Kieran's POV
Zea was suspended in the liquid in front of me and transmitting messages to Peter and Anastasia. The two demons had somehow ended up at the other side of the galaxy.
"Okay, we are meeting them at the Blueberry planet in three weeks time." Zea told me.
"THREE WEEKS?!?"
"Yeah, they don't dare to jump in case they end up somewhere random again."
"What are we going to do until then?"
"I guess move around for a while to see whether we can find any other survivors from the attack. I can't believe we are the only ones. Maybe there is a malfunction in the jump engines that we are unaware of. Maybe they all jumped to a random location."
"Wouldn't we have done that too in that case?" I asked her.
She turned and shrugged. "I need to be sure."
"And after that? Return to home?"
She nodded, "If there is anything left of home. Ryklys has a head start."
She shifted back to her position and prepared for another jump.
When she stretched I saw a cut on her back. What was that? It hadn't healed yet. She must be seriously hurt, normally she heals within seconds.
"Zea, you are wounded. Why didn't you tell me?"
"It is not that bad." she responded while we jumped into hyperspace.
I was thrown forward in my seat and I heard her groan in pain from the impact.
"If it wasn't that bad, you would have healed by now."
"I am weakened because I gave you too much blood." she said.
We dropped out of hyperspace and I was thrown back into my seat.
I unbuckled myself and swam up to her to inspect the wound. I pushed away the ripped clothing of her dress and softly touched the sides of the wound. It was a huge gash and I could see one of her ribs.
"Zea! This must hurt like hell!" I yelled at her.
She shrugged. "It will heal eventually."
I bared my fangs and cut open my wrist. I pushed her forward so that she bent over and I let my blood gush into the wound.
The liquid around us coloured red as the blood rushed from my wrist into her wound.
She gasped and tried to kick me away. "No" she cried.
She was so much weakened that for once I was stronger than her. I held her in place and gave her my blood until the wound started to close.
Only then she gave up fighting me.
I turned her. She stared at me for a while, looking confused.
Her hair floating in the liquid and I wondered what she had made of the sorry confusing pit that were my feelings at the moment.
I had never been one controlled by his emotions, but I know that all I wanted is to be near her. Regardless whether this was logical or not, regardless whether she wanted me or not. I needed to be around her.
To see her. To smell her. To touch her.
I didn't know whether it was me or her blood flowing through me. Frankly, I didn't care.
The question was, what I was going to do about it?
Anastasia’s POV
I had laid out a course to the Blueberry Planet, turned the ship and set off in the right direction.
Jesus, three whole weeks alone with Peter. And I was already lost for words.
I glanced at him. He laid back in the passengers’ seat, looking relaxed and had his eyes rolled back in his head.
He started humming the Star Wars theme song.
What the hell??? “Peter, what are you doing?”
He grinned. “Sometimes I love being a Taurin.”
“Huh?”
He rolled back his eyes in their normal position and looked at me.
“If you had remained at court you would have known what it means to be a Mezdor or a Taurin.”
“My mother saved me from a life or torture and abuse from my father and certain death for her. She had served her purpose, so he was getting rid of her. You have no idea what you are talking about.” I snarled.
He turned his head and studied me before he answered.
“Taurins can replay their memories. I was just watching Star Wars Return of the Jedi.”
My mouth fell open. That was the stupidest application of a valuable skill that I ever heard.
Replaying movies in your head. The man really is an idiot.
I groaned. And I am stuck with him forever.
“Can Mezdors do that?” I asked him hopefully.
“No. Sorry.”
I sighed. Damn.
“Anastasia. If you don’t mind me asking…why did your father choose a human mate? Demon royals normally would do everything to avoid tainting their bloodline.”
“Inbreeding. They couldn’t procreate with each other anymore, so they brought in new blood.”
He pulled up an eyebrow.
“Still. He could have chosen a different species of demon. A marriage between clans.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know exactly why. My mother refused to talk about it. But I think that my father did love my mother in his own sordid way. He told me so just before I ripped out his throat.”
He smiled.
“You definitely inherited your father’s blood thirst.”
“Hmmm; so they tell me…So what about your family?”
