Page 28 of Veiled Vixen

“What? What the fuck?”

“Anyway, listen. In the end we decided that the messages were from Veila because she captured us. And we figured the messages were how she traced Brigit’s cryopod and found us. But at first Tray said it was Corla who sent those messages.”

And then, while Crux is trying to process this, a thought hits me. And it hits me hard.

Because just a little while ago, Veila said, Corla was with me.

What if all this time we thought Corla was one of the good guys? We thought Veila stole her. And that’s why she was on Cetus Station when Serpint showed up.

But what if Corla and Veila are actually working together?

“What are you thinking?” Crux asks.

“Nothing.”

Crux rushes me, grabs me by the shoulders again, and then shakes me. But hard this time. Like he’s fucking serious. “Tell me, you asshole! I know you. I know you better than you think and I know you’re hiding something from me right now. So fucking tell me!”

“I don’t know, Crux. What if… what if Corla and Veila are both bad? You told us that Corla said she had a plan, right?”

“Twenty years,” he whispers. And his voice is husky and growly. Like he has to force those words out.

“And if you ever saw her again, everything had gone wrong. Remember that?”

He nods, violet eyes lit up so bright, I have to turn my head a little so they don’t blind me.

“Well…” I shrug away from him. He lets me go, eyes still lit up as he stares at me. “We found her. You have her. And you have to know in your heart that seeing her again is wrong. Because I tell you what, I hate Veila. Fucking hate her with a passion I’ve never experienced before. But if she were to leave right now… I’d have a hard time staying behind. I can already feel her pull. So how the fuck have you been able to keep Corla locked up in that cryopod for over a year, Crux? How?”

His eyes go dark. Like instantly. They just blink out. And I see spots floating across my vision where his irises were just a second ago.

“Star-crossed,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s what I told her. Back then. That day we had the breeding ceremony. When we were making our plans to leave. I told her we were star-crossed. Two ships passing in the dark. Meant to be together, but never able to be together. And she said yes. That’s what we are. And that if I ever saw her again I needed to stay away from her. I was to never come near her again. But… like you, I can’t help myself. I need her.”

“And now the beacons are offline. Do you think she did that?”

He nods. “I think she did that so we’d have to remain apart. So I wouldn’t be able to go inside the beacon and see her or talk to her. And that there was no chance I’d ever touch her again.”

He turns and grabs his hair again. And a noise begins to fill the room. At first it’s low, and rumbling. But it gets louder, and louder until it’s a roar. Like the roar of a wild animal the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

It’s Crux. He makes that noise.

It’s not a roar of power, though. Or triumph.

It’s a roar of defeat.

And then he drops to his knees and goes silent. Bows his head to the floor and just stays like that.

A man broken.

I have never seen Crux like this and it scares me. He was always the strong one. The confident one. The smart one. The one we counted on to make rational decisions and pull us through whatever crisis we were in.

And now… now he’s on his knees.

And his princess—no, his queen—she did this to him.

“Hey,” I say quietly. “Crux.”