“Still,” she said, and rested a hand over his, stopping his fidgeting with the rock, “we won’t figure this out tonight. You’re having every single one of your men screened right now, right? And Tilda said she sent most of the staff home, so … the suspect list has dwindled down considerably. If there’s a traitor still here, someone Lura didn’t know about, you’ll find him.”
He smiled at her, lifting her hand up to plant a kiss across her knuckles. Then he stood and tugged her up with him, catching her around the waist and spinning them dramatically until her laughter filled the cavernous room.
“Did you want to go for a swim?” he asked once he’d placed her back on her feet, tilting his chin over her shoulder toward the water.
“No.” She shook her head. “Let’s go back to your room. I’m tired of being out in the open, and I want to kiss you again.”
CHAPTER 24
“Delaney, wake up!” Ruckus was shaking her roughly, and she groaned. “Wake up now!”
Coming out of sleep, she bolted into an upright position, instantly recalling the last time he’d woken her like that. Wide eyed, she scanned his bedroom, noting that they were alone. When she listened for the sounds of bombing, there were none, and her fear started to ebb into confusion.
She hadn’t even meant to fall asleep, not when this was supposed to be their last night together, so she couldn’t have been out very long at all.
“What’s going on?” she asked, watching as he scrambled toward the leather chair in the corner, where a large black duffel bag was resting. It was already mostly filled, and he shoved in a couple more clothing items as he spoke.
“We need to leave the castle,” he told her hurriedly. “Now. Quickly, get dressed.”
She glanced down at the large shirt she’d fallen asleep in only a few hours ago, a bit of the sleep haze still fogging her brain. The frantic way he moved, so different from the lazy way he’d been before she’d fallen asleep, caused her chest to constrict.
Outside, the sky was still dark and foreboding.
“Is it time already?”
“Olena’s ship has been discovered. No one was supposed to be monitoring the atmosphere, but somehow one of the Zane’s men got in. Change of plan. We need to go now.”
The upside to dresses was they were easy to put on, so she was ready within a minute, and stepped out of the closet in time to have him thrust his hand toward her. There was sweat already beading at his brow, and his mouth was pinched into a tight line.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, taking his hand.
“The Kints are trying to board Olena’s ship.” He rushed out, yanking her forward so she was forced to fall into step at his side as he moved them into the hall and headed right. “The Basileus is stalling. Won’t let any of them into our airspace.”
Seeing as how he knew his daughter was on that spaceship, that made sense.
“We should be fine then, right?” There weren’t many Kints here in Vakar, only two dozen or so having been sent with Trystan in order to help protect him. Olena’s ship was over the Vakar territory of the planet, so it wasn’t like the Rex could order his men to travel there and delay her.
He wouldn’t have a reason to, anyway. They had no way of knowing who was really up there.
“Trystan is missing.”
“What?” Okay, that could be a problem.
“We have Tellers searching, including some of his own people.”
“Yeah, a lot of good they’ll be,” she said, and grunted. “Bet they know exactly where he is, and what he’s up to.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Our best chance is slipping away unnoticed and meeting up with Olena’s ship in space instead. I’ve got Pettus and my pilot, Fawna, preparing the ship as we speak. Hopefully they’ll have her up and running once we get there. We’ll have to go fast, before the Kints realize what we’re doing or who’s on board.”
This wasn’t good. They’d had it all planned out before; making the switch would have been simple, but this … If the Kints were trying to find a way up, it meant they were congregating around the hangar. The matter was only made worse when she started thinking up all the reasons they could want to meet that spaceship so badly.
Ruckus glanced around a corner and then swore under his breath, pulling back quickly. “It’s Brightan.”
“He must be looking for Trystan down here,” she surmised.
“We’ve got to go another way.” He started for a narrower hallway across from them.
Delaney started to follow, but in the next instant a body slammed into her from behind, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Her head smacked against the floor, ears ringing as her vision blurred.
She wavered a bit as she got to her feet, and needed to brace herself against a wall. When she glanced up, it was to find four Kint soldiers surrounding them.
Ruckus slipped a knife from his boot, holding it at the ready.
A bunch of murdered Kints probably wasn’t the best way to go, but it wasn’t like there was a choice. Delaney wondered if they were even really Kint soldiers, or if they were actually Tars in disguise.
Springing forward, she used her entire body to slam into one of the four Kints. He didn’t fall, but it was enough to have him smack into the wall face-first. Before he could recover, she kicked his feet out from under him, bringing her heel down against his head once he’d hit the ground.
One of the others was already pulling her back, and she brought her elbow up, snapping his nose.
A blond soldier punched her across the jaw, and her head whipped to the side. The sting was immediate and harsh, turning to a burn that had her tongue feeling three times its normal size. And her anger growing just as much.
“Delaney, we have to get out of here! Pettus says Kints are closing in on the hangar!” Ruckus’s frantic voice filtered through her mind, momentarily distracting her.
A Kint had a knife out as well, and he slashed forward, almost nicking her right arm. She pulled back just in time, barely avoiding the curve of the blade. He came forward again, and this time she would have been too slow if not for Ruckus.
The whizzing sound of his fritz going off filled the air, and before the Kint could gut her, the shot hit the back of his head.
Bits of blood and gore splattered across the width of the hallway, hitting both walls and even leaving tiny droplets on the front of her dress. For a second, she stood frozen, unable to take her eyes off the slumped, headless body at her feet.
Ruckus’s voice pulled her out of it, and she turned to find that he’d given in and shot the other three Kints as well.
“They’ll know it was you,” she said, a new kind of fear gripping her. They could track the weapons.
“It doesn’t matter.” He reached for her hand once more. “We have to get going. If we don’t hurry, they’ll have blocked off all the entrances.”
“Why are they doing this?” Did they assume that Olena was trying to escape for some reason? Why? What would have given them that idea? “Do you think they were Tars? They looked like—”