But when she swings back around to face me, I’ve got nothing. So I just rub a hand over my face and say, “Go to bed, Princess.”
“Already on it.”
I watch as she sways over to the door, banging into every obstacle on the way. My turn to sigh—she’s a problem I don’t need right now. I have to focus on finding Milla. I can’t let anything distract me from that.
“Here, Kali, wait up.” Max springs to his feet, briefly interrupting Rain and Gage’s noisy chorus. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
“What the fuck?” I demand.
He holds an arm out to her. “One of us needs to be chivalrous, and it’s obviously not going to be you.”
“Thank you,” she says, looping her arm through his after untangling herself from a chair.
“I’ll come with you,” Gage says, climbing off the floor as well. He shepherds Rain and Merrick down the corridor toward the cabins, though I notice Merrick takes the bottle with him.
I watch them go, and then I’m alone on the bridge. Exactly as I like it. For a second, I imagine what would happen if I was the one walking Kali to her room instead of Max. Not that I’d let anything serious happen when she’s drunk, but if she wanted to kiss me one more time, I wouldn’t say no. Which is exactly why I didn’t offer to walk her. Neither of us is completely in our right minds tonight.
The only problem is, I’m not sure I’ve been in my right mind since I saw her. It sure as shit doesn’t feel like it.
One more reason it’s for the best that I didn’t walk her to her room.
Fuck it. I’m not going to think about this—about her—anymore. Nothing good will come of it. Nothing good is going to come of getting too close to a woman who comes with a death penalty attached.
Chapter 27
Ian
I wake up sprawled on the floor several hours later with a crick in my neck and a raging hard-on.
Which makes me think of the princess. And that kiss. Or kisses, as she reminded me last night. Neither of which is ever going to be repeated.
She’d be way too much trouble. Fuck—truth be told, she already is.
Not to mention there might be some tough decisions to make in the not-too-distant future, and I don’t want my judgment clouded by sex. Which means hands—and everything else—off the princess.
So, it looks like it’s just me and my hand. Again.
I ignore the disappointment niggling at the back of my mind as I push myself up. My mouth tastes revolting, but then, too much cheap gerjgin has a way of doing that to a person. It was worth it, though, just to see the princess all pink-cheeked and loose-lipped. Especially in that silver outfit I bought her.
Talk about hot.
But thinking about that—about her—isn’t going to make my problem any better, so I shove her out of my mind and prepare to start the day.
“You’re awake,” a voice says from above me. I squint up at whoever it is. Shit, who made that light so fucking bright?
“I thought you were dead,” the voice adds. “So I kicked you—sorry—but I wanted to be sure.”
My scrambled brain finally puts the voice with the image my aching eyes are seeing in the pilot’s chair. Beckett. Because going a round with her is exactly what I want to do when I’m too hungover to hold my own.
“No worries. Never felt a thing,” I tell her in an effort to keep things amicable. “Did you want me for something?”
“Not moving,” she answers.
I realize she’s right. The ship is stationary. What the fuck?
I push to my feet and stumble over to the captain’s chair. “Do we know why?”
She points to the screen to her left. A woman of few words, Beckett is.
But the screen shows an external view of the ship—exactly what I need to see. Because the Starlight has grown…wings?
I check the other side of the ship, and it’s the same—two more wings coming off at angles that must make her look like a star now. I peer at them a little closer, and it’s a testament to just how much alcohol I had last night that it takes me a full sixty seconds to realize they aren’t wings. At least not for flying.
The Starlight has angled herself toward the sun. Which means they’re actually… “Retractable solar wings,” I murmur. “She’s powering up.”
“Yep,” Beckett agrees.
Make that very few words.
At least now we know what’s powering her—I’ve been wondering that since the first day. But how the hell long is this going to take? I’m guessing a long time, which fucking sucks, but spaceships use a fuckload of energy.
I scrub a hand over my face and try to get the last of my wits about me. “I’m going to rinse off real quick. Let me know if anything—”
I stop talking as a beam of light shoots from the sun straight at us, momentarily blinding me.
“Fuck!” Another goddamn solar flare. And I’m pretty sure this time we’re the ones who are about to go up in flames.
Except…several seconds pass and nothing happens. What the fuck?
I squint at the screen to avoid burning my eyes out. Looks like the beam has narrowed to about two meters and takes turns hitting the center of each wing for a few seconds apiece. Then, as quickly as it began, it’s over. The wings are drawn in, the engine starts, and we’re moving once more.
Beckett grins.
“Fucking cool,” I say, because it is. Alien technology sure is a piece of work.
Since we’re back on course, I find the nearest bathroom and shove my head under the tap. At least we’ve got water again, so yesterday’s trip wasn’t a total clusterfuck.
I grab a towel and scrub the water from my hair. I want coffee, but I have no clue how anything in the galley functions and my brain isn’t up to working it out just yet. I’ll get there. In the meantime…
“Max?”
“What? I’m sleeping.”
“Kick Gage awake, will you? Tell him to get that amazing mind he’s always telling us about but we never actually see working on how to make me a cup of coffee.” Gage might be a lazy bastard, but he did manage to make dinner last night. He’s gotta know his way around the galley by now.
“You woke me up to tell me that? Do it yourself.”
“Don’t make me beg.”
Max heaves a long-suffering sigh.
I grin. Mission fucking accomplished.
I fill a glass with water from the purifier and head back to the bridge. The place is a goddamn mess. Empty bottles and food cartons litter the floor. Someone needs to clean up around here.
Since Beckett is busy scrolling through the Starlight’s screens, it looks like the job falls to me. A captain’s work is never done. Especially since we also need to decide what to do next—and discuss the little matter that someone has offered a lot of money for us all and they don’t care if we’re dead or alive.
What’s with that, anyway? I ponder as I shove all the dirty dishes and empty gerjgin bottles back in the box they were carried here in. Not a perfect fix, but at least it no longer looks like someone went on a three-day bender in here.
As I bend down to pick up yet another pile of used plates, I notice a small bag of brightly colored items discarded near them. What do we have here? The bag is full of bean-like things in all the colors of Askkandia. Looks like some kind of kid’s treat. Certainly nothing I ever ate before growing up. Figuring this is my reward for cleaning up those ungrateful assholes’ mess, I pocket the candy.