Page 23 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

“Why are you drinking like this?” I asked. “You’re our captain and—”

“Does any of it even matter anymore?” Cyburn’s voice boomed through the walls and shook my bones with an uncertain future.

When I tucked my knees up to my chest in response, Cyburn’s tighten jaw slackened and some of the affection returned to the shimmer in his glossy, black eyes.

“The Belic took off. They don’t care about Amada. They never did.”

“She’s on an escape pod,” I countered. “Ready to meet up with them.”

Cyburn’s laughter was bitter, like he had just sucked on a sour lemon. “That’s whatshewas led to believe.”

“So, they left her on purpose?” I was starting to put the missing puzzle pieces together, but I still had a lot of unanswered questions.

Cyburn’s head lolled to the side in a half-efforted nod. “Yes.”

“What will happen to her now?” My stomach knotted. I almost didn’t want to know.

Cyburn raised the bottle to his lips again and took the biggest sip that I’d seen so far, or ever seen, from him.

I’d never seen him engaging in this kind of reckless abandon. Especially not when our ship was puttering along through space, limping, and licking its wounds.

We couldn’t afford anymore slip-ups, but Cyburn appeared so distraught that I couldn’t bring myself to reprimand him.

“She will drift off into space.” After he said this, a choking sound gurgled in the back of his throat.

He teetered on his feet again. For a moment I froze, expecting him to violently retch and get sick all over the floor.

When he didn’t, I reached out for him. “Why don’t you come sit next to me.”

Cyburn looked at me, but his eyes didn’t focus.

“She can’t navigate to their ships?” I asked.

“They’ve deliberately turned off the communications in their control center,” Cyburn explained. “They don’t want her to find them. They don’t want her. They tricked her, used her, and now they are done with her.”

“Can you reach her to let her know?” I asked.

No one despised Amada quite like I did, but I couldn’t bear to see Cyburn suffering this way. Nor could I live with myself if I wished a horrible death upon her — no matterwhatshe thought about me in return.

No matterwhatdiabolical hell she unleashed on us — willingly I might add — I would always rise above her mentality. I would never allow myself to stoop to her level of hate.

Cyburn’s chin quivered as he stared with a blank expression straight ahead. I wished he would look at me. I wanted to sooth him. His mind was somewhere else, and he remained out of reach.

“She has turned off her own communications,” Cyburn declared with such finality that it felt like my heart was going to splatter against my chest cavity.

“You can’t reach her at all?” Horror wrapped its talons around me.

Cyburn’s head shook from side to side as if he felt it was too heavy to carry on his neck and shoulders any longer.

“Unless she turns her radio back on, she will continue to drift. The vacuum of space will suck her in, and she’ll be lost forever.”

“Oh, Cyburn…”

What else could I say to make this terrible situation better? My heart ached for him. His face was sharp and tormented. His inebriated state didn’t do him any favors either. He blinked away tears. Guilt hung on his drooping shoulders.

I reached for his neck and kneaded it with my fingers. “Everything is going to be alright.”

He turned toward me so fast that I flinched.

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