Marauder Ramses by Aya Morningstar Read Free Book Online Page B

be on the camera?” I ask.
    “Yes,” Ramses says, laughing. “There’s no room on this ship to get out of the way anyway.”
    He puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Father, this is Elise. She was my...partner on Earth. For the few hours I was there, at least. We decided to trust you, and the ship is rocketing at 1g toward the middle of nothing, so I really hope those coordinates were correct. It looks like Harmony is working with Darkstar, and they both seem to want us dead. One other thing...Elise is infected with something that Grius cooked up, though she’s showing no symptoms. It seems it only affects humans and not Seraphim or Marauders. Let us know where we are going and what we should do...I really hope you have a rock-solid plan, or we are probably dead. I don’t think Harmony will obey the directive to stay on Earth, and even if she does, she can get Darkstar to come get us for her.”
    The message ends, and there’s a long silence. I interrupt the quiet by saying, “I’m still your partner.”
    He looks at me with deep concern etched across his face. “Sorry, Elise...I didn’t know how to introduce you. I was kind of on the spot –”
    “You did fine, Ramses,” I say, smiling wide at him. “I’m not quite sure what this is either.”
    “This?” he says, suddenly looking quite serious.
    “I mean,” I say, “we’re a bit stuck together in this whole situation. In this ship. Maybe it’s just that? Or maybe it’s not.”
    “When you’re trying to get information from a witness, are you always this vague?” He beams at me, and his ears flick up and down.
    I feel heat rush to my cheeks. “You know what I’m talking about,” I say.
    “I’d rather hear you say it, though,” he says.
    “I just think we make good partners,” I say, blushing.
    “You’re being vague, again.”
    Ramses unbuckles his straps and pulls them off. The thrust is still going, and with the way the seats are positioned, it feels as if we are both laying on the floor. Ramses sits up, which makes it look as if he is sitting above me while I lay beneath him.
    He leans closer to me. “I think I know what you are afraid to say.”
    And I am afraid to say it. My cheeks are still burning and my heart is thumping loudly, and as much as I want to look away from him, I’m entirely lost in his eyes.
    He starts to lean closer to me, but then the engines cut off.
    With the acceleration gone, Ramses begins floating away from me. Instinctively we reach out and grab hands, and he pulls himself all the way into me. Right into me, lips first.
    Without thinking about it – about how dumb and reckless an idea it is – I kiss him fully, deeply, intensely and completely. Our tongues meet, and the warmth of his mouth overtakes me. His masculine scent is overpowering, and I feel drunk on it as our tongues dance together wet and warm. I close my eyes and forget that I’m on a tiny ship flying toward oblivion – chased by killer robots and evil aliens – and I exist only as that kiss. With Ramses, a man who risked everything to protect me.
    And suddenly the screen cuts on, and the Tsar’s face fills the entire wall. I react by pulling away, as if he could actually see me. As if he’d actually care?
    “Ramses,” Aegus says. “I’m sorry to hear about your...partner’s...illness. There may be hope for her where I’m sending you. This is a high-level secret that we never told the humans about. When our fleet reached the solar system, we deep-scanned everything. There was a gravitational anomaly between Earth and Venus...it looked like a planet, but there was nothing there. We sent probes there, and they all went dead. When we sent manned shuttles, they never came back.”
    I look at Ramses, and I can still taste him on my tongue, but now my chest is tight with fear.
    “This sounds like a solid plan, huh?” he says.
    I roll my eyes.
    Aegus continues. “Finally we took a low-tech Martian clunker, stripped it of all advanced