Raff (The Vorge Crew Book 4) Read online

  The ground under his feet suddenly thumped and a split second later, a distant blast reached his ears. He was the one to end the kiss that time, staring around the cave. Small bits of dust fell from a few of the cracks above them where the smoke from the fire usually drifted up through the mountain to keep it from filling the enclosed area.

  He reacted fast, jerking Lilly higher up his body. They needed to leave. He spun, running toward the shuttle. At the open door, he gently dumped her inside.

  “Stay put. They are bombing!”

  He ran to where he’d put his bag, leaving the other things where they were, and rushed back to the shuttle. He threw the bag into the storage area, reached for a stunned Lilly still sitting where he’d put her, and lifted her. His ass hit the seat and he dropped her onto his lap. He sealed the door, flipping on the engines.

  “What’s going on?” She sounded panicked.

  “The tracker must have gotten caught up somewhere or they realized it is in the water.” To verify his guess, another bomb hit the mountain. More debris and a few small chunks of rock rained down outside the shuttle. One piece struck it. The sound of the blast was too muted to hear inside.

  He pushed her forward and put on his belts. Then he pulled her back against his chest. “They are too close and might be able to shoot us down. We’re going to have to fly out of here fast.” He didn’t want to frighten her but he needed her cooperation. “Reach down and hold on tight to the sides of the seat. If we’re hit and need to eject, I’ll grab hold of you. I won’t let go.”

  “Eject?” Her voice rose to a high pitch that made him wince.

  He flipped on the night vision screen since he didn’t want any exterior lights to broadcast their location and stared straight ahead, gripping the thrusters with one hand, the steering control with the other.

  “Hold on,” he rasped. “Trust me.”

  He gently lifted them off the cave floor and eased forward.

  “We’re going to hit the shield thing! Can’t we just stay here?”

  He didn’t want to state to her that the bombs would collapse the cave and crush them, even inside the shuttle. “We can fly through the imager shield. It’s only solid from the outside. It means I can’t reverse us back in once we’re out.” He meant that as a joke but she didn’t laugh. His crewmates were probably right. He didn’t have a sense of humor.

  He flew them out of the cave and down, going slow to avoid slamming into the rock overhang. Once they neared the canyon floor, he spotted at least two shuttles hovering higher to his far left. He turned his shuttle to the right and hit the thrusters hard. It shoved Lilly’s small body against his. All his attention went to avoiding slamming them into the canyon walls and the floor as he picked up speed.

  “Hold on,” he repeated. He couldn’t make a mistake. The small female sitting on his lap would die if he crashed. Either from the impact or by the ones in the other shuttles seeking them to return her to Prix.

  Solid rock, trees, and ground flew past them far too close. Lilly kept her eyes tightly closed to avoid watching as the crazy hot kisser alien drove his shuttle at super speed through the canyon. The feeling of motion was making her nauseous as he dodged and weaved.

  Not a time to puke, she kept repeating in her head.

  Her fingers hurt from where they gripped the sides of the seat. Raff had told her to hang on and she was. For dear life. It got worse when the shuttle suddenly went vertical, them shooting straight upward. She opened her eyes, instantly regretting it. All she could see was blackness through the glass front of the shuttle.

  An alarm began to blare. She closed her eyes again, released the seat, and dug her hands under Raff’s thighs instead. He adjusted his body a little to help her wedge more of her fingers between the underside of his legs and the seat.

  “Is that an engine stall warning?” She’d always hated to fly and feared something like that happening on Earth.

  “No. They have targeted weapons at us.”

  Why did I ask? Why? She whimpered, expecting to be blown up at any second.

  The shuttle began to level off, before it veered severely to the right. The speed alone they were flying at kept her pressed against Raff but she could tell they were almost completely sideways. Didn’t he have gravity stabilizers? Bax had them. Then again, it had been a huge vessel and never adjusted course as fast as Raff did. They veered left next. The alarms went silent.

  She opened her eyes. It was still dark out there. She glanced up and saw another screen practically on the roof of the shuttle. It looked more like a computer game with digital cartoon imaging but she got the gist. It was telling them where the ground was, which looked far away, and showed some upcoming mountains. They looked massively tall. Raff flew straight toward them.

  He reached up, touching the area next to that screen, and another one lit up. Four dots showed.

  “What are those?”

  “Our pursuers.”

  “We didn’t lose them?”

  “No. We’re faster than they are though.”

  “We’re going to be okay then?”

  He dove them toward the ground. “Yes. I won’t let anything happen to you, Lilly.”

  She desperately wanted to believe him. They almost hit the ground, flying super low, but he dodged large rocks and trees. Maybe he was doing it to avoid the other shuttles’ radar. He flew them into another canyon between the mountains and they veered left. She watched, realizing he was rounding the mountain.

  “Why are you going back the way we came?”

  “Losing them and returning close to where the cave is. It’s the last place they’ll look.”

  She hoped that was true. Her gaze drifted up. There were no more dots on the second screen. Raff flew low, close to the ground. Another mountain range came into view, this one much smaller than the last. That had to be where their cave had been. He slowed the shuttle when they got closer and lowered it to the ground between two large rocks.

  “What are we doing?”

  He shut down the engines, reached up, and his fingers flew over a control pad to the right. “Becoming one with the rock next to us.” He dropped his hand to the console to his right, tapping in more commands. He finally sighed and his tense body relaxed.

  She turned her head, peering up at him in the dim interior lighting. His golden gaze met hers. A small smile teased his lips.

  “We’re safe. The protective shield is up. We’ll read on their sensors as part of these two boulders and we’ll visually look like an extension between them if they run search lights over the area.”

  She let that sink in. “What now?”

  “We wait until The Vorge sends a shuttle for us in the morning.”

  Chapter Five

  Lilly shifted her behind on Raff’s lap. Something dug into part of her butt. She hadn’t noticed before since she’d been too afraid they’d crash or be shot from the sky. It didn’t help much since now something dug into the edge of her thigh. He was a big guy but it made for cramped sitting options with only one seat to share.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She sat up and reached down, feeling his pants where her ass had been, and feeling something hard. “What’s in your pants?” She made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder at him and found him giving her a look she could identify. Amusement. “I guess men are the same regardless of what planet they are born on. I’m talking about this.” She gave it a tug.

  “One of my blades. There are bunch of them strapped to me and I have a few hidden pockets.”

  “What about this?” She reached for what had been irritating her leg, found another hard source under the material.

  “Dagger.”

  She remembered when he’d saved her. “How many weapons do you keep in your pants?”

  He chuckled.

  “Stop twisting my words into something dirty. I’m not talking about your dick. You’re lumpy to sit on. I didn’t notice before when I’ve ended up on your lap because we’ve be