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  He had no other choice.

  Chapter Four

  Juno was a large-vehicle restricted world, which meant they had to land at the spaceport and walk from there. Before they left the ship, Shad handed her a large, pink pill and a squeeze-bulb of flat-tasting water to wash it down with.

  “Translation bacteria,” he explained when Harper looked at it dubiously. “So you can understand what people are saying, even when they’re talking in a foreign language.”

  “What about you?” she demanded. “Are you going to take one too?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t need it.”

  “You can speak all languages in the galaxy with no help?”

  “Most of them.” He shrugged. “I’m Kindred.”

  As though that explained everything.

  He also gave her an oversized black t-shirt—obviously one of his.

  “Put it on,” he said gruffly. “You’ll attract too much attention in that.”

  Harper looked down at the thin red dress, the silky material molding itself to her full, braless breasts, and blushed a little. Then again, why should she feel ashamed? He had given her this to wear himself, after forcing her to strip off the perfectly modest sundress and cardigan she’d been wearing at the beach. It wasn’t her fault the clothes he’d picked were too sexy.

  Still, she pulled on the t-shirt without comment. It was far too big, of course. She knotted it on one side, trying to make herself look less like a rag-bag.

  Shad pulled on a t-shirt also, as well as a battered leather jacket. Then he reconsidered and took off the jacket, handing it to her instead.

  “Here—it’s supposed to be cold out there.”

  “How cold?” Harper asked. “Because that is way too big for me.”

  “Just put it on,” he said roughly. “Don’t want you getting sick on me.”

  It didn’t seem worth fighting about. Harper put on the jacket and tried her best to roll up the sleeves. It weighed about a ton and smelled like him—the same dark, masculine spice she’d been surrounded by in the strange flash she’d had. Harper tried to ignore it—the scent seemed to do…funny things to her insides.

  “How far are we from the, uh, forger’s shop?” she asked. She didn’t mind walking—it was her favorite form of exercise and the little black ballet flats he’d given her to wear were reasonably comfortable. But she hoped it wasn’t going to be miles and miles of trudging through a big, dirty alien city.

  Then again, what did she know? The city might be beautifully clean and gorgeous. But considering the impossibly tall smokestacks which belched both orange smoke and pink and purple sparks and the dense smog they’d flown through during the landing, she doubted it.

  “It won’t be far if we can get a ride on a v-copter,” Shad said, frowning. “That shouldn’t be hard—I’ve got plenty of credit—all that was left in the Mother Ship’s interstellar account after it blew. It’s getting out of the space-port without paying the tax to the Controller that’s going to be tricky.”

  “But if you have plenty of, uh, credit, why do you want to avoid paying the tax?” Harper protested.

  “Let’s hope you don’t have to find out,” Shad said darkly and refused to say more. Instead, he opened the door to the small ship and motioned for her to step out. “Just stay close to me,” he told her sternly when they were both standing on the smooth, indigo platform where they were parked. “Remember, Harper—the past resists change. I’ll protect you with my life but if there’s a way for you to die, the forces of inertia will find it.”

  Harper nodded and swallowed.

  “I understand.” She might have taken offense at his man-splaining, but she had no wish to die again, even though she couldn’t remember all the other deaths he’d described.

  Their landing platform was located high off the ground—as were the others Harper could see around them. They radiated out from a central hub, like spokes on a giant wheel. Spaced evenly around the round inner platform Harper could see space craft of all kinds, from tiny ships that looked no bigger than a smart car back home to vast behemoths as big as mountains.

  Their own platform, a single spoke in the giant wheel, stretched out over an endless void and there appeared to be some kind of elevator located at the end of it, beyond their ship. Harper expected they would head for it but instead, Shad led her further down the center strut of the landing platform, toward the middle of the vast wheel.

  “Come on. The taxation officers will be waiting at the bottom of our transport lift. So we’re going to work our way around the central hub and try to come out with the crowd. That way we have less chance of getting taxed.”

  Harper still didn’t understand why he wanted so badly to avoid paying the parking tax. If he really had unlimited credit, what difference would it make, no matter how expensive it was? But there didn’t seem to be any use in arguing. Silently, she followed him down the long spoke, which narrowed to only two feet wide, as they got closer and closer to the center.

  She tried not to look down because they were extremely high up. She normally had very good balance—she’d had four years of gymnastics at her mother’s insistence before she’d given it up in high school to do drama instead—but she didn’t like looking down and seeing how far away the crowded space port was. She couldn’t even see what kind of people were down there—it was all just a colorful blur.

  Shad kept a strong grip on her wrist which she supposed was probably a safety precaution, although it made her feel more like a naughty toddler who might run out into traffic than Harper liked to admit. She wanted to shake off his hand and tell him she was a grown-ass woman and could take care of herself. But the dizzying height they were at kept her from it.

  They were almost to the hub of the wheel, which had a much larger elevator-looking thing in the center and was crowded with strange looking people and aliens, when Harper’s foot slipped, seemingly for no reason. It almost felt as though someone had tripped her or yanked at her ankle but there was nothing there.

  That didn’t matter, though—whether she had a reason for it or not, she was still falling.

  “Oh!” Her excellent balance deserted her and she felt herself tilting over the edge of the narrow indigo platform. A breathless scream left her lips and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  “Harper, no!” Shad’s grip on her arm tightened until she felt the small bones in her wrist grinding together and then there was a jolt and she was hanging over the void, suspended by one arm. Her shoulder ached fiercely but that was the least of her problems right now.

  The big Kindred was flat on his stomach, splayed out over the length of the long strut, holding her up with one hand.

  “Shad?” She looked up at him, her heart racing with fear. Panic choked her like someone had shoved sawdust down her throat and she couldn’t seem to get a deep enough breath.

  “It’s all right. I’ve got you. This is why I wanted to keep hold of you in the first place.” His deep voice was steady and reassuring. “Just stay still—I’ll pull you up.”

  Harper wanted to ask if he could actually do that. After all, she owned her curves but there was no doubt she was a Big Beautiful Woman. Most of the men she’d dated wouldn’t have been able to lift her at all—let alone pull her out of the abyss with only one arm while balancing on a narrow platform over an endless void.

  But Shad began lifting her easily enough, the biceps and triceps of his right arm flexing impressively as he raised her back up to the indigo spoke. Harper was just scrambling back onto solid ground when a thick, burbling voice that sounded like someone blowing bubbles through a straw spoke behind her.

  “Sooo…I thought I felt a trip alarm go off.”

  Harper turned so quickly she almost fell again. Only Shad’s hands on her waist steadied her.

  Standing behind them—or rather floating—was a…something. It looked like an amorphous blue blob to Harper. It hovered in mid-air and bulged and twitched, its sides in constant motion.