Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Prince (10 page)

“
How much
further is it?” High above her she could hear the alarms still
sounding.

“
Not far, but
it will be more dangerous from here on in. We can use the ducts and
service passages, but the ship is on high alert. I am afraid they
have discovered that we are missing. We must hurry.”

She had feared as much.
Her hand tightened around his. Before she could utter a word, he
was running to the other side of the room. He stared straight
ahead, fixed and intent on the wall. What did he see? Did he see
the wall as she did or did he see what was beyond it?

What did he see when he
looked at her?

***

Tres held Renie’s hand
tightly as they crossed the reactor room. Now that it was in his,
he was reluctant to let it go, even when he knew that he would have
to. They couldn’t crawl through the ducts side by side and speed
was of the essence. He glanced across at her. She was concentrating
on the wall they were running towards, a small frown creasing her
brow. She seemed even more beautiful in this otherworldly blue
light, her skin washed of colour and her eyes as black as deep
space.

When she had fallen, his
heart had felt as though it was going to burst. He had seen her
drop in slow motion, had tried to reach her before she had slipped
off the walkway, but hadn’t been fast enough. It had taken less
than a second for him to follow her, determined on rescuing her
from a painful frightening death. He had meant every word that he
had said to her. He would never let anything happened to her. He
would protect her with his life, always.

Even though he had known
that rescuing her would have won him some sense of gratitude from
her, he had still expected her to hate him when she had realised
that he was Vegan. Her denial had been beautiful, warming him more
than his thermal suit ever could. It hadn’t been her words that had
touched and reassured him. It had been her eyes. They had held such
affection for him and such hurt, as though the thought that he
believed she hated him pained her.

They had fallen together
in more ways than one.

For the first time in his
existence, he desired to live and to take action. Too long he had
idled away his hours, not fighting when he believed Vega was in the
wrong and not pushing to have his voice heard. No more would he sit
back and let things happen. He would make the right things happen.
He realised now that his attempt to leave the Black Zone had been
nothing more than an attempt to run away from his duties. He had
covered it in the lie of wanting to explore the other side of the
barrier, to find people like Renie and taste a different kind of
life. Now the lie had fallen away and he was left with the stark
truth.

He had been running
away.

What man of Vega would do
such a thing? What a weak fool he had been for believing that
leaving the Black Zone would be his best course of action. He
should be making himself stronger so he could protect those that
needed him, not fleeing and leaving them to fend for
themselves.

Reaching the wall, he
pulled the wire from the left wrist of his suit and pressed it
against the control panel, letting it take over. His fingers danced
across the display hovering above his inside left forearm and he
smiled when he found the information he was looking for.

“
They have your
brother on deck fourteen, room nine. He is stable. Conscious. There
are two guards posted outside his room.”

Renie moved closer, until
Tres could feel the heat radiating from her and washing over his
skin. Her body pressed into his when she looked across him to his
arm.

“
I will
reassign the guards between here and the room. We will have to take
care of the two outside his room. When we have your brother, I will
tap into the system again and clear a path to the small fighter
ships in the docking bay.”

“
How far is it
to my brother?” she said, her hands tight and trembling against his
arm.

“
Two decks
down. We should be somewhere above him.” Tres showed her a
schematic of the ship. “We can use the service passageways from
here.”

A square panel near the
floor to his left opened when he pressed a button. He removed the
bud from the screen of the control panel and fed the wire back into
the sleeve of his thermal suit.

“
Come, we must
hurry,” he said and took her hand again, leading her over to the
access panel.

He looked around them
before entering and waited just inside the cramped space for her to
get in. When she was in, he closed the panel. The tunnel was larger
than the duct but there was still only enough room to crawl. He
started off and then paused to look back at Renie.

Her hair was falling down.
The messy black wavy strands framed her pale face. A hint of colour
touched her cheeks as he looked at her and her gaze dropped to the
floor before coming back up to meet his. Was she still awkward
about what they had done? Her reaction, her shyness, enthralled
him. It made him want to kiss her again.

He turned around, crawled
back to her, and did just that. A little gasp was his reward as he
cupped her cheek and pressed his lips against hers, capturing them.
The kiss was slow and unhurried, a light and sensual exploration of
each other laced with an edge of tentativeness. They were both
nervous, caught up in this whirlwind of new feelings and a
dangerous situation. He closed his eyes and traced her lips with
his tongue. Hers was warm as she responded, brushing his and making
his arm tremble as it supported his weight.

“
Tres,” she
whispered against his lips, dragging him back to the ship from the
place where only they existed.

He slowly opened his eyes
and moved back so he could look at her.

“
I thought time
was of the essence?” She smiled at him and then added, “Not that I
don’t want to kiss you.”

As if to prove that, she
leaned towards him and kissed him again, brief but warm and sweet.
He smiled at her. She didn’t need to prove that she wanted to kiss
him. He wasn’t worried that she didn’t want him or that their
moment together meant nothing. He could tell by her reactions to
him that she felt the same way as he did.

He turned away and
continued along the tunnel, turning to his right at a crossroad.
When he reached a hole in the floor and a set of steps leading
downwards, he climbed down them and waited for Renie to catch up
before crawling along the next passageway. He stopped when he found
another set of steps leading downwards.

Tres looked over his
shoulder at Renie, pointed down them and then pressed his finger
against his lips. She nodded. He went down the steps and crouched
in the passageway. Switching his ocular implants on, he looked
through the wall to the corridor beyond. There was no one there but
when he looked further along, he spotted the two guards. The only
exit seemed to be to his left, the opposite direction to the
guards. They would have to move quickly to get past them without
them raising the alarm.

