Star Kissed

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

“Mandy.”

The whisper jarred her. Her expectant gaze went to the nearest guard, who was half a dozen feet down the hallway. He didn’t acknowledge her. Puzzled, she glanced over her shoulder.

Urik’s large frame took up most of the hallway behind her. Mandy froze. He beckoned her to follow before moving out of sight down another corridor. She hesitated, uncertain what he wanted, then went.

Urik wore all black and was armed. She wondered how he was able to access the Naki controlled healing ward at all. His eyes went over her from head-to-toe.

“This is Akkadi’s way of protecting you?” he growled. “Turning you into a slave?”

“He’s charming like that,” Mandy replied drily. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you. You need me to run interference for you?”

“No, I’m good. Still looking for a way home.”

Urik frowned. “Come on back. I’ll take you to the star gate.”

“Yeah but do you have the energy to open it?” she challenged, crossing her arms.

“Not yet.”

His enigmatic answer piqued her interest. He mirrored her stance.

“Don’t mess with me, Urik. Can you get me home, if I can get you energy shards?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Her heart somersaulted. “The kids or vaccine or people wouldn’t suffer?”

“My end state is different than Akkadi’s.”

“What is it?”

“Does it matter, if you get home?”

Mandy stared at him. If she found a way to take the energy marbles from Hichele, was she taking away Akkadi’s ability to help the humans? Hichele had forty of them. Wasn’t that enough?

“Mandy?” Kadi called.

“If you find a way to get your hands on shards, contact me,” Urik instructed in a low voice. “Helen knows how.”

Mandy blinked.

“Go.”

She retreated into the hallway. Kadi was a few feet away.

“Sorry. Got distracted,” she mumbled.

He started down the hallway towards the direction the group was headed. Mandy had a headache from trying to figure out what was going on. How could Akkadi claim there wasn’t enough energy to both send her home and save lives while Urik claimed there was?

Akkadi also lied to her about opening the star gate to begin with then took her as a consort without any real intention of sleeping with her. What else was he hiding? Rather, what was he thinking?

Yet it was hard to write him off completely. He had saved her on the planet, healed her at night and wanted her protected.

His sole goal appeared to be saving the humans. She was tired of his flip-flopping moods, but there was no way for her to view his expenditure of resources and time in a negative light when she thought of the diseased planet he was trying to protect.

The man was too complex for her.

Mandy barely registered her surroundings. They returned to the rooftop, Kadi and Subakki went to their ship while she joined the guard waiting at the bottom of the elevator on Helen’s ship.