Adira's Mate Read Online Free PDF

of a science and medical facility.”
    He shot her a look. “The women
never made it onto the crawler, Doctor. They were left where they were, used
and disposed of. Tell me you are not that naïve?” he asked with a growing frown
on his face.
    “ By
the gods.” She went pale; she knew she had, because she had felt the blood leave her face. “I. Oh my.” She guessed she really was that naïve,
because she hadn’t believed her people were that bad. “They’re even worse than
I thought.”
    “ Nothing compared to how they
behaved in your facility. How is it you run the place, if the markings on this
crawler are to be believed, and yet you had no idea of all they were doing
there? Do you never go there?”
    “ The last time that I visited was
eight months ago. The woman that was in one of the cells with you wasn’t there,
and nothing seemed out of place. I run the Imarian medical facilities, so I oversee all of them on the planets. The facility where
you were, they were supposed to be testing vaccinations against an illness that
plagues our people.”
    “ Uh-huh,” he grunted. Shifting in
his seat he let out a breath, took a look at the console, then returned that
suspicious gaze to her. “Do you have a name? Or should I continue to call you
Doctor for the balance of our time together?”
    “ Adira . Most people call me Adi .” Well, those that weren’t her subordinates. “So you
can call me whatever, I suppose.” As long as he didn’t call her bad names, that
was. He was already putting her race to her as an offensive name.
    “ Adira ,” he said slowly, like he was tasting it. “Pretty name,” he told her. Leaning his head
back against the seat, he crossed his arms over his chest and let out a breath.
He really didn’t look all that comfortable.
    “ Thank you,” she said as she
watched him. “We will be on autopilot for another two hours. If you want you
can go and catch a nap in the bunk. You have the controls locked out, so you
might as well get comfortable while you can, right?”
    “ This is only the first leg of the
trip. We’ll be making a turn in two hours to continue on for the balance of our
trip together. I’ll need to unlock the controls for the adjustment before
resetting them back to autopilot. The turn needs to be made manually, though,
because it will be through an asteroid belt, another tactic to lose anyone that
may or may not be following us.”
    “ Smart.” She had to give it to
him, the man was exceptionally intelligent. “Well, then, if you don’t mind I’m
going to close my eyes for a bit.” She needed to try to figure out how she was
going to survive this. Or at the very least try to
survive.
    When he didn’t say anything, she
took it as a sign that he didn’t mind if she dozed off.
     

 
    Chapter Four
     
    She woke at the brush of skin to
her arm. “I’m taking the lock off,” he said. “You need to move to the other
seat unless you think you can navigate this field.” Pulling back, he looked
down at her with his unusual eyes and waited for her answer.
    Her arm tingled where he touched
her, and again she had the oddest sensation of something just out of reach. She
was missing something but, at the moment, there wasn’t time to examine the
thought. “No. No I can’t navigate this field. I’m a decent pilot but I’ve never
been able to handle asteroid fields.” She shifted slightly so that she could
rise. “How are you feeling? Any better now that your knee has been popped back
into place? By the way, what is your name? I’ve told you mine, but I didn’t ask
for yours.”
    He moved back a step to allow her
to switch seats. “It’s swollen to twice its normal size, throbbing with every
beat of my heart, and aches like I’ve been on a twelve day hike uphill.” He
eased into the chair she’d vacated, and adjusted it for his longer legs. “ Fintan , Fintan Daykin,” he said
with a look her way before he took the controls. “You may want to buckle