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As long as we made it safely back to my ship.
I pulled out my comp and checked the map. I’d been moving instinctively toward the one place I could think of that would give us any kind of chance.
“You’re scowling.”
“No, I’m not.” Back when Mother thought I’d follow in her footsteps, I’d learned to carefully control my facial expressions. Even though my banishment meant I’d never become the senator she’d wanted me to be, I’d retained the skill.
“Okay, you’re not,” my mate said. “But I can still tell you’re unhappy about something, so what is it?”
“We’re miles away from the only place that offers us any possibility of escape,” I said, respecting her too much to falsify the severity of our situation. “My family has a hunting cabin in this forest. It will have a comms station strong enough to contact my team. There should also be an old emergency flyer stored away.” One of Kirel’s hacking programs could spoof the satellite feeds just long enough for us to clear the atmosphere. Flyers weren’t made for space, but if my team could pick us up in time…
“You’re still scowling.”
“It’s nothing.” Frek, she was good at reading people. No one else usually saw through my façade. But just because I wouldn’t sugar-coat things, didn’t mean I needed to burden her with every single one of my concerns.
The warring desire to protect her and claim her pounded in my blood. “We need to get moving.”
“Can I walk for a bit?”
“We need to get farther away first. We’ve covered a fair bit of ground considering we’re on foot, but a flyer can travel that same distance in only a matter of minutes.”
Her lips flattened, but she gave a sharp nod and allowed me to pick her up.
My body hummed with an awareness of her nearness, my kron buzzing and sliding forward to circle her calf.
None of what I’d said had been a lie—all of my reasoning had been valid.
But I’d also overstated things and didn’t feel bad about it. My Vivv-Ee-Aan needed lots of convincing, and I’d take advantage of any excuse to hold her close.
CHAPTER FIVE
Vivian
Wrin’s large body moved effortlessly, the heat of him warming me against the crisp bite of the cool air.
Bars of golden sunlight filtered through the blue pine trees, painting the purple underbrush with brightness. Birds chirped, their tiny lavender bodies darting through the air. We even ran through a grove of trees covered in silver leaves and purple flowers that smelled sweet, like cherry blossoms.
Here I was, being carried through an alien forest on an alien planet by a huge, horned alien, and it turned out to be the best day of my new life so far. Granted, having been kept as a lab rat up until now meant it wasn’t a very high bar to clear, but still.
“You have me. Me a good thing, too!”Max ran out from under a stand of purple underbrush to cut across Wrin’s path, his fluffy tail waving like a flag.
“That you are,” I said.
It was all so different from what I’d expected. Even if I hadn’t calmly woken from cryo to findARK 1in orbit around a habitable planet, I’d prepped for every emergency situation the experts on Earth could think of. Clearly, they’d all suffered from a severe lack of imagination. They’d never considered anything like this.
I glanced up at where Wrin’s purple horns stretched the fabric taut overhead.
They’d never consideredhim.
His blue face wore an intent look, his eyes constantly moving as he continued to run. I used his distraction to study him more carefully. His jaw had to be one of the strongest I’d ever seen, and even though he carried himself like a martial artist, his nose was too straight to have ever been broken. Or maybe their med tech was advanced enough for perfect repairs. He looked uncompromising and strong, and that spoke to a part of me long dormant. I’d always scoffed at women drawn to powerful men, and here I was, appreciating it in him, even though his commanding tone also rubbed me the wrong way.
I’d fought my way through pilot’s school young, having won a scholarship to the special high school, which had led to another scholarship for college. The officer’s track in space corps had been dog eat dog, and no matter how far everyone said society had come, there’d still been plenty of prejudice for being female, short, and Asian American.
It didn’t even matter than my family had been in the United States for over three hundred years or that my father was a pilot, as his mother had been before him. Four years of endless hazing had left me with a bit of a chip on my shoulder about guys who tried to lord it over me. It had also left me with little time or inclination to date much. Guys had either wanted me to be too pliant or were too mild and boring. I’d never met my match.
I’d never met anyone like Wrin.
He continued to move with the ease and grace of an athlete, his long legs eating up the ground. His grip on me never wavered, even as my own arms burned from holding the front of the fabric open in front of us. I might have been small, but I still weighed over a hundred pounds.
