Chapter Fifteen

PRIYA

The door slid open, and a guard appeared. “Stand on your feet.”

I got up immediately. Earlier I had decided I didn’t have to obey them right away and received a black eye for my independent thinking. It hurt like a bitch, and I had learned my lesson.

A woman pointed a sidearm at me. I could see she had it set to lethal, which seemed like overkill. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

“You’re supposed to move, too.” She motioned me to follow the other guard into the hall.

I wondered where they were taking me, but I knew better than to ask. I followed the guard out of the ship and onto a space station. I tried to stop for a minute and look around, but someone prodded me in the back with a gun and made me nervous.

They brought me into the space station. People gave me nervous looks, probably wondering what terrible crime I had committed that warranted guards and a yellow jumpsuit.

I glanced at the planet through the window. It was bright, red and evil-looking. I shivered, feeling uneasy. We arrived at a different docking bay, and they transferred me into a shuttle.

I risked asking a question and tried not to cringe. “Are we going down to the red planet?” I hoped they would answer my question instead of punching me.

“It has a name. The planet is called Grayndelle. And yes, we’re taking you planetside to your new home, the Galactic Penitentiary.” The man leading the way answered me. He seemed to be less of a jerk than the woman.

I did not want to stay here for a second longer. I had kept my memories of Allex locked in the corner of my mind. Thinking about him was going to make me lose control.

If I didn’t remember anything about him, I could still function. I felt like a robot, but I wouldn’t go insane.

I watched the pilot as we departed the space station and entered the atmosphere. As soon as we approached the planet, the air in the shuttle seemed to heat up. Sweat began to bead on my forehead, and I wiped it away.

The guards were ready. One of them pulled out a cloth and started wiping down his face. He didn’t offer anything to me except advice. “I hope you like heat.”

Everyone jumped into action when the shuttle touched down. “Hurry up and get her out of here.” The pilot opened the door, and the guards hustled me onto the landing platform. “You know these shuttles start to malfunction after a few minutes because of the weather down here. Set your timers and be back in ten minutes. If you’re not here, I’m leaving without you.”

The pilot wasn’t bluffing. My escorts pushed me across the platform toward a small building. As the guard unlocked the door by scanning his retina, I stared at my surroundings in fear.

Grayndelle was a volcanic planet. Red, molten rock stretched as far as I could see, interspersed with floating platforms connected by bridges. As I watched, the bridges retracted into the metal structures, making it impossible to move between them.

It was the perfect place for a prison. There was nowhere for anyone to go. Falling into the lava meant instant death. As long as the planet itself was secure, it didn’t matter if a prisoner escaped. They would come back to jail just to escape the heat.

The guards pushed me into the building and through several locking doors. We ended up in a small room without windows. They left the handcuffs on me.

“Someone will pick you up and bring you to the prison. We’re in a holding station.” The man seemed sorry for me. “We’re supposed to have handed you over already, but they’re not here yet. You might as well try to enjoy yourself. After they lock you up, you’re going to think of your time here as a vacation.”

I nodded. They closed the door, leaving me alone. I felt helpless. I wasn’t going to be a free woman again for the rest of my life.

I felt an overwhelming grief about Allex and everything I had lost. But I couldn’t let myself wallow in pity. I needed to be strong to face the challenges ahead of me. Letting sorrow destroy me would not allow me to function.

I wasn’t going to throw myself into the lava outside. As bad as my life felt right now, I had a lot more living to do, no matter how much it might hurt.

ALLEX

The malevolent red planet filled the view screen. I could feel my palms begin to sweat at the sight of the ball of lava holding my bond mate. We couldn’t make a mistake.

“We’ll arrive on Grayndelle in twenty minutes.” Gwen checked her console. “Activating our cloak.”

“Once we’re undetectable, I’m going to reprogram their alarm system. It’s supposed to trigger as soon as a spaceship enters the atmosphere. We’ll have about an hour to do everything before their software comes back online. If we’re not out of there in time, we’ll be sitting ducks for the defenses in orbit around the planet. They’re configured to fire missiles at any unknown spacecraft.”

