31. Addie
31
ADDIE
A ddie woke up to find that she was being carried in someone’s arms, but they weren’t walking very steadily. In fact, it was the swaying, staggering gait that had woken her.
She looked up blurrily and saw Drago above her. There was a sneer of effort on his face and a look of concentration in his golden eyes. He looked like a man who was carrying a heavy burden up a hill and was determined to get to the top, no matter how difficult it was.
The heavy load is me! Addie realized with dawning horror. Oh God, he’s having a really hard time!
“Drago?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Huh?” He looked down for a minute. “Oh, you’re awake.”
“Yes, and I can walk on my own.” Addie struggled to get down and he nearly dropped her.
“Wait a fucking minute!” he growled irritably. “Don’t want to hurt you!”
Stopping in the middle of the field—(Why were they in a field? Addie couldn’t remember)—he set her carefully on her feet, though he kept an arm around her, presumably to keep her from falling over.
Addie did feel weak—though not as weak as the big Kindred looked. Normally he could pick her up like she weighed no more than a pillow but now he was almost panting.
“Are you okay?” she asked him anxiously.
He barked an unhappy laugh.
“Am I okay? Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one all covered in cuts and scratches.”
Looking down at herself, Addie realized it was true. The whole front of her body was scratched and sliced and bloody all over—also she was naked. What had happened to her?
Slowly her memory began to come back. Drago’s Drake coming out and roasting Sheelash, then killing Ls Prissa and Lx Sambla as well…then taking flight and ramming right through the skylight, causing the shards of glass to come raining down on her head.
“It…it was your Drake,” she said slowly.
“I thought so.” His face went grim. “Goddess damn him!”
“No, it’s not like that!” Addie hurriedly tried to explain, but he only shook his head.
“Look, I’m really sorry about what happened but I don’t want to talk about it now. I’m so fucking weak I’m about to collapse. We need to get into the ship before that happens.”
Addie felt a surge of guilt.
“You’re probably weak because I took so much of your blood,” she said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry, Drago—I just couldn’t stop myself. But at least the fangs are gone now—see?” She bared her teeth for him and he gave a cursory glance and nodded.
“Yeah, fucking great. C’mon—I need to sit down before I fall down.”
They made it into the long-range shuttle and Drago went at once to the pilot's seat and collapsed into it. Then he looked up at Addie.
“Can you look in the second compartment in the fresher? There’s a med kit in there. Hopefully it has some rapid blood growth pills.”
Addie went quickly to the cabinet and found what he was asking for—a bright red, metal box with many different medical supplies inside. Searching rapidly through them, she found a tiny pill bottle with the words Blood Replenishment printed on the side.
Before she left the fresher, she wrapped herself in a towel—she didn’t like going around naked and the long black cloak she’d been wearing must have blown away during her dragon flight. She took a cursory look at herself in the 3-D viewer mounted on the wall and noticed in passing that though her fangs were gone, the spider web on her back was still there. Crap—was she going to have it forever? She wondered if it might be possible to remove it somehow, like you could remove a tattoo with laser treatment.
But that was a problem for later. Making sure she was securely wrapped in the fluffy white towel—which was already smeared with her blood from the many scratches and cuts all over the front of her body—she made her way back to the bridge.
"Here you go." She handed the bottle of blood replacement medicine to Drago, who dry-swallowed four of the tiny red pills inside at once. Then he leaned his head back against the headrest and sighed deeply. Addie thought she had never seen her Protector looking so weary.
“Okay, how much damage did my Drake do this time?” he rumbled at last. “Tell me everything and don’t hold back—I need to know.”
“Well, he broke through the skylight when he was flying me away from the palace,” Addie said. “And he fried Sheelash to a crisp. Oh, and I’m afraid he also burned Ls Prissa and Lx Sambla alive, too.” She shivered. “I couldn’t watch—it was horrible .”
“I’m sure it fucking was. I’m sorry, Addison.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, as though trying to drive off a headache. “Gods, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Last time he came out he burned an entire village to the ground. Now we can add murder to his list of sins.”
“But everything he did was to protect me!” Addie protested. “You can’t blame him for that!”
“I don’t—I blame myself,” Drago growled tiredly. “First I couldn’t protect you from that damn spider—then I couldn’t even protect you from my own Drake! This whole situation is all my fault.”
“No it’s not—it’s my fault!” Addie exclaimed. “I’m the one who insisted on coming to Crimson Moon in the first place. I’m the one who was completely fooled by Lx Sambla’s smooth talk—you saw through him right away. I should have listened to you.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t try to take this on yourself, Addison. No matter where you decide to go, it’s my job to protect you. A job I failed at miserably this entire fucking mission.”
“Don’t say that! You can’t—” she began.
But just then there was a noise from outside. It sounded like muffled shouting to Addie.
“What the fuck?” Drago growled and turned on the viewscreen.
They were immediately treated to the sight of an angry mob of Vargans storming out of the palace and towards their ship. Many of them were screaming and crying and several had shaved off the Sheelash. White parts of their hair, which gave a kind of bizarre reverse-Mohawk effect.
“Oh no!” Addie put a hand to her mouth. “They must be upset about your Drake killing Sheelash!”
“We’ve got to get the fuck out of here,” Drago growled. He sat up and began working the controls. “Can you call the Mother Ship?”
“Of course.” Addie sat down in the passenger’s seat and reached for the long-range communicator. But no matter how many times she put in the sequence to call the Mother Ship, nothing happened. She looked at Drago in a panic. “It’s not working—I can’t get through!”
“Fuck! They must be blocking communications,” he growled. “Hang on—we’re going up.”
