhales shakily from his mouth again, and the Wrath purrs under us as Kye begins to maneuver. “You two might want to brace yourselves,” he says. “Things are going to get a bit bumpy. I’m going to have to break the Wrath free of whatever gravitational pull this is. In fact, you may want to strap in.”
“You asked us to keep holding you, so we will,” I say.
“Okay,” he says. “In that case…buckle up. Metaphorically, I guess.”
There’s a smile in his voice when he says it, which at least feels like a good sign. He grimaces, and then the Wrath pulls up so that we’re hovering above the space where we landed.
“Seriously, hold on to something,” Kye says.
Nereus gives me his hand. A split second passes, and then I’m fighting to keep my feet on the ground as the ship moves up and away from Borealis. Flying in a spaceship is normally nothing like a plane, but right then, I can feel the same butterflies in my stomach that I would during any takeoff on Earth.
But this is worse, because right after Kye takes off, my feet are glued to the ground and then I’m fighting to keep myself upright instead of standing. Something is pushing down on me, pinning me down against the floor of the cockpit.
“Just keep holding on!” Kye shouts. “Once we’re out of hyperspace, you won’t be able to feel any g-force again. Gliss had to…fuck! They’re firing at us!”
“They’re firing at us?!” Nereus echoes. He sounds fucking terrified. In the distance, I hear something rumble. It doesn’t feel real, even though I believe Kye. I don’t know why—I guess it’s because we’ve never fought in space—but I always expected it to be louder.
“Can’t you activate the shields or something?” I ask, TV and movies my only point of reference.
Kye cranes his neck to look at me, confused. “What shields?” he asks. “What do you want me to do? This isn’t fucking Star Trek.”
Oh, great. Fucking great. “Just get us out of their airspace,” I say.
