Hiding: chapter three.

~By Sweetdeily.

***

The milky collection of stars and gasses that formed the beauty of the Diva Rift drifted closer as the ship rushed toward them, the metal craft cutting through the black ink of space smoothly, it moved without radar detection, without alarms sounding and without being halted at the stop-off points. It was only seen by the naked eye.

“Ahh, there’s the rift, can you spot Neptune?”

The blonde shook his head.

“Tsch. Stupid kid.” Tala grunted before returning to the controls. There was one reason why Tala was a pilot, this was it; well, that and he could drive a stealth ship better than any other pilot. There were very few people who could spot a ship Tala drove.

Max shook his head, he didn’t even alarm when the ship veered right suddenly, Tala grunted, he’d avoided a scan that the ship otherwise couldn’t have fooled. The human, sadly, was used to this erratic driving. He’d been around Tala too long.

“I am a good driver.” Tala interjected.

Max rolled his eyes silently.

/Yeah… right. /

“I am a very good driver, Angel.”

/Quit calling me that. /

“Go and sleep if you are going to be so grouchy, my sweet, you are getting on my nerves.”

Max winced and quickly made to exit.

/Hold onto something! /

that was the only warning the human needed, he latched at the railing, not a second too soon, the ship did a loop-de-loop, twisted back in a roll and then sped up. Something tried to crawl up Max’s throat and he was pretty sure it was his stomach.

/What was that? /

/The new radar the ambassador had the techies build. It is harder to avoid compared to normal radar. /

/Really? I didn’t notice. /

“Max!”

The shout was enough; the blonde was through the door in a heartbeat. He supposed they couldn’t get along because whenever Tala was being nice he got all sarcastic, but then, Tala had kidnapped him and never let him leave.

He hated the Moonain, at the same time; he craved the red head’s touch. It was a painful relationship. Nothing like the one Tyson and Kai had, even though Tyson despised Kai, they both knew what side they were on. He briefly wondered if Kai had finally repaired the relationship between them, or if they’d just gone their separate ways once the ship had gotten to Neptune. It had been months, and none of the people who worked around Tala had even mentioned it, they commented that the money virus had spread, but was remaining un-active. Whatever that meant. Tala didn’t like to talk about the things he did anyway. But now that everyone but he and Tala were gone, they’d arrive on Neptune and… and then…

Max sighed, what would happen then? Where would Tala take him? What would they be doing? Did he even want to know?

“Worried?”

Max jumped, Tala had snuck up on him, cool arms slipping around his waist and pulling him up against the Moonain’s chest.

/How did you do that? /

/It is a secret. /

/I didn’t know you could sneak up on lifemates. /

/I can sneak up on anyone, Angel. /

Tala paused, a smirk coming to his face. /At any time. /

Max swallowed just before those cold hands rose to his neck and gripped. He made a soft gasping sound as Tala cut off his air supply.

“So that is what is on Neptune, eh? That blue haired child from before? I thought it unusual that a mere friend would cry like that to be separated from each other.”

Max made a small headshake, trying to breathe enough to get his thoughts ordered, Tala was being paranoid, although he was right, that was what was on Neptune for him.

“I can never trust you, can I Max? You look like an angel sent from heaven, but you lie and deceive like the devil himself.”

Max couldn’t muster up the verbal or mental concentration to object to the accusations his lifemate growled at him. His hands hung limp at his sides, small pained sounds escaping from his throat.

Tala pushed his lifemate away, releasing the human’s neck. “This is disgusting. Did you think I would let you go once we arrive on Neptune, that you could go running back into the arms of your little whore? Well guess what, it does not work that way for him anymore! The reason we kidnapped that kid was because he is the ambassador’s lifemate. Yes, just like you and me.”

Max hit the cool floor gasping for breath and trying not to cry around the harsh feelings and words projected at him. That couldn’t be true! Tyson wouldn’t… Kai and Tyson couldn’t be…

A spasm ran through Max, it felt quite suddenly that his spine was on fire, the pain actually brought a verbal cry of pain from his vocal chords; the sound was soft and half-formed, primitive in its origin. The pain wasn’t from Tala’s treatment.

Tala frowned; he hadn’t heard sound from Max in a very long time. Just as the pain ran through Max, Tala felt sharp daggers at the base of his wings. The Moonain cried out in echo. It felt like his wings were trying to come out in a second pair.

“What is that pain?” The red-head hissed.

Max rolled onto his side, taking his back from the floor, the pain ebbed slowly away. He glanced fearfully at Tala; he hadn’t wanted the Moonain to notice…

Tala growled and grabbed Max by the hair, pulling the blonde back painfully before literally ripping the human’s shirt off and exposing his back. Two large welts met his inspection.

“What are these?”

/I don’t know, I swear! It only started hurting this morning! /

Max’s mental reply was tentive at best; his body was shaking in fear. Tears were rolling out of his eyes harder than he could stop, the dark rims drowned in the original blues. The fear was a mixture of pain and sorrow for the news Tala had imparted.

“Usotsuki!” Tala growled in Japanese.

/Iíe! Honto! Kore wa honto desu! /

The sharp slap echoed through the hallway and the soft sob that came from the human seemed to fill the silence with unbearable agony.

Tala was still for a while, his anger leaking out of him; watching the small human struggle to hold back the tears that spilled down his face, the anguish and pain that radiated through their bond could be unbearable sometimes. Slowly he knelt and pulled Max into his arms gently, minding the welts on the human’s back.

/Stop crying. /

Max slowly stopped shaking as his lifemate held him, thoughts going over their previous discussion as much as he dared. He remembered a scary conversation he’d had with Ray, it had been about ‘after’ Tyson and Kai had finished their little drama…

~ “Tyson can be a bit annoying, but he’s pretty cute.”

“What do you mean Ray?”

“Just that when Kai breaks the kid in, I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s left.”

“I don’t like you talking about that kind of thing, I don’t think it is right to take advantage of people that way.”

“A pure breed like you wouldn’t have a clue.”~

Ray hadn’t been on the scene much, but Kai seemed to have him involved in everything, it worried Max a bit, what would someone who thought like that do if Kai and Tyson never broke up?

Tala lifted the human’s chin to see what marks he’d left, it was hard to tell where one bruise started and the other ended, Max was such a mess of pain.

“Why do not you think of me all the time? You are always thinking of other things that are hard to read.”

/I try not to think about you Tala-kun. /

/…/

~ To Be Continued…

Sweet notes: Reviews? I’m sorry about the formatting change, but MediaMiner.org keeps doing weird crap with my stories, so half the time the italics turn up as normal text and in this story it can be a bit confusing.

I think I might have to see more of the series at the rate I’m going, remember guys, I’ve only seen the first series of Beyblade, which means if the characters have changed, or Tala is more gentle, then I won’t be able to do much about it.