ACROSS STARS AND BLOOD (The Malaki Series Book 1)

by L. A. MARIE

  I was going to lose my sister.

  I was too late.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thane

  I heard Emori shouting in the room. When she emerged a short while later, she looked distraught. She was pale, her eyes sunken. It had only been a short while since I had seen her last, but she looked run down, as if suddenly she hadn’t slept in days.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, and kicked myself for caring enough to ask at all.

  “My sister is dying,” she said in a hoarse voice. Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t lose my sister.”

  I didn’t say anything. I knew death all too well. It was a bitch.

  “Please, take me home,” Emori whispered.

  “I can’t do that,” I said. I’d known she would ask again.

  Anger filled her features. She was beautiful when she was angry. I hated that I thought that.

  “How can you be so cruel?” she spat. “How can you force me to lose my sister? This is in your hands, you know. And you’re choosing to let her die. It’s like you’re killing her.”

  “I’ve killed a lot of people,” I said with a shrug.

  She gasped. “And you’re okay with that?”

  I glanced at her. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I’m doing you a favor.”

  “How?” she asked. She was emotional, she wouldn’t understand. But I was going to try explaining it, anyway.

  “If you have no one, you can’t get hurt. It’s just you against the world, then. No one to look out for, no one to hold you back. No weaknesses.”

  “Is that what you think it is? Loving someone, caring for someone, is a weakness?”

  “It cripples you. Look at you, a blubbering mess because of someone else. If they’re all gone, you can move forward without worry, you can do what you need to without emotions holding you back.”

  Emori pursed her lips together, her eyes blazing through her tears.

  “That’s what you do, right? You push everyone away, thinking that it makes you strong? Well, all I see when I look at you is a coward.”

  A coward? I was so surprised at the accusation I forgot to be angry about it.

  “Yes, you heard that right. A coward. You’re so damn scared of love, you convinced yourself that you are better off alone. Well, that’s pathetic.”

  She was so angry with me. And I guess she had a right to be. But that was her problem, not mine. I had other things to worry about.

  The moment I thought it, alarms and red flashing lights went off.

  Emori shrunk into her chair, looking around, frightened.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “They found us,” I said.

  Glee washed over me. This was what I had been waiting for. What I needed. A fight was just wanted I’d wanted all this time to take the edge off. And not the ridiculous fights with this human that confused the fuck out of my emotions. A real fight.

  We were surrounded by ships. My father’s ships.

  And we were minutes away from the jump spot.

  “Strap in,” I told her. I scolded myself for giving a shit, and liked it at the same time that she had listened to me.

  I powered up the blasters. This was going to be a hell of a ride.

  I aimed at the ships. There were so many of them, it was a challenge for a change. I fired, missing.

  “Shit,” I cursed and aimed again.

  The second time, I took one ship out. It started smoking, spinning out of control, crashing into another. Since we were in space, there wasn’t much of a dramatic aftermath. They didn’t fall away. One of them did explode a moment later, though.

  And that made me feel downright warm and fuzzy.

  “There’s too many of them!” Emori shouted.

  “Shut up,” I barked.

  But she was right. There was a hell of a lot of ships, and they seemed to be multiplying by the minute.

  “Hold on,” I said, and I kicked the ship up into hyperdrive. “We’re jumping in a few.”

  “What!?” Emori cried out.

  I had no time to explain it to her.

  I pushed the ship toward the jump spot. This was it, the last leg home. The other crafts fired at us and I had to maneuver to get away from them. One of the blaster canons grazed the side of our ship but the damage was minimal. When I shot back, I took the ship out.

  It exploded right in front of three others and created enough of a distraction for me to make the jump. I hit the button that would send us flying through space at a speed that would technically pull our molecules apart and rebuild them again on the other side, it was so intense. I had just a moment to strap myself in, too. I did it just in time before we went into hyperjump.

  I felt like I was being scrambled, like eggs in a pan. My head hurt like a bitch and I couldn’t breathe. We had done it too quickly, haphazardly, I hadn’t prepared the ship correctly. But there hadn’t been time. Next to me, Emori was crying out, too. I glanced at her, her body just a blur of colors.

  Three, two, one, I counted to myself. And our ship stabilized again, the pain stopped, and we were both breathing hard. Emori clutched onto her armrests and I touched the Noether in my chest, making sure everything was where it was supposed to be.

  “There it is,” I said, pointing.

  Not too far off, the red planet of Nolmilea lay peacefully along the Almar Stretch of stars.

  “What is it?” Emori asked. She looked exhausted.

  “Home.”

  Emori shook her head. I put the ship in gear, and we moved forward, toward the planet I had last seen almost a decade ago. I couldn’t wait to put my feet on the red Nolmilean soil, breathe the sweet air.

  Suddenly, two, three, four of my father’s ships appeared behind us. Shit, shit, shit! They had used the jump spot, too. Their ships hadn’t been equipped for the hyperjump; they shouldn’t have made it at all.

  But there they were, after me.

  They fired at us again, not wasting any time.

