Page 28 of Keeping Sarah

I groaned at her enthusiasm. “Soon, baby, I swear—"

“Rightnow,” she demanded.

On her command, my cock started to firm up, startling me. “What the hell?”

She giggled. “Conduit magic. Apparently it works on boys, too.”

I was completely hard inside of her now. “What are you talking about?”

Her grin was devious as she looked up at me. “I can make my body fit to your cock now and I can heal minor wounds. I thought I would try it on you.”

I laughed. “You’re making me magically hard for you?”

She batted her lashes flirtatiously. “Complaining?”

I moved off of her and laid back to stare at my newly re-hardened cock. “Nope. Sort of fascinated. But definitely not complaining.”

“Good.” She grinned, and clearly no longer tired, she mounted me once more.

CHAPTER 9

Deacon

“What is that?” Ode asked as she reached around me on the onworlder and pointed ahead.

Old smoke filled my lungs. The scent of a fire extinguished. Staring at the charred ruins of an unknown thing, I shook my head and slowed down.

“I am unsure.” We stopped when the skeletons became visible in the moonslight and we left the onworlder to examine the site. I flashed my gauntlet driver’s light around and mumbled, “What happened…”

“Deacon.” Ode’s voice was morose. “It’s Rex’s ship.”

My stomach clenched and the world seemed to spin out from beneath me when my knees crumbled. I fell onto my ass in grief. But then I scurried to my feet, searching for any sign of survivors. Ode chased me through the wreckage, trying to get me to stop. I could not. Not until I found the smallest skeleton.

It was face down on the ground, limbs askew. I fell once more, this time on my hands and knees on the soot-covered ground. I didn’t have the strength for anything else.

My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears. “No…”

“It’s not her.”

I looked up at Ode, tears burning in my eyes and my heart breaking in two.

“It’s not,” she insisted. “That’s a male body.”

I looked again, this time more thoroughly. She was right—the limbs were too long. And fine tail bones were intact.

Relief swept through me, and I tried to hold onto hope. We searched the crash site further. No human skeleton to be found. And then I discovered a jem’hora feather and picked it up, a calmness settling in my ghost.

“Sarah did this,” I told Ode, confident of the fact. “Just like when she called them to her before. Jem’hora, they are large enough to gum up the engine of any of our ships.” I smiled and quietly said, “Iknowshe did this.”

Ode looked equally relieved. “Then she’s most likely on foot. I bet we can catch up to her before she gets to Faithless.”

We ran back to the onworlder with renewed energy. The headlamp of the vehicle shone just enough to illuminate a dozen meters ahead. Not much of a warning, when tree stumps occasionally sprang from nowhere in the middle of the path. They were not a problem for ghosts on foot, but for the living, they could be a hazard.

As we swerved around another one, I shouted over my shoulder, “Who maintains the path?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know much about Halla.”

In truth, none of us did. Since we had arrived on Halla, we had met surprises at every turn. I should have known we would. Despite the Ladrian tendency to embrace death as a part of life, we did not openly discuss Halla and all of its quirks. Talkingabout the microplanet felt like courting death or a prayer for bad luck. As we drove up the path, I wished my people were not so superstitious. It would have been nice to have more intel on the planet where my consort would live.

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