Read Online Taming the Wildcat (Sargosian Chronicles) by Bethany J. Barnes Mina Carter - Free Book Online

plucked at his heart strings. He wrapped his arms around her. A pang started up in the center of his chest, that she thought he’d think less of her for what she did. Hell, he was used to warrior women. His mother had been one, most Sargosian women were…it was nothing new to him.
    “Why?” He slid a finger under her chin to make her look up. “You’ll always be a lady to me. Albeit one who can seriously kick ass.”
    He bent his head and placed a long, lingering kiss on her lips “Now go. The faster you’re gone, the faster you can come back to me.”
    * * *
    Roz walked Summer to the wicked-looking single person fighter he’d noticed in the shuttle bay several days earlier. Jei followed a few steps behind. He looked over the sleek lines of the ship while she laced up a borrowed pair of boots. At least she didn’t steal them like the clothes under her flight suit. He smiled, not caring. At least she took something to remember him by, even if it were only his clothes.
    She opened the canopy on the cockpit and grabbed a helmet. If he’d had any doubt she really was the pilot who went with the deadly fighter, seeing her name on the side of the cockpit and her last name on the front of the helmet ended that.
    “I’ll come back for you, Roz. I promise.”
    His lips quirked. “I’m pretty sure that should be my line.”
    In all his daydreams of the future over the last few days, he’d seen her at home…their home…looking after a brood of kids with his blond hair and her light-green eyes.
    Him going out to war, not her. Not a human with a body so fragile compared to his…his heart all but stopped in his chest. He wanted to grab the helmet off her and cast it aside. Beg her not to leave. Beg her to stay here, safe with him.
    He couldn’t, though. He saw the fire in her eyes, saw it in the way she stroked the nose of the sleek fighter. The vitality and spirit that drew him was fueled by this. Fueled by looking into the abyss and seeing it stare back. If he took that away, she’d wither and die. Become a pale shadow of the woman he knew.
    “You’d better. I want my shirt back.”
    She gave him a cocky smile and slipped her hand behind his neck to pull him down for a kiss. Crushing her in his embrace, he kissed her back with everything inside him, but he couldn’t tell her yet. He felt her shifting in his arms and reluctantly released her.
    “I’ve grown rather fond of this shirt. I’ll wrestle you for it when I get back.”
    She pulled him down and pressed her forehead to his. He held still and watched her until she stepped back.
    “I’ve gotta fly, Angel. I’ll see you soon.”
    With that, she climbed into the small cockpit and pulled on the helmet. She gave Jei a wave before closing the canopy.
    He backed up as the engines roared to life. She gave him a jaunty little salute and lifted off. He watched as the small, sleek fighter reached the doors. She hit the engines. All he saw was the flare of her exhaust vents as she went for light speed. Fleet pilot. Crazy as they came.
    He turned to find Jei watching him with an odd expression.
    “What?”
    The other warrior looked toward the bay doors and back again. “That one…crazy as she is…is a keeper. Don’t screw this up, Angel. ”

Chapter Seven
     
    Eeeewweeeeeooooooo…eeeewweeeeeoooooo…eeeewweeeeeoooooo.
    The sound of a ship-wide alarm woke Summer moments before she was thrown from her bed. She stumbled to her feet, clinging to the wall the second time the ship rocked violently. Something was seriously wrong.
    Clad in her underwear and Roz’s Wildcat shirt, she grabbed her flight suit as the call for all fighters came over not just her comm clip, but also the ship’s main P.A. system.
    “ All Talon fighters scramble, scramble, scramble. Enemy craft inbound and causing heavy damage. ”
    Shimmying into the jumpsuit, she jammed her feet into her favorite pair of cowboy boots at the same time. They were easier to slip on compared to having to