It was nothing compared to the terrifying situation awaiting me if I failed to escape this place.
Finally, we came to the garage.
It was nothing like any garage I had ever seen back on Earth.
It was a single black cube that might have been carved from onyx.
Its smooth surface reflected no light and a series of doors lined the outside.
“Follow my lead,” Ras said, not slowing down.
Had I done anything else since he came to my cell?
I didn’t say a word as we rushed inside.
We weren’t assaulted by grinding tools and the stink of paint as I expected, but miniature cubes like the one we were passing through now.
Each cube was stacked on top of the other, and lines of ships passed through one to receive necessary treatment.
By the time they came out the other end, they looked brand-new.
They floated through the open windows on the other side and immediately arched up and took off into the sky once more.
Ras ran to a small device strapped to the side of a cube.
It was a cage that rested on a thick arm that ran the cube’s entire height.
He stepped on board and pulled me up to follow him but I resisted.
Just looking up at it made my vertigo sing.
“Come on!” Ras said. “We have to reach the top!”
“Why?”
“So we can hop on a ship as it comes out of the cube.”
I really didn’t like the sound of his plan.
“Take my hand,” Ras said. “Trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Here I was, a human on a far and distant planet, and the guy I’d fallen in love with, whose name wasn’t what I thought it was, whose appearance didn’t even look like the way I knew him, was my only chance of getting out of there in one piece.
And I trusted him with my whole heart because my heart belonged to him.
I took his hand and stepped inside the cage.
He slammed a railing shut and hit a big black button.
The cage shuddered and rose up the side of the cube.
I clung to Ras tightly and watched through the wire latticework beneath my feet as the ground moved away from me.
I shut my eyes to counteract the vertigo and tried to imagine I was back in my bedroom on Earth.
I wasn’t in this freaky world somewhere in the asshole of nowhere.
I was right there.
And I was safe.
The cage clanged as it shunted to a stop.
Ras pulled the opposite wall back and ran forward, his hand wrapped tight around my arm.
He dragged me along the cube’s edge and I whimpered in fear.
I muttered inside my head over and over again like it was a mantra:
I don’t like this!
I don’t like this!
I don’t like this!
Nobody could hear my words and no one cared.
This had to be done if I wanted to get out of there.
We came to a stop and Ras turned me around to face the window that showed a cloudy and overcast grey sky.
I couldn’t help but look down.
My legs shook and I could hardly move.
I peered over at Ras, who was looking down at the same potential fall as me but seemed none the worse for it.
“Ras?” I said. “I’m scared.”
He pulled me close and buried his lips on mine.
I felt his kiss on my numb lips.
The knowledge it was him doing it thawed my fear.
Ras.
My fated mate.
I groaned as our kiss turned sloppy and I shoved my tongue down his throat.
I felt his response in kind and wrestled for supremacy in my mouth.
It was the distraction I needed.
I shut my eyes and the cube and the garage and the Citadel faded away.
They might as well not exist.
Because I was here, with Ras.
He belonged to me as I belonged to him.
And I knew no matter what happened, he would never leave me.
Even if they caught us and tore us apart and we never saw each other again, he would forever be in my heart.
When we pulled apart, we should have been out of breath from the kiss, but we weren’t.
We just looked at each other and smiled.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said confidently.
I nodded my head, even if I didn’t think the same way.
“Okay.”
“In a minute, a restored ship will appear and we’re going to jump onto it,” Ras said.
My eyes boggled.
“What? Are you serious?”
“Why else did you think we came up here?”
“When you said ‘hop on a ship,’ I thought you meant get on one properly!”
“Keep hold of my hand and we’ll make the jump all right. Then we’ll head inside it and fly away from here.”
I was mesmerized by his eyes that commanded obedience.
“Okay.”
I kept my eyes on his face, even after he peered over the edge and said:
“Now!”
He leaped over the edge, and I jumped right alongside him.
I didn’t even know what was waiting for us down there.
Or if anything was.
Because I trusted him, totally and completely.
The fall seemed to last a lot longer than I expected and I began to feel a little nervous…
Then my feet struck something solid.
I stumbled but Ras was there to keep me upright.
We stood on the back of a large ship and it gradually floated toward the window leading outside.
“Over here,” Ras said, leading me to a large hatch door.
He took his hand from mine—I released it only because I had to—so he could grip the lock with both hands, turn it, and force it open.
It gave.
He extended his hand to me and guided me inside the ship.
I climbed down the ladder and didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until my feet touched the solid floor below.
It wasn’t really the ground but I could lie to myself and pretend like it was.
Ras shut the hatch door and scaled down the ladder.
He reached the bottom, hugged me, and took off down the hallway.
“Computer,” he said. “Prepare for dust off.”
“Order confirmed.”
We sprinted into the open arms of the elevator.
“Take us to the main bridge,” Ras said.
The elevator made a soft wiiiiiiing noise as it took us up,
