Page 23 of There’s an Elf in My Cockpit

I landed on my knees at his side, staring in horror at the pool of blood that was saturating the snow around him and instantly freezing. There was a slash across his ribs that seeped red, but more worrisome, a deep wound had been opened up in his gut. I was no medic, but I was pretty sure gut wounds were extremely bad.

“Pack it with snow, quick,” someone said, a flurry of activity exploding around me as many hands started doing just that. Packing snow against the wounds and pressing down, “Where’s the medkit? Hurry!” I didn’t like those panicked voices but I shoved that fear aside and just worked as instructed, and when that was no longer needed, I cradled his head in my lap and ordered him to hang on. Tears froze on my lashes as I watched how pale his face was, and how frantic the gladiators seemed as they tried to fix him up.

A shiver rolled up my spine, fear curdling in my belly. He wasn’t going to make it, he’d already lost far too much blood. The snow was awash with red, and my white snow clothing was equally stained. Already I could feel his skin turn cold beneath my fingers and I wanted to shout, I wanted to howl out my pain. This wasn’t right, I’d already nearly lost him once, and I couldn’t go through this a second time.

“So fragile,” a voice said from right behind me. I heard the sound of several knives and other weapons as they were pulled from the males surrounding Oliver, but I didn’t feel any kind of fear. I barely even lifted my head to look at the swirling shape of the Master of the Moon behind me.

He towered over me, but he also seemed to be on two legs this time, appearing almost humanoid in shape. I couldn’t see a face, I couldn’t make out any details at all in the shifting shadows that cloaked him but I was very sure now that he had at least two pairs of horns curling over his head and a pair of red eyes glowed from just beneath those.

“Please,” I said, “If you can help. Please… I can’t lose him.” I wasn’t above begging, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me now. I didn’t care about anything except Oliver. If he didn’t make it off this ice moon, I didn’t think I would either, not in one piece at least.

The shifting shadows seemed to part and a limb stretched out from them, the arm too long to be right, black and clawed, its shape monstrous. A light seemed to glow from inside as it passed over Oliver, the arm somehow dipping low over my shoulder to reach without the strange figure appearing to stoop or bend. It was extremely eerie, but nobody stopped him, we all just watched with bated breath to see if it worked.

When the hand withdrew, Oliver shuddered, his breath gushing out of him in a cloud of white. Then he blinked open his eyes, his beautiful gray eyes, and they were bright and focused when they met mine. “Hey there, Vi. Why do you look so sad?” he asked casually as if he was completely unaware that he’d just nearly bled out in the snow.

The wet laugh that came from my own mouth was half sob, half happiness. “Oh, Stars! Oliver you nearly died!” I leaned down and pressed my mouth against his, uncaring of our audience. I heard happy exclamations, laughter, and relief pouring from Oliver’s friends as they surrounded us. What I was most keenly aware of was the presence of the host, the Master of the Moon. He was still standing right behind me and watching our happiness like it was a completely foreign thing to him.

Oliver eagerly let me kiss him from our strange, upside-down angle but when he opened his eyes and they went huge and wide, I knew he’d seen it. He’d spotted the creature standing right behind me, so close that I could almost feel the shadows that wrapped him brush against my back. “Oh fuck,” he muttered, pushing himself upright and turning to look. I didn’t let him get far, wrapping my arms around his neck and clinging. I’d never clung to a male before, but I wasn’t going to let Oliver go anywhere without me.

“You have seven minutes left,” the shadow said and the red eyes disappeared. The Master of the Moon walked away without a backward glance, his orb zapping after him. It was only when all of us were jumping to our feet and rushing for our respective shuttles that I realized that during that last interaction, the male had spoken to us directly instead of using the orb as his avatar. I didn’t miss the giant, cloven footprints he was leaving in the snow either. Whatever he was, he was a real, flesh and blood being and I owed him everything.

“Thank you!” I yelled after him as Oliver pulled me with him onto the still partially buried shuttle. The Master of the Moon didn’t respond, and then the horde of ice beasts started to throw back their heads, howling. The next moment the whole pack of them started running, leaving the remains of Elpherian’s ship and racing for the nearest crater wall. In giant leaps and bounds, they went up it, disappearing into the night.

The mechanic was with us as we jogged into the shuttle, and so were the other two gladiators but none of the teens. I assumed they weren’t trusting this shuttle as much as the other one, and then I gasped in shock when I realized Oliver just plunked himself down into the pilot chair. “Oliver! You nearly died, shouldn’t one of the others fly?” I turned to gaze at the three males who were casually strapping themselves into the jumpseats that lined the shuttle.

“I am fine! Good as new,” he assured me with a wicked grin. “I swear, but we’ve got like… five minutes left by now. We really need to get going. Sit down.” This felt a bit too much like a repeat of how we’d first met for me to disobey. If I did, I was going to end up in his lap, I knew it.

The shuttle was already lifting into the air and the hatch hadn’t even been closed. I threw myself into the navigator’s chair, wondering how he was the best man for the job and we didn’t even have a navigator on board, were going to follow Chloe’s shuttle?

A scrabbling sound followed by a shout made us all turn around to look at the hatch. Shocked, I leaned forward and slammed my hand on the ‘open’ button at the sight of a pair of blue claws. “Belal!” Oliver shouted and several gladiators leaped from their seats to yank the youngster inside.

A minute later I was cradling the young Hoxiam in my arms in the navigator seat, my heart still racing from the shock. Oliver was tensely warning the kid just how dangerous it was what he’d just done. I agreed but I could see the confusion on the kid’s face too, I knew what was going on. “He was told to guard me,” I said, “And that’s what he’s doing.”

Oliver was instantly quiet, his gaze going soft. “Fine, we’ll talk about this on the Vagabond. I need to concentrate. Chloe and Kitan are much better than me and our window is rapidly closing.” I wondered about that, would our host actually snap the shield shut on our noses if we didn’t make it out in the allotted time? I doubted it, he wanted to get rid of us as much as we wanted to leave.

Nonetheless, none of us breathed easy until we’d followed the thruster lights of the shuttle ahead of us out of the atmosphere.