I give up and turn back to my console, the tech sparking and glitching thanks to my fist. “Why can’t we see their location?”
“He turned off the tracking system before they even left Latrides.” Kyte, too, is working furiously at his controls and trying to find anything that could lead to her.
“Why would he take her?” Jeren grips his blades so hard his knuckles go white.
“What if he’s the Sentient spy?”
“He can’t be. They murdered his Alpha.” Jeren sheathes one blade and starts searching for records on Onin. “He’d never ally with them.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” Kyte shakes his head. “Hang on. I can go deeper into the files.”
“How?”
His fingers fly across the console. “I have greater access now. I only just realized it. Part of the transfer of power to me as king-in-waiting. I can get to his fleet information, figure out if he’s been compromised.”
“We’re losing time.” I pull up the wormhole programming.
“We can’t jump until we find her.” Jeren leans over to look at Kyte’s screen.
“I know,” I snap.
“Onin. Everything is here. His Alpha was murdered by the Sentients. They were working as fleet medics, the Sentients attacked, his Alpha died to save Onin.” Kyte keeps digging. “Served with honor, put in charge of the medical treatment at the academy, no known Sentient ties. No clear …” He trails off, then leans closer to his screen.
“What?” I vibrate like a spider on a web. “What is it?”
“It says he has a son.”
“What?” I shake my head. “What does that have to do with—”
“Maybe the Sentients are using him as leverage?” I return to pacing.
“Could be.” Jeren doesn’t sound convinced.
“This isn’t getting us any closer to Lana.” I grit my teeth and try to reach her again. “Where are you, my love?” I chase her through a ratty field, then down a cracked road, her subconscious flitting ahead of me. “Tell me where you are,” I yell and follow her through the high grass.
Kyte and Jeren join, both of them racing after her but never getting any closer.
But we follow. All three of us trying to catch our heart in our hands, to find out where she is and keep her safe. But she’s always so far ahead, and then she fades.
We all snap back to the ship. Kyte seems to glow as a thought hits him, his fingers going back to the console as I digest the enormity of what he just realized. “You have your mother’s access now?”
“For now. Bartanz may revoke it when he realizes. After all, I gave up the council seat.”
“We can find out what they know about Lana.” Jeren is still searching for her, his body here, but part of his mind lost in her subconscious. “Still can’t find her,” he grates. “She’s gone.”
I watch as Kyte delves more deeply into fleet data than I’ve ever gone, worlds of information floating in the seemingly endless knowledge bank. He navigates to the council files, the display a floating planet covered in ice. He enters in a wealth of codes, then presses his palm to the console, which scans a DNA sample.
When he bypasses the security and enters the files, I point to an area of council recordings. “In there.”
“We need the one from the day we sealed the circle,” Jeren says. “Whatever they know about Lana. It’s there.” He’s back. Lana’s connection is still there, but it’s silent. My skin crawls at the loss of her warmth.
Kyte digs through the recordings until he finds it, then pulls it up on the large viewer.
Bartanz stands, his hands clasped behind his back. “You know what she is. That’s why I—”
“You were not authorized to do anything to the Omega, much less claim her as yours. You were to bring her to the academy and alert Master Harlan to keep her safe.” Kyte’s mother’s tone is impressively sharp. “But you decided to override the council and attempt to steal her without any authorization.”
“For the fleet’s sake.” He turns to the other councilors, trying to convince them since Councilor Ellarian isn’t having it. “She is dangerous, not one of us. A loaded weapon that has the capability of burning the fleet from the inside out. If I had entered the mate bond with her—”
