Page 86 of Seeded By Two

The plasma fire on the other side stopped.

He stepped forward and disappeared from view.

I blinked, disbelieving that what I had just witnessed had actually happened.

He had handed himself over to these creatures…

I just stared, open-mouthed and awestruck.

Why would he do that? I wondered.

What had he seen that had changed his decision to fight?

He didn’t look happy about doing it, so I doubted it was for his benefit.

In which case… for whose benefit was it?

Ours?

But what did we have to gain from losing him?

Nothing, so far as I could see.

Feon hadn’t noticed what had happened and remained glaring at the console, fingers dancing impossibly fast.

I rushed over to him and placed my hand on his shoulder.

He was so focused on his task that he didn’t feel me there.

“Feon,” I said softly.

“Hm?” he said, still hammering at the keys.

“It’s Aslas…”

That got his attention.

His head snapped toward the oval opening where he expected to see him.

No doubt he feared he had lost his Prince, and his friend.

But there was no dead body there, no sign of Aslas at all.

“He’s gone,” I said in answer to his unasked question.

He just stared, confused, before leaping to his feet, and hurried over to the escape pod exit.

He peered around the corner, mouth falling open.

“Why would he do that?” I said. “Why would he hand himself over to them like that?”

He seemed as confused as I did…

Until his eyes drifted down to a dead body on the floor.

He bent down and placed the tips of his fingers in the drying blood and when he extracted them, the blood was so sticky, it came up with them. “Because they’re Ukmat. He handed himself over because he thought it would save us. Because they’re looking for him.”

“Why would they be looking for him?”

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