Midnight Sky (Dark Sky Book 2) Read Free Page B

his coat and swept it over my shoulders. I was about to protest, until the warm material settled over me. I recognized his breezy, refreshing scent, and relaxed almost instantly. Riley smiled, watching my face with beautiful blue eyes.
    “What about you?” I blurted out. “Aren’t you going to be cold?”
    “I’ll get a blanket,” he assured me. “Besides, Abby would never forgive me if you got sick.”
    The mention of my sister’s name took me away from thoughts of Riley.  
    “I should go see if she’s feeling better.” I walked for the Dauntless Wanderer, Riley matching me step for step.
    “I’m sure Moira took good care of her,” he said. I nodded absently, thinking about the woman from my old colony, a nurse who offered to join Sawyer’s crew after the Behemoth was burned from the sky. She had been the only one willing to come onto the Dauntless with us. The other survivors chose to either run and find loved ones or new homes, unwilling to join a marauder crew that could get them killed. I didn’t blame them, but I remembered the way Sawyer’s shoulders had slumped when only one woman stepped forward.
    “I might be able to help,” he explained, taking me out of my thoughts so I could I look at him. “Her sickness might be a lingering effect of what happened to her.”
    In the three months since her capture and torture on the Behemoth , I thought Abby would get better. I expected the nightmares to continue, though she would physically improve. 
    I hadn’t expected her to get worse. 
    Riley and I approached the Dauntless Wanderer , where Abby and I slept so her screams wouldn’t wake the others who slept in the cavernous hangar. It was a three-masted barque built of taupe iron. Heavy bolts welded the siding together, nearly hiding the patchy bits of scrap metal used in its repair. New black sails adorned each mast and almost all of the canons had been refurbished. The gold script reading Dauntless Wanderer had been repainted. The vessel actually looked like a ship now, rather than a blocky piece of junk metal.
    While Gemma, Nash, and even Sawyer admitted the Dauntless was becoming stronger and better than she ever had been, our captain was hesitant to bring the ship out into the broken world. Gemma argued for taking the Dauntless out of the ports, saying it was time to let others know we could fly. It wasn’t the first time we’d tested the ship in the air, but we only risked on cloudy nights. Sawyer argued back with his usual stubbornness– saying that as soon as the Dauntless was seen, it would be the target for every marauder Clan on the ground. Not only that, but it would attract the attention of any Hellion that passed through the Breach. Older marauders would recognize the Dauntless immediately, and stop at nothing to take it for themselves. Sawyer would die before he gave his ship up for anything.  
    So I found ways to improve it. I made a self-powering generator to create a more efficient engine that wouldn’t die on us if we took a flight that was longer than expected. Fog lights were built on the bow of the ship to see through thick clouds. New, electrically charging guns would cut down on reloading time if–or when–we encountered any dangers.
    A small smile crossed my face as I remembered the feel of the wind pushing long strands of blonde hair from my face, the sight of fluffy clouds as they parted for us, the smell and taste of cool, fresh air, untouched by ten years worth of airships and their polluting fumes. 
    I grabbed the netting dangling from the starboard side of the ship and began to climb. Riley moved up beside me, grinning mischievously. I smiled back at him, signaling that I was game. Almost a second later, we sprang into motion. We raced to the top, scaling the nets as fast as we could. By the time we pulled ourselves onto the deck of the ship, we were laughing and out of breath.
    “Thank you,” I said to Riley, taking a steady breath. “I needed that.”
    He