Ki Book One Read Online Free Page A

You should just leave. Get away
while you can.”
    “ I’m not going to fall for that old trap,”
he stood taller, though his shoulders were still rounded and his
heart didn’t seem to be in it.
    “ This old trap? How many other times have
you come across a kidnapped Tarkan priestess who has stolen a
levitation device to get away from the Zeneethians?”
    “ I’m not going to fall for your lies ,” he
clarified.
    She stared at him for one more second, then
turned away, determined not to look at him again. She could not
reach him. His fate would now be his own.
    “ So what is this device really?”
    She did not reply.
    “ Who are you really?”
    She closed her eyes.
    “ The Guards will find a way to make you
talk.”
    She surrendered to her situation. She no
longer fought the turgid emotions building within; she let them
flow. Tears streaked down her cheeks faster, her chest shifting
back and forth as soft sobs escaped her lips.
    “ Crying isn’t going to affect me,” Jackson
snapped.
    No doubt the particle rifles of the
Zeneethians would though. Jackson could bluster all he liked now,
but when the scouts burst through their door with their advanced
weaponry and armor, he would stop.
    They would kill him and pluck the device
from his pocket. Then they would take her back. This time they
would watch her all day and all night. She would never have another
opportunity to escape.
    It was time to turn her mind within to
engage in whatever meditation she could. She had to gather forth
the scraps of emotional control she had left before the inevitable
onslaught coming for her arrived.
    Jackson tried to ask her several more
questions before he gave up.
    She heard him leave the room, only to return
with a chair that he sat in roughly.
    Then they waited.
    Though they did not wait long.
     

Chapter Three
    It was when he was sitting there in a
kitchen chair staring at her that he heard something.
    At first he thought it was his sister
returning, but as he strained his neck to stare through the window
above his desk, he realized her truck wasn’t turning down the
driveway. Plus, whatever hum he now heard was distinctly different
from the rumble of that old rust bucket.
    It sounded like thousands of insects. He’d
been unlucky enough to see a swarm of locusts once, and the buzz
that now filled the house reminded him of it distinctly.
    Standing up, he snapped his head towards the
Tarkan spy, Ki, as she claimed to be called. She opened her eyes,
her chest lurching forward as she gasped in clear shock. With eyes
pressed open, her cheeks practically dropped from her face as her
mouth slackened, lips limp.
    He wanted to believe she was faking it. It
would be easy to close off his objective mind and pretend the
expression she now wore was all an act.
    Yet it still tugged at his heart, as if she
had reached right into his chest.
    “ Stay here,” he turned to head for the
door.
    It was a useless thing to say; she was
tied to the chair. There was nowhere she could go. Instead of Ki
acerbically pointing that out, she crumpled, her body weighing
against the rope. Shivering, she started to shake her head
repeatedly.
    Staring at her, he backed off.
    The hum suddenly stopped.
    Silence filled the house. His heart raced
against the sudden change, adrenaline filling his body, tensing his
muscles, preparing his senses.
    Before he could turn to head through the
door, he saw something move beyond the window. Low to the ground,
it darted forward like an Ashkan wolf. White, whatever it wore
glinted in the sun.
    Suddenly there was a sound from the front of
the house. At first a soft, almost imperceptible scrabbling,
seconds later an explosion ripped through the building.
    Slamming himself down, he locked his arms
over his head.
    Before he could turn to push Ki over and
pull her under cover, the window over his desk shattered. Glass
scattered through the room in a powerful blast that saw chunks of
it slash past his exposed arms, cutting the flesh