I take one look at his face and release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“All clear,” he confirms.
Thank fuck.
Not stopping my feet, I change my direction, realizing I did indeed create an indented path in the pebbled ground.
“I’m setting up comms. Doing some recon,” is all I can manage as I all but sprint to my gear.
Snatching up the case of electronics, I lunge up the rocky surface, already knowing my destination.
The second peak toward the Northeast stands taller than the rest. Hopefully the wind will be less drastic out of the cavern, allowing me to connect to the correct system.
Since she’s in a secure location, my emotions have settled. Unable to cram my worry into a box, I let it simmer in the corner of my mind, focusing on the task at hand.
I need answers.
Chapter Thirteen
Anastasia
The hard floor digs into my back, the sensation a familiar expectation during my heat. Except it isn’t freezing.
And the sheet wrapped around me smells so different.
Like heat and desire, a flaming warmth consuming my cells, giving them life and energy. Like untamed exuberance, a direct reflection of the male who produced it. Like a luscious delicacy, begging to be devoured and enjoyed.
With each inhale my nerves spark in violent frenzy, the hunger growing until it overcomes logical thoughts. The pain in my shoulder barely registers as the yearning of my womb becomes unbearable.
Never before have I needed stimulation so desperately. The silent woman lying still on the floor no longer exists, my previous heats nothing compared to this.
Down deep in the dungeons of where I belong, I never needed to touch myself, never cried out for relief, never thought I was going to die.
It was necessary to endure in quiet solitude. To reveal how strong my heat felt would result in earlier testing. It would mean another loss.
Another failure.
Without the threat of a new trial, I have less reason to shut down my needs.
I can’t. I’ve tried.
Lust blooms too big, infecting every part of me. Slick drenches my legs, making the sheet cling to me, annoying yet too sensual to remove.
It smells too good to part from. My thin, fragrant cocoon wraps around me, the most luxurious nest I’ve ever had, yet I’m not satisfied.
It is incomplete.
Not only does his lingering perfume incite me, it also disappoints.
It isn’t enough.
I need more.
I need Jumoke.
Chapter Fourteen
Jumoke
Fifty-two years.
Those fuckers have lied to her for fifty-two goddamn years.
I can’t let her believe it for another second.
Dark grey boulders flash by as I push my legs faster, their looming outline ominous against the brilliant sky.
My lungs ache from the rapid altitude change, my route a straight path, the quickest way to return to the Sky-Flyer.
Forty-six years she’s held the unfounded guilt of death—they murdered four innocent children and two adults, all to convince her she was poison. At the young age of six, she was forced to believe her touch had ended her playmates and their caretakers’ slow and painful death.
The glow of a dampened camp fire to my right reminds me I still hold the case of electronics.
Sliding as the base of the mountain becomes level gravel, I point my toes towards the campfire. I lengthen my strides and pour on more speed.
Salt and pepper hair gleams in the firelight. He turns as I approach, the serious look on his face warped by the smoldering coals. His eye twitches. Stress lines crease the skin on his forehead.
I toss the case to him before I fully emerge from the shadows, not slowing my pace. I project my voice just enough for him to hear me over the wind and my footfalls.
“Trouble. She knows our location.”
As I run by, his words reach my ears despite the crunching under my feet.
“I know. We'll handle it. See to your lifemate.”
She fooled me—offered me something I couldn’t resist—disguising her gift as a well-hidden gem.
I’d known the encryption was too easy to decode. Known the file was too easy to access.
Yet the promise of what it contained was too tempting.
Anastasia's history. Her case file. Experimentation log.
All three of those titles befit what I found within.
I roar my frustration into the wind, scaling a steep slope at full speed, demanding my body close the distance between myself and my lifemate.
She is not sick.
I can touch her.
I can claim her.
She is mine.
Chapter Fifteen
Anastasia
Wetness everywhere. From my overheated pores. Between my needy legs. On my face.
Sobs wrack my chest, an oddity among the other noises echoing around the empty room.
Slippery slick under my fingers prohibits me from finding the friction I need to assuage the needy bundle of nerves between my legs. Engulfing heat wraps around the digits of my other hand, my intimate folds demanding relief.
They aren’t substantial enough. Too little.
Tired of hearing the miserable screeching bouncing off the walls, I fill my mouth with the closest thing—my cocoon—and bite down.
The ball of fabric does little to relieve the throbbing of my gums, but I gnaw and suck, using his lingering presence in the threads as comfort. Like the babes I was never able to cuddle, I suckle on the cloth, desperate for touch.
My lost loved ones remain safely locked away, unaffected by my madness.
Throbbing.
Everything throbs.
My breasts. My core. My senses.
Every inch of my flesh.
My soul.
Not only do my vocal cords and body cry out, but so does my soul.
It reaches out, colliding with the male I’ve denied.
The epic whirlwind of acceptance and glee becomes overshadowed by my misery.
I need help.
I need him.
I’ve doomed him.
More tears soak my face.
Chapter Sixteen
Jumoke
Sweat pours down my back. The nick on my hip feels sticky again, the almost healed knife cut reopened.
A red haze covers everything, the remnants of the sun’s departure coloring the world, but not bright enough to illuminate shapes.
Even if I didn’t know where the Sky-Flyer was, I’d still be
