Page 38 of Into The Rift

He leaned over and covered one of my hands with his. “I won’t hurt you, princeling.”

“Won’t you?”

He shot me a look and his lips tightened. “I’d give you my word, but I don’t think that would mean much to you right now.”

I didn’t say a word in reply. I couldn’t.

It was shortly after that exchange that we entered the wormhole.

Wormholes weren’t two-dimensional holes, of course, and a ship’s hull must have some kind of negative mass to be able to traverse it without collapsing it. My parents had been in them, and it had been described to me as a little like skimming along the surface of a tunnel, usually with images of distant galaxies and nebulae “painted” on the walls and zooming past them all at incredible speed. The light was as if viewed through a curved lens and the overall effect was quite beautiful.

This trip, if we managed it, wouldn’t be like that. This wormhole was inside the rift, and we’d be in complete darkness the entire time. I admit I was scared to death.

“We’re just crossed over into the rift,” Niko said. “Don’t be afraid. Everything will be fine.”

He reached over and released my wrists, watching me carefully to make sure I didn’t suddenly attack him, I guess.

I didn’t make a move to do anything. For all my bold talk of adventuring earlier, reaction was setting in, and I was feeling a little terrified of what had happened to me, leaving behind everything I knew, and all to rescue this man I barely knew. No wonder my legs suddenly felt like jelly, and I thought I might throw up.

I gulped hard and fell back in my seat as he went back to the controls.

“There may be sick bags in the medical kit onboard, if you need one,” he said, angling a look over at me. “You look a little green.”

“I think I’m all right. Give me a minute.”

I had the sudden, unpleasant thought that I might never make it back home again. I took a deep breath and found only more unease in the sound of it, as it was shaky and hitching with the effort not to cry. He reached over and laid a hand on top of mine, and I had to admit it helped.

“We’re fine. And the good news is that I’ve done this before. We’re inside it now,” he said. “Try to relax.”

Never did any two sentences ever occupy such different worlds of thought.

How was I to relax?

I did put my head back and closed my eyes, out of sheer exhaustion, willing myself to get a grip and calm down. This would either be the most adventurous thing that had ever happened to me or by far the worst. If it did turn out to be disastrous, then at least it wouldn’t last too long. Either the wormhole would collapse and kill us or the alien world I was en route to would do the trick. That thought failed to cheer me, but it filled my mind at least. I tightened my hands on the arms of my chair and braced myself.

Chapter Eleven

Dominiko

I could tell the prince was trying hard to be calm, and I was proud of him for maintaining his composure as long as he had. He was still very young, no matter how often he reminded me he was “of age.” Whatever that meant. In my world, there was no certain age when we suddenly became an adult. It sounded like foolishness to me.

I felt terrible for bringing him into this, but if he hadn’t been onboard, the Tygerians would have shot me right out of the sky. And if I’d stayed, I truly believed Davos would have had me executed. To be absolutely honest—at least with myself—my initial thought was that once I left Jago on that ship, I’d never see him again.

His parents or his grandparents would snatch him up and take him far away from me to the other side of their galaxy if they had to. And they’d keep him locked down so tightly that he’d never get free of them.

He had come to me to save me, and I turned around and betrayed him. It wasn’t my finest hour. I’d probably earned myself years and years of bad luck for that, when he was doing me a kindness. He might never forgive me, and I wouldn’t truly blame him. But I still couldn’t be sorry. He was here beside me and he was mine. I intended to keep him.

We slipped inside the wormhole and after a moment of bumpiness, things smoothed out and we were gliding through it. “I’m cutting power to the lights and just keeping life support systems on until we traverse it,” I told him, and I could hear his rapid breathing beside me.

“How long will we be inside?”

“About six hours using your method of telling time. Sleep if you can.”

He made a little scoffing sound, but I thought he might sleep soon anyway. It would be impossible to maintain outrage and panic for too long, especially in a healthy young man like he was. I knew he’d be able to manage as soon as the adrenaline in his body began to subside and then with any luck, he might grow drowsy.

“Try and regulate your breathing, princeling. Everything is going well.”

“So there’s nothing else to worry about for a while—until we come out the other side.”

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