Centaur Redemption (Touched Series) Read Online Free Page B

words calmed me, “We will be there in about nine hours.  Don’t let Beau frighten you; you couldn’t be safer.”
    “Seeing the future, or wishful thinking?”
    “Both, I think,” she offered.
    A question had been eating at me, so I asked, “Will Zandra know when we arrive?”
    “The message you sent with her enforcer left little ambiguity.  She will be expecting us.”
    I hesitated, already knowing the answer, “That was a dumb move, right?”
    “Not necessarily.  Rumors have been rampant since you and Drake escaped in South Dakota.  The enforcer’s account of Cancun will only increase the Council’s curiosity.”
    Katherine had been listening because she offered, “You have nothing to fear.  If you don’t want any Centaurs to know your whereabouts, I’ll disguise you.”  Katherine had hidden Jessica in plain sight from a highway patrolman who knew she was in the car.  She could do the same if we needed it.
    Brent now sitting beside Katherine echoed, “Plus there isn’t an enforcer breathing who hasn’t heard what happened in Cancun by now.  Not one of them is going to come after us without thinking twice.  Sending your messenger was a brilliant idea.”
    I looked around to nods and smiles in all directions.  Ben stood up, “Yeah, Bart and I are expecting multiple proposals as soon as we touch down.  Centaurides are going to be scooping us up like Coach bags on clearance.”
    “Coach bags?  Don’t you mean avoiding you like the bird flu?”
    Ben’s easy smile answered, “Think about it.  For thousands of years our herd was supposedly extinct.  We pop up out of the blue, kick enforcer ass all the way back to Africa, and have the new Chairman of the Council in tow.  We’ll have to shoo all the Centaurides away.”
    “Or they’ll shoot us out of the sky before we touch down,” Bart added.  All eyes turned toward him and he defended, “What?  None of you have ever read Sun Zsu’s Art of War ?  That’s what I’d do.”
    Beau was standing, leaning up against the wall just outside the cockpit, “Nice Bart.  No one, not even the Chairman herself would fire on a family plane, and you know it.”
    Bart shook his head, “This has chaff and flares right?”
    Beau’s brow furrowed, “We aren’t flying into a war zone.”
    Shutting down the argument in favor of a more pressing question, I asked, “Hey, Beau, who the heck is flying the plane?”
    “Autopilot.  This thing could take off and land by itself, too.”
    Surprised by his cavalier response, I asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be watching gauges or something?”
    “Watch them do what?  If something goes wrong, an alarm will go off.  That’s when everyone can bend over, pucker up, and. . . ”
    “That’s enough, Beau!” Gretchen interrupted.  “I think we would all feel a little more at ease if you were at least pretending to fly the plane.”
    Beau reluctantly turned around and went back to his assigned seat.  Gage hadn’t been paying attention to us, instead preferring to look out his window into the clouds. 
    Only loud enough for the four of us to hear, I asked, “Gage, are you okay?”
    He nodded, squeezing Bianca’s leg beside him.  “You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for either of you.”
    Drake leaned in closely, “Neither of us wants you or Bianca caught up in this mess.  When we land, you two should take the plane back to Charleston.”
    Gage frowned, “That’s not what I meant.”
    “I know it’s not, but it’s time you start thinking about your own future.”
    Bianca’s words to Drake were quiet, but sharp, “Don’t you get it?  We wouldn’t have a future if it weren’t for Cami.”
    Gage didn’t look as sure, “Hear him out, Bianca.  There’s no reason for you to be there.  I could accompany the Strayers and you could head back home.”
    Bianca glared, “You run that idea past your daddy?  After he spent his whole life protecting Cami’s mom, how do you think he’d