  I tried firing back again, but I had more chance of getting through this if I headed to Nolmilea. So, I threw the ship forward, heading there as fast as I could.

  Next to me, Emori looked anxious. She was holding onto her seat in fear and her eyes were wide, bouncing from the window to the monitors before me back to the window.

  “I can’t go to another planet,” she muttered softly.

  Well, she had no choice. And if it really came down to it, she was my ticket out.

  The moment I thought it, I felt guilty. Handing her over for my own freedom seemed low after what we’d done together, even for me. But fuck if I was going to sacrifice my own freedom for the human female. No, thank you. A peace offering was exactly what I needed, something to get the soldiers off my case.

  We reached the planet, sinking into the atmosphere. The airspace was bustling with craft traffic, Malakus going back and forth between home and work, running errands. It was a normal day on the planet.

  I aimed for the closest city I could find and descended to the ground, finding a landing space.

  The other ships were on my tail, landing the same time I did.

  “Come,” I commanded. “We’re fighting our way out.”

  “What?” Emori asked. It seemed to be all she could say. Her voice was small, she was terrified. I tried not to think how much more scared she would be when I handed her over to the soldiers. I tried not to feel guilty about it.

  The moment I opened the door, the fight broke out. There were ten of them, bubbling out of the other ships, coming at me with weapons. I started fighting them, using the strength the Noether afforded me.

  Telekinesis to throw the fuckers away from me, strength to punch them so hard their necks snapped, the gift of prediction to know when they were going to take me out.

  But even with the strength the Noether afforded, there were too many of them and I was in trouble.

  It was now or never.

  “I have a human female,” I said, grabbed Emori by the
arm. She had been cowering against the ship while I’d fought.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “She has a stolen Noether.”

  The guards hesitated. They couldn’t see the one I was wearing underneath my shirt.

  “What!?” Emori cried out. “You’re selling me out?”

  “Here,” I said, yanking her bag off her shoulder and throwing it toward the guards. They opened the bag and found her Noether. I shoved her toward them just after they saw it, and they seized her.

  “It’s what you were looking for, now be on your way,” I said.

  The guards looked unsure, talked to each other for a moment, and nodded.

  “No!” Emori shouted, looking at me. The look on her face damn near broke me. But I had to get away and she was my ticket out. I wasn’t going to hold onto her because of something I felt.

  Feelings were just going to get me in trouble. What I’d said to her was true – if you had no one, you didn’t have anything to worry about.

  As they dragged her away, her eyes locked onto mine, and in them I saw pain and sorrow, fear and betrayal.

  I looked away. I couldn’t bare to watch. She cried out, but I ignored it. I watched as the guards climbed into their ships and lifted into the air, flying away, rising higher and higher until they were mere dots in the sky.

  I turned around and started walking away, touching the Noether on my chest, proud of myself for what I’d achieved. What I needed to do now was find someone who would buy this thing from me, so that I could start living the rest of my life in freedom.

  Emori’s face flashed before me without warning, and I saw her pained expression again, the shock and hurt of betrayal. A pain shot into my chest unlike anything I’d ever felt before. And no matter how much I told myself I’d done the right, thing, I just couldn’t seem to get rid of it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emori

  They were all over me, gripping my arms like manacles, holding onto me so tightly, like they were scared I was going to break free and run.

  I had thought of that a few times, to be fair.

  But where the hell would I run to? I was a human on a planet in a different galaxy. I was on a planet populated by aliens. I was the only human here, as far as I knew. There was nowhere for me to go.

  Even if I could have gone somewhere. Which I couldn’t because they were dragging me back to one of their ships. Thane had made sure of that.

  I tasted my heart in my throat. Fear clawed at me. I struggled to breathe. Thane had handed me over to the guards, outing me, telling them about the Noether I had stolen. As if I meant nothing to him.

  They shoved me into one of the ships. I nearly stumbled, but they shoved me again and I fell. My hands slammed into the ground and I cried out.

  “Up!” the guard shouted and poked at me with his toe, digging into my ribs. I got to my feet and he shoved me again.

  “I can walk!” I cried out.

  But they didn’t care. They frog marched me to a cubicle and locked me up. The cubicle consisted of some strange material, like glass. When I pushed my hands against it, though, I knew it wasn’t glass. It adopted my body heat, warming up almost immediately so that I could barely feel it.

  The guard walked away. I kicked the see-through material, trying to break it, but it seemed impenetrable. When I kicked it, the guard spun around, eyes filled with fury, lips pulled back to bare his teeth. He slammed a fist into the partition so hard, the whole ship shuddered. I jumped back, terrified.

  The partition didn’t break.

  Yeah, I wasn’t getting out of here.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “You’re going to prison, where you belong,” the guard said.

  “Where?”

  “We’re not putting up with your kind in our prisons,” he said. “You don’t deserve that.” He said it with disdain on his face. I hoped that it meant we were going back to Earth. If I was on the same planet as my sister, at least, it made things simpler.

  The ship rumbled beneath me and I stepped back until my back was against the wall. I sank down to the ground and hugged my knees to my chest, closing my eyes.

