Page 5 of Stone Awakened

“Got it,” Kitan affirmed, “Akri will look in on it. Oh, and by the way, that intel on the ship relocating those young gladiators, Yashan and Jasmin intercepted it. Good job.” That was a weight off my shoulders, good. That was half-a-dozen youngsters saved from the pits, Yashan and Jasmin had made it their mission to do these kinds of rescues. The boys would be in good hands, and the couple had all the necessary resources to find their homes or at least a home.

“I’m glad to hear that, is everyone else on the ship alright?” I asked. It hadn’t been until I’d already arrived on this planet, and infiltrated the guards, that I’d heard that Luka and his mate Noa had safely come aboard the Vagabond. I’d run off without saying goodbye to them immediately after their rescue. I couldn’t sit on the knowledge of my son’s location while I got tangled up with the Aderian authorities as they sorted out arrests and testimonies. I was pretty certain my brothers understood that, but I still felt bad about leaving them without a word.

“Tori doesn’t seem to like Eoin much but I’m pretty sure the new addition is completely smitten,” Kitan explained, his voice dropping into a gossipy tone. He rattled off a few more tidbits about some of the others on the ship, like how Da’vi was still refusing to come out of the engine room much. That Luka had made another attempt to open the broken stasis pod we’d found in the cargo bay, but had failed again.

My mind was stuck on the news about Tori. I had met Eoin, the adoptive son of Yashan and Jasmin. I had once shared a cell with him when he was a young teen. Then the couple had managed to escape and took the boy with them, now the kid was all grown up, and ready to spread his wings.

Yashan had done good work training the male, and in the three weeks I’d been on the Vagabond with him, just before Luka’s rescue, I had done my best to polish those skills. I now wish I had realized the boy had a crush on a female I considered my daughter, I would have gone harder on him in training, a lot.

“Stay safe Sunder, I’ll get back to you with what information we can find. Hurry and get us those landing codes or I’m landing this bird without.” With that warning, Kitan broke the connection and I was met with the deep silence of the forest. Immediately the urge to fly back to the palace and locate Aggy struck me, I should get to the bottom of this now. Why wait?

I squashed those impatient urges with practice. Acting without having all the facts could only lead to disaster, even if my brain was supplying me with ample ideas on how to extract this information from the pretty little human.

Spreading my wings, I took to the skies, forcing myself to fly away from the palace. A good long flight to exhaust myself was going to have to be my entertainment for the night.

Chapter 4

Agatha

There was a knock on my door just as I was getting ready for bed. I had never had any visitors, especially not at this time so I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound. I pressed my hand to my pounding heart, which I could feel through the thin white fabric of my sleeping shirt.

My hair was down, and it had gotten really long since I’d been abducted into space. Amar’s species, the Ulinial, was of the belief that cutting your hair was unnatural, that it was like cutting family ties. Wishing to respect their culture, I hadn’t cut my hair while I’d lived aboard their small, cobbled-together spaceship.

Now, I hurried to drape my long hair over my shoulders so it gave some kind of cover over my breasts. I smoothed my hands over the soft leggings I was planning to wear to bed, was that enough clothing? Or was whoever was on the other side of that door going to think I was underdressed?

Another knock reverberated through my door and worried that I’d anger the person on the other side, I stopped dallying. As I pulled the heavy panel open, I was shocked to discover Sunder standing on my doorstep. His huge body filled the entire doorway, his horn-crowned head as tall as the door lintel. With his wings slightly spread, I couldn’t even see past him into the hallway.

Gulping down a few swallows of air, I tried to push away the memory of petting that wide chest. I had definitely been under the influence of that foul drug, and Sunder had known that, he’d said so, but it was still embarrassing. Even more embarrassing, faced with that wide chest, I really wanted to do it again. I had zero excuses this time.

“Hello,” he said, his voice dropping into a low rumble that I felt deep in my belly. “I hope I’m not interrupting you…” His head tilted at an angle as his slate gray eyes slid over me, taking in my clothing, and my long hair. I saw how that look lingered on my hip, on the shape of my breasts; I felt it like a caress.

