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“You’d be giving up everything, Oliver.” Mal’ik pulled on Oliver’s wrist to make him face him instead of the torvar. Looking into those hazel eyes, Mal’ik wanted so badly to throw away his concerns and pull the human back into his chest. Oliver made him feel so powerful, not just strong, but capable and wise. The way Oliver looked at him had given Mal’ik the confidence to betray his government for the good of his people. And he couldn’t repay that by letting Oliver throw his life away. “Everything you have, everything you’ve worked for, your father, your br—”
Oliver interrupted him with a barking laugh. “Yeah, I’m giving up a father who’s never loved me and a brother who hates me, both of whom are happy to give up the lives of however many people it takes to line their pockets.”
“And have you ever been any different?” Sebastian asked before Mal’ik could respond. “I know all about you, Oliver Turner. You’ve been just as happy to build your wealth on the backs of whoever’s low enough to serve as a foundation.”
Oliver met his eyes and let out a long breath. “I won’t pretend I’ve suddenly developed a bleeding heart. But I won’t be the kind of person that sits back and lets a man I love go into danger alone when I could have gone with him.”
Mal’ik’s chest constricted and forced the air out of his lungs. Love? Was he a man that Oliver Turner loved? Him, of all the people he could have? Mal’ik opened his mouth but didn’t know what words to say.
Sebastian lifted his chin. “Pretty words, but—”
“And here’s my proof.” Oliver yanked his wrist out of Mal’ik’s shock-slackened grip. He opened the pendant on hidden hinges and pulled out a thin data strip. He handed it to Sebastian, along with his own data tablet.
Sebastian took them with a skeptical frown and inserted the strip into the tablet just as Mal’ik found his voice.
“Are you sure?” he managed. He almost reached out to Oliver, but his hands felt too clumsy in light of this new revelation.
Oliver sent him an almost cocky smile back. “Have you ever known me to be unsure?”
That startled a laugh out of Mal’ik. He shook his head. “You’re the most confident person I know.”
“Then you know—”
“He’s coming with us.” Sebastian stowed Oliver’s data tablet safely into one of his own pockets. Oliver didn’t object. “I assume you have even more knowledge stowed away in that pretty head of yours.”
“I do.” Oliver nodded.
“Then you’d be useful as a hostage anyway.”
Mal’ik spun toward him with a snarl. “He will not be a hostage.”
Sebastian didn’t even blink. “I didn’t say he would be, just that he’d be useful—”
Alarms spun to life around them: flashing red lights and screeching sirens.
Mal’ik’s world re-centered. “Follow me. Now.”
He mentally kicked himself for wasting so much time, agonizing and mooning over Oliver, and took off toward the huge gates of the hangar. They would have a couple of minutes at least during which his override codes would still work before whoever had sounded the alarm put two and two together and locked him out of the system.
He skidded to a halt in front of a small transport—old enough not to stand out, new enough to be reliable. He yanked open the side door. “Get in.”
Sebastian was in before he’d finished the order, Oliver hot on his heels. Mal’ik clambered in after them, then slammed the door shut behind them. When he turned to face the interior, Sebastian had already climbed into the cockpit and powered up the atmospheric transport ship with quick, expert movements.
He pushed the sliding screen toward Mal’ik as soon as he threw himself into the copilot’s seat. “Codes.”
Mal’ik swiped through the interface, trying to get the doors open as quickly as possible while Sebastian was already lifting them off the ground.
“Any day now. Before they lock you out of the system.”
“Got it.” Mal’ik hit enter and the heavy hangar doors started sliding open with a loud grating. Mal’ik gritted his teeth. They had never seemed so slow before. Suddenly, halfway open, they stopped, and a new high-pitched shriek of an alarm pierced the air. “Fuck.”
“Good enough!” Sebastian hit the throttle. They sped full tilt at the hangar doors that were now grating back closed again. “You better be buckled in back there, Turner!”
Sebastian rolled them near ninety degrees as they raced through the hangar doors, clearing them by a distance so small, Mal’ik didn’t dare to think about it. Sebastian whooped, and Mal’ik—who was not buckled in—slammed his arms out to either side to hold himself steady, heart hammering in his throat. His grip held long enough for Sebastian to right them, at which point Mal’ik quickly pulled the safety straps across his chest.
Sebastian continued to gun it up and out of the perimeter of the compound, but the self-satisfied smile on his face told Mal’ik that they were as good as gone.
After several minutes, they slowed to an even cruise, low enough in the atmosphere to be below most surveillance systems.
