Page 17 of Bound

“This is a position I could get used to.” I grin up at her.

“Not fucking funny, Rych,” Chrissie retorts, although there’s no venom in her voice. Only fear.

The ship lurches to the right, although not as violently or as far as last time. I get to my feet with my mate in my arms.

“Hold on to me,” I growl, placing her hand on the waist of my pants. “Don’t let go.”

I make my way through to the bridge with Chrissie in tow. Lights flash and the alarms are going mad.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” she asks.

I look at the consoles. It’s as if everything should be familiar, but there’s something blocking the knowledge. I shake my head to clear it, but it doesn’t work.

“I don’t…know. There’s…something. I…” Pain spikes through my brain over my left eye, searing as if I’m being sliced open.

I shove the heel of my hand into my eye socket.

“Rych?” Chrissie's gentle voice pierces the pain, making it ebb away. “Rych? I think we’re descending.”

I open my eyes and look out of the viewer. The ground is far closer than it should be.

“We’re not descending, little mate, we’re crashing.”

CHRISSIE

I do not want to crash.

After everything which has happened to me, crashing into an alien planet is not the way I wanted to end my days.

“What do we do?”

“Escape pods,” Rych says. “Now.”

I find myself in his arms as he rushes through the ship to the rear and an area I’ve not entered before. It is more utilitarian, the luxuries stripped away.

I’m placed on my feet, and Rych slams his fist on a glowing green patch on the wall. A door snaps open, and I peer into the small space inside.

“You’re not going to fit.”

“This pod is for one. I’ll be in the other one,” Rych says as he gently pushes me inside. “Strap in.”

He presses another lit up square and straps of glittering metal, slide out. He crosses them over my chest, and his wing feathers brush my face as he fastens them around me.

“Don’t…” I breathe.

He lifts his head, his liquid dark eyes searching my face.

“Don’t leave me.” I feel the words more than hear them.

“I’ll be right behind you, my little spark,” he says, stepping back as the door drops shut in a snapping movement.

Before I can even scream, I’m forced back into the embrace of the pod by the g-force of the movement away from the main ship. In front of me, a screen flickers to life, and I wish it hadn’t because all I can see is the silver streak of Fenek’s air transport as I move away from it and it almost gracefully drops out of the sky, slamming into the ground before being obscured by the dirt and debris it throws up into the night.

Then it is dark, wind whistles around the pod, and I am helpless. I didn’t see Rych’s pod leave the ship, and I can’t see it as mine tumbles down and down.

I’m thrown around again as there is a roaring, deep, rasping resonating through me. I brace because it surely will turn out this is the way I die.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I cry out as the sound intensifies. “I should have tried harder to get back to you.”

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