“I wasn’t planning on staying there anyway.” I tapped my fingers on my outer thigh as I walked back and forth on the tiny ship.

“Sit down and put your belt on, Allex.” Anders motioned to the chair. “You never know when we’re going to run into trouble.”

Even though I didn’t want to sit still, I knew they were doing me a favor. I plopped down in the second gunner seat next to Avren and buckled the belts in an X across my chest. The ship wasn’t designed to run with every seat full. It was going to be crowded in here once we had Priya onboard.

Gwen turned in her seat so she could see Avren and me in the back and Anders beside her. “We’ll disrupt their alarm system, fly into the atmosphere, and wait. Once they start transferring Priya from the holding station into the shuttle for transport to the prison, we’ll dart in there, grab her, and get the hell out of there.”

“Right.” Anders nodded his head. “At that point, we turn on the hyperdrive and bounce all over the galaxy to throw them off our trail.”

I was impressed at how well Anders and Gwen worked together. My heart clenched as I wondered if Priya and I would ever have what they had.

“Where are we taking you?” They both looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t know.” My mind was blank. All I had thought about was getting Priya back.

“Are you guys going to hide somewhere? I assume we’re not going back to the mothership to tell Father and have a real wedding.”

I grimaced. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Let’s go to a place where the law can’t find us and Father won’t either.”

“What about Susohn?” Avren suggested in a quiet voice. “It’s a large planet with a decent population. You could disappear in one of the cities, and no one would ever know.”

“You could stay in the place with the university. What’s it called again?” Gwen frowned as she tried to remember.

“D’veeran,” Anders said. Ayrie had attended university on Susohn earlier, and we had all visited him before. Avren had completed some doctorate work too.

“That’s perfect, you guys. I was thinking about Susohn before when Priya and I were trying to figure out where we could go. It must have slipped my mind.”

Gwen nodded sympathetically.

“If you need help, I’m sure the king would give you a hand in an emergency.” Anders wasn’t explicitly saying someone might come to grab Priya again. The king was an acquaintance of ours.

Avren nodded. “Find some lawyers while you’re there. Maybe they can beat the stowaway charges.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.” I didn’t have any hope. “The only way out is if Father drops the charges himself. That’s about as likely as Priya growing wings.”

Avren looked at me with compassion. “Have you tried talking to him?”

“I barely know him.”

“He’s still your father, Allex. You said you were going to try and forgive him.”

“That was before he took Priya from me.”

Avren started to raise his voice. “You didn’t tell him she was your bond mate. It might have changed everything for him.”

“What if you asked Arnon to talk to him for you? Maybe he could convince Father to drop the charges,” Anders suggested.

I perked up at the thought. If anyone was capable of changing Father’s mind, it would be my oldest brother. “Yes, that might actually work.” I turned so I could see the red planet grow larger in the view screen. Before Arnon could help me, though, I would have to do something. My heart sank a little at the thought. “I would have to tell Arnon I bonded with Priya already.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to get her off Grayndelle first. We can worry about the rest later.” Gwen touched my arm. “I don’t think Priya wants you to make all the decisions for her. She probably wants to determine her own future.”

My father had somehow managed to keep going after my mother died. I felt a pang of sympathy for him. How could he continue living his life, let alone take on the responsibility of saving our people?

I had a flash of insight. His pain was driving him to make things better for everyone else. I was still hoping to get Priya back, and I felt terrible. The pain would be worse if I had no hope of ever seeing her again.

For one moment, I completely understood my father. I no longer saw him as a cold, somewhat cruel and distant man. I knew how he felt when my mother died. It must have been hell.

I wasn’t ready to forgive him for hurting us, but I thought I understood why he did it.

Anders looked up after a few minutes. “We intercepted an announcement. Their alarm system is experiencing unexpected difficulties due to atmospheric disturbances.” He grinned.

