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“I’ve seen similar things elsewhere.” Mak nods and mimics my motion.
“Well, what is the toasting part, Raina