My stomach wasn’t feeling as bad.

  Gesai got up and headed towards the door, but I slid out of the passenger seat and grabbed her hand. She froze and I could feel her pulse quicken. With her Power level, she wouldn’t have even had to try to resist me but I pulled her close. I wrapped my arms around her belly and rested my chin on her shoulder, so that I could whisper in her ear from behind her.

  “Thanks for sitting through that with me.” I pulled her tighter in a hug. Her hands lightly touched mine, then pulled away. She’d become obsessed with proving that she needed to belong and push us a little too hard and Fray had gotten caught up in the panic and ended up hurt. As a punishment, she was forbidden from initiating anything romantic with me. The loophole that Trent seemed to be okay with, was that I could initiate, provided it was minor reassurances. Right now felt like one of those times when she needed to be reminded that I did value her.

  I took her hands in mine and pulled them back into the hug and just stood there in the middle of the RV like that for a few minutes. I let go of her hands and touched her chin, guiding it, so that I could give her a quick kiss. I squeezed her one more time, then let her go. I knew she wanted more, but it already felt a little creepy with both Trent and Mive on the floor and I knew I was pulling her over a line with what I was doing with her.

  “You should probably put them both in the bunks.” I nodded at the unconscious men. “They'll probably be more comfortable.”

  Gesai picked up Mive and carried him over to the bunks. She had none of the reverence that Sydney had displayed, but still used a lot of gentleness.

  “Atlas..?” Her voice trailed off as she stared at Mive. “Is everything going to be okay?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I smiled as best as I could. “I guess what Mavery didn’t know was that Trent already agreed to meet with Klix and bring me along.” I shrugged, “So us meeting her in Cere wouldn’t be an abnormal thing.”

  “Trent said Klix wanted to meet with him, but that was all that was said.” Gesai picked up her mentor. She had been a part of the last class he graduated. Teaching hadn’t been her profession of choice, but I felt like she was doing a pretty good job. Especially since she’d been present in the dungeon with us more than Trent. The older teacher always had one of his eye drones watching us, but that was a lot different from being there to give us real time feedback. I knew that Trent wanted us to be able to think on our feet and survive with what we had available so we were prepared for a worst case scenario. I just felt like it would be nice if he was there sometimes.

  “That was basically what he told me too.” I looked at the communicator and thought about calling Tres. The God was a former party member of Trent’s and his brother in law, so I felt pretty safe checking in and seeing if he had any advice, but I felt like I needed to check in with the people who were physically present was a little more important.

  Gesai put Trent in an empty bunk. “He feels almost…” She shuddered. “Dead.”

  I thought about defying him and using my magic to hijack myself into his mind. But if Trent couldn’t find a way out, then I would definitely be stuck. Which would defeat the purpose.

  “Maybe…”

  Banging on the door interrupted my thought.

  “We’ve got a problem out here!” Whisper’s voice on the other side of the door sounded urgent, almost rushed.

  I unlocked the door, which swung open as soon as I did.

  “What’s wrong?” I watched him as he knelt under the drivers console and began rooting around.

  Whisper pulled out something that was about the size of a deck of cards. “They’re tracking us.” He held the item out for me to see as he crushed it in his hand. “With this.”

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  Immersive Ink

  RR Writer's Guild