Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) by Kelly Lucille Read Free Book Online

need help with
anything but directions to the dining area.”
    Kira looked her up and
down, opened her mouth to speak and then closed it looking worried.  Danika
looked between the two of them and laughed a little.  This one was real. “I do
not think anyone will notice me anyway, with someone as beautiful as you in the
room.”
    Kira blinked, her eyes
widening, her cheeks pinking, then she shook her head, looking away.  Her hand
went to the scar on her cheek.  Her voice sad, “You tease me.”
    “No!” Danika grabbed
her arm to turn her back around, feeling her pain as she did so.  Too much
pain.  With a touch, she was bombarded by pictures and thoughts, feelings,
memories.  Faces of old tormentors, one after the other.  A woman, more recent,
but almost as damaging to her spirit as the men.  She cried out, letting go and
almost fell, stumbling back.  She swallowed the horror with difficulty.  “I . .
. do not tease you.  I am a truthsayer, and cannot lie.”  Then she shuddered,
her hands clasped together and shaking.  “But I can see why you would not see
yourself as you truly are.”  She hugged her arms around herself and tried to
smile at the girl.  “You are truly lovely, Kira, inside and out; do not let
anyone make you feel otherwise.”
    Kira pressed her lips
together, those soulful brown eyes lightening.  “You are a truthsayer?  Then you
are not here for . . .”  She sighed, looking relieved, her smile true.  “I
misunderstood.  You are to have the blue room, and you are so beautiful, I just
assumed . . .”  She closed her mouth tight.  “Forgive me.  It is not my place. 
Come, I will show you where you will be staying, and then take you to the
dining room.”
    Danika followed,
looking around the large luxurious bedroom, draped in yards of billowing red
fabrics, and costly gold leaf and seeing none of it.  The cloying scent of
roses was overpowering, and after the fresh sea air, seemed to clog her lungs. 
Even with the doors open, it was dark in the room, and she could not have cared
less other than to think it strange that the blue room was not in the least
blue.  Not capable of any more speech with Kira’s memories ripping through her
head, she nodded and forced a smile for Kira, the only type of lie she could
express. 
    “Briar has already been
moved out.”  There was something in Kira’s tone of her voice that shook Danika
out of her dark place.
    “Someone gave up their
room for me?”
    “It was not her room. 
Not really, it is always temporary, though she believed it would be otherwise
for her.”  Kira was walking away, but the relief in her voice was obvious.
    “You do not like this
person?”
    “It is not my place to
like or dislike her,” she mumbled, looking anywhere but at Danika.
    Danika studied the
girl.  “She is the one who whispers to you, isn’t she?”
    “Whispers?”  Kira
backed up, her eyes big in her small face.  “How do you know that?”
    Danika swallowed,
biting her lip.  “I am a reader.  When I touched you, I saw things.  I am
sorry. I did not mean to intrude on your memories.  I just . . . did not want
you to think I teased you.”
    Kira took another step
back.  “You saw things?”
    Danika watched tears
well up in the horrified girl’s eyes.  “I am so sorry.”
    Kira turned and ran,
and Danika closed her eyes and whispered to the empty room that smelled of
another woman’s perfume.  “I just wanted a friend.”
    ***
    Danika found the dining
room by following the scent of roasted meats and yeasty fresh bread.  On the
way, the corridors were long and wide, with light coming from levered skylights
in the ceiling.  The floor was the same marbled rock that seemed to be
everywhere.  The last turn led her through a wide hall with walls filled with
art.  In the distance, she could see one of the many doors opened and the clink
of glasses and several voices made her hesitate.
    A full length painting
of a dragon caught