Hello everyone! Thank you for visiting me today for Weekend Writing Warriors! I'm sharing another snippet from RET, the third book in my Kaddim Brothers series, which is now available!

Snippet setup: Last weekend's snippet showed Ret coming back from the bar, using Ilam as an excuse. He was also thinking about Ilam in ways that he never had before. (Or so he believes.) I'm skipping ahead to Chapter Four, when Ret is back at the dorm. This is in Ilam's point of view. Enjoy!

I eyed Ret from the doorway of my room, not understanding why he’d returned from the club early. And alone. Again. His face wasn’t that red this time, meaning he hadn’t had much to drink. “Are you sick?”

He chuckled as he placed a bottle of chirof and two shot glasses on the table. “Not at all. I simply want a chance to honor the shining star of our team. You never come out, so I decided to bring the celebration here.”

Glancing around, I tried to figure out how this was a celebration. We were the only ones in the dorm. Seemed a little too intimate to me. Not once had we ever done anything together without at least one other member of our team, whether eating, training, or working out.

​Ret sat on the couch and patted the cushion beside him. “Come. Sit down and have a drink with me.”

“Sorry, but I’ve got to return to my teammate. He’s ill, and I’ve left him on his own long enough.” Didn’t matter if Ilam wasn’t really sick. He was my excuse to get out of here. And I did owe him a drink from the last race. It didn’t matter where we had it.

I rushed out of the club and into the humid and dark streets, not bothering to tell my family or teammates I was leaving. It’s not as if they kept track of me anyway. I simply needed to get to Ilam. Check on him anyway. What did he do when we were all out? That thought had never occurred to me before. Did he always play games? Or maybe sometimes he had someone over. Would I interrupt them? For some reason I wanted to. Chase the other being away because Ilam wasn’t supposed to be with anyone else.

I paused on the dimly lit street. Where did that idea come from? Ilam could be with whomever he wanted. It’s not as if he was my mate or anyone else’s.

I reached up for my niece, Enif, helping her climb down from my jet. I couldn’t believe how much she knew about the maneuvers we’d already flown, along with the specifics about each of the jets our team used. At eight-star cycles, I only knew the names of the space racer teams. She’d come to visit, along with all of my relatives who didn’t live on Eurebly, for another “family and friends” weekend.

Enif pouted. “But you’re my uncle. You’re supposed to give me insider information.”

I chuckled as I set her on the ground. “You keep training hard, and when you’re old enough to fly, I’ll make sure you have a spot on the team. Your Uncle Genj should be ready to retire by then. And that way, you’ll have plenty of insider information.”

​**And a little more...

She nodded but didn’t seem happy without the data she wanted.

Vawn took his daughter’s hand as we walked over to join the rest of our family who had stayed in the main building. “What about you? Are you ever going to settle down and retire?”

“Never. I’m going to die in my jet.” I honestly couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Like Enif, becoming a space racer had been my dream since I was young. I wouldn’t know how to work in any other profession.

Vawn slapped my arm. “Don’t jinx yourself. I don’t want to witness that. Plus, you never know what the future holds for you.”