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“Okay.” She slid off his lap and straightened her skirt and blouse. “I’m going to go in the back and freshen up.” She dabbed at the place under her eyes. “I’m probably a mess from crying.”
“You are a little rumpled,” Nox said candidly. “But you are not a ‘mess’—you look beautiful, as you always do, Seline.”
Her cheeks got pink which he knew might mean embarrassment—though in this case, he thought it might be a positive emotion rather than a negative one.
“Oh, er—thank you,” she murmured. “I’ll, uh, see you in a minute.”
Nox hoped it would take her more than a minute. He needed some time to himself to study the star charts and compare them with the reality of this new universe and he was beginning to find Seline much too distracting. If he wasn’t careful, he would not wish to do anything but comfort and snuggle her. In fact, he couldn’t help thinking of several very realistic dreams he’d had where he did considerably more than that with his charge.
Stop it! he told himself sternly. It’s time to stop thinking about Seline and start trying to solve this problem. If you can’t get to Beselex Station and recover the other half of the Far Box, you could be trapped in a hostile universe for the rest of your life!
With this sobering thought, he put all sexual desires aside and let the cool, logical part of himself take over.
It was time to find a way to get them home.
EIGHT
SELINE
“Well, the good news is that our star charts are about 99 percent accurate,” Nox said, when Seline came back from the bathroom—or fresher, as the Kindred called it.
She felt a lot better now that she’d freshened her makeup and run a brush through her hair. She’d been hoping that Nox might want to “snuggle” her some more—imagine, him knowing that word! But he seemed to be all business now.
“What’s the bad news, then?” she asked, settling back into the passenger’s seat beside him.
“The bad news is that one percent difference.” He was frowning as he spoke, and studying some complicated-looking charts which he had pulled up on the viewscreen. “It denotes a definite divergence between this universe and our own which means we could find some significant differences between what we are used to and what we find here.”
“Like the Kindred not saving the Earth from the Scourge?” Seline asked.
Nox nodded.
“And there could be other differences as well. We’ll need to watch out for them.”
“Did you find a way to Beselex Station using the wormholes?” Seline asked. She had a sudden thought. “Oh—is there still a Beselex Station in this universe?”
She was vastly relieved when Nox nodded.
“There is. It even still has the nickname ‘The Tangle’ and I believe I have an accurate course plotted. It will take us three solar hours and the use of four wormholes, but we will get there.”
“And then I guess we just have to hope that things are the same there and that Mistress Lendrex still has the other half of the Far Box,” Seline remarked.
Nox nodded.
“Exactly. But we must get there first to find out. Are you ready? Let me make sure your harness is secure.”
He unbuckled his own harness and leaned over her to tighten and adjust her straps. Seline couldn’t help thinking of the almost-kiss they’d shared—had he turned his head on purpose so that her lips fell on the corner of his mouth instead of his cheek? And had he been getting hard right before she got off his lap?
When he was this close to her, she could smell his warm, spicy scent—a fragrance that put even the most expensive men’s cologne to shame. It made her want to bury her face in his strong throat and breathe him in.
But of course she couldn’t, she reminded herself. Nox had only been cuddling her and comforting her because he thought it was part of his job. He was her Protector—he had to keep her safe and make her feel safe too—that was probably the only reason he had gathered her into his lap and stroked her hair.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering if maybe her ice-cold Protector might be beginning to thaw just a little…
She had no idea that she was about to see a whole different side of Nox and it wasn’t the kind, cuddly teddy bear she was envisioning. Quite the opposite, in fact…
NINE
NOX
“Wow—I can see why they call it ‘The Tangle,’” Seline remarked.
She was staring out the viewscreen at Beselex Station. It didn’t appear unusual if you only observed the top—which was a wide black disk. But below it, connected by a long, narrow silver cylinder, was a vast complex of interconnecting silver tubes. Some of them seemed to lead to smaller, separate compartments and some widened in areas until they were almost as big as the disk above them. The whole complex was drifting silently in space, apparently all alone in this part of the galaxy.
