Page 47 of Guardian's Soul

He shook his head. His expression was a grim mask of hate, but not for me. "Not a word."

"Phew." I let out a deep breath.

"You didn't think I would, did you?" He looked at me.

"Not for one second," I lied, and we both laughed. It wasn't a good laugh. It was nervous and tense.

"I should have told you this before, but Ohrurs have a large pain threshold. Torturing him won't give us much." Thrax ran a hand through his hair.

"Why didn't you?" I demanded, a bit offended that he hadn't.

"Well, let me see." He pretended to think about it. "Probably because you keep distracting me with those lips of yours."

This time, my smile was deep and real. All the way. "I'm distracting you, eh?"

"All. The. Time." He grinned.

"All right." I took his arm. "Apology accepted. Let's see what we can find out poking through the database."

Thrax hesitated as if he wanted to say something else but stopped.

"What?"

"Nothing." He started walking toward the bridge.

"I know that look, and it doesn't mean nothing."

"I just don't think we'll find much on this database."

I frowned. "I don't understand. Wasn't that the whole point of getting it?"

"I might be wrong." Thrax tried to wave it off, but his words raised worry inside me.

"Let's just go and see," he said, and we entered the bridge, where we sat down, and he changed the screen ahead of us into a large one instead of projecting a multitude of smaller ones.

He browsed through the screens at a dizzying speed. "Just like I feared," he finally sighed.

"What?" I had no idea what he had discovered.

"Earlier, I got the suspicion that everything Possedion was telling us was a lie?—"

"You don't say," I interrupted, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice.

Thrax chuckled. "There she is."

"Who?" I nearly looked over my shoulder, even though I knew it was just him and me aboard this ship. Well, and now Possedion.

“Your feisty side. I've missed her."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, space cadet."

"Space Guardian." He grinned so brightly, my lips curled.

"So are you going to tell me or keep me in suspense for a few more hours?"

He pretended to think about it, and I nearly boxed him in the side.

"I think that whatever happened to you and me has happened to people before," he explained, and I bit my tongue in time before another sarcastic snark left my lips. Probably often enough for the Ohrurs to have a contingency plan, and"—he motioned to the screen—"maybe even a secondary database."

---