The long-range shuttled lifted into the air just as the mob of Vargans reached them and started pounding on its sides and door. Even after they were high in the air, Addie could still hear the angry shouting down below.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, sinking back against the passenger seat. “That was close!”
“Too close,” Drago said grimly. “We need to get out of range of their block before we can call the Mother Ship.”
“Can we go to a whole other planet?” Addie asked anxiously.
He shook his head.
“Crimson Moon is the only habitable place in this entire solar system. Let me pull up the charts.”
He did something to the control panel and suddenly star charts began filling the viewscreen. Drago studied them for a long moment, then nodded.
“Okay, there’s a stable wormhole. We can just…” His voice trailed off and he slumped in his seat.
“Drago? Oh my God, Drago!” Addie hopped out of the passenger seat and began slapping his cheeks. “Wake up!”
“Huh?” His eyes came open again as though with a great effort. “Sorry—so fucking weak…”
“You’re in no shape to navigate a wormhole right now,” Addie told him sternly. “We’re just going to have to hide from the Vargans until the blood replacement pills take effect.”
“Yeah, you could be right.” Drago nodded groggily. “Okay, gotta find someplace to hide…” He punched more buttons and the star maps were replaced with terrain maps of Crimson Moon.
“Just fly us into the wilderness somewhere—someplace they’d have a hard time tracking us,” Addie suggested.
“No need to hide much—we have a cloak on this ship,” Drago informed her. “We…” His head nodded again and Addie reached over and grabbed a handful of his hair. She pulled hard to wake him up.
“Huh? Ow!” he muttered.
“Stay awake—I don’t know how to fly this thing,” Addie said anxiously. “Look, just land in that field over there.” She pointed to a corner of the viewscreen where a vast field of tall purple flowers was visible. “Right there in the middle—set us down.”
Drago was clearly in no shape to argue. He did as she said, bringing the long-range shuttle to rest in the middle of the field. The flowers, which grew on long gray stalks, were so tall they shielded the ship completely, much to Addie's relief. She made sure the big Kindred had engaged the cloaking tech and then finally felt like she could breathe easy.
“Okay, I think I know what we both need,” she said to Drago, whose head was nodding again.
“Yeah? Wha’s that?” he mumbled.
“Some food. I don’t know about you but I haven’t had anything to eat since that awful blood supper last night. Well, except…” She motioned at him, feeling guilty all over again.
She was the reason her Protector was so weak right now. The fang marks on his neck where she’d bitten him earlier were still plainly visible, even though Kindred usually healed fast. Addie really hoped that the blood replacement pills would work quickly, but she also thought some solid nutrition would help.
She got up and went looking in the emergency supplies and returned with two squeeze bulbs of liquid nutrition and two protein bars. It wasn’t much but she hoped it would help restore their strength.
“Not very hungry right now,” Drago muttered when she pressed the food and drink into his hands.
“I don’t care if you’re hungry or not—you need to get some food in you,” Addie said sternly. “Now are you going to eat or am I going to feed you?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile.
“Bossy little thing, aren’t you?”
“You know I am,” Addie shot back. “Now come on, eat . You’ll feel better if you do and the sooner you feel better, the sooner we can get the hell out of here and go home!”
“Not going home,” Drago muttered. “Fuck that.”
“What?” Addie looked at him sharply but he only shook his head.
“Nothing. Okay, I’ll eat.”
Addie watched carefully to be sure he did as he said while she ate her own bar. But first she took a long drink from the nutrition bulb.
The liquid was refreshing and lightly fruit-flavored which was nice—it washed away the taste of stale blood in her mouth. Her protein bar was studded with chocolate chips and crunchy nuts and Addie thought it was completely delicious. It reminded her of the granola bars she used to eat as an after-school snack as a kid.
Drago ate and drank too, slowly at first and then with more vigor. After the first sip and nibble, his appetite seemed to wake up and he finished the protein bar in two bites and drained the squeeze bulb in one long drink. When he finished, Addie decided he was most definitely looking better. There was color in his pale cheeks now and his golden eyes looked brighter.
“Gods, that was good. Didn’t realize how hungry I was,” he muttered.
“I know—half the time you’re grumpy, it’s because you’re hungry.” Addie smothered a grin, then she got serious. “You’re looking a lot more alert now but I still think we should wait a little while before we go. Are you sure the Vargans can’t find us?”
He shook his head.
“Nah—their tech isn’t nearly as good as ours. We’re safe out here as long as we keep the cloak on—which we can do indefinitely since it doesn’t take much power as long as we’re not flying while we’re using it.”
“Good.” Addie gave a sigh of relief. “In that case, I’m going to go take a shower.” She looked down at herself and made a face at the bloody towel still wrapped around her. “I need to get myself cleaned up.”
A look of remorse and self-recrimination appeared on Drago’s dark face.
“I’m so fucking sorry about that, Addison. My Drake?—”
“Your Drake saved my life,” Addie said shortly. “True, he also killed some people and fried the Spider Goddess the Vargans have been worshiping for generations, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. And it’s not like Ls Prissa and Lx Sambla were very nice people. They lured us out to this awful place and poisoned me and then tried to kill us both.”
“Yeah, well…” Drago didn’t look convinced but that was too bad, she told herself. She didn’t have time to argue about whether his Drake’s actions had been justified or not. She was sticky with blood and the many cuts on her body really stung. Right now she just wanted a nice hot shower to wash away all the craziness she’d gone through in the Palace of Sheelash.
“We’ll talk about it later,” she promised. “ After I get a shower.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll plot the course to the wormhole,” he said, nodding.
“Good. The sooner we get off this crazy moon, the better,” Addie said.
She had no idea that they would be staying a little longer…