Chapter 11

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

MAGGIE

I'm gonna pee my brand-new pants.

The ship rockets through what's gotta be the planet's atmosphere, and my nails bite into the base of the chair, my teeth slamming against each other with each new jarring bump of the tumultuous descent.

We went from smooth sailing to absolute chaos faster than I could ever imagine.

Every breath feels like a triumph, my heart beating at what's got to be an unhealthy pace. Ken's honking and sliding around the slick floor of the ship, his wings beating furiously with every new bump as he tries to maintain equilibrium.

I get the feeling.

As for Arkan, he's grinning like a wild thing, his tail lashing the space behind him just as fast as Ken's wings are shedding feathers from stress.

Arkan's not stressed though, nope, not one bit.

While I'm sitting over here drenched in stress sweat worse than at any interview I've ever been on, trying to remember how much G-force it takes to pass out, Arkan looks happier than I've seen him this whole time. If he started singing about sunshine I probably wouldn't even blink.

I'm pretty sure I might throw up. My fashion merchandising and business classes back in school most definitely didn't cover how to handle a crash landing on an alien planet. My HR courses at my company didn't go over how to deal with an alien dude who thinks you're mated because you both kinda sorta ended up saving each other's lives behind your grandma's chicken coop.

A pang goes through me that has nothing to do with the alien seat belt digging into my collar bones as I bounce against the straps.

My poor gran. My poor sister Helena, too. I hope they're okay. I hope they're not worried sick about me.

"Hold on," Arkan shouts at me.

I can't look out the viewfinder window thingie. I really don't want to see the surface of the planet down below.

I look anyway.

The food I ate threatens to reemerge.

The surface isn't down below in any sense of the word.

Nope. The planet is hurtling towards us at a truly alarming speed.

Rather, we're hurtling towards it—but that thought makes the nausea even worse, and I clamp my mouth shut and squeeze my eyes closed like that's going to trick my brain.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

"No need to worry, little hope," Arkan shouts over the claxons going off. "We are landing in a spot that will be very safe. I have our survival bags ready to deploy, and it will take five seconds to scrub the machine so the Kryger think we've expired upon landing."

"Please don't say that," I urge weakly.

"It will be fine, my Maggie. I swear to you, I will protect your life with mine. I would not lead you into harm's way."

It's a sign of how freaked out I am that I can't make a sarcastic, shitty remark.

All I can do is whimper in fear and nod. I know I don't have a choice but to trust him, not really, but he's so sincere that it's more than trust.

I believe him.

I believe that he believes he wouldn't put me in harm's way, at least.

I have a feeling that an alien with spikes coming out of his skin who glows and has curling horns and a prehensile tail might have very different ideas about what harm's way is, though.

Like right now?

Right now Arkan's still smiling ear-to-ear, while I'm starting to feel like a mashed potato nearly done with the mashing process.

I would so much rather be a couch potato.

Or a baked potato.

Or a live potato, really.

A potato with a nice, safe, garden. A fence maybe, white pickets, and a friendly bunny family who comes to visit me. I watch them with my little spud eyes as they hop around, all cute and fuzzy?—

I scream, but the sound is lost in the cacophony.

Something slops over the window, and the last thing I think before I pass out is that gravity is a real bitch, actually.