Gwen slowed down the ship and circled the space station in a wide pattern, entering into the atmosphere from the concealed side of the planet. “Anders, have you located Priya?”

“I’ve found her. We have a lock.” He brought up her position onto the screen.

“This place is hot.” Gwen wiped some sweat off her forehead.

The heat made the bump on my head ache, and I wished our flight was over already. I wanted to hold Priya in my arms again.

Avren felt the need to begin a lecture on the planet. “It’s so young that it hasn’t begun to solidify into rock yet. The entire surface is molten lava. Land’s cheap here. Several mining companies have moved their refineries to Grayndelle, and it’s a perfect environment for prisons. The two industries have built inertron platforms in strategic locations to let people live here.”

“What’s inertron?” Gwen lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s an artificial element that is indestructible after processing. Lava won’t touch it. I researched the planet on the way over here looking for useful information.”

“Avren, you don’t have to prove anything to us.”

Gwen interrupted me. “There it is.”

Our ship approached an inertron platform with a small building on it. I could sense Priya was inside. I felt a desperate energy fill my body and I wanted to start moving right away.

Anders took his hands off the controls. “I’m holding our position. When we see them transfer Priya, we’ll move in. All we can do is wait.”

“All we’ve been doing is waiting.” My muscles were becoming tense at the thought of having to sit still any longer. “I don’t think I can stand it.”

Anders glanced back at me. “You’re going to have to be patient. It shouldn’t be much longer. Let me check and see when the shuttle is scheduled to pick her up.”

I bounced my leg restlessly beside Avren until he gave me an annoyed look, which I ignored. I was close to her, and every second away from her felt like too long. I needed her in a way I didn’t think Avren could understand.

As far as I knew, he had never been head over heels in love with a girl. There was one girl he dated for a while in college, but it ended abruptly. I suppose if I were in his shoes and saw me acting like a lovesick fool, I might be annoyed too, but I couldn’t help it. We were close to ending the nightmare, but I was still deathly afraid for her.

“Found it. The exchange is scheduled for...” Anders glanced at his screen and frowned. “Something’s wrong.”

Gwen leaned over and looked for herself. “That’s not good.” She glanced back at me apprehensively.

“Let me out of here.” I fumbled with my seatbelt.

Avren put out his hand and stopped me from unbuckling. “There’s a backup system which automatically takes over whenever the central alarm system goes offline.”

“Of course there is.” Gwen frowned at Anders. From the guilty look on his face, he felt like he should have covered all the possibilities.

Anders cut to the chase. “There’s a force field around the recovery platform. We can’t get through without the access codes.”

“Do we have those lying around?” I finally found my voice.

Anders met my eyes. “We’ll need to generate them.”

“Can our computers work fast enough for us to grab her?”

He shrugged before turning his chair back to the console. A determined look passed over his face.

Gwen was frantically tapping at her computer. After a few minutes, she looked up at me and shook her head. “We don’t have enough processing power, Allex. If Anders can’t get the codes, we’re not going to be able to grab Priya. We’ll have to come up with something else. The shuttle is approaching.” She pointed at her screen.

I swore in my native language, spitting out every dirty word I could imagine. Avren turned his head in my direction, giving me a reproachful look. He rarely used foul language.

I desisted, holding my face in my hands. I wished I could calm down. I wasn’t going to be useful to anyone if I was a basket case. “Is the problem that a starship can’t get through the force field?”

Gwen was the only one who turned to look at me. Anders was completely immersed in his computer. “What do you mean?” She looked confused.

“How does the force field work? Is a person small enough to pass?”

She turned back to her computer and pulled up a diagram. “There are little bridges for emergencies. Nobody’s going for pleasure walks on them.”

“So?” I impatiently jiggled my leg as I waited for Gwen to reach a conclusion.

“The field is coded for ships. How could a person reach the platform without a ship on a planet covered with lava?” She gave me a meaningful look.

“You’re thinking like a human.” I grinned. “What if a person had wings?”