Marked Prince - Michelle M. Pillow Page 0,64

had in the forest stood in the small opening. The smell of liquor was stronger here.

“What is it?” Payton asked, clearly not seeing what Fiora did.

“Liquor,” Fiora tried to explain, but it was hard to concentrate between the future and Payton’s present. Dulla’s husband fussed with the metal canister. Loud clanks came from his work.

“You need a drink?” Payton asked. “I’m all for it, but there are better places than tapping into this old still.”

“Still?”

“Yeah.” Payton walked up to the metal canister and slapped it. The man in the future didn’t react. “One of the marsh farmers must have sold someone this piece of junk. They use them to brew liquor in the forest. Potent stuff. Smells like rocket fuel, tastes like fire, and it’ll take the hair off a cat’s back.”

Fiora looked at the ground. Liquid dripped, adding to the smell.

“Do you see that?” Fiora asked, unable to determine when it was happening.

“What?” Payton looked around the area before glancing upward.

Dulla’s husband let loose a long stream of what could only be translated as obscenities. He threw a tool at the metal wall before he began kicking the still, cursing it for not working.

Fiora lunged to grab Payton. “Wait, don’t—”

The man kicked the still one last time. The canister ignited. A blast of heat and flames incinerated her flesh. There was no time to cry out, or run, or think. With that one blast, it was over and everything went black.

17

“What happened?” Jaxx’s voice broke through the cloak of darkness.

“She insisted I take her down an alley to where someone had hidden an old still, then she just kind of…” Payton hesitated. “I don’t know. She went all pale and limp.”

“I told you to bring her straight here. She can’t control the visions,” Jaxx said.

“Scans indicate she’s fine,” Yevgen said. “No significant blood loss.”

As she struggled to find her way out of the darkness, she knew Jaxx was touching her to stop the visions. A light moan escaped her lips as she tried to tell him she was alive.

“Fiora?” Jaxx kneeled beside her on a cot behind Yevgen’s partition of monitors. The soft blue light illuminated his face.

Payton stood behind him with her lips pressed firmly together.

“I found it,” Fiora said, her voice rough. She coughed and tried to sit.

“Take it easy.” Jaxx urged her to stay down.

A bruise had formed on the side of his jaw, barely discernable in the dim lights. She lifted her hand to turn his face. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing. Tiny brawl,” he dismissed.

“Tiny brawl?” Fiora arched a brow. “I can’t tell you how annoying it is that other people can pick and choose what they tell me.”

“Doyen’s men got a little rowdy. Grier and I handled it.” Jaxx obviously tried to hide it, but he couldn’t help his small smile. “Since we can’t shift in the city without causing an incident, we had to absorb a few of the blows.” His smile grew a little wider. “We won.”

“Salena?” Fiora asked. This time she did push up from the cot to peer between the monitors.

“Safe,” Payton said, “but she aggravated her ankle. Grier is sneaking her out of the city and is flying her to a medical booth.”

“I told her to watch where she landed.” Fiora closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe laying down was better. Her head throbbed.

“Payton, grab the handheld medic. It should be in the pack we brought with us,” Jaxx said.

“What happened? What did you see?” Payton asked as she went to retrieve the bag. She sat on the floor and began digging through it.

“It’s Dulla’s husband.” Fiora eased back down on the cot. It wasn’t the most comfortable of beds, but she was in no position to be picky.

“What is Dulla’s husband?” Jaxx asked.

“The cause of the disaster,” Fiora answered, again closing her eyes. She draped a hand over her eyelids to make it even darker. Her head pounded less in the black. “The one scenario we didn’t consider, Jaxx, was sending Dulla back to Shelter City. If we had, we might have stopped this without realizing it. With his pregnant wife abandoning him and everyone knowing about it, the man will fall into bitterness. There is no one here to temper his actions.”

“I would have placed a thousand space credits on it being Doyen,” Payton admitted. She sighed as she closed the pack and stood to drop it to the side out of the way. “I don’t see the handheld in here.”

Jaxx frowned. “Maybe they left