Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
And it was all her fault. If only she’d been brave enough to explain everything earlier, this wouldn’t be happening to her now. Or maybe it would, but at least Cade wouldn’t have the wrong-headed idea that he’d assaulted her! Maybe if he hadn’t thought that, he would have stayed instead of deciding to punish himself by going off to live a life of silence and solitude on an asteroid.
My fault, she thought, putting her face to her hands as her shoulders began to shake. Oh God, this is all my fault. I’ve ruined my life and Cade’s too and there’s nothing anybody can do to change it…
60
CADE
Cade flipped off the communicator on his viewscreen in a gesture of finality as he contemplated the red gash in space. He would fly through the fold one last time to get to B-269—the asteroid where the Monks of Kent’er’mein lived. They welcomed warriors who were looking for a life of silence and solitude, which was exactly what Cade needed.
This was a form of self-imposed exile. A punishment Cade was inflicting on himself. He knew Andrea wouldn’t charge him for the heinous attack he had perpetrated against her on Zo’rath Three. She was too kindhearted to want to see him punished, so he was punishing himself.
To never see her again, to never hold her in his arms and hear her sweet voice—that was the greatest punishment of all, he thought. Only since their time on Oblivion had he allowed himself to truly understand how very much he loved the curvy little Earth female. Being around her lit up his life. And even though he had always known he couldn’t have her, because he was a Hybrid, just being near her had been enough to make him happy.
Now he was leaving all happiness behind forever. He was voluntarily cutting himself off from the woman he loved so deeply. Because after what he had done, he didn’t deserve to have her in his life—to warm himself in the light of her sweet personality. He didn’t deserve to even be near her.
He would never see Andrea again.
The thought was like a heavy stone resting on his heart as he contemplated the red gash in space on the viewscreen. Once he flew through it, there was no going back. The vows of a Kent’er’mein monk were taken for life. He would spend the rest of his days in solitude, staring at the plain rock walls of the asteroid and contemplating his sins. He would rarely, if ever, see the others that had confined themselves there. Essentially, he would be buried alive in solitary confinement with no one to talk to and nothing to do but think over his transgressions.
It was, Cade thought, a fitting punishment.
He gripped the steering yoke, preparing to fly into the red wound in space and seal his fate forever…
When suddenly the gash vanished and a woman’s face appeared on his viewscreen.
Cade stared at her in wonder—she was incredibly beautiful and yet he couldn’t have described her, even if he had been given a thousand years to do so. Her eyes and hair and skin were every color and no color at all, but her majesty radiated from the screen like the white-hot heat of a star gone nova.
Then she opened her mouth and spoke.
“Warrior, go back,” she said. “You are making a grave mistake.”
At first Cade couldn’t get his vocal chords to work.
“Wh-what?” he managed at last. And then he added, “Goddess?” Because it must be she—he could think of no one else who could possibly look like this.
“Go back,” she repeated. “There is one who would speak to you and you must listen carefully to all she has to say.”
Cade frowned.
“If you mean, Andrea, I don’t deserve to speak to her. I don’t deserve to ever even see her again! That’s why I’m leaving, Goddess.”
“And I tell you that you must not leave,” she said firmly. “If you do not return to the Mother Ship, it will not be only your own life you are ruining. Go back and listen with an open heart. NOW.”
The last word was clearly not a request. Cade felt a shock go through him, as though a vast wave had washed over him and knocked him down in the ocean. For a moment he couldn’t breathe…and then the viewscreen flickered and showed the red gash in space again.
For a moment, Cade just sat there, stunned. Slowly, he began to feel he could breathe again. The Goddess herself had visited him—she had even shown him her face, though he could not describe it except to speak of its unending beauty and grace.
Cade flipped back on the communications channel.
“Close the fold,” he said in a voice that shook a little. “I have unfinished business aboard the Mother Ship. I’m coming back.”