Hotbloods 6: Allies

I wondered if something awful had happened to him during the fight with Ezra and Stone. I’d seen him on the floor, totally knocked out, but maybe there had been more to it than met the eye. Maybe Ezra had done something else when he’d jabbed Navan between the shoulder blades with an Aksavdo move. Had he poisoned him? Navan hadn’t been himself since that day. We’d been through almost everything together, so it had to be something really, really bad for him not to breathe a word of it to me. I guessed he didn’t want me to worry, but now I was worrying more than ever.

I lingered by the door, not knowing what to do. Every fiber of my being wanted to storm across the threshold and put my arms around him, and yet I couldn’t do it. He’d sought to keep this from me—what right did I have to burst into his private haven and disturb him? I was his girlfriend, but he’d evidently wanted to keep this a secret from me for a reason. Until he was ready to tell me what was wrong, I’d have to resign myself to ignorance.

Reluctantly, I made my way back to the bedroom, making a mental note to check that room in the morning, to make sure there was nothing strange inside. If he was hiding something terrible from me, that room would hold the secrets.

As I lay back down in my bed, feeling the absence of Navan more intensely than ever before, I pulled the blanket around me, snuggling in as best as I could without him. Even so, it took hours before sleep finally claimed me. I was only aware that I’d even managed to drift off when something roused me around five o’clock in the morning, making me blink awake for a moment. Navan had come back at last, though he looked worse than he had when he’d left.

“Where did you go?” I murmured wearily, turning to face him.

“Just needed something to drink. Go back to sleep,” he whispered, scooching in beside me and slipping his arm around my waist.

“Are you okay?”

He nuzzled my neck, kissing me gently. “I’m fine, just thirsty. Come on, go back to sleep, beautiful. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I had a bad dream,” I said, feeling him pull me closer.

“I’m here now. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I dreamed you were sick.”

“I’m fine, Riley. We’ve all had a tiring day, that’s all,” he murmured, his voice growing sleepier. “Cuddle up and close your eyes. Pretend you never woke up.”

I stared at the wall, listening to his breathing. I could feel his chest moving against my back and hear every snuffle as he sank into an exhausted sleep. The thing was, I was terrified that he would never wake up. Perhaps he’d been keeping his illness to himself so he didn’t lower morale. After all, none of us would have the spirit to continue if we lost him… least of all me.

I’d only lingered by the door for a handful of minutes, but it had been enough to scare the living daylights out of me. I had no idea what was happening to him, but truthfully, it had sounded like he was slowly dying.





Chapter Thirty-One





The following morning, I slipped out of bed early and sprinted through the ship, wanting to see what was inside the room where Navan had holed himself up for most of the night. Opening the hatch, I was disappointed to find nothing amiss at all. I searched high and low, scouring the old furniture and endless towers of boxes, but I couldn’t find anything that would give me a scrap of insight into what Navan had been doing in here for so many hours.

Puzzled, I padded out of the room and headed for the kitchen, fixing myself and Navan some breakfast before heading back to the bedroom. However, when I reached the doorway and punched the entry pad with my elbow, while trying to balance two dishes, it opened to reveal an empty bed. Navan was already gone, though he could only have had a couple of hours of sleep.

Still holding the two dishes, I moved back through the ship toward the cockpit, knowing there’d be someone in there who might have seen where Navan had gone. To my surprise, he was already sitting in the copilot’s chair, chatting with Ronad. They fell silent as I entered, making me wonder if I’d grown another head in the night and simply hadn’t realized.

“I was just looking for you,” I said, trying to smile. “I thought you could do with some breakfast.”

Navan took the bowl from me and placed a kiss on my forehead. “Thanks, Riley, I’m starving. I might go eat this in the kitchen, save me leaving bowls around the place.”

Every time I walked into a room, it seemed like he was eager to leave it. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. Even if he was sick and trying to hide it from me, that didn’t mean he could treat me this way, making me feel like I was on the outside, looking in.

“You secretly trying to get Ronad to plot a course for Earth?” I joked.

Navan’s face morphed into a mask of seriousness. “I would never do such a thing, not when we know about Stone’s horde,” he said, his eyes flitting nervously around the room, as though he were following some unseen bug. “Anyway, we have to tackle one problem at a time. Yes, the threat of Gianne reaching Earth is horrible, but we have nothing if we don’t have Stone’s help and his cargo full of ship parts. So, we need to do as he asks for our plan to destroy the rebels to work. I’ve come to terms with it.”

“I was just teasing,” I murmured, my cheeks getting hot with embarrassment.

Hell, I knew the severity of the situation better than anyone. My nerves were still shot after finding a spy in our midst and discovering that Gianne was headed for my home planet. If anyone had the right to be anxious about Earth’s future, it was me, not him—I was well aware of what was at stake, and the prioritizing we needed to do to get there.

“I know, but these aren’t laughing matters,” he replied anxiously, before planting another kiss on my forehead and leaving the room. I felt like I’d been scolded by a schoolteacher, aside from the cursory kiss he’d granted me.

Mortified tears pricked my tired eyes. Navan was acting even weirder than before. He seemed nervous and jumpy, his mind constantly elsewhere. It was almost like he couldn’t even see me anymore. I wanted to storm down the corridor after him and ask him outright about the state of his health so we could all get over this and start figuring out a solution, but I was almost too afraid of what the answer might be. It seemed easier to deal with the backlash of his behavior, rather than know the truth, in case that truth took him away from me for good.

“Ronad… have you noticed Navan acting strange at all?” I asked, plopping down in the seat next to him.

He glanced at me, flashing a smile. “No, not at all. I think he’s just a bit tired, same as the rest of us.”

“You don’t think there might be anything wrong with him?”

“Nope, seems to be the same old Navan to me,” Ronad replied, his tone annoyingly chipper.

“Really?”

He nodded. “Really. I promise you, he seems fine. Are you okay? After what you went through the other day, I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt a little paranoid about things,” he said, instantly making me doubt every thought I’d had that day.

“Maybe you’re right. It has been weird.”

“Well, here’s something to take your mind off everything.” He grinned, gesturing up at the windshield. A planet was appearing in the distance, glowing a peculiar shade of blue in the impenetrable blackness of space.

I frowned. “What is it?”

“Welcome to Glossa.”

“I thought it was supposed to take us three days.”

“Two and a half, thanks to some friendly neighborhood pockets of solar wind. Bashrik and I have been pinballing us between stars to harness the plasma streams,” Ronad said, with a cheeky grin.

“Sounds intense,” I replied, flashing a smile.

I sat up a little straighter in my seat and gazed out at the approaching planet, squinting to get a better look. I wasn’t sure if it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but Glossa definitely seemed to be glowing brightly, almost like one of the nearby stars. I would have mistaken it for a sun of some kind, had it not been for the unique blue color.

As we neared, I immediately understood why Stone had called it the safest planet in the universe. The entire surface was shrouded in a blue shield of energy, similar to the one that appeared when Stone used the power of the weird bracelet that he always wore around his wrist. I’d been meaning to ask what it actually was, but something else constantly seemed to get in the way.