Dark Matters - Michelle Diener Page 0,69
open. “Get in.”
She tried to maneuver Dray in carefully but he half-fell inside. She was breathing hard by the time she was in with him and the panel had closed.
For a moment she simply lay where she was, entwined with Dray, her leg twisted at an uncomfortable angle, her hair caught painfully under his arm.
She felt the path of tears seeping from the corners of her eyes, scalding hot against her wind-frozen cheeks, and sniffed as she struggled to sit up and free her hair.
“I need you to help Dray.” She managed to get on her knees in the cramped space, and at last was able to look at him properly.
He looked far better than she feared, but he'd been unconscious for a long time and that couldn't be good.
“Agreed.” Bane's voice was more intimate here, as if he were standing right next to her. “I'll take you to my ship.”
“Thank you.” She rested her hand on Dray's throat, taking comfort in the steady beat she could feel there, and then lowered herself down to lie beside him.
She felt the pull of power as the drone sped through the sky, and wished they could just keep going and never look back.
Chapter 31
The world Dray woke up to was completely different to the one he'd been in before he'd lost consciousness.
He was in a warm, pristine white room, comfortably lying back on a padded bed.
As he blinked the world into focus, slender mechanical arms whirred and retreated, and he realized he'd been hooked to some med systems.
He felt good, he realized.
He lifted his hand to rub the spot where his head had hit the rocks of the cliff, and while it was a little tender, there wasn't so much as a bump.
He remembered the wide-open beak of the nynt, screaming as it dived at him, and little else after that.
“You seem to be healed.” The voice that was piped through the walls was not quite the same as it had been before, on the Urna, but he recognized it all the same.
“Bane?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we?”
“Hiding on Gyre, as I told you I would.”
“I'm on your Class 5?”
“You needed medical assistance, and Lucy didn't trust the Tecran to help you.” He paused. “And I didn't want the Urna to know I'm on planet, even if it is just in drone form.”
“How did you find us?” Relief rushed through him at Bane's mention of Lucy. She'd gotten him here. How, he had no idea.
“One of the soldiers went into the town near the cave and used a military credit bank. I was monitoring for any military funds used within a certain radius I'd set from the cliff house where they took you. It was just a matter of waiting them out, but I'm sorry you had to endure so much before I found you.”
“I'm just grateful that you were looking.” He sat up slowly, pleased that the room stayed upright.
“I would never have abandoned the search for Lucy. It was one of my goals in coming to Tecra.”
“I wish you'd been able to let us know she might be here before we left.” It would have made such a difference.
“One of the Grih's generals tried to kill Rose McKenzie. I didn't feel confident enough in understanding the interpersonal politics in the United Council to trust anyone there.”
Bane's blunt response forced a smile out of Dray.
“I don't feel that confident in reading the politics in the United Council myself, so I don't blame you.” He was a military officer, and maybe he'd set himself apart too long from the politics of the UC, but he preferred a more straightforward environment.
This assignment had not been something he'd have chosen willingly.
And if he hadn't been sent here, he wouldn't have met Lucy. Wouldn't have been here for her.
Except . . .
“How did you get Lucy out of the cave?”
He'd been on his way down to get her when the nynt had attacked.
“Lucy climbed out of the cave, and was pulling you back up when one of the Tecran soldiers attacked her and pushed her off the cliff.”
“What?” Rage boiled up in him, and he hopped down onto the ground.
“The officer named Rua. I shot him.”
Dray leaned back against the bed. “Dead?”
There was an almost startled pause. “No. When Rose McKenzie rescued me, she taught me to only kill when I had no other choice. It occurred to me that he could be a useful witness, so I simply incapacitated him.”
“And Lucy? She fell off the cliff?” He