Read Online Prince's Courtesan by Mina Carter - Free Book Online

on his face for a moment before he blanked his expression. “Whoever is piloting that shuttle, they’ve got split second timing. We could do with more pilots like that. You think it’s our girl?”
    Seth was shaking his head but he knew the answer. It was Jaida; there was no one else it could be, but where had she learned to fly like that?
    “Has to be. She had to have had help, there’s no way a woman raised as a noble would fly like that.” His voice was curt as he stood. “Ready my shuttle, we’re going after her.”
    Two hours later Seth was growling and gritting his teeth as he chased down the fleeing shuttle with the tenacity of a terrier. In a straight run, Jaida’s shuttle had no chance against the sleek craft Seth was piloting.
    Which was perhaps the reason she’d made straight for the asteroid field at the edge of the system. On the ship he’d thought she’d enlisted help. But no, the sensors aboard the Prince’s Dream were top of the range and they were only reading one bio-sign aboard the other shuttle. It was Jaida herself trying to lose him in a dizzying race of twists and turns as they barreled through the scattered asteroids and space debris.
    “You are one crazy lady.”
    He cursed as she performed another hard turn. A few more seconds and she would have ended up a sticky mess against the side of a rock. Shooting a quick prayer to the Lady Goddess, Seth hit the same hard turn. The sound of tortured metal filled the cockpit as his wing tip scraped along the surface of the rock. An inch more and he’d have ripped the wing clean off. His jaw tightened in determination, his eyes unwavering on the shuttle dodging and weaving in front of him.
    “No way out princess, you know that,” he said as though she was in the cockpit with him. All he needed was a clear straight gap in the asteroid field to hit the engines and get above her, then he could activate the mag-locks and haul her in. She knew it, he knew it.
    The trick though, was getting above her. As the two craft dodged and wove in a high-speed version of cat and mouse, Seth was pushed to the limit to keep up with his quarry.
    “Seth, will you just fuck off and die?”
    Jaida swore and hit the brakes to slow the hurtling shuttle. It all but stood on its nose, everything loose in the cabin sliding to the front of the craft.
    She didn’t bother to reach out and move the mess. Instead she just looked around a half-filled maintenance report form, and slammed her flight controls hard left. Responsive to the slightest twitch of her fingers, the small craft went into a tight barrel roll.
    Keeping one eye on the view ahead of her to avoid a fatal collision with an asteroid she kept the other on the controls. The tiny blip on her console that was Seth’s shuttle shot off to the right, following her original course.
    “Woohoo! You fell for it. Sucker!” She whooped in triumph. He’d missed the turn, and from her sensor readings, the field was too dense for him to loop back now. He’d have to exit the asteroid field before finding a way back in to come look for her. “And by that time sweetheart, I’ll be long gone.”
    Gritting her teeth in determination, she lowered her head and concentrated on the obstacle course ahead. She gunned the engines, flipping and weaving through the boulders and space debris in a breakneck race for freedom.
    Most sane people wouldn’t have come this way. No one in their right mind would see an asteroid field like this as a viable route of escape. She didn’t either, but her method of escape wasn’t the asteroid field itself. Once she was free and clear of it, it would be pretty easy for Seth to catch her. The shuttle she’d chosen wasn’t built for speed, but maneuverability. He had the bigger, more powerful shuttle, so one good boost on the burners and he’d be all over her like a bad rash.
    If she was still about when he got clear of the field, that was. The rocks ahead of her