Chapter 47
Chapter
Forty-Seven
Skye
Iglanced up as Kolt returned from escorting the Zagrath admiral to the back of the ship. “The Imperial fighters aren’t tailing us, but we’re also about to run on fumes.”
He’d shed the cloak he’d worn on the planet, and it was nice to see him in just his battle kilt and boots again. He looked more like himself. I’d also shrugged off my cloak, not wanting to be bothered with the extra fabric.
He stood behind me and frowned, leaning his hands on the back of my seat as his tail lashed behind him. “We are too far to return to Gollun Prime, but there are no inhabitable planets within range, are there?”
I scanned the star charts, even though I knew the answer to his question. “No. I guess we have to hope the Vandar got our message.”
And understood it, I thought.
“The message we sent them was pretty cryptic,” I said hesitantly. “Are you sure they’ll understand it?”
Various emotions flittered across his face, and it finally settled on certainty. “The Raas will know what it means.”
I took a breath and asked the question that had been teasing the back of my brain. “Does this mean your memory is returning?”
“In bits and pieces.” He took a seat next to me. “I am feeling more like myself, although I still couldn’t tell you exactly who that is. I did have a very strong urge to shoot that Zagrath instead of reason with him.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that spilled from my lips. “That sounds very Vandar.”
His smile was warm and a bit mischievous. “Being away from that alien world helps.” He ran a hand gently over the console. “Being on a ship helps.”
“I’m sure being back on a Vandar ship will help even more.” I tried to keep my tone light, but there was worry beneath it.
He grunted and gazed out the front of the transport. “If they find us.”
I nibbled the corner of my mouth. “Are you worried about what the admiral said, about it being a trap? Shouldn’t we try to warn the horde? Shouldn’t we tell them what we heard on the planet?”
“I warned the horde, but if we tell them what we heard, then we lose our strategic advantage. I want them to think we know nothing of their plan. That way we can use it against them.”
I wasn’t sure exactly how we were going to do that, and I still wasn’t convinced that our one-sentence transmission to the Vandar was going to be enough warning, but I had to trust him. And I did trust him.
That was a strange realization. In a matter of days, I’d gone from being distrustful of the Vandar—and especially Kolt—to believing that he was one of the few creatures in the universe I would trust with my life.
If you’d have asked me about the Vandar before I’d been stuck on an alien world with one, I wouldn’t have had anything good to say.
Now I could honestly say that my view of the Vandar had changed entirely.
And no, I have not been dick-matized, I told myself fiercely. That was only a small part of it. Well, not small. Definitely not small.
“Skye?”
I jerked my head to his, suddenly aware that my mind had wandered and my cheeks were warm. “What? Sorry. I was thinking about…transmissions.”
He blinked at me. “Transmissions?”
I nodded with way too much enthusiasm. “The one we sent to the Vandar.”
“The one that will bring them to us?”
“Then what?” I asked before I could think better of it. “What happens after your horde flies in and saves us?”
He squared his shoulders. “Then we defeat the Zagrath and liberate Gollun Prime, as we promised.”
I liked the sound of that, but he wasn’t understanding my question. “Do you think things will go back to normal? You’ll go back to being the battle chief?”
His mouth turned down. “If I am deemed fit for duty, then yes. I am a raider of the Vandar and I serve Raas Wrexxon.”
I wanted to ask him where that left me, but I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words.
The truth was, I didn’t fit in his world.
Not his real world. We’d happened only because we hadn’t been on his warbird or my planet, but mostly because he hadn’t known who he was.
Otherwise, we’d still be bickering and glaring at each other.
I swallowed hard, reminding myself that I’d always known it would go like this. I’d never fooled myself into thinking Kolt and I were anything more than a holiday fling. If the holiday was more like a disaster.
How could it be anything real? He was a battle chief of the Vandar and lived his life on a warbird.
It was well known that females weren’t allowed on Vandar ships unless the Raas brought along his mate, and even that was rare.
That meant that Kolt would return to his post and I would need to get over him.
“And go home to Lexxona,” I whispered.
“What?” He swiveled his seat to face me, his brow creased.
“My home,” I explained, not sure if he’d forgotten that I came from the frozen planet or if he remembered the times he’d been there. “It might not be much, but I have missed it.”
He opened his mouth, but a beep from the console preempted his words. There were no incoming ships showing on sensors, but a cloaked Vandar horde would not show up.
My pulse spiked as I looked at the screen. “We’re being hailed.”
Kolt pressed his lips together and gave me a single nod, so I touched the smooth surface to put it on screen.
The view of space vanished as a view of a massive, dark command deck appeared. I recognized the Vandar standing in the middle, and my pulse jerked again. It was the warlord who’d taken Jasmine.
Kolt grinned at the Vandar. “It is good to see you, Raas.”
Wrexxon glanced between us. “It is good to see both of you.”