“No, I was just getting ready for bed. What do you want?” I asked, and then I cursed myself. What do you want? Really? As if it wasn’t obvious after he just ogled my boobs. I could have just as well said, come in, let’s have sex. I struggled a little with the thought of this particular male just showing up at my door, hoping for a booty call… He seemed so serious and intense.

His gray eyes heated, a glimmer indicating that he found humor in my words, that maybe he’d had the same thoughts I just had. He didn’t move into my space, didn’t make any overt kind of moves, just held out a palm.

“Why, Miss Aggy, I didn’t realize your hair was this long. Such a shame you keep it up in that stern little bun all day…” His head tilted at an angle while he scanned my face, following the long strands of hair over my breasts, down to my hip. “Although, now I know what you look like with your hair down. I know what I’ll be thinking about when I see you tomorrow.”

I was so uncertain about this male, he was having me on edge. Why was he nice to the kids? Why was he nice to me? And then he said these flirty things? I was just a school teacher from Minnesota, old enough by now to be considered on the shelf. I wasn’t used to this male attention, to feeling pretty when someone looked at me. Let’s not forget the part where he was a guard at this place either, he was the bad guy.

“Why are you here,” I demanded, fed up with my own hormonal response. I needed to get this guy out of my room, I didn’t want to feel this kind of attraction for a person who might later try to stop me when I rescued the boys. I really hated how jealous I felt of Jett’s excited praise of anything this male did; he’d prattled about how awesome training was all evening.

Sunder had moved a little closer, stepping onto the threshold of my room, invading my space just a little. I refused to back up, so we were quite literally toe-to-toe. I had to tilt my head back to be able to look at his face. I had to tilt it back really far. He smirked down at me, “Tell me, Aggy, why are you here?”

Oh, shucks. Were they on to me? Was he here to figure out what I was up to? My heart wasn’t racing now, it felt like it was ready to burst from my chest. My hands went clammy, and my knees felt like trembling. Somehow, I held it together, tilting my chin at him, “None of your beeswax.”

That seemed to confuse him, because he frowned, his eyes growing big as he tried to decipher what I’d just said. I cringed when I realized that my habit of substituting any kind of swear word with something PG, meant that the translators didn’t always understand what I meant. I’d wanted to come off as firm, and not afraid, instead, I sounded like a lunatic.

Sticking out my hand, I shoved him in the chest, trying to get him to leave my room. To nobody’s surprise, that didn’t move him an inch, but it did shake him out of his confused look and he snapped out a hand to trap mine against his rock-hard body. “Tell me, Aggy. Why did you take this job?”

I felt heat burn up my arm at the contact, and for a brief, insane moment, I thought he was a good guy, trying to figure out if I was good too. Then I shook off the thought, yanked my hand back, and stuck my finger under his nose, “It pays the bills. Now leave, I have better things to do.”

Wagging my finger like that certainly always impressed my students, but it did nothing for the huge Tarkan. He smirked, possibly amused by my attempt to get him to leave, but there was an angry, frustrated glint in his gray eyes. A threatening set to the way he’d raised his wings, shifted his stance, a lion-like tail twitching in agitation around his legs.

Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving me a shaking, derailed mess. Well, that was not how I expected this evening to go. At least I’d managed to spend an extra hour with the boys, leaving them only when they had fallen asleep on the bunk in the back corner.

I locked my door tightly, not that that would keep anyone out if they really wanted to get in. Crawling into bed, I piled my own blankets high, shutting out the cold worry that tried to ice across my skin. These were worries for tomorrow, there was nothing I could do. The nights were too strictly regulated, with my access to many of the gates withdrawn. If we were to escape, it had to be soon, and it had to be during the day.

I didn’t think I’d get the opportunity, but somehow, luck was on our side that next day. After I’d given the boys some of my breakfast in the bunkroom, we arrived in the courtyard to discover that Uron was already sprawled out in one corner. He was passed out on the stone bench he preferred, with another of those foul-smelling bottles lying on the ground at his side. Sunder was not present, leaving us completely without supervision. How long would we have until he arrived?