Free Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair Page B

of Dorsie and executed a flowing bow. “Then I shall return to do your bidding shortly.”
    “Just don’t run off and play cards with that scoundrel Sully,” she warned in mock sternness.
    Ren arched one eyebrow. “My dear friend Dorsie, you know that when it comes to gambling or srorfralak pie, your pie wins every time.”
    “Twenty to one?” Dorsie quipped. “Off with you. Be back in a half hour. If the pie’s not right, then Verno can blame you, not me.”
    Dorsie’s pies were nothing less than perfect. Although the Takan vegetable delicacy wasn’t my favorite, both Verno and Ren were enraptured by it.
    “My quarters?” Ren asked when we were in the corridor and out of Dorsie’s hearing. He knew very well I didn’t want his copy of the concert. I had my own.
    “Please.”
    We took the narrow ladderway up one deck in silence.
    “You heard that Thad has probably told Tage everything?” I asked when Ren’s cabin door closed behind me.
    With a sigh, Ren nodded, then sank down on the arm of his sofa. “I fear there are some very unpleasant times ahead for Sully.”
    “Has he discussed with you what he plans to do?”
    “Chasidah, these are things—”
    “That I should be asking him?” God, how many times had Ren and I gone back and forth, only to end up at this same point? “I try, Ren. And he is opening up to me a lot more. But there are still things he holds back. Things he won’t discuss. I can feel this tension, this fear in him. Then I can’t get through. But you’re like him. He doesn’t have to explain to you what it means to be a Ragkiril . What it means to be feared or scorned. He feels he has to with me. I know that’s a big part of the problem.”
    Ren’s silver-eyed gaze studied me for a long moment. “I’ll try to get him to talk to you,” he said finally.
    That would be a start. “Thank you. I mean that.”
    I turned for the door to the corridor then stopped and glanced back at Ren. “Can you at least tell me if there’s anything I should be worried about?”
    “I hope not, Chasidah,” he said, his voice carrying echoes of a twilight storm. Distant thunder fading but yet a slight chill to the wind. “I hope not.”
     
    I didn’t have much time to ponder Ren’s remark. Our slippery space was making the Karn very annoyed. Marsh and Verno needed me back on the bridge. Autoguidance, seeking fixes that weren’t there, kept sending us off course. It had been a long time since I’d had to hand-fly a ship in jumpspace, but that’s what I ended up doing. And doing it solo. Normally two pilots would take shifts. But our other pilot was facedown and snoring. If I ended up spending an entire shipday in this seat, I’d be of little help when we reached Narfial. But if I didn’t, we might not reach Narfial at all.
    Sully sat at navigation, frowning, running data from other similar transits through the computer, trying to give me whatever edge he could. He kept a light—very light—mental touch with me. It was reassuring without being distracting, and it kept my thoughts my own. Because they did on occasion wander back to Ren’s I hope not.
    I would never view Sully as impulsive. For all his flamboyant reputation, he rarely took action without planning, without knowing his escape routes if things went wrong. I considered that one of his strengths. But he could be careless of his own safety, push himself too hard, justifying the end as worth the means. I saw that when we were trapped in the shuttle bay on Marker and he revealed his Ragkiril side to Berri Solaria and Zabur Lazlo. His diversion kept me and Philip alive. It could have just as easily gotten Sully killed.
    Sometimes Gabriel—the Kyi-Ragkiril —forgot that Gabriel Ross Sullivan was also human.
    “Try this.”
    Sully’s voice drew my attention off my console screen and made me glance at navigation. He pointed to my console so I split the screen and watched his latest snippet of data scroll across. It took a moment