I don’t know what I’m trying to find. Some salvation for what I’m about to do, perhaps. Hope that she won’t hate me forever. She sighs into my mouth and I drink it in, desperate to store away the memory in case I never taste her again.
“Perhaps you went mad after all,” Oljin mutters after a few long minutes, breaking the spell. When we reluctantly pull apart, his expression is one of grudging humor.
“Well!” Rose says brightly. “I’m glad everyone’s getting along.”
A giggle erupts from Lena at her understatement, and Oljin gives a resigned chuckle. I can’t bring myself to laugh, knowing what comes next, but with my Alara’s hand in mine and her breath in my lungs, I can’t complain, either.
I save all the smiles that she sends me while she sings in the hatchery, stowing them in my memory so I can dole them out later, one per year. Stretching them until she smiles at me again, if she ever does.
I’m stealing so much from her.
She’ll miss these eggs, miss seeing them split open, miss hearing their slimy occupants squeak into the cold, recycled air. Miss handing them to their proud Frathik fathers and watching them grow up. Guilty, pale pigment rushes through my channels.
When she bounces over to me at the end of her song cycle, flushed and hoarse, I almost tell her to say her goodbyes.
“I can’t believe we’re so close to the end!” she says, caressing the egg at the end of the row. Inside, it twitches against the translucent shell. “Your ship and these little guys are both going to be done soon. Perfect timing.”
She mistakes the strangled sound in my throat for agreement and loops her arm through mine, then turns her back on the eggs so easily, thinking she’ll see them tomorrow. I can’t bring myself to make her life more difficult, so I stay silent.
Anxious to keep her within my sight, I let her watch me run the system checks in the hanger, marking each positive result with a kiss that I’m reluctant to end. By the time the ship proves flightworthy, she’s ruddy and giggling, sprawled out in the pilot’s chair infusing it with the scent of her arousal.
“We can leave now,” I tell her, and to my shock, she beams up at me.
“I can’t believe you fixed this wreck of a ship. You’re incredible,” she murmurs, rising to stand on tiptoe and wind her arms around my neck, tugging my head down for yet another warm, indulgent kiss. When I resist, scoffing at her praise even though it warms the tips of my ear, she adds coyly, “You should close that door and I’ll show you how incredible I think you are.”
A cold knife of suspicion plunges into my belly, guided by my father’s hand. Surely, she heard me. She knows I plan to leave immediately. Her little seduction is all a game designed to keep me here for whatever purposes her conspirators have planned.
“We’ll have time for that once we’re off this planet,” I say, turning my back on her to engage the nav system. As soon as the hangar doors slide open, we’ll join the transport formation.
Her breath hitches behind me. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re leaving now,” I repeat, eyes on the nav panel as it flickers to life, calculating routes based on my fuel levels. We can make it to Usuri. Nik will let me refuel for a few favors, if only to get me off his planet.
Then we’ll visit the Eye. A bright gold dot marks the space station on the star-system view. It’s closer than I realized...closer to R’Hiza than to Usuri.
We’ll fly to the Eye first, then. Find my mother, assassinate Zomah. Sever every string, even if it means severing my Alara’s love for me at the same time.
“I’m not leaving,” Lena says firmly, all her teasing warmth gone. “I promised Rose and Harl I’d see this through.”
“So you admit you conspired against me?” Sick satisfaction at being right twists in my guts, but it quickly fades to common disappointment. I didn’t want to be right, I realize. I didn’t want my father’s voice to be right. I wanted her affection to be genuine, not another flavor of manipulation and control. What did they promise her that I can’t give?
She stamps her foot, ringing the floor grates. “Of course not! Don’t be stupid. I just don’t want to leave until after the Hatching.”
“You mean you can’t,” I say acidly, turning back to face her and crossing my arms like a sveli, cloaking my hammering heart. I want to believe her denial.Sheseems to believe it. “When will you admit that you’re a prisoner? Admit that Unnu took thecomm to trap you here or admit that you gave it to him to trap me! One or the other must be true.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” she says stubbornly. “You’rethe only one trying to make me do something I don’t want to do. And you’re not a prisoner, either, if you can fly out of here like you say you can.”
So she is that stupid. They didn’t have to trap her, she trapped herself. Then when the goddess had her say, they handed her to me like a crumbling kwasa cake to feast upon. They wanted me to distract her, to keep her happy, so that she’d scurry to do their bidding without asking questions. She is their pet, not mine.
“Don’t you want to be my mate?” The question feels dangerous, like a poorly thrown knife that barely sticks, quivering, by a point that threatens to break.
“You said you’d stay until the Hatching.” She’s avoiding the question, avoiding my eyes, avoiding my demands. Tricky, terrible, tempting female. Her eyes well with true tears even though her lips are polluted with Frathik deceit. “You promised me.”
“I lied. About a lot of things. I warned you I’m untrustworthy, didn’t I? My words mean nothing.”
Her breath hitches. “They mean a lot to me.”
Chapter 25
