Cambry couldn’t move. Her limbs had turned to ice, heart frozen in her chest. She tried to rally her courage, to take off and make another run at freedom, but she didn’t have it in her. She’d used up all the will to leave Lundric once. She didn’t have any left. Besides, he’d only catch her again. He’d just shown her how easy it was. She didn’t know enough about cloaking or navigating to avoid recapture.
Now, what?
She saw Lundric stomping toward her battleship, fury evident in
every determined swing of his arms and the set of his shoulders. What was the Zandian punishment for stealing a ship and deserting? Would they throw her in a prison cell? Execute her?
That outcome mattered less to her than Lundric’s reaction. Did he hate her?
The hatch opened, letting the toxic air from Shooku flood in. Lundric stormed on. Even behind his face shield, she saw the angry slash of his brows, the bitter shape of his mouth.
She didn’t move, still frozen to her chair, holding her breath against the poisonous air.
As always, Lundric moved swiftly and efficiently, palming the top of a helmet and dropping it on her head.
She drew a breath of the oxygen, even though it felt like her lungs had been crushed by a huge weight.
He lifted her by her nape to stand and guided her out the hatch. His touch was firm, but he hadn’t hurt her.
She didn’t fight—didn’t even look for a weapon. Now, like in space, she couldn’t bring herself to harm Lundric, which would be the only way she’d escape him. She could have shot his ship down. She’d had the chance, but her thumb wouldn’t move to do it. Self-preservation had failed in the face of damaging him.
“Lundric—”
“Not a word.” His voice snapped like a whip. He propelled her through the airlock and into the pod, where he pulled off her helmet and hung it beside his own without looking at her.
His edict not to speak was almost a blessing because she didn’t know what she would say anyway. What words would heal this wound she’d inflicted?
He led her down the corridor, past the office serving as Zandian headquarters. Master Seke flew out of it.
“What in the veck happened out there?” Seke demanded.
She opened her mouth to say something, to shift any responsibility for her actions from Lundric. She could handle whatever punishment they issued her—even death—but she wouldn’t stand by and let Lundric lose his position for showing her kindness.
His kindnesses. Veck. There’d been so many. Her heart wrenched over what she’d done to him. To them. Unrecoverable damage to a male who hadn’t deserved her betrayal.
“Training exercise.” Lundric spoke before she could, his words as stiff as his stance, his face hardened into stone. He’d receded into himself, leaving only some outer shell she hardly recognized.
She’d done that to him.
And he’d just lied for her. The shock of wonder made her head spin.
Seke’s eyes narrowed, and he folded his arms over his chest, looking from Cambry to Lundric. “You have thirty minutes to make a full report on the exercise.” The steel in Master Seke’s voice couldn’t be missed.
“Yes, master.” Lundric bowed and pushed on.
The fact he’d protected her after what she’d done, considering his obvious agony over her actions, made it so much worse. And infinitely better. Lundric was still on her side, after what she’d done to shatter his trust.
How could that be?
Or did he simply wish to be the one to squeeze her life out? No, he could have already done it. A tiny speck of hope kindled in her solar plexus. He stilled cared about her. Maybe he could find a way to forgive.
Lundric kicked the door to her tiny chamber open and shoved her inside, latching the door. He grasped her wrists and pinned them behind her back, tying them together with a handkerchief. In deafening silence, he yanked down her pants and panties.
Though she faced a furious alien warrior, her instinct to fight in the face of danger was absent. All she experienced was a loose-limbed surrender. She stepped docilely out of her pant legs, breath rising and falling in shortened bursts. She waited to see what Lundric would do next.
He hadn’t looked at her once since he’d come for her, but his agony, his devastation came through in waves. He paced to the cot and picked up her blanket, flicking it open then doubling it and rolling it into a cylinder. He set it in the center of the cot and pointed at it. “Lie down,” he barked.
Oh. She lost her breath.