“No, don’t…” I call after them, but it’s too late, and I’m struggling still with the task set by Dalox. “They can’t go. Dyana will…”
“Dyana will indeed attempt to stop us, but she will not be successful,” Dalox says, his teeth gritted.
“How do you know?” I call back.
He nods at a screen between us. “Deus.”
I take my eyes from the lines for a moment to see the dark Sarkarnii clinging onto the hull with one set of claws and the biggest ray gun I’ve ever seen in the other.
Looks like it’ll take one batshit Sarkarnii to deal with another batshit Sarkarnii. I turn my attention back to my console as another bolt hits us, and we rock from side to side once more, this time a little more violently. All the Sarkarnii brace themselves against the walls, a riot of scales, tails, and wings, as if they’re bracing the structure itself.
“Hold on,” Dalox says. “We’re going to…”
There’s another shudder through the hull and then the sound of something which sounds like a sonic boom.
“Try again. I hope to the ancestors Deus is inside because once we’ve done this burn, we’re not going to get another chance.” He looks over at me. “Let the engines ride, my Gillian. Give them everything we have.”
He nods at my console.
“Over the line?”
“Over the line, as far as it will go.” Dalox grins at me.
“Everyone grab hold of something,” I yell back into the cabin as I swipe the green lines higher and higher, feeling the buck of the ship as power flows through it.
“Here we go,” Dalox roars and punches something on his console.
The ship leaps forward like a hare out of long grass ready to stretch its legs for the first time in spring. A leap of faith and one which will, I hope, take us away from Dyana and my new friends to a new life.
Then I have to work out exactly what I’m going to do about my feelings for Dalox.
GILLIAN
“You can take them down to a quarter power,” Dalox says.
I do as he asks, and we’re coasting above the water far below, the three moons, one a huge ghostly glow high above the others, illuminate both the sea and our ship.
“You’d better go see if your friend made it,” I say as he unfolds himself from his console.
“Deus can wait,” Dalox growls. “I need you, little mate. I need you more than anything in the entire universe.”
Strong arms wrap around me, and I’m lifted up against his hard, muscular chest. Dalox consumes me in a kiss of epic proportions, quite simply stealing away every thought I’ve ever had in my head.
Was I ever apart from him? It’s as if I have always been in his arms, always been in his embrace, always had his lips on mine. Dalox is entirely something else, so much more than a vast scaled dragon man. So much more than the creature I allowed to pleasure me, than the person who crossed continents to a place the Sarkarnii knew little about, in order to make sure I could go home.
Home.
I know what my mum would be saying. She’d be telling me not to be so damn stupid. To grasp what I have with both hands and never let go.
She would say I have already done enough.
As Dalox releases me, I catch sight of Dyoti, who is watching me.
And it’s like a sledgehammer slams into my side, pulling the breath from my body, sending all my neurons firing at once.
Sometimes protecting isn’t about fighting. Sometimes it’s about nurturing. Sometimes saving is not about fighting. Sometimes it’s about showing the way.
My new friends have a chance they didn’t have before. They can be reunited with the rest of the Sarkarnii. Not some crackpot scheme to do without the males of their species, but instead a real connection between all of them.
