Chapter 7
(Thane)
My head was still groggy from being drugged, and my blood boiled that she had knocked us out. I scrubbed a hand down my face, remembering us all waking up on the floor, and it didn’t take long to work out what she’d done.
Ella’s flight path had been easy to follow as well since all our ships shared the same database. With a few taps to select her coordinates, her journey flicked up on my screen. But I didn’t need it to know exactly where she’d gone. To understand why she’d stooped so fucking low.
My heart had shattered at hearing her cries, and I felt like the worst person in the universe when we tore her away from her dad. It broke me, but her running from us like we were monsters wanting to hurt her, fucking hurt me.
Taking a deep breath, I recentered myself. I clenched my jawline but reminded myself why she did it.
Desperation to get her dad.
Instead of talking to us, she did the unthinkable.
Guilt chewed on my insides because I should have guessed she’d do something stupid.
“How in the hell’s galaxies does she know how to fly a ship?” Derrial hissed, his words clipped and sharp. He flopped in the front passenger seat near me.
“Give her credit. She’s been watching everything we do, teaching herself, learning. And desperation does funny things to people. Thing is...” Corran said from the back where he attempted to make contact with her ship, apparently, not only had she learned to fly a space cruiser, but she had also learned how to switch off the comms. “The ship practically flies itself if she selects the last destination we flew to. I told her so myself when she suddenly seemed interested in how to fly the ship. I should have suspected something then.”
“Yeah well, hurry up and get us there already,” Derrial growled my way. Fuck, he had a temper on him, but we were all just as tense.
The faint vibration of the ship thrummed under us, and we lifted off. I wasted no time and hurled us forward.
“Well, I can’t get ahold of her,” Corran hissed. “I’ve initiated the comms destabilizer. Better no one detects us since we have everyone after us.”
Derrial ran a hand down his face and huffed loudly, his knees bouncing.
All I could do was focus on flying, avoid heavily populated air space, and pray to the universe Ella hadn’t been captured by the Council or the Khonsu.
Flashes of Ella filled my mind, her bending over in the forest, me ravishing her, seeing her naked out in public had me burning up. I wanted so much more time to really show her pleasure, and how I could make her scream with arousal. The memories in my mind were uncontrollable, repeating over and over until they drove me insane.
Her scent still clung in my nose, and her moans echoed in my ears as I thrust into her over and over.
Life taught me to never get too close to anyone, to not believe in deep relationships that lasted. My past partners never worked out. We ended up in arguments, with differences, and it was easier to walk away. Always easier to walk away. But this was different with Ella. She’d somehow crawled under my skin and now I’d lost myself with a human woman when so many odds were stacked against us. I refused to let myself think of the future when we’d be lucky to survive today.
Focus on the here and now.
Save her.
Get to a safe place for all of us.
Everything else could wait for later.
“What if she’s captured?” Corran asked, his voice pensive.
“Then we go and rescue her, we do whatever the fuck we need to until she’s with us and safe. That’s what we’ll do.” Derrial didn’t move but kept his attention out the front window as he spoke.
“How far are we from reaching her?” Derrial barked.
“Five minutes tops.”
“Make it two.”
Silence suffocated us, and we cut through the sky, the reflective shields up, masking us, meaning to anyone looking toward us, they’d only see the sky, the charcoal clouds promising a storm.
As we finally cruised over the landscape of the Khonsu’s territory, I spotted our other black cruiser down amid the woods, finding no sign of Ella.