Page 51 of Relyn
“I refuse to cater to the morals of the Mahdfel. We will reach our destination in a day or two. Until then, you will remain here,” Alana said as she stood and stared down at Nora. She seemed to enjoy the height advantage. Nora let her have it and remained seated until Alana exited and closed the door behind her.
Then she headed to the door, just to check. Yup. It was locked from the outside.
Chapter 22
Relyn
“Where’s Wendy?” Bright said immediately after they closed the hatch.
“Where’s Wendy? Where’s Wendy? What about where the fuck is Nora!? What the fuck were you thinking?” Relyn shouted, approaching Bright. He wasn’t considering pushing her out the airlock just yet, but he was nearly pissed enough to.
“I didn’t think that Alana would be on that ship! She knows better than to hurt Nora. The real question is what in that crate is so precious to her that she wants it so badly.”
“You are going to get us all killed. She would have killed Grom if she’d have seen him, and you would have let her,” Relyn growled. “I told you to hand off the information to a Mahdfel ship. You didn’t even contact them, did you?”
“They would have just gotten in the way,” Bright said as she walked away from him. Relyn followed. This conversation was not over. “Had I known that Alana was going to be on that ship, I wouldn’t have tried to make contact. I thought it was just goingto be a quick handshake and an exchange of some booze for information.”
“You never told me she was Etlonian,” Relyn said.
“You never asked. It doesn’t make any difference, does it?”
Nearly all the Etlonian female that were left were all Mahdfel mothers. In fact, he couldn’t think of one that was not either a mate or a widow. They were the last of their species and there would be no new generations that were not Mahdfel.
“Nora will be fine,” Bright repeated as she settled into the pilot’s chair.
“As long as we figure out how to board a heavily armed ship and steal a crate from the Captain’s quarters,” Relyn said.
“You know where it is? That makes it easier.”
“The moment we step on that ship without Alana, one of us is going to die. It will probably be you,” Relyn said. Bright remained silent as she put some distance between them and the Adrastian ship.
“You know the coordinates?” Relyn asked.
“And the transponder code. In order to find him, he’ll be able to see us coming from an hour away.”
Relyn was going to have to think about this. But he too was beginning to wonder where Wendy was.
His first stop was Grom’s quarters. He punched in the door code and called in the all clear.
A ceiling panel popped open and a form way too big to be Grom’s mass alone slid down until it hit the ground and then began separating into two. Grom had pulled Wendy up into a panel to hide her somewhere she never could have managed to get to on her own. It was rather ingenious.
“You did well,” Relyn said. “Unfortunately Bright did not. Nora is going to be held in exchange for,” he looked at Grom and sighed, “the crate inside Rutra’s quarters. Alana wants it back.”
“You are going to double cross my uncle,” Grom stated simply.
“Your uncle is an ass,” Wendy said. “Clearly, this Alana wants nothing to do with him. Why the hell is he so obsessed?”
“She took everything from him,” Grom said.
“Everything? His ship? His crew? His money? All those fancy objects he’s got displayed in his quarters? What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Grom said as he paused to think. “She took, she took-”
“His pride? His honor? She hurt his feelings?” Wendy asked.
“Yes,” Grom said.
“He needs to get over himself and move on. She’s not going to go back to him, not after all of this. Any man that goes after a woman, expecting her to come back needs to have his head examined.”
