Thalen blew out a long breath, looking defeated by his friend’s suffering. Then he shook himself, straightening. “One thing at a time,” he said, perhaps more to himself than to Rentir. “If we cannot secure Yulaira’s future, all this worry will be wasted time.” He clapped Rentir on the shoulder. “I’d far rather spend my final days enjoying the company of those I care for. You should do the same. Time is precious, Rentir. Already, we have lost too much of it to our former masters. Seize what is left for yourself.”
With that, he left to visit Sophia, who balked at his approach and turned a curious shade of red. The males who’d been trying to speak with her retreated in his wake.
Yelir had joined the celebration with a number of the males from the mines, who had been warned at great length to leave space between themselves and the women, no matter how powerful the draw of curiosity. If Rentir had good sense, he’d be in his room resting to recover like Haerune was, but his instincts clanged for him to keep Cordelia in his sight after the violence of the day. He was struggling even with the inquisitive looks the new males kept casting toward her.
And… Thalen was right. It was a balm to his soul to see the fruit borne of all their hardship: the laughter, the joy, the freedom.
Ven joined his brother and they were listening to something that Sophia was saying while wringing her hands. Pandora satbeside her with a wry look on her face that she was trying to hide behind her glass. Eunha and Nyx were arguing with Lidan before an audience of miners and upper-floor workers, moving their hands around expressively and pointing fingers at him with cries of fury at whatever he was saying in reply. Whatever it was had to be amusing, as even Seren was struggling to keep a straight face. Fendar chimed in, and Nyx turned her wrath on him with a look of pure disgust. Yelir, fascinatingly, had taken a shine to Lyra of all humans. She was giving him a very droll, disapproving look as he tried rather obviously to woo her.
Cordelia stood a few steps back from it all, rubbing her thumb restlessly over the side of her glass, a soft smile on her face. The lights of the ship lit her from behind, setting a glow over all the delicate planes of her face. It took his breath away. Had there ever been anything so beautiful in the world as that smile on her face?
They were one step closer to recovering her abducted crewmate—maybe more, if the two other missing women had been captured as well. All would soon be right in her world, and then she… she could…
His gaze drifted past her to the stolen dropship. Tomorrow, they’d storm theGidalan, and, with any luck, take her for themselves. A ship capable of making the sort of hyper-drive jumps that would, say, clear a two-hundred-year voyage in a matter of days.
Someone cleared their throat; he jumped, realizing he’d gotten momentarily lost in his own misery.
“Why are you brooding over here all by yourself?” Cordelia asked, arching a brow.
A draft in the hangar swept her scent over him, and he went heavy-lidded, expanding his lungs until his ribs screamed for mercy, drinking in as much as he could take. Cordelia settled in beside him, leaning back against the hood of the hovercraft. Histail snaked toward her, but he seized it in his hand, still unsure what she would permit from him.
He cleared his throat, realizing several beats had passed and she was waiting expectantly for an answer. “Those dozen males Yelir brought are all miners. They hold no love for me. I did not want to cast a pall over the celebration by instigating a riot.”
Her face shuttered at that. She set her glass down on the hovercraft with a clink, her eyes still on the gathered party. “We need to talk.” Her voice was thick with some emotion he couldn’t parse.
“Yes.” He agreed nervously. “I was not sure if you would want to speak tonight. I did not want to distract you, given the gravity of what we will undertake tomorrow.”
…and I am not sure that what I have to say won’t just make you loathe me more.
Did his anxious gulp sound as mortifyingly loud to her as it did to him? She didn’t speak for a long moment, and his nerves climbed higher with every passing second.
“That plasma shot today… that was almost your head, you know that?” Her fingers rapped against the hood of the hovercraft. “If Haerune hadn’t pushed you at the last second, that would have been it. You’d just be gone, forever. I wouldn’t even get to see your face one last time.”
He was lost for words. The moment was a haze in his mind; he had not lingered on it. Hope swelled in his chest at her obvious concern. “It was fortunate that Haerune was there.” He leaned forward to study her in profile.
She looked up at him, her features tight with annoyance, though he didn’t know why. “That’s all? ‘It’s fortunate he was there?’ That’s all you have to say about it?”
His tail flicked and coiled in on itself as he waffled. “What… what would you like me to say?”
Her annoyance only seemed to grow at the question.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Cordelia, whatever you wish to hear from me, you need only tell me. Anything, anything you want, I will?—”
“Shut up.” She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down from the hood of the hovercraft. “Come with me. Idiot.”
She dragged him through the corridors, turn after turn, ignoring every attempt he made to inquire about where they were going or what he had done to upset her. It wasn’t until they were heading toward the end of one of the lower floors that understanding sparked. She slapped her palm over the lock, and the door hissed open after a moment of clanging, letting the night song of the forest spill in.
“Who showed you this?” he asked as she tugged him out into the glowing night.
“Lidan showed Eunha,” she said. “She wanted to see the glowing plants up close.”
“And no one came back injured?”
She laughed, grinning back at him as she led him down a path the hybrids had worn into the bracken. “Who said that? Lidan had a busted lip. Something about ‘taking liberties under the guise of chivalry.’ That’s not what he said, of course. He was very insistent that he was just trying to help her climb over a log.
“He also assured me that the yethor don’t hunt this close to the base after I threatened to make his eye match his lip for taking one of my crew out into the murderous forest at prime hunting time.” She hesitated, and he bumped into her as she stopped to look up at him. “He was telling the truth, right? That giant crocodile panther isn’t going to eat us, is it?”
Rentir grinned. “It does not like the noise of the machines. No one will be eaten tonight.”