  Thane’s face flashed before me immediately. I didn’t want to think about him, but I couldn’t help myself. He had looked so indifferent when he’d handed me over to the guards. He had sold me out, he’d told them of my crime, so that they would leave him alone.

  Although the Noether I had, had nothing to do with him. And it wasn’t what they were after, was it?

  The guards had taken my bag. I would have studied the Noether I had stolen, if I had been able to. The Noether Thane had had in his chest had been nothing like this one I’d stolen. It looked the same, but it was so much more advanced. I wasn’t the person they had followed all the way to another Galaxy. They had been after him.

  But they believed that what he had given them was what they wanted.

  They were all wrong, I was sure.

  “Hey!” I shouted, crawling to the clear partition that held me in, banging against it with my fist. “Hey!”

  The guard looked up from his seat and narrowed his eyes at me.

  “You’ve got the wrong device! The one you took from me isn’t the one you’re after. Thane still has the one you want.”

  “Quiet, vermin!” The guard bellowed.

  I huffed. “He’s still out there with the Noether,” I said. “You can call me whatever you want, but do you really think he would have given up so easily?”

  “I said quiet!” The guard shouted, jumping up and marching to me with long strides and a threatening look on his face. I moved away from the partition a little. He glared at me and I kept my mouth shut.

  They weren’t going to listen to me. They thought Thane had given them exactly what they had come for.

  But all he had given them was me.

  I sat back down again, curling up against the wall as I had before, and shuddered.

  He’d given me up. Just like that. He’d decided I wasn’t worth his time, and he’d gotten rid of me, used me to gain his own freedom.

  I was a fool to have thought that he would do anything else. I didn’t know why I thought he cared about me.

  Maybe it was because he’d touched me in a way that had made me feel worth it. When I’d been with him, naked and vulnerable, he’d made me feel like I mattered.

  It had all been a lie, though. He’d only gotten from me what he wanted. He didn’t care about me. He didn’t care about anyone. He’d said that to me almost in so many words, telling me how if you didn’t have anyone, you couldn’t get hurt. How could I have thought that he would care about me at all if that was how he saw the universe? Thane was selfish and cruel, and cared for nothing but himself.

  To think anything else had been foolish of me.

  The ship rumbled beneath me as we lifted into the air. I had no windows to look out of to see the planet shrink beneath us. I didn’t need to. I didn’t want to see the planet, I didn’t care.

  I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes.

  “Prepare for hyperjump,” I heard one of the aliens say.

  I braced myself. When we jumped here, it had been painful as all hell. I had felt like I was being ripped apart.

  But it wasn’t the same. This time, when we jumped, I barely felt it. I felt like I sank into a deep sleep, but not quite. I lost all track of time. I felt stuck in a dream world.

  “Naira?” I asked, incredulous. My sister lay on the floor. We were caught in a white room, and all I could see was my sister, lying on the floor with all the nothingness wrapped around us. “Naira!” I shouted.

  I tried to get to her, but I couldn’t reach her. I strained and pushed and pulled and tried to fight against whatever invisible force field was keeping me from her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get to her. She lay on the floor, not responding to me, and I couldn’t get to her.

  Suddenly, Thane appeared. He looked at me with a blank expressio
n.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I hissed at him.

  He didn’t answer me, just looked at me with that same expression, the expression he’d worn when he’d handed me over to the guards. The expression I was sure he wore no matter what happened in life because he was a heartless son of a bitch who didn’t give a shit about anyone other than himself.

  I opened my eyes, blinking into the dim light in the cubicle I lay in. I was still on the Malaki ship, I realized. Had I been dreaming? How long had I been out?

  “Prepare for landing,” one of the guards said.

  These guys prepared for everything. I hadn’t once heard Thane say things like that.

  I craned my neck to see out of the far window. I saw blue skies and one or two buildings as we lowered to the ground, which suggested we were on Earth again. Thank God. But that didn’t mean anything – we could be in Europe, for all I knew. How the hell would I get back to Naira then?

  I would find a way. I would always find a way.

  The guard who had shoved me around so much came to my cubicle and let me out. He cuffed my hands this time, which he hadn’t done before. I guess, this time, I did have somewhere to run. And they weren’t going to let me get away.

  Dammit, I had to figure out what I was going to do. The moment I knew where we were, I could start planning.

  The door to the ship opened and they frog marched me down the short ramp that led to concrete. I looked around.

  The city skyline in the near distance was familiar. Phoenix! Or whatever. I was back home!

  I let out a cry. When I looked up at the guard, he frowned at me. But screw him and his confusion, I didn’t care. I was home. If I could escape now, I could get to Naira in no time at all.

  Without the Neother, I realized dejectedly. But at least I would be with my sister again.

  I hoped to God it wasn’t too late.

  They took me to a large house, and I recognized it from pictures that had been on the news more often than not. It was the Elder House of Dacoi, where Enach ruled from. He had chosen to settle here, rather than in Washington where the Malaki had dethroned our president and taken over the White House. I had no idea what they did there now if Enach was here.