“Correct,” Uvie chirps from the overhead speakers. “I’m scanning the transmission for locator pings.”
“The Mayvina is purring like a baby sabrevipe, Brec,” Theron says, bouncing with his usual energy. “You’ve been wanting Hadrian to learn to pilot, and we should patrol from the skies. This knocks two items off our list.”
Breccan grumbles but gives a nod that has Hadrian flinging up his rogstud horns and hooting with excitement.
Jareth catches my stare from across the table and smirks. He’s been fiddling with his piece of metal for weeks now. A piece that has Draven practically running at the mere sight of it. I lift my brow at him as though to ask, What are you going to do with that thing?
He rolls it across the table to me, and I catch it in the palm of my hand just as it rolls off the table. I shake my head at him. Rekk no. I know what this ring is for, and that’s his thing, not mine. My cock is too nice to willingly run a thick, metal hoop through the tip of it.
“Jareth and Oz,” Breccan says, causing Jareth to straighten to attention. “Help Aria make sure the sub-faction is ready for our new aliens. See to it that my mate has what she needs to welcome them properly.”
He shouts out more orders to the other morts, and soon, we’re off on our missions. Jareth bumps his shoulder to mine as we walk down the corridor, grabbing my attention.
“You think the last two females will know more than Molly and the other awoken aliens?” he asks, his brows furrowing together. His choppy black hair is wrecked today, and I have the urge to help smooth it out some.
I shrug and let out a sigh. “Not sure. Each alien has known more than the last. If there’s any information they can offer, we could rekking use it. We have to find Willow.”
Jareth scowls. “So Breccan can force one of us to mate with her, too?”
Screeching to a halt, I poke him in the chest, but the giant mort doesn’t move. “He won’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. There are plenty of other morts around here desperate for a chance to mate with one of the alien females.”
He seems to calm with my reassurance.
“You never gave me my ring back,” he says, his lips lifting up on one side.
I pat my pockets and feign confusion. “Must have lost it.”
“I could pierce you,” he offers, his black eyes gleaming wickedly.
“You could rekking try,” I growl, giving him a shove.
He laughs and walks backward, making sure to make horrifying gestures pretending to do said piercing that have me shuddering. “I want my ring back later. Find it, Say.”
Ignoring him, I storm over to my comms room where Molly sits in Draven’s lap. They’re sitting there tense as can be while they listen to the same transmission over and over again.
“Anything new?” I ask.
“No,” Draven grumbles.
“How many times have you listened to the same transmission?” My eyes dart between them. Molly’s shoulders slump, and Draven won’t make eye contact with me. Clearly the entire time I’ve been in my meeting.
“Fifty-seven times,” Uvie chirps.
My brows lift, and Draven grumbles.
“Tattletale,” Molly huffs.
I let out a heavy sigh. “You look exhausted, Molly. Why don’t you let Draven take you back to your quarters, and get some rest? I promise I will notify you the moment I know anything.”
She frowns and opens her mouth like she might argue, but Draven must agree with me because he’s already standing with her in his arms. “Thank you,” she utters a moment before Draven stalks away with her.
Once the door closes behind them, I relax. It’s difficult to work with them staring at me. I busy myself for the next couple of hours, reading through Uvie’s data on the screen concerning the pings on the transmission as I attempt to triangulate a location. The pings are scattered. At first, it appears as though the vessel Willow is on is moving. But then, I realize it’s a mask covering a location. The pings, I quickly uncover, are in a pattern. I tap away on my computer, trying some different calculations to see if anything begins to make sense. Since there are easily thousands of pings, I run a command for Uvie to work through them using my calculations. If there’s a pattern, we’re going to discover it. Then we’ll be able to pinpoint exactly where she is.
From there, I’m not sure what will happen.
The door slides open and Jareth rushes in, his chest heaving.
“What?” I demand, panic rising up inside of me.
“I don’t know,” he pants. “Avrell said to come get you. It’s an emergency.”
I’m out of my chair and bounding after him in the next moment. We rush down the corridor, our boots pounding on the floor resounding around us. He whips out his keycard, and the door to the Avrell’s lab slides open.