“I’m fine, just wanted to… say ye looked decent today. Yer clothes are nice and that,” he murmured. “Ah, forget it.” He wandered over to the controls, where Bashrik was looking up at him with doe eyes.
I’d expected Xiphio to look pleased, considering Stone had just embarrassed himself in front of Lauren, but he didn’t seem particularly victorious. Instead, he looked sympathetic, as though he understood the difficulties of courtship. It didn’t stop him from resuming his conversation with Lauren. They’d been talking about books she liked, and he had been describing some of his favorites to her.
“What’re ye doing over here?” Stone asked, plonking himself down in one of the chairs closest to the controls. He kept casting glances at Lauren and Xiphio, who were chuckling together, enveloped in their own little world.
“We’ve been running some diagnostics through the system to find out what happened to the navigation program. I’ve been running every possible scenario, if you want to come and have a look,” Bashrik replied eagerly, gesturing at the monitor. “I know you’re great with ships of all kinds, so we could definitely do with your input.”
Stone leaned forward in his chair. “What kind o’ diagnostics you runnin’?”
“General sweeps of the system.”
Stone shook his head. “Nah, ye need to be more specific. Ye’ll not get anywhere with general sweeps. Ye gotta go to the root of the problem.” He moved closer, with Bashrik shifting to the side so Stone could get at the controls. His hands moved effortlessly across the panel, his eyes focused on the monitor.
I stole a look at Lauren, to see if she was paying him any attention. Xiphio was talking to her about a fairytale from back on his home world, but her eyes kept drifting across to Stone, watching him at work. There was something magnetic about him when he was focused, making everyone in the room take note of what he was doing.
The most enraptured person, however, wasn’t Lauren. Bashrik gazed at Stone with such intensity it was almost comical, his eyes following Stone’s every move, his head nodding at everything that Stone suggested.
“Have you seen him?” Angie whispered, stifling a giggle. “I keep expecting him to ask Stone to show him how to do it, Ghost-style.”
I smirked, feeling a giggle rise up. “I think he likes Stone more than Lauren does.”
“I know! I think he’d start sulking if she openly flirted with him,” she murmured, grinning. “Do you think he’s going to ask Stone to inspect his wiring?”
Just then, Bashrik turned to Stone and nudged him in the arm, gesturing down at the cabinets beneath the panel. “Stone, would you mind coming under the panel to check the wiring with me?”
The two of us collapsed into a fit of hysterics, drawing funny looks from the others in the room. I knew I could rely on Angie to bring a bit of levity back, given the somber atmosphere that had permeated the ship since hearing about Brisha’s assassination.
My good humor didn’t last long, however, as I turned to look at Navan. He was curled up in the armchair beside me, muttering in his sleep, his eyes blinking awake every couple of minutes, before sleep forced them down again. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face looked haggard.
I didn’t understand what was going on with him, but his nighttime excursions had only gotten worse. Evidently, they’d left him in a state of sleep deprivation. One evening, I’d woken up an hour after we’d gone to bed, only to find him already absent. I’d tried to find him in the ship, but he’d poked his head out of the kitchen door and told me to go back to sleep. I hadn’t felt like arguing about it, hoping he’d tell me what was going on when he was ready to.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” I murmured as his eyes blinked open. “You okay?”
He nodded, stretching out with a loud yawn. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look too good. Do you want me to put you to bed? I can heat up some blood for you, if that’ll help.”
“Honestly, I’m fine, just a little tired.”
I sensed there was more to his daily decline in energy, but he looked too exhausted to press the matter further. After all, if there was something major going on with him, I would get to the bottom of it sooner or later. This ship was small, and he wouldn’t be able to evade me forever.
“How about if I come to bed with you?” I suggested, offering a seductive smile.
“Not right now,” he murmured, sleep trying to claim him once again. “I just need a little nap and I’ll be all yours.”
I very much doubted he’d be up to anything, even after a nap. Angie seemed concerned, too, as I turned back to see her watching us, her brow furrowed. I flashed her a look that said, “What can I do?” and she nodded in understanding.
“You want to get something to eat?” she asked, with a knowing look. It was code for, “Let’s get out of here and talk about what’s bothering you.”
I was about to answer when a loud sizzle ricocheted through the ship, followed by the crackling pop of fizzing electricals. Outside, in the main space, the lights flickered before plunging the room into darkness. The cockpit lights remained on, though they dimmed for a moment, and I could still see the dull glow of the hallway lights beyond the main space.
“What the hell was that?” Angie spluttered from where she’d dived under her chair.
“Electrical outage,” Ronad replied. “Looks like Bonnie and Clyde managed to hit something important.”
Bashrik flashed him a warning look. “We weren’t even touching the wiring; we were closing the box back up. Whatever that was, it had nothing to do with us.”
Stone nodded at the darkened outer room. “Yer man’s right. Nought in that box could’ve done that. That had to have come from the mainframe.”
“Yeah, exactly—the mainframe,” Bashrik repeated defiantly.
“Where’s that?” Lauren asked, looking worried.
Stone shrugged. “Engine room, I ‘spect. I’d have to check yer blueprints to find it.”
Xiphio stepped in, waggling his hand at Stone. “Actually, no, you do not. This is a merevin ship, and I know precisely where the engines are. Miss Riley and I have already visited them. You, sir, do not need to get your hands on any kind of blueprint.”
“As yer please. Was just tryna help.”
“Thank you, Stone. I think we’re all a little tense, that’s all. Electrical outages always do that,” Lauren said, her tone comforting. “Although, usually, it’s the thunderstorm that comes with the outages that gets me!” A forced laugh left her lips, but I could tell she really was frightened. I felt it, too. There was something amiss here—something that left an eerie feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Why don’t you go and check it out, Riley?” Navan suggested suddenly, as he sat up in his chair. “You’ve got the engineering skills; you can probably fix it a whole lot quicker than any of us can.”
“What about Bashrik?” I replied, a little sad that Navan was so eager to get rid of me.
“I’ve got to stay here and make sure none of the other systems go down,” Bashrik said, with a hint of apology in his voice. “Navan’s right. You’re probably the best one for the job.”
I glanced around the room, feeling weirdly distant. “Fine. It’s probably a blown fuse or something. Shouldn’t take me long.”
“You want some company?” Angie asked. “I can’t help, but I’ll stand nearby and hand you all the wrong tools.”
I smiled at her, grateful for the offer. “Nah, it’ll be a quick fix. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Besides, I wanted a moment to myself to clear my head. Navan’s behavior was bothering me more and more. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve his distant manner, but if I didn’t leave the room right now I knew I’d end up snapping at him, demanding an answer. With his eyes drooping shut again, I guessed now wouldn’t be a good time. No, it was better that I kept busy. Sighing, I snatched up one of the guns that had been left on the cockpit dashboard. If I was going down to the engine room alone, I wasn’t going unarmed.
“Whaddya you need a gun fer?” Stone asked, curious.
Hotbloods 6: Allies
Bella Forrest's books
- A Gate of Night (A Shade of Vampire #6)
- A Castle of Sand (A Shade of Vampire 3)
- A Shade of Blood (A Shade of Vampire 2)
- A Shade of Vampire (A Shade of Vampire 1)
- Beautiful Monster (Beautiful Monster #1)
- A Shade Of Vampire
- A Shade of Vampire 8: A Shade of Novak
- A Clan of Novaks (A Shade of Vampire, #25)
- A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)
- A Vial of Life (A Shade of Vampire, #21)
- The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)
- The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)