“On Gus?”
“So, it would appear.”Kira peered at Jin out of the corner of her eye as he hummed lightly.“You wouldn’t have anything to share about her, would you?”
Jin’s control over his expressions was getting better as he met her gaze with a blank face.“I may have.”
Ah ha.Kira was right.Gus was here.
“Is she going to be a problem?”Kira probed carefully.
From the way Jin was behaving, she could tell he was feeling protective of this estranged sister of theirs.
“Not for us,” Jin said.
Kira took him at his word.She’d never known Jin to be wrong about something like this.
“I killed Mars,” Kira confessed
Jin’s gaze snapped to her as he ran his eyes over her body in search of wounds.
“I’m okay,” she assured him as he reached for the shoulder where Mars’s dagger got her.“But once we wrap this up, I’ll have to leave to hunt down Cleo.”
Her sister trafficked Tuann kids.Even if she wanted to, Kira couldn’t overlook her crimes.
“Something tells me you won’t have to worry about Cleo for long,” Jin said with a knowing look.
Kira glanced down at him.“You know something I don’t?”
The smile that spread across his face was sly as he started after the kids.“Just a feeling.”
Kira frowned and followed.“You know I hate when you act mysterious.”
Once back on board Graydon’s ship, its medical team rushed the children and Caius to the med bay for a checkup.Thankfully, the children came through the experience largely unharmed.A few bruises and scrapes that they assured them were left over from the attack on their enclave.Nothing more serious.
The pirates had taken good care of them, giving them plenty of food and water to keep their strength up.No doubt so they’d be in pristine condition for auction.
Caius was worse off.He’d undergone torture.Many of his wounds were half healed.A few looked so serious that the healer expressed surprise that he was still walking around.
Kira suspected she knew the reasoning for that.Gus and her plants.
All in all, everyone came through the experience in one piece.
Physically, anyway.
Mentally, the children and Caius would be dealing with the fallout from this for years.If not the rest of their lives.
Graydon disappeared shortly after their arrival on ship to provide the emperor with an update.
Kira was impressed at their ability to communicate through the Falling’s debris cloud since they couldn’t contact Titan from within it.When she’d asked, Graydon had acted a little cagey which she took to mean it was all very hush-hush.Something he didn’t want others knowing.
She was content to let him keep his secrets and settled in to wait.
With nothing else to do, she fiddled with her cuff, interested when she saw that the micro-fissures had grown into true cracks.
“I wonder,” Kira whispered.
She concentrated, flexing her soul’s breath just slightly.The cracks widened, racing across the metal’s surface as if it were as fragile as a robin’s egg.
Pressure grew at the base of Kira’s skull, but she didn’t let up, cycling herkithe way Graydon had shown her.
