AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When he rocked his hips into her again, it was a dare. Kaia didn’t react, not even with a twitch.
Inside, she was screaming. Her whole body was revolting against this forced nonresponse. The heat pooling between her legs wanted to chase that friction, and the rest of her wanted to thrash against the suffocating hold Orion had on her.
Then the weight was lifted, so fast that for a moment she felt empty, naked, splayed flat on the floor. She chanced a glance back over her shoulder. Orion was crouching two feet away, staring down at his knuckles braced on the mat. Kaia willed her throbbing limbs into action to push herself to a sitting position. A muscle in the back of his jaw twitched in the shadow cast by the light overhead.
Kaia’s mouth was dry, and her cheeks burned as she realized other parts of her were paradoxically not.
“You…” She moistened her lips. “I thought I was supposed to try.”
The arm he had wedged into the mat tensed, bulging bicep working.
“Get out,” he snarled.
Gladly.Kaia began to scramble to her feet.
“Don’t. Fucking. Run.”
Every fiber of her being wanted to do just that. But she forced herself to move in slow motion, as though she was wading through nutrigel. She rose and backed herself toward the exit, bending only long enough to take her shoes.
Kaia didn’t run until she'd turned the corner out in the hallway. And when she did, she ran hard. She sprinted through the burning in her chest and the cramp in her side, clutching the skin over her ribs.
When she was in her cabin, Kaia sat on the bed and stared at the door. She wasn’t stupid. Orion’s blood could get him in here. He never knocked. He’d never needed to. If he changed his mind, he could barge in there any time.
Why hadn’t he just done it?
She clenched her thighs together, wincing at the friction. It was only then that the pain began to set back in. It was everywhere—her chest, her head, her arms. She could already see reddish welts that would turn blue by the next day splotched all along her skin. Angry blobs where his fingers had been.
The chime under her mattress made her jump, breaking her stare-down with the door.
“Shit,” Kaia muttered.
Get yourself together.
She dropped to her knees in front of the bed, swearing under her breath at the searing pain in her kneecaps. She winced as she shoved her arm under the mattress, sweeping until she felt the hard edges of the tablet she’d stashed there. When she extracted it and propped it in her hands, she already knew what it would be. There was only one thing itcouldbe.
RECIPIENT ID: CCLSL-25109
FROM ID: A35R109-09
DATA: DEAREST KAIA, THANK YOU FOR KEEPING US ALL INFORMED OF YOUR HAPPINESS AND SAFETY THE LAST WEEKS. IT COMFORTS US ALL. TELL ME, WHEN IS YOUR WEDDING TO TAKE PLACE? MY ONLY REGRET IS NOT HAVING TIME TO SAY GOODBYE. SEND ORION OUR BEST.
“Fuck you.” She threw the tablet on the bed and flopped onto her bruised back next to it.
She’d been sending him so much fucking info. Whatever she thought she safely could, escalating the sensitivity of her data dumps with every transmission. Maps, flight paths, resource procurement, all this shit she didn’t care about, all to help him do his stupid job. Instead of acknowledging or using any of it, he was fixated on her wedding to the monster she was stuck with. Did he evenhavea plan? How long was he gonna string her along?
Of course he had a plan. He always did. If he was doing this—fixating on her marriage—it was for a reason, and she should play along. It took her a few minutes to calm down enough to accept it, but it was true.
Kaia grabbed the tablet and punched out a reply.
RECIPIENT ID: A35R109-09
FROM ID: CCLSL-25109
DATA: FIVE MONTHS. RIGHT BEFORE THE EXPEDITION. I CAN’T WAIT.
It was bold and probably stupid, mentioning specifics ofColossal’sexpedition timeline. It hadn’t been something she’d bothered with before, thinking Loran’s machinations would get them moving well before that happened. He wasn’t a patient man. But she needed him to understand the urgency of the situation, because she didn’t know how much more of this she could take.
The answer, surprisingly, came almost immediately.
