Page 30 of Risking Her Heart

“Yeah,” I agree, and we both laugh, shaking our heads. “I thought you were… you know. I even made a little headstone for you.”

“Oh,” she exclaims, tears filling her eyes. “I’m so happy too, Kitty. Now I feel bad that I didn’t make one for you!”

I laugh, wiping away my tears.

“It’s fine,” I say. “There were so many… well we made a graveyard, and I was in it working and missing you. You know.”

I don’t want to think about those times right after the crash. It was terrible and right now this is too good to let such thoughts cloud the joy of the moment.

“I can’t imagine, Kitty,” she says. “I didn’t have… well it was just me. I thought… maybe I was the only one. Until I could talk with the boys. That took quite a while, their language isn’t easy.”

“God, I know,” I say. “Can you help me, you think? I’d really like to be able to talk to Zas. Right now, I’m never sure we really understand each other.”

“I can!” she exclaims.

The door slides open and the Zmaj file in. In the middle of the group is Zas. The moment he sees me he runs. As my eyes widen, he takes hold of my waist and lifts me into the air, spinning me around.

“Hope!” he yells so loud it echoes.

I grab onto his shoulders to steady myself and laugh. He keeps spinning, but I’m getting dizzy. Sliding my hands over his shoulders, I hook behind his neck and pull myself to him until our lips touch.

He pulls me tight, and we kiss. His wings snap open and enclose the two of us as I meld my body to his.

20

KATARINA

“How long?” Zas’tu asks.

“One cycle, maybe more but not much,” Kri’cati answers.

Zas nods as he frowns. The three of us are staring at a table, but on top of it is a map of the desert. It’s some kind of a hologram technology showing the area around the mountain refuge all the way to the cliff where the section of the generation ship crashed.

“Not enough,” Zas growls.

“It will take that long to move it all,” I say.

“We do not have a choice,” Kri’cati says. “We need to move the people first that can help prepare the space. We have worked hard, but there is much to do. This base was not designed for so many. Fifty, a hundred at the most. Not hundreds.”

Leaning onto the edge of the table, I try to imagine the distance between the ship and here. We don’t have enough tamed mounts nor any other way to transport the people. Some of the survivors are older and some are not as healthy. The weakest didn’tmake it but it’s a big difference between surviving and working around the ship and traversing the wide open space of the desert between the two locations. The heat alone is enough to kill, witness my own heat stroke.

“Epis?” Zas asks.

“No, we don’t have any supply,” Kri’cati says.

Zas curses in his own language. I don’t understand it, but I feel the sentiment in his words and the way he spits it out.

“Dangerous,” Zas says.

“The transport will help,” I say, tracing my finger between the ship and the refuge.

“Not safe,” Zas says, then looks over at Kri’cati and says more.

I wait impatiently, hating that we still can’t express ourselves to one another easily.

“Yes,” Kri’cati agrees.

“Yes what?” I snap in frustration.

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