“No,” Xandros said.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“If you bond with all three of us, you are locked in. Forever.”
“I liked locking.” I waggled my brows. “Locking was fun.”
Yani choked, Xandros snorted a laugh, and Rhodes stared at me as if I’d lost my fucking mind.
Maybe I had.
“Doing that, when one or all of us could die, will give you a lifetime of pain,” he said. “If you survive it at all.”
I looked from him, to Xandros, and then back again. “It’s my choice.”
“I have some say in this,” Rhodes ground out through gritted teeth.
“If we finish the bond, we should then be linked,” I said. “I can use my precog ability to avoid trouble when we go in to get Zyair.”
“If he’s still with us,” Yani reminded me.
“We’ll know that, too.” My gaze hadn’t left Rhodes’s.
Something flashed deep in Rhodes’s eyes, as he growled very low. It sent reverberations right through me. He was by far the most terrifying of the three Drakes. He wore his lethality like a second skin and he’d rarely showed me anything other than indifference.
But I believed that this was the only way. Therefore, I matched my stare to his own. “If you truly want to save Zyair, this is the way to do it.”
His eyes glowed a deep garnet color as his lips curled into a snarl. Finally, something inside him gave.
“I was wrong about you,” he said. “You are not so much bossy, as stubborn.”
“I’m also right,” I pushed.
“Agreed,” he conceded. “You are.” He turned to Xandros. “Keep watch.”
Xandros took my spot in the pilot’s seat.
“If you see anything, communicate,” Rhodes told him.
“I am capable,” Xandros objected. “My piloting skills are exemplary.”
Rhodes snorted. “You forget the comet incident.”
The big Drake frowned. “That, we survived!”
“The ship, however, did not.”
“They fixed it.” Xandros grinned at me. “To some degree.”
Rhodes shook his head before he turned and left the bridge.
23
Jaz
Yani shot me an unreadable expression, but I turned away to run after Rhodes. I caught up to him in the hall.
If we were truly headed for any kind of intimate engagement, this was not a promising start. His expression was remote and stiff as he paused. That wasn’t a surprise, as Rhodes had always had an aloof edge to him.
