He remained alert, watching as more people entered the room; they arrived much faster than they departed. How didthe terrans get anything done like this? Did they all have an infinite amount of time to waste?
Drakkal didn’t realize that he’d been bouncing his leg impatiently until Shay pressed her hand on his knee.
“We only have to do this once,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his arm. Her voice conveyed the grin she must’ve been wearing. “You’d think you never sat around for hours before. You’d make a lousy security guard.”
“Good thing I’mheadof security then, isn’t it?” he replied.
When someone finally came to lead them to the back, Drakkal’s holocom had marked four hours and twenty-six minutes since their arrival, and Leah had already woken from her nap.
“About fu—uh…reaking time,” Shay muttered, glancing sheepishly at Drakkal and Leah as she stood up and accepted the baby from him. She held her daughter up to eye level and grinned. “Momsodidn’t cuss. Nope. I caught that one.”
They followed the terran who’d come to fetch them through a door and along a hallway with offices on either side. He left them in a room with an examination bed, medical equipment, and a tired-looking female terran behind a desk who introduced herself as Misses Levitsky.
Misses Levitsky walked through her duties with an odd sort of jaded warmth; it was clear she’d done this enough times for it to be almost automatic for her, but she somehow remained personable despite that. She asked a series of questions about Leah, her birth, and Shay’s arrival on Arthos, and followed up those questions with a few quick tests, including a full body scan of Leah. But it was the final two steps that caused the only issues—the first was a quick blood test to confirm Shay was Leah’s biological mother, which resulted in tears from the cub, and the second was the implantation of Leah’s ID chip in her wrist.
Drakkal couldn’t be sure if Leah even felt the chip implant, but she was already so upset by having her finger pricked that it didn’t matter. He collected her in his arms once it was done, and she grasped his fur with both of her little hands, tugging on it as she cried and hiccupped. Drakkal winced at the sting of his fur being pulled, but it was nothing compared to what seeing Leah’s pain made him feel. When he looked at Shay, her eyes were watery, and she was frowning helplessly toward their daughter.
“All done,” Misses Levitsky declared.
Drakkal checked his holocom; they’d been in the exam room for only twenty-one minutes. He patted Leah gently and followed Shay out of the room and back to the lobby, not allowing himself to consider the disparity between the amount of time they’d waited versus the time it took to conduct their business.
Leah Audrey vor’Kanthar was officially a citizen of both the United Terran Federation and the city of Arthos—and Drakkal was on record as her legal father, if not her biological one. That was the only matter of importance right now.
Leah finally settled as they rode the elevator down to the parking area. Her bright smile paired with her teary eyes was one of the sweetest, saddest sights Drakkal had ever seen. He gently brushed the teardrops away from her cheeks.
When they reached their hovercar, Drakkal opened the back door and carefully strapped Leah into her seat.
Shay took gentle hold of his arm, calling his attention to her. Her eyes were still a little watery. “I’m going to ride in back with her, okay?”
The vulnerability on her face pierced straight through Drakkal’s heart; for all her considerable strength, for all her self-control, seeing her cub in pain was almost more than Shay could bear. She rarely showed that side of herself. Hesuspected that no one save himself and Shay’s parents had ever seen it.
Drakkal leaned down and pecked a kiss atop her head. “That’s fine,kiraia.”
She placed her hands on his chest, stood on her toes, and kissed his lips before climbing into the car to sit beside Leah. Drakkal made sure his mate was buckled in before he walked around to the front of the car. He pulled off his jacket, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and got into the driver’s seat. As he powered on the engines and fastened his seat straps, he finally allowed some relief to flow through him; they’d accomplished what they’d set out to do. Now they could go home and be at peace. The way forward would be a long one—lately, he and Arcanthus had been discussing ways to convert their operation into a legal one and whether theyneededan operation to begin with—but Shay had been right.
This was a first step in a new chapter. Leah marked a new beginning.
They were traveling through the Undercity—about halfway home—when alarm signals and warnings flashed across every holo screen on the dashboard. Drakkal’s brows fell low. A moment later, the controls seized.
“Fuck,” he growled. He struggled against the unresponsive control wheel with one hand as he frantically tapped the screens with the other, trying to override the alarm, trying to take control somehow.
“What’s going on?” Shay asked, restrained worry in her voice.
The vehicle pitched down, dropping out of the flow of hovercar traffic. Shay gasped.
“Lost control,” Drakkal said through clenched teeth as he took the controls in both hands again. His muscles strainedagainst the wheel, but it refused to move—and the foot pedals were locked in place, as well. “Hold on.”
The hovercar plummeted, and Drakkal’s insides rose up into his throat. His family was in this car, his mate and child, and they were at risk, but the fury that poured into his blood didn’t help against the locked controls.
After falling at least a hundred meters in only a second or two, the hovercar leveled out over a busy street. Leah was crying in the back seat, her voice almost swallowed up by the blaring alarms. Tilting and pitching wildly, the hovercar made a series of sharp turns along several side streets, moving farther and farther from the main street they’d been flying over.
“Someoneis controlling this thing!” Shay turned to Leah and spoke to the cub in soft, soothing tones; Drakkal could barely hear her over the other noise.
The hovercar made another sudden, tight turn, this time into an alley. Its rear end swung out and slammed into the side of a building. Though its external energy shield prevented the vehicle’s body from making physical contact, the impact was jarring, and Leah’s cries became terrified screams.
Drakkal’s rage surged, staining his vision red. He needed to fight, needed to protect his family, needed to destroy whoever or whatever was threatening them. But how was he going to destroy the vehicle in which they were traveling?
You know this isn’t the hovercar, Drakkal.