Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
V wanted to tell her she didn’t have to do that—that she could never be in his way when he only wanted to hold her and touch her and love her. But he swallowed the words and kept his face blank.
“We’ll place the call right after Last Meal,” he said.
“Why wait?” Penelope put down her spoon. “I’m not hungry anymore. Let’s make the call now.”
“Fine.” V put down his own spoon as well and rose from the table. He made a sweeping gesture towards the front of the ship, where the communications array and viewscreen were located. “After you.”
“Thank you.” And she swept past him, leaving a feeling as cold as ice in her wake.
Ninety-Five
“Oh, Penny! We’re so glad to hear from you!” Kat exclaimed, the minute she appeared on the viewscreen. “Where are you? We were expecting some kind of communication from you and Commander Rive and Y’lla ages ago but there’s been nothing. Have you been trying and you just couldn’t get through because of all the subspace distortions and temporal anomalies?”
“Well…not exactly.”
Penny wasn’t exactly sure how to explain everything that had happened to her in the time since she’d last seen her friend. It was too much to go into—too overwhelming. But she could give Kat the basics.
“Commander Rive and Y’lla are stuck in a slow time-suck—I mean, a temporal anomaly,” she said. “I barely escaped from it myself.”
“Oh, no!” Kat looked stricken. “That’s terrible.”
“Well, they got stuck together at least,” Penny offered, trying to make her feel better. Literally, she thought, remembering how her shipmates had been in the middle of making loud and exuberant love right before they’d been caught in the time-suck. “But I’m afraid they’re probably not coming back any time soon,” she added. “So I’m kind of on my own out here.”
“I hate to ask, but did you guys recover the Eye of Ten’gu before they got stuck?” Kat asked. “I know that sounds insensitive but Nadiah just had another vision and the Goddess told her it was urgent that we recover it. Sylvan is afraid someone else is moving in on it.”
“I’m afraid not.” Penny felt awful, like she was falling down on the job. Here she had been specially hired for this particular mission that the Kindred considered extremely important and she had failed to even get to the planet where the dig was supposed to happen!
Also, she didn’t discount what Kat said about the Kindred Goddess as she had back at the beginning of her mission. After hearing the warm, comforting female voice that bolstered her spirits back at the Compound, Penny was no longer quite so agnostic as she had been before. So if the Goddess said something bad was about to happen if they didn’t get the artifact quickly, she believed it was so.
But what could she do?
“I’m afraid you’ll have to send another team to meet me here,” she said to Kat apologetically. “The whole ship is engulfed in the time bubble and from what I heard from the, uh, natives of Hell’s Gate, it’s probably not going to move out anytime soon. So I have no way to get to Yown Beta and find the Eye of Ten’gu.”
“Yes, you do.” V’rex was suddenly there, sliding into the captain’s chair beside her, though he had promised to give her privacy for the call.
“V’rex!” Penny exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“V’rex?” There was alarm in Kat’s blue eyes as she stared through the viewscreen at the huge Hybrid. “Penny, I warned you about him!”
“I know, I know,” Penny said quickly. “And I didn’t go looking for him—I promise. It’s just that the two of us both got captured by the same cult and then we were put together in the Unification Ceremony as Forever Mates and we had to pretend to be a couple until we escaped or we would have been recycled. We’re not together now—I’m just staying on V’rex’s ship until you can send another team to help me recover the Eye because I have nowhere else to stay in Hell’s Gate.”
“My goodness…” Kat blinked, clearly overcome by the rush of information. “It sounds like you’ve been having all kinds of adventures.”
“If being captured by a cult of NeverBreeders and their ‘Glorious Leader’ and then running for our lives through the fucking Deadly Jungle is your idea of an adventure, then yes. Yes we have,” growled V’rex. “But it was no fucking fun—I can tell you that.” He looked at Penny. “Well, most of it wasn’t, anyway.”
Penny felt her cheeks getting hot but she refused to acknowledge the big Hybrid’s allusion to the sexual relationship they’d had at the Compound.
“Anyway, as I said, we escaped and now I’m in V’rex’s ship at the far end of Hell’s Gate Station,” she said to Kat. “I’m sorry I can’t go get the artifact for you, but if you’ll send another team—”