Page 22 of Veiled Vixen

CHAPTER FOUR - VALOR

I walk over to the door and watch Crux disappear out of the medical center, then lean against the doorjamb.

“You have no idea what has happened since I got here.”

I’m so not in the mood for fucking Veila. “Obviously,” I say. “Because I was locked up in a cryopod for six weeks.”

“It was safer that way. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” I ask, whirling around. “Trust you? Are you fucking kidding me right now? Who in their right mind would trust you?”

She juts her chin at the door. “He does.”

“He doesn’t.” I laugh. “He wants Corla. That’s all he’s thinking about. And that’s got nothing to do with you.”

“How can you even say that? She and I are connected. He gets that.”

“You know what he gets? I’ll tell you. He gets that you took over our station, fucked it all up, fucked up all our lives, and now we’re here at rock bottom, under your thumb, and he’s got no choice but to hope that somewhere deep inside that filthy soul of yours, there’s one last microscopic particle of decency left over from some prior version of yourself. That’s all he gets, Veila.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Really?”

“You don’t know anything. You and Tray and Brigit and your fantasy life. That’s where you’ve been the last thousand years, Valor. Hiding. Shirking your duties—”

“Shirking my…?” How many times can one person bellow out an incredulous guffaw in one morning? “God, you are really something else.”

“What would you call hiding away in a virtual for four days?”

“Don’t pretend like you know me because you stole some… memory, or data from my mind, or however you got that information. Because you don’t.”

“Really?” she barks back.

“Look, maybe you’ve fooled him, but I’m not buying into this act of yours. I know you far better than you know me. You’re the woman responsible for all of this.”

“Maybe you should go talk to him, hmm? Ask him what happened. Ask him why he’s working with me. Because I promise you, it’s not because I’m making him.”

Then she pushes past me, her long skirts swishing against my legs as she exits the exam room, and leaves me standing there.

I watch her until she disappears. Then shake my head in disbelief.

I don’t go after Crux, but when I leave the medical center Serpint is hanging out in the empty harem room, leaning back into the soft throw cushions of the couches, hands in his lap, one ankle propped up on one knee.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

His jaw is clenched, but other than that there are no other obvious signs that he’s tense.

But I can tell. I’ve known Serpint his whole life. Maybe I didn’t know him well before we came here, but I remember a time when he was so young he could barely talk. That’s how long we’ve been around each other.

“What happened to you and Tray?” he asks. “You were supposed to find ALCOR.”

I walk over to the couch and sit, falling back into the cushions with a long sigh. “We didn’t really get that far.”

“Why not?”

It’s funny thinking of little baby Serpint when I look at him now. Because aside from those violet eyes there’s almost nothing about him I recognize these days. “We got sidetracked.”

“Sidetracked? We’re in the middle of the biggest crisis of our lives and you and Tray got sidetracked?”