Coldbloods (Hotbloods #2)

“How does she know? Does she know everything?” Navan pressed, as I returned, dabbing at the horrific wounds on Lazar’s face and torso. From the looks of it, something—or someone—had ripped him to shreds. Deep gashes lacerated his entire body, the skin torn off, hanging in ragged ribbons of dripping flesh.

Again, Lazar nodded. “Shifter was… caught… contacting Orion,” he said, before a wracking cough halted his speech. Blood bubbled up over his lower lip, trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“Where’s the shifter now?” Navan demanded, a cold look in his eyes.

“Tortured. Forced information from… him,” Lazar choked. “Then… they killed him. You… have to go… now.”

I looked at Navan, not knowing what to do. We couldn’t just leave Lazar here, to the mercy of the queen’s soldiers. My gaze turned toward the little pod ship, still bobbing outside the room. That was our way out.

“Lazar, you have to come with us,” I said, gesturing toward the vessel. “We can all get out of this.”

Lazar shook his head. “I will… stay, and fight… the queen’s guards. It will… buy you… time,” he replied firmly.

Navan took his uncle’s hand. “Look at you! You can’t stay and fight anyone in this condition. You’re coming with us.” He leaned down to lift Lazar’s arm over his shoulder, but Lazar pulled back with surprising strength.

“Take Riley… and go!” he demanded.

“We’re not leaving you,” I cut in.

Lazar turned to Navan, pulling his face down toward his. “If you… don’t leave now, without… me, you will never… get out of… here alive,” he warned. “If you want… her to live, you have… to go!”

Navan looked at me, his face a vision of torment. Neither of us felt right leaving Lazar here, but the threat of the soldiers loomed over us. Through the still-open door, I saw the lights on the elevator flash, and heard the telltale thud of boots coming up the stairs to the side of the landing. They were almost here.

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Navan said, running to the door. Just as the elevator pinged, he slammed the door shut and turned the lock, before returning for me. He grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the bobbing ship, pushing me out of the window onto the narrow ledge outside. He followed straight after, his hand reaching up for the side of the vessel.

With a whoosh, the back door slid open and a gangplank shot out. Behind us, I could hear someone breaking the door down. Every thud made my heart pound harder. Would we make it out in time? Glancing through the window, I saw Lazar rising from his chair, raising a gun to the door.

“Go!” Navan shouted, forcing me into action.

I leapt for the gangplank and hurried into the ship’s belly. Navan was close behind me, his hand slamming down on a button that shut the vessel’s door after us. Without pausing for breath, he headed for the pilot’s seat and brought the command console to life. It flickered and beeped, ready for his instruction.

As I sat down in the seat beside him, my ears still pricked for the sounds of a battle, he took hold of the controls and lifted the ship upward. It rose with a jolt, soaring into the air. Without looking back, though my thoughts were with Lazar and his last stand, we zipped across the landscape, the vessel moving at breakneck speed over familiar territory.

Just then, red lights began to flash, and a siren blared inside the ship. This pod wasn’t anywhere near as advanced as the Asterope, but they shared some technology. A translucent screen slipped across the windshield, the words Incoming Message blinking furiously.

“Do we answer it?” I asked, already fearing whose face I would see.

Reluctantly, Navan pressed another button on the console. After a crackle of white noise, an image appeared. Queen Gianne was staring right at us, her eerie silver eyes practically popping out of her head. Her cheeks were flushed an angry red, and a burning fury ignited her gaze. With her teeth bared, her fangs flashing, she leaned closer to the camera.

“I’m going to blast you out of the sky!” she screamed, the sound shattering my eardrums. “You won’t escape me, traitors! I will follow you to the ends of the universe if that’s what it takes! Nobody betrays me!”

Navan quickly shut off the transmission, but it was too late—the fear had already set in. The thing was, I believed every word of what she had said, and it chilled me to the core. Queen Gianne would not stop hunting us, and if she would not stop, then… my hopes of returning to Earth had become little more than a distant dream. If we went back to Earth now, Queen Gianne and her entire military force would follow us, putting my home planet in untold danger. I couldn’t risk that. Not to mention, we’d have to reach the Asterope first—this little pod wouldn’t go the distance.

The sound of splintering glass suddenly ricocheted in my ears, the windshield exploding inward in a hailstorm of glinting shards. I ducked as the debris rained down on me, while something much larger shot straight past my head. I covered my head with my arms, sliding down beneath the command console, praying for it to stop.

“Navan, get down!” I yelled, but he was still focused on getting the ship to move faster. We were sitting ducks out here.

A split second later, something blasted through the destroyed windshield, hitting Navan square in the shoulder. He cried out, clutching his arm. A crackling arrow had embedded into his skin, the point piercing clean through muscle and flesh. Blood poured from the wound, the bristle of the arrow’s electrical charge sending shocks through his body.

“Riley,” he gasped, nodding at the console.

I jumped up, knowing it was down to me now. Taking over the controls, I tried to remember the flight lessons I’d had in the Fed ship—it had been easy enough then, and this ship didn’t seem so different. It was small, with controls that responded in the same way. I tested it, seeing if the pod would rise with my instruction, while dodging the artillery flying through the window. To my utter relief, the ship shot up as I moved the controls.

Keeping focused, I moved the ship forward, accelerating quickly. I had thought about lifting the ship upward, toward the planet’s atmosphere, so we could punch through into the emptiness of space, but now we had a broken windshield—and in any case, I knew there was no point trying to leave the planet now. If the queen and her army were only going to follow us… that left only one option.

“We have to head north,” I told Navan, swerving the ship in the opposite direction and building up speed.

Grimacing through the agony in his arm, Navan looked up at me, an alarmed expression on his pained face. “North? We can’t go north!”

“We’re going north,” I replied firmly.

“That’s insane, Riley—we can’t go north,” he said, wincing. “The only thing waiting for us there is Queen Brisha.”