Sea of Stars (Kricket, #2)

by Amy A. Bartol

The signs they have given to us are clear. The stars of fate have aligned.

She’s our rightful property. We created her bloodline. We own her: body, mind, and soul.

Everyone and everything here moves at a brisk, urban pace—a sharp contrast to the Regent’s palace where I used to reside. There, sedate grace is valued over efficiency.

I focus on the clouds beyond the edge of the city to calm myself. They’re so thick that if I knew how to swim I might attempt it within their depths.

When Trey pauses in his pacing for a moment, the shadows from the violence of yesterday are visible in his eyes—a new world-weary look that I haven’t seen from him until now. The blind faith in his mission that was there when I first met him is absent. I’ve been the catalyst for that change. When he found me in Chicago, he was so certain that he was doing the right thing by remanding me back to Ethar, the planet and culture from which my parents hid me. He was a soldier then, one who just wanted to accomplish his mission and move on to the next thrill. Now he has doubts—I’ve caused him to worry—I’ve caused him to change.

The creases between his brows deepen. I want to reach out and smooth the furrow, then trace the lines of the thick, black tribal tattoos that run from his throat, beneath his pressed uniform, to his broad chest and over his flat-muscled abdomen. I want to rest my cheek against his chest—hear the sinfully melodic beat of his heart. Maybe if I did, it’d stop me from worrying about our uncertain future.

Then his violet-colored eyes, an almost universal Rafian trait, connect with mine. My heart stutters to a halt before taking off again at a dangerous beat, leaving me breathless. He’s so handsome it hurts, I think.

“Okay, you must have forgotten that I know when someone’s lying—it’s one of my special, freaky priestess gifts, remember—the one you love to use until it becomes inconvenient for you? You can try to throw me off, but even half-truths ring false with me. So, what do you think is happening?”

Trey gives a low, sexy growl of frustration as he approaches me with a stealthy gait. I love the way he moves—confident and in control. He stops in front of me. I have

to tip my head back so I can see his face. Grasping the lapels of the black uniform jacket he gave me to wear this morning, he straightens my collar and tweaks the line of matte black buttons down my front so that I have an immaculate, military rightness to my look. He’s not even really touching me and it’s doing crazy things to my insides. No one has ever af...

“I never want to lie to you—” “Good, because you can’t,” I interrupt. “But,” he goes on, “I like frightening you even less, so until I understand exactly what’s going on to explain it to you, I’d rather not discuss what little I know at the moment.”

He’s been treating me like I’m breakable ever since our arrival here last night. I’ve been trying my best to act normal, but everything from our location to our

hard-fought relationship is still so new. I’d spent last night with him—talking mostly, exchanging a few kisses. He had let me cry on his shoulder; he’d wiped away my tears, keeping the memories of the massacre in the pala...

The warmth of his body manages to calm my fears a little, if not my racing heart—that increases by the sheer nearness of him.

“I missed you, Kricket. Every second of every rotation that we were apart was torture.”

“I promise that it’ll be you and me from this moment forward—whatever happens.” I fall into his embrace as if he’s my home. “Things are really bad, aren’t they? What are we going to do?”

“I know what we’re not going to do, Kricket,” his sultry voice assures me. “We’re not going to allow anyone to come between us again.”

“I want you to try to see the future.” He’s never asked me to do that before, my mind whispers. I tense. “I don’t know if I can—it just happens—you’ve seen it—”

“I know that in the past you’ve had no control over what you see in the future or when you see it. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll have to take things as they come. But if you can use your gift of precognition, we might have an advantage and an opportunity to change the future if we need to.”

“Your eyes became almost blue for a few moments, Kricket,” he says. “They did?” He nods; his thumb brushes my cheek. “The most startling color blue pushed outward from your pupils like a rolling cloud, infusing your irises.”

He sits up straighter, his hands going to my waist and holding me steady as he looks into my eyes. “Okay, I’ve got you,” he breathes the words, sounding anxious too.

“You shouldn’t reward me for failing,” I whisper against his lips. “You’re incapable of failure,” he replies. “You just need practice.” He holds up his wrist communicator. “Here.”

“Kricket Hollowell!” the leader of the unit barks. “Remain still!” I don’t move. I can’t: I’m a shattered ceramic garden gnome, rooted to the floor by fear.

There are times when acting like a raving lunatic can save your life. In the foster care system, when another kid thinks you’re crazy, she’s more apt to leave you alone. Even when she’s much bigger than you, you know that she knows there’s such a thing as “crazy strength.” Crazy doesn’t hold anything back—doesn’t save anything in reserve. It doesn’t fight fair. It just goes ballistic . . . and crazy never stops. I’ve gone crazy before with a broken beer bottle, fending off drunken men. In a situation like this, however, crazy gets you killed—or worse—and there are things

worse than death.

“She’s just a little lost Etharian. You should be protecting her. She’s Rafian. She has proven her loyalty to us.”

“I need to stay with her! We have to stay together.”

“Don’t fight them! They’ll kill you! I’ll be okay; I’m stone, remember? Nothing touches me.” It’s not true. I have a paper heart and he has written notes all over it.

He kisses me hard on the lips. It’s a desperate kiss—a last kiss.

“I was told that znous are your favorite. I had the worms removed especially for you.” “It’d be a shame to spoil the carefully planned arrangement,”

“That must be a departure for you, not using your body to get what you want.” I know what he’s implying, but I ignore the innuendo. “I rarely get what I want, Minister Telek,” I reply honestly, “within my body or outside of it.”

It is a wonder he didn’t kill me upon sight when he found me, I think. I look just like the monsters who did that to him.

The love letter Trey wrote on my paper heart is there; Minister Telek can read it.

“They’re calling you two star-crossed lovers, romanticizing your relationship. It was already viral by the time you arrived at my office.”

I’m in my own dark ages, I think, except in reverse—I can’t prove that I’m a priestess.

“He’d never confess to anything he didn’t do, and I’d never condemn him in that way to avoid pain. I won’t be euthanized like some unwanted pet at the pound.”

“Either way you die. A part of me is delighted that you’d choose pain. Nothing will bring me more pleasure than to see you die horribly: a fitting end for an Alameeda priestess.”

“Think about what I said. You need me to bring the future back to you.”

“You’ve frightened her, Kyon. You mustn’t amuse yourself at her expense or she’ll never love you.” “As long as she respects me, I can live with her fear,”

With every step we take, my panic grows. If I leave with him, I may

survive, but Trey won’t. I can’t live with that. For the first time in my life, my survival is not as important to me as someone else’s.

“You’re on time delay, Kyon. You do only what I want you to do.”

“I kill anyone who harms her!”

“Kricket, no one wants you here. You need to come home now. I’ll take care of you.” “I’m not a part of your cult! You don’t own me,”

“If you don’t give them the benefit of the doubt, all the detained Cavars in those cells will die if this ship goes down. Let them fight for their lives against the Alameeda. You can figure out their guilt or innocence after we survive.”

I realize I’m in a coffin looking out as we sink toward the deck.

“What do you want to risk to get away?” he asks. I swallow past the bile corrupting my throat. “Everything,” I reply. “I’ll risk everything to stay with you.” “I was hoping you were going to say that,”

Holding the seat back, he leans over and kisses me. My heart contracts painfully in my chest. He grasps my hair, and rests his forehead to mine for just a moment. I want to wrap my arms around him, but he pulls away from me.

“If this

doesn’t work out for us, Kricket, know that I’ve loved you from the moment I held you in my arms on Ethar, and every moment in between. I will love you even after my final breath.”