Page 71 of Legacy of Chaos

It was getting harder and harder to hate Stryke for that, though. Especially after hearing what he’d gone through with his family. He was already punishing himself to extremes, and she had to admit that it disturbed her to see beneath his cold, hard, asshole exterior to his desperately broken interior. And maybe she had too much of her mom in her because she felt the desire to help.

Help the male she’d sworn to make miserable.

“It’s so weird,” she murmured.

“What? The glyphs?”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I’m thinking about.”

He seemed to weigh whether or not to press. As if he normally didn’t care enough about anyone to ask follow-up questions.

So, naturally, she got stupid warm-fuzzies when he said, “What are you thinking about?”

However, just because she was inwardly smiling didn’t mean she’d forgiven all his behavior. “Nothing.”

He gave her the side-eye. “I sense you’re attempting to teach me a lesson.”

She grinned. “You really are a genius.”

Amusement softened his expression as he gestured to the holoimages. “What do you see?”

“Nothing good,” she admitted. The glyphs had frayed faster than she’d expected. “Maybe you should connect with Blade again—”

“Not yet.”

“But, Stryke—”

“I said no. How much time do we have?”

Unbelievable. She’d have argued, but he had that this-conversation-is-over tone that made them both prickly. And, frankly, they didn’t have time to fight.

She did a quick mental calculation. When she finished, her gut was churning.

“Cyan?”

She looked up, hating this. “If my calculations are correct,’ she said hoarsely, “We’re down to maybe eight hours.”

Chapter 16

Stryke spent the next three hours preparing for Blade’s arrival, taking inventory of the life rafts, making sure the crew was ready to evacuate, and calculating the odds of success.

They kind of sucked. Sucked hard.

He hoped Cyan, who was still maintaining the fog repellant in the engine room, would be able to get the StryTech amplifier to work. Everything came down to that.

He checked his comms for the time as he reached for the engine room door. It had been five hours since he’d relieved his urges with Cyan. At most, he had another hour before his balls started cramping as if they were in a vise. An hour and a half before he was delirious with pain. Two to three hours, and he’d be actively dying. Of course, by then, the seals protecting the breach would be close to breaking, andeveryoneon the platform would be actively dying.

Where the hell was Blade?

“Hey.” Cyan looked up from the table where she was sketching designs he wasn’t familiar with. “What’s up?”

“A mage will be here in half an hour to take over for you.”

“Good. I simplified the spell. Hopefully enough that a mage can maintain it. They don’t have to be able to see the glyphs I put down.” She dropped the pencil onto the table. “You didn’t come down here to tell me about the mage, did you?”

He both hated and loved how observant she was. “I’m just thinking Blade’s arrival might be getting down to the wire.”

“I know. I’m hoping to get a new set of images of the glyphs soon. We’ll get a better idea of timing then.”

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