Mercury's Orbit by Lia Black

Author:Lia Black [Black, Lia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-01T23:00:00+00:00

23

Mercury had set out that morning, determined to complete his personal quest. He was going to go back to the crashed shuttle, assuming it was still there, and either see if there was any way to salvage parts or something left behind by the first wave of hunters. As he moved back through the forest, he was sorry to have to leave Sean, but where Mercury was going, there would be no coming back, and Sean didn’t deserve to die. Not after being so kind. He would send help for him, reach Sean’s people to come take him home. He thought now he understood what Sean had felt to let Evan go, but maybe worse, because they had started out fighting and ended with what felt, to him, very much like love. It felt like he was leaving his insides behind, still connected at his heart.

Mercury felt a shudder through his chest and stopped in his tracks. Kindness. That’s what Forest Green Flutterby had been talking about when she helped the injured Nanny Squirrel carry her nuts back to her nest. Well, Sean had carried him and the supplies to the abandoned ship. Had Mercury thanked him? He supposed he had because Sean helped him again when he’d hurt his head. Somehow, it didn’t feel like he’d thanked him enough.

As he walked, the ripping pains in his chest got worse. He’d hoped putting some distance between them would make it easier, bonds would stretch and break. But these weren’t breaking, and the stretch hurt the further away he got. What if Sol Labs had discovered the downed freight carrier? What if they hurt his Pretty?

Sean was a cop. He could handle himself. Yet logic and rationale weren’t winning this time. Each footstep became harder to take, like the ground was pulling him in, the earth and trees building a wall in front of him. None of the men he had been with before had cared about him. None of them had held him when he was cold, or coddled him when he was frightened. While Sean had not always been as nice as Forest Green Flutterby, Mercury had been no Nanny Squirrel, either. And yet…

Mercury stopped and let out a long sigh. His body felt tugged backwards, as if there was a great magnet shoved into his heart, attracted by the trace minerals in Sean’s blood.

“I’m just going to check,” Mercury told the trees. They hummed, turning their giant tops towards the desert. Well, that settled it. They agreed. He should go back, just to be certain. He turned on his heel and began striding back towards the shuttle.

When he arrived, he found that Sean was not there. But worse than that, it appeared that someone else had been. There were vehicle tracks that had gone past the ship, and several sets of unfamiliar footprints. Not the regular sun-pattern of Sol Lab’s militia’s boots. This was a hodge-podge of varying size and texture— at least two people. From the size and depth, Mercury assumed they were human males.

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