“You aren’t coming?” I asked.
He shook his head, but his mouth twitched into a crooked grin. “I’m in charge of the distraction here.”
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Skye
“What kind of distraction?” I asked as we all stood at the side entrance while Hal poked his head out the door to check if the coast was clear.
The man touched a hand to his fuzzy hair. “Don’t you worry about that. I might not be an actor, but I know how to create drama.”
Lettie fluttered her spider-like lashes at him. “Oh, we know, sugar.”
Athena pushed an empty bottle into my hand. “We’re celebrating, remember?”
“Celebrating,” I repeated, my heart hammering in mychest at the sudden reality of what we were going to attempt hitting me.
Were we crazy for trying to walk through the city? Were we even crazier for thinking we could sneak onto an Imperial ship? I took a deep breath and tried not to dwell on the genuine possibility that we’d end up right back in a cell.
Don’t think like that, I told myself fiercely. This is no riskier than sabotaging Imperial transports on Lexxona. But it was, wasn’t it? No one on Lexxona had known about our rebel group, and no one had been searching for us. At least, that’s what we’d thought. But I wouldn’t be running from Imperial forces on an alien planet if the Zagrath hadn’t found out about my extracurricular activities on Lexxona.
“I am right behind you.” The deep voice was a velvet purr that hummed down my spine, and I realized Kolt was standing so close to me that his body was bumping against mine. "If anyone touches you, I will not need my memories to know what to do about it."
The words steadied my heartbeat. I twisted my head around and up to smile at him. “Thanks.”
He gave me a single nod, his gaze soft. Something had changed between us, and it wasn’t just that we’d slept together. Or maybe it was.
I’d assumed that because Kolt was Vandar, sex would be something that didn’t affect him. Vandar raiders were known for taking female captives as brides, and now they were taking war brides. I’d thought that I would be just one more notch in his proverbial belt, even if he might not remember all the other notches. But the way he was looking at me, his eyes blazing with both heat and tenderness, made me think I’d been wrong.
Not the best time to be thinking about where you stand with the hot alien you just slept with, Skye.
I turned back to the group as Hal waved everyone forward.
“No soldiers in sight,” he hissed. “You should go now.”
Athena tugged me forward behind Lettie and a pair of lanky guys in skin-tight, black-and-white striped pants topped with multicolored ruffled tops. They all held bottles that looked much like mine, and they belted out a warbling song as we moved away from the theatre.
I cast a last look behind us. Hal stood in the open doorway, with warm light spilling from inside the theatre to splatter across the dingy alleyway. He raised a hand in a wave, and I noticed some long, pointy things wrapped in colorful paper in his fist. Before I could wonder if they were part of the distraction, Kolt’s large body closed the distance between us and blocked my view.
“Don’t look back,” he said as he leaned down.
I wasn’t sure if he was hunching over me to appear smaller or be nearer to me or both, but I didn’t mind. The bulk of him that had once been intimidating was now comforting.
The alley emptied into a narrow street with more tall, stone buildings rising on either side. A few doors were open, and merchants were sweeping stoops before they opened for the day. They didn’t bother to pay us much heed as we stumbled past, with Lettie and the others making enough noise and spectacle that no one gave me or Kolt a second glance.
It helped that Kolt kept the hood of his cloak pulled low over his face and the fabric draped low enough to hide his tail. In disguise, he looked like any other resident of Kashara. And whowould notice him when the flamboyantly dressed actors were attracting all the attention?
“Forty bottles of gin in the hall,” sang Lettie in a surprisingly clear soprano voice, “forty bottles of gin.”
“Take one down,” one of the males chimed in, his deep baritone reverberating off the walls, “pass it around, thirty-nine bottles of gin in the hall.”
We turned another corner and then another until the streets widened. The buildings were lower, and cobblestones gave way to hard-packed dirt. We were down to twelve bottles of gin in the hall when an Imperial soldier appeared at the end of the street.
My step faltered and my breath caught in my throat, but Athena hooked a hand under my elbow and kept me moving forward.
“Don’t look,” she whispered, her own bright smile unwavering. “Keep singing.”
