Page 26 of Needed in the Night
“So, what—” I started to say.
“Isla—” Mikas began at the same time, then fell silent.
“Go on,” I said, smiling to encourage him. “I’m listening. We’ve still got plenty of time before we’ll need to leave the shop.”
He took a deep breath and started to speak.
His wristcomm beeped twice. He glanced at the screen and snarled. I jumped a little at the sound.
I’d never heard him snarl like that—not even when patrons caused trouble. In the bar, his growls had more of a warning note. This snarl was truly ferocious.
I touched his hand. “What’s wrong?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. His enormous hands clenched into fists, and then he flexed his fingers. “Nubo says there is a problem with the drink kiosks,” he grated. “He requests that I return to work my shift.”
He very clearly didn’t believe it. Neither did I. The coincidence was too great. I’d bet my best boots if there really was a problem, Nubo had engineered it as an excuse to bring an end to our outing.
Gods, could I have nothing? Not even an hour of privacy and heart-to-heart conversation with my friend without our boss interfering?
If Mikas refused, it would arouse Nubo’s suspicions even more, though there was nothing more to our time together than two good friends looking for mutual comfort about our present and our pasts. As much as we resented and hated Nubo, wedidn’t need to make an enemy of him. Judging by Mikas’s expression, his thoughts mirrored mine.
He sent a terse reply and turned off his wristcomm screen.
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm again in an attempt to comfort him.
Mikas started to move away, possibly out of habit, but then seemed to remember we were in private and covered my hand with his much larger one.
“It will not always be like this,” he said, his voice quiet. “We will not always have to answer to him.”
“You have some plan to get us out of here?” I asked.
Only after the words came out did I notice he’d saidwe, and I’d saidus. When had we become anus?And why did the thought warm my insides like a cup of hot tea?
Another flash of emotion in his eyes I couldn’t read. His hand squeezed mine, very gently. “Goals and dreams, but no plans,” he said. “Not yet.”
What did he mean by that? He wanted to figure out a way to get us both away from Nubo? How long had he been thinking about this?
If we had more time to talk, I would have asked him all those questions. I would have asked again what was bothering him and where he might want to go if he left Onat’ras. I might have confided how much I wanted to find a place where Brae and I could make a home and feel secure and comfortable and I wished he could find the same.
Instead, I picked up my shopping bag and quietly followed him out.
CHAPTER 9
ISLA
“I think we should leave Onat’ras,”Brae said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said so—only the first time tonight.
My shadowbat had returned from his nightly feeding just after I got back from the market. Safely inside my apartment, which he accessed through a window I left partially open for fresh air, he shifted out of his shadow form.
In his solid form, his furry body was bright blue with dark blue wings, purple ears, and a purple tail with a fluffy tuft of gray fur with colorful tips on its end. His little horns and fangs were more decorative than functional, since he preferred insects over larger prey, but his fangs produced a paralytic venom and his claws were razor sharp.
A year ago, on Valodia, he’d asked me to put two small hoop earrings in his ear after seeing similar piercings on a frilled bat belonging to a local gamekeeper. I didn’t dare tell him I thought they made him look more adorable than threatening.
He settled into a nest made of my clothing at the foot of my bed. When he needed more of my scent, or had nightmares, heslept on my pillow, curled up against the back of my head. I grumbled about it, especially when his claws or fangs got caught in my long hair, but we both knew I didn’t mind. We comforted each other.
“Nubo has you followed everywhere.” Brae rubbed his pot belly with his wings. “As if it’s not bad enough to live under surveillance in this building. You don’t need to live like this.Wedon’t need to live like this.”
“I know.” I sat cross-legged on my bed in my pajamas with a glass of wine in my hand. It was my second glass. “I hate it—you know I do. I don’t want to be watched like I’m somebody’s possession. It reminds me of…” I swallowed hard. “Before.”
