think I’ll let you walk out of here and hang around unprotected while you wait for help that might or might not come—”
“They’ll come!” Penelope flashed and he felt her anger. “Captain Sylvan is an honorable male. He won’t just leave me here.”
“Well, I won’t either,” V snapped. “Even if I’m not as honorable as your precious Commander Sylvan.”
He knew the leader of the Kindred Mother Ship by reputation, though he didn’t know any personal details about him. Was he bonded to someone? Did he want to bond with Penelope?
The thought made his jaw clench and his teeth grind. Mine, whispered a little voice in the back of his head.
Not anymore, V reminded himself grimly. You’re Foresworn, remember?
But still, even if he couldn’t Claim Penelope for his own, he wasn’t going to leave her here to fend for herself!
“Look,” he said, taking a deep breath to calm the possessive wave that tried to rise inside him. “Let’s not part on a bad note. You can make the call from my ship and avoid the Lucky Lounge altogether. Only lowlifes go there, anyway.”
“You were there,” she pointed out, raising an eyebrow at him.
“My point exactly,” V said dryly. “Make the call from here and then wait here, where it’s safe, until they come pick you up.”
She frowned. “I thought you wanted to get rid of me? Thought you wanted me off your ship?”
“I never said that,” V protested. “I said that since we can’t be together, we have to part eventually. But I never said anything about kicking you off to wander around a dangerous hole like Hell’s Gate. What kind of male do you think I am?”
Penelope opened her mouth, clearly to voice a sharp retort, but then her anger died abruptly and she shook her head.
“I…I don’t know, anymore,” she said softly. “I thought I knew you—thought I was beginning to know you, anyway, back in the Compound. But now…I just don’t know.”
Her words felt like a dagger in V’s heart but he kept his face expressionless.
“You’ll make the call from here and wait until they come to pick you up,” he said again.
“But…do you want to be here when the Kindred come?” Penny protested. “You’re like Public Enemy Number One to them. You’re not afraid they’ll try to arrest you or take you in or something?”
V shook his head.
“Not if you ask them not to. They’re Kindred, after all, which means they’ll keep their word.”
“All right.” She nodded reluctantly. “Since I don’t really have anywhere to stay in Hell’s Gate, I’ll take you up on your offer. And…” She looked away from him. “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
V wanted to tell her she didn’t have to do that—that she could never be in his way when he only wanted to hold her and touch her and love her. But he swallowed the words and kept his face blank.
“We’ll place the call right after Last Meal,” he said.
“Why wait?” Penelope put down her spoon. “I’m not hungry anymore. Let’s make the call now.”
“Fine.” V put down his own spoon as well and rose from the table. He made a sweeping gesture towards the front of the ship, where the communications array and viewscreen were located. “After you.”
“Thank you.” And she swept past him, leaving a feeling as cold as ice in her wake.
Ninety-Five
“Oh, Penny! We’re so glad to hear from you!” Kat exclaimed, the minute she appeared on the viewscreen. “Where are you? We were expecting some kind of communication from you and Commander Rive and Y’lla ages ago but there’s been nothing. Have you been trying and you just couldn’t get through because of all the subspace distortions and temporal anomalies?”
“Well…not exactly.”
Penny wasn’t exactly sure how to explain everything that had happened to her in the time since she’d last seen her friend. It was too much to go into—too overwhelming. But she could give Kat the basics.
“Commander Rive and Y’lla are stuck in a slow time-suck—I mean, a temporal anomaly,” she said. “I barely escaped from it myself.”
“Oh, no!” Kat looked stricken. “That’s terrible.”
“Well, they got stuck together at least,” Penny offered, trying to make her feel better. Literally, she thought, remembering how her shipmates had been in the middle of making loud and exuberant love right before they’d been caught in the time-suck. “But I’m afraid they’re probably not coming back any time soon,” she added. “So I’m kind of on my own out here.”
“I hate to ask, but did you guys recover