“Okay, okay.” He’s right. I’m not ready to give up, and I want nothing more than to stay here with him and Akkal for the rest of my days.
A few seconds later, Ziv chuckles low against my forehead.
Hope blooms in my chest. “What?”
“You’re right. This is ridiculous.”
His chest shakes with laughter, and I join him, still tightly gripping the back of his neck and locking my thighs around his hips. It’s nice to hear his laugh again, to be the person who can give him this moment of release in the face of the unknown. As much as I want this seemingly endless minute to end, I also want it to go on forever.
Chapter 15
ZIVREN
Despite a few poorly timed bouts of giggling, we stay standing on the stool without it breaking for the full minute. June and I are elated at our victory, but the chancellor is quick to remind us they still need to finalize the score. She and Lord Forchan step into their own private huddle as Akkal races to our side, pulling both of us into a hug. The orange idiots remain where they are, on the beach in their white suits, looking like idiots.
Several minutes pass as we watch them engage in a heated discussion over each line on the papers in front of them. Eventually, their conversation ends with both of them looking defeated, and I don’t know how to interpret that.
“Well,” Chancellor Uzellarin says, clasping her hands together as she comes to stand in front of us. “You needed an overall score of sixty-five percent or higher to pass. On the first part of the test, you scored a fifty-eight.”
My heart plummets.
“But on the second part, you scored an eighty-four, which makes your combined score seventy-one.”
The flurry of numbers leaves me temporarily disoriented, but then it hits me that we passed. “We passed!” I shout as I lift June into my arms and twirl her around.
“We passed!” she shouts back, cupping both sides of my face and pulling me in for a kiss. She pours everything into this kiss. All the touches we didn’t exchange over the last two weeks, all the words we didn’t say, including, “I love you.”
It’s not a phrase we used on my home planet, and I haven’t heard it here on the island, either, but I can tell by June’s warm, adoring gaze that the words hold a tremendous amount of weight. “I love you too,” I tell her.
If I had known about this phrase, I would’ve said it the first moment I knew I never wanted her to leave my side, which, if I’m honest with myself, was the moment I told the chancellor she was my mate.
My pulse is thumping so loudly I wonder if she can hear it.
As we stand there with our foreheads pressed together, I feel an itch at the edge of my consciousness. A broadcast. A thought coming from a nearby mind. I’ve kept my mental walls up so high so as not to accidentally invade June’s private thoughts, I guess my focus slipped enough for them to come down.
Then it hits me. Images. Thoughts. Voices.
It’s one of the orange idiots. He’s picturing the scene of a violent crime. Green blood is splattered across marble tiles. A long knife with bits of tissue along the blade, sits in the middle of the thick puddle. A body lying face down with an arm twisted into an irregular shape. A gilded crown laying on its side right next to the head. June, in a ratty gray jumpsuit that hides her curves. June with downcast green eyes and a chilly demeanor. Then June with the knife in her hand as her eyes widen with excitement.
And one thought that repeats, over and over.
I can’t believe she got away with murder.
Lord Forchan puts up a fight as the chancellor tries to usher them off the island. He says the investigation of the king’s murder is ongoing, and while they don’t currently have proof June killed him, they’re still working on it, and he expects a few promising leads will result in a conviction.
The chancellor pats him on the shoulder like you would a fussy baby and reminds him the test results are final, and they have determined June has a permanent place as a resident of the Isle of Many.
I keep the orange idiot’s thoughts to myself as we bid farewell to the chancellor and head back home. As disturbing as it was, it wasn’t evidence of a crime. It was a theory pieced together in visual form.
We have a relaxing day together, playing with Akkal in the sand. I watch my mate and son dance together around the family room, and we enjoy a delicious meal Greshenia dropped off to celebrate our solidified matehood and June’s status as a permanent resident. Akkal falls asleep between us on the couch. It was a hectic day for him. I carry him to bed and tuck him beneath his covers, Soppo securely nestled against his chest.
It doesn’t matter how hard I try, though. I can’t seem to shake those thoughts. I need the truth from June, and maybe now that the threat of her being taken back has been eliminated, she’ll be honest with me.
“Um,” I begin, once we’re back in the family room on the couch. “Something odd happened earlier.”
“Oh yeah?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye telling me she thinks what I’m about to say is related to sex.
“I let my guard down after we passed the test, and I saw one of the orange idiots’ thoughts.”