“My father seduced the Queen, my mother, got her pregnant, forced her to marry to make the child, me, legitimate, drove her insane by slowly poisoning her, declared her unfit to rule, locked her up and threw away the key and now rules our clan with an iron fist. He recently started a harem, and impregnated four of them. So you welcomed into one big happy family!”
“Sounds wonderful.”
I was distracted by something flashing in my periphery. The system gave me a warning signal and I checked it out.
That is strange. It signalled a craft but now it is gone.
“Peter, there was another craft on the radar but now it is gone.”
“Quickly, cloak and make an evasive manoeuvre. It is probably an enemy ship creeping up on us and preparing itself for attack.”
Before I could respond we were indeed hit on the side.
While I tried to evade the unseen enemy, blue laser beams were passing the glass dome.
I steadied the craft and lifted the cloak. I ran an all systems test to check out the damage.
“Thank God. The damage seems to be only superficial.” I yelled to Peter.
“How did they find us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe when we communicated with Zea and Kieran they intercepted the message.”
The mosquito repaired its surface while we waited.
“If the hull is repaired, do you want to risk a jump? I think I figured out what went wrong last time.” I asked Peter.
“Yeah, let’s try that. Anything is better than being sitting ducks.”
After a few seconds I got the clear signal and I stretched and willed the ship to jump to the next position on the trajectory to the Blue Berry planet.
Peter sighed in relief. “That was close.”
I nodded and tracked our trajectory. We were going in the right direction.
A small nagging pain in my head started and my joints ached but I blamed it on lack of the nutrition. The human in the prison was the last meal I had, and before that I hadn’t eaten in weeks. Normally I could survive for weeks on end without a proper piece of meat, but I felt hungry already. Not a good sign.
After a few minutes we dropped out of hyperspace and something was seriously wrong. Very wrong. The liquid was spinning around me and exploded into a blurry of drops.
I lost consciousness.
Peter’s POV
We dropped out of hyperspace and the liquid started spinning around Anastasia. What the f*ck was going on?
I tried to reach her but she had drifted towards the opposite side of the cockpit. She momentarily opened her eyes and I saw a flash of yellow.
Sh*t, she is overdosing again.
I unbuckled myself and swam against the current to reach her. After what seemed a lifetime, I grabbed her head, pushed my mouth against hers and released the antidote.
She hung limp in my arms and the tubes detached themselves from her.
No, no, no, no.
I checked her heart rate. Thank God, she was still alive.
She was overdosing every 4 hours instead of 24 and the process escalated much more rapidly than normal.
I attached the tubes to myself, taking control of the mosquito and held her in my arms until she opened her eyes.
“I hate you.” She stated quietly.
“I am so sorry for this.” I told her, while softly caressing her face.
The grey in her skin slowly disappeared, her beautiful lips regained their cherry red colour and her cheeks coloured a soft pink.
She was so f*cking beautiful.
I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers.
She sighed and pulled me towards her.
I licked her lips, begging entrance. She allowed me and our tongues curved around each other.
Like last time, she tasted warm and sweet, eerily similar to hot chocolate.
I pulled her body against mine and we slowly floated horizontally while exploring each other’s bodies.
I groaned; she felt soft in all the right places.
Suddenly she took my head in her head, held me in an iron grip and something sharp stung my tongue.
I tried to jerk free, but I couldn’t.
What the fuck was she doing?
I tried to call out her name, but she growled and fastened her grip.
I suddenly started to feel very tired and all the bones in my body hurt.
After a while she let me go and I floated exhausted in the liquid. I felt like I just had run a marathon.
“What the f*ck did you just do?” I snarled.
“I don’t have to eat you to draw your life source. An ancient trick that only Royals can do. They like to keep it a secret.” She snarled back.
“But I learned it the hard way.” she added sadly.
“You shouldn’t have f*cked with me, you asshole. I am going to make your life miserable.”
I started laughing.
“Have you forgotten that you depend on me for the antidote? I think I’ll just let you die and find another bride.” I hissed.
She shrugged and turned.
“Where did you get the notion from that I like to stay alive? I am alone. I have nobody. I welcome death. I should have died ages ago. I am just too chicken to do it myself.”
She turned and drifted towards the passengers’ seat.
I ignored her and set the craft on normal speed to Planet Blueberry.
Unf*ckingbelievable. I always fall for the crazy chicks.