Burn the Stars (Cross the Stars Book 2) by Nicole Grotepas

Author:Nicole Grotepas [Grotepas, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2024-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

Soon they’d been allowed in and were following the guard through the greenhouse. Condensation coated the panels of glass. Jungle vines drooped overhead from towering trellises, their large pink flowers open. Yellow, elongated stamens protruded from the center of the blossoms. A golden butterfly-like insect fluttered by, making a jagged path through the heavy air.

Their boots scuffed against the path of paving stones. The saccharine smell of plants hungry for pollinators weighed on his senses. Zach wore what he hoped was a benign smile, planning to catch Wilder off-guard with his good humor. Zach’s old enemy would know why he was there.

Zach breathed and reached out with his mind, trying to sense Anna somewhere. After all, he’d been through and all he’d seen, he thought for certain there’d be a way for him to feel her presence.

But he felt nothing.

Every frequency in his mind vibrated with anxious, busy thoughts. Where was Anna? How would Zach handle Wilder once they were face to face? Would today be the day that Zach ended his old enemy? Sure, they’d been friends once upon a time, but did a friend who you’d made over evil exploits deserve loyalty? Or had Wilder crossed a line that proved he didn’t deserve to live?

Hell yes.

If Wilder walked in and offered Anna up, saying he’d traded for her to keep her safe for Zach… maybe Wilder could live.

But Zach’s trigger finger itched. His blood simmered with a fury on the edge of eruption.

Wilder had hit Anna. Of that, Zach was almost one hundred percent certain.

And so Wilder would die today for hurting the woman he’d sworn to protect, his partner, his co-creator in the Very Good Mushroom Concern.

His everything.

They came to a glass partition in the greenhouse. The Pegasion stopped and punched a code into a panel next to the door. It beeped and opened. On the other side, the glass ceiling panels were darkened. The only natural light gracing the place shimmered through the glass partition separating the two halves of the greenhouse.

The moment Zach entered the darker room, two sensations hit him: the smell of earth and glorious decay, of mushrooms thriving and growing in the half-light, as though he’d walked into the northern rain forest of the Idaho territory where he foraged for new species of fungus.

The second sensation was the feeling that Anna had been there. He could almost see a visual remnant of her strolling purposefully between the shelves full of clear bins that held various species of flight-state mushrooms.

“Zach? You OK?” The urgent whisper came from Mia, who stood beside him.

Only then did he realize he’d stopped in his tracks, and his eyes were closed. He blinked them open, touched his temple, and shook his head softly.

“Anna’s been here.”

The rest of the crew exchanged glances till the guard paused to scowl over his shoulder at them.

“You coming?” he growled.

“Lead the way,” Zach urged. They continued down the rows of shelves. Hand-scrawled labels were stuck to the sides of the bins.

Recognition fluttered through Zach’s gut.

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