The farther and longer we went, concern piled on top of itself. Even with the opal, I knew Kat couldn’t keep up for much longer, not for eighty miles. Hybrids tired quickly, even with the enhancer. Unlike us, where it actually took more energy to slow down, she was going to crash. Hell, eighty miles would wear me out, but Kat… For her I’d run a million miles. And I knew she’d do the same for me, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t in her DNA.
There was no time to stop and ask her how she was doing, but her heart rate was through the roof, and each ragged breath she took expelled immediately.
The trickle of fear that had been in my veins grew with each step and each rapid beat of my heart. This could kill her, or at the least do some serious damage.
I spared a brief glance at the night sky. Nothing but stars, and no lights in the distance. We still had another thirty or so miles to go, and it would be too much of a risk for me to take my true form and speed up the process. Light streaking across the desert at night would be way too obvious and give all those UFO enthusiasts something to talk about.
Slowing down unexpectedly, I had to slip an arm around Kat’s waist to keep her from falling. She was breathing heavily as she looked up at me, the skin around her mouth pale and pinched.
“Why…why are we stopping?”
“You can’t go on much longer, Kitten.”
She shook her head, but her hair stayed plastered to her cheeks. “I can—I can do this.”
“I know you want to, but this is too much. I’ll take the opal and carry you.”
“No. No way—”
“Kat. Please.” My voice broke on the last word, and her eyes widened. “Please let me do this.”
Her hands shook as she brushed the sweat-soaked hair away from her face. That stubborn little chin raised a notch, but she took off the opal cuff. “I hate…the idea of being carried.”
She handed over the cuff, and I slipped it on, getting a little zap from it. I also took the gun from her, slipping it in the waistband of my pants. “How about you get on my back? So in a way you’re not being carried—you’re riding me.” I paused and then winked.
Kat stared.
“What?” I laughed, and her eyes immediately narrowed. “You should see yourself right now. Like a kitten—that’s what I keep telling you. Your hackles are raised.”
Her eyes rolled as she shuffled behind me. “You should conserve your energy and stop talking.”
“Ouch.”
“You’ll get over it.” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “Besides, you could be knocked down a peg or two.”
I crouched, hooking my arms under the backs of her knees. With a little hop, she slid her arms around my neck and wrapped her legs to my sides. “Baby, I’m so far up the ladder there aren’t any pegs under me to be knocked down.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s a new one.”
“You loved it.” Tightening my grip on her, I let the Source tap into the opal and blend with it. “Hold on, Kitten. I’m going to start to glow just a little, and we’re going to go fast.”
“I like when you glow. It’s like having my own personal flashlight.”
I grinned. “Glad I can be of assistance.”
She patted my chest. “Giddy up.”
Feeling much better about this, I kicked off the ground and picked up the kind of speed I couldn’t while running alongside Kat. Her weight was nothing, which was concerning all by itself. I needed to get the girl some steak and burgers stat.
When I saw we were approaching city lights, I veered closer to the highway, searching out a sign, and there it was. Ash Springs—ten miles out.
“Almost there, Kitten.”
I had slowed down enough that she was able to wiggle free. “I can run the rest of the way.”
Wanting to argue but knowing that if I did, it would only delay getting somewhere to hunker down, I kept my mouth shut. I also knew it was more than that. Kat wanted to prove, not just to me but to herself, that she was an asset not a hindrance. That need to show she could stand on equal ground with me and the other Luxen had been what drove her to trust Blake. I took off the opal and handed it back to her. “Let’s do this, then.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
I took her smaller hand in mine, and we ran the rest of the way to Ash Springs. The whole trip took us about twenty or so minutes, but those minutes felt like a lifetime. Depending on how Daedalus was searching for us, we had a good two-hour lead on them, more if they followed Archer.
Once we hit the outskirts of Ash Springs, we slowed to a walk, keeping off the sidewalks and away from the lampposts. The town was small—Petersburg small. Signs everywhere pointed to one of the many natural hot springs.
“I bet I smell like day-old funk.” Kat stared longingly at a sign for one of the hot springs. “I’d love a bath right about now.”
Both of us were covered in a fine layer of dust from the desert. “You do smell kind of ripe.”
She shot me a dirty look. “Thanks.”
Chuckling under my breath, I squeezed her hand. “You smell like a ripe blossom about to bloom.”
“Oh, whatever. Now you’re just being dumb.”
I led her around a hedge shaped like…hell, I had no idea what it was supposed to be. An elephant crossed with a giraffe? “What things would you do for a bath?” I turned, lifting her over a fallen branch. “Nasty, bad things?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to turn this into a perverted conversation.”