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And they were out there somewhere. The cookies proved it. The texture and flavor had been too familiar—if they hadn’t been made by humans, they’d been made with the instruction of humans. I just had to find them.
Without the need to hold the stealth cloth in place, I could relax, and my body soon settled into the rhythm of Wrin’s movements. Since I couldn’t really see anything in the dark, it felt as if the rest of my senses heightened. The sound of his breaths remained steady, even though he ran. His arms held me like strong bars, never wavering. The muscles in his chest and abdomen flexed and moved against my side, firm and warm and so very alive.
The sheer power of him amazed me all over again, and my skin tingled everywhere we touched.
This is wrong, Viv. You can’t trust him, and you don’t even know him!
A huff of amusement burst from me. I’d always thought I was demi, that I needed to get to know a person before I’d be sexually interested in them. Yet here I was with the strangest of strangers—analien—and attraction flared hot as the sun.
Bright beams of moonlight flashed over his features as he moved, and my eyes greedily ate up these tiny glimpses. What was it about him? He was handsome, sure, but…
But it felt like something more, and that had to be impossible, right?
He ran on, and his face became clearer by the second. My head twisted around as I craned my neck. A glow came from ahead, softer than moonlight.
We burst out into a grove of the other kind of trees I’d seen earlier in the day, only now their silver leaves and lavender flowers glowed.
“Oh!” My eyes widened as I tried to take in everything at once. “They’re amazing! What are they?”
“These are valoree trees,” Wrin said. “They’re native to Zaarn and to the grivwood forest.”
He set me on my feet, and I whirled, drinking it all in.
“This is absolutely lovely.”
“It is.” A hint of longing roughened Wrin’s voice.
“Is good. Better than cage.”Max ran up to me.“But my home prettier.”
“Where are you from?” I asked.
A series of images filled my mind, full of movement and color, plants more exotic and brightly colored than the ones around us now.
I gasped.
When Wrin shot me a questioning glance, I said, “Max showed me his home. It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve only seen videos of it from space.”
Max darted over to him, jumping up to rest his paws on Wrin’s thighs.“You know home?”A wave of longing flowed over me. A huge pink cat. A feeling of love. It was his mother.
“He asks if you know where his home is,” I said. “He misses it. He misses his mother.”
Wrin’s expression eased as he looked down at the cat. “I do. It’s deep in a Grug controlled territory, but we’re trying to do something about that.”
“Bad aliens,”Max said, even as he let out a loud growl.
“Who are these Grug?” I asked. “The people back at the facility?”
“No. The Grug are the aliens who found your Hyoo-mon ship and have been selling your people all across the seven sectors.”
“What?” My lips went numb as ice gripped my heart.I’ve already failed my crew!
Then anger, my old familiar friend, sparked in my chest, chasing away the shock. If these Grug had truly done what he’d said, then I knew the name of my enemy now.
And they’d come to rue the day they ever messed with Captain Vivian Lee.
“Tell me everything.”
