Read Online Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Mercenary by Felicity Heaton - Free Book Online Page B

over to him. It was strange to see her like this after he
had only known her as a captive. He hadn’t imagined that she would
be so friendly to Minervans, or that she was so amiable. It made
her even more beautiful.

    It was little wonder that
she was an ambassador. She certainly had a knack for convincing
people to do the right thing and get along, and she had an amazing
capacity for forgiveness. He didn’t deserve such forgiveness. He
didn’t deserve her.

    “ I was bored,”
she said with a small shy smile, as though confessing she had done
something bad. “You were sleeping and I saw no harm in
it.”

    “ They seem to
like you,” he said and nodded towards the children. She looked over
at them with a fond smile, watching them play. His gaze remained on
her, drinking in her beauty and the warmth that she
radiated.

    “ They were
teaching me the finer points of cheating at Loretsil. I don’t think
I have the art but perhaps I’ll beat my brothers next time we
play.”

    “ Brothers?” He
frowned at the mention of her family. He knew little about them,
only her name and that she was royalty.

    Royalty.

    She didn’t act at all as
he had imagined one would. She had no pretentions and airs. She
seemed happy to be amongst common people in the lowest possible
class on a public transport freighter.

    “ Yes. They’re
both in the Lyran Imperial Army. It wasn’t to my taste so I became
an ambassador instead. I didn’t want danger and adventure like they
craved. I seemed to have found myself mixed up in it after all
though.” She sat back down and looked out of the round window at
the stars.

    They were already halfway
to Minerva Eleven. They would need to contact her family soon to
have them rendezvous with them there so he could get the money to
save his sisters. He hated to ask her for it, hadn’t saved her
because of her promise to give him money, but he needed it. He had
to save his sisters. He would offer the man who owned them a price
that he couldn’t resist. He would set them free.

    The ship shook and the
lights went out.

    “ That wasn’t a
ship docking, was it?” Miali’s voice came out of the darkness and
she grabbed his arm, clinging to him.

    “ No, it felt
like weapons fire.”

    Blue flashing lights
punctuated the darkness and an alarm sounded, deafening him. He
looked down at Miali, seeing her in the split seconds when the
light was on. She looked frightened. The tight grip she had on his
arm confirmed her fear.

    The room filled with the
clamour of voices and he grabbed Miali’s hand and dragged her in
the direction of them. It was hard to cross the room in the
darkness. The bursts of blue light did nothing to help him find his
way. Eventually he made it to the corridor. Everyone that had been
in the room with him and Miali now lined the windows of the
corridor. He looked out of the window nearest him and his heart
leapt into his throat.

    “ Nostra,” he
said and stared at the small old fighter as it fired upon the
freighter again and dodged the return fire.

    “ Cruskin,”
Miali muttered beside him and he seconded that thought.

    This wasn’t
good.

    Crew rushed past him,
armed to the teeth. Children screamed and clung to their mothers.
Kosen looked down to see one of the children that Miali had been
playing with wrapped around her legs. She bent over, the flashing
blue lights making her look as though she was moving strangely, and
picked the boy up. Kosen watched as she soothed him, speaking
Minervan with an expert tongue. He couldn’t understand how she
could be so calm. They were under attack and it was only a matter
of minutes before Nostra convinced the officers of the freighter to
allow them to board. Nostra had connections with the Minervan
military. He had probably already obtained permission from them to
board any Minervan vessel that he wanted.

    The small fighter fired
again and Kosen grabbed Miali when she stumbled backwards. The
child in her arms shrieked and buried