Tres crawled to the access
panel. He pulled it inwards and poked his head out. Far to his
right were the two guards. A set of statistics for them appeared
down the right of his vision. Their broad builds would slow them
down but they were carrying A-Class laser rifles.

He ducked back in and
looked at Renie. She looked more frightened than ever. Her
heartbeat was off the scale. He could see it pounding fast,
spreading heat through her body that made him crave to touch her.
He switched his ocular implants off and brushed his fingers across
her cheek.

“
Wait here,” he
said and without giving her a chance to respond, bolted out into
the hall.

The guards immediately
turned to face him, raising their weapons. He ran at them and, as
they fired, jumped at the wall and sprang off it, turning in the
air and landing on the other side of the corridor as the twin bolts
of laser shot down it. Running as fast as he could, he ran up the
wall as he reached the guards and kicked off from it. He spun in
mid-air, his leg out, and landed a kick on the side of the first
guard’s head that sent him slamming into the floor. The second
guard went to attack him again but he punched him in the stomach.
When the guard bent over, Tres grabbed his long black hair and
brought his knee up hard to meet the guard’s head. The guard
slumped to the floor with the other.

“
Renie,” he
said and turned to face the other end of the corridor.

She was already half out
of the corridor, her eyes wide. Clearly, he should have told her to
remain inside the passageway. He didn’t exactly want her to see him
fighting. Although it would prove his desire to protect her, it
would defeat it too. Protecting her meant never letting her have to
see such horrible things.

She ran over to him and
was immediately trying to open the door. He tapped the control
panel and the moment the door was open enough for her to fit
through, she was squeezing through it.

“
Rezic!” she
said and bolted straight over to the bed.

Tres moved to stand just
inside the doorway. The male on the inspection table stirred and
when he opened his eyes, Renie smiled wide and threw herself at
him. It wasn’t the wisest thing to do to a male in his condition
but her brother didn’t seem to mind. He was smiling too as he held
her close. Tres noticed that they had shackled her brother’s feet
to the bench that he lay on. The medical officers hadn’t been
taking any chances with him.

“
I was so
worried,” Renie whispered and Tres tried to hold back his jealousy
as he watched them touch each other’s faces and smile. He could see
all the love in them written clearly in their matching dark eyes.
“We have to get out of here.”

“
How? How are
you even here?” her brother said and then looked past her to
himself. “Who is your friend?”

“
It’s a long
story. This is Tres. He helped me escape and come here. I called
for help after the meteorites struck and you were hurt.
Unfortunately, it was a Vegan vessel that answered and they took me
prisoner. They’re going to ransom us. They know who we are. We have
to get off this ship and get out of here.”

“
Again,
how?”

Tres smiled at the sour
face Renie pulled. He got the impression that her brother always
questioned her actions. He seemed to be a male of sense, one that
preferred a plan to the impetuous way that Renie worked.

Desiring to aid Renie,
Tres walked over to the opposite side of her brother and took the
bud and wire out of his suit. He attached it to the control panel
beside the bed and, with a few taps of his fingers, undid the cuffs
holding her brother. The two around his ankles retracted first,
followed by the one around his waist beneath the
blanket.

“
That is your
how,” Tres said as her brother stared up at him. “Come, we must
hurry. I will clear a path to the docking bay but I cannot
guarantee we will not come across soldiers. We must leave this
ship.”

Renie helped her brother
to sit. Tres was about to leave when her brother caught his
wrist.

“
Thank you,” he
said.

Tres removed his hand and
looked at Renie. “Thank her. It is for her that I do these
things.”

A blush coloured her
cheeks and she looked away from him. Her frailty and beauty still
fascinated him. She could change in the blink of an eye. One moment
she was strong and leading the charge, the next she was shy and
retreating.

“
Come,” Tres
said and held his hand out to her. She surprised him by placing
hers into it. “We must leave.”

“
Are you able
to walk, Rezic?” Renie said to her brother. “Run?”

“
I’ll do
whatever it takes to get away from these Vegans,” Rezic said and
Tres felt her hand tense against his.

Not everyone was as
understanding about Vegans as she was. He accepted that. Her
brother was a prince of Lyra. Hatred of Vega had been bred into him
deeper than it had been bred into her.

“
Do not believe
all Vegans are the way we have been told, brother,” Renie said and
Tres looked back at her brother to see what his reaction would
be.

His dark eyes widened in
shock and then slid to him and narrowed. “Vegan?”

Tres nodded.

“
A Vegan who
will do anything to protect that which he has set out to
protect.”

Rezic’s gaze moved back to
Renie.

“
Argue with me
about it later,” she said and held her free hand out to him. “We
have to run if we can.”

There was a noise like a
weapon discharging and then her hand fell from Tres’s. Tres turned
to see Renie unconscious on the floor and his gaze tracked to the
Vegan who had dared to stun her. His claws extended and he launched
himself at the soldier. The guard didn’t see him coming. In the
blink of an eye, he was beside him, his claws dragging across his
throat. A moment after that, the man fell to the floor.

Dead.

The second soldier was
conscious too and raised his weapon to attack Renie and her
brother. Tres picked up the first soldier’s weapon, flicked the
switch to move it off stun, and shot him through the head.
Breathing hard, he stared at the two dead men, his anger crying out
for more violence against his kin for what they had done. The death
of these two guards wasn’t enough to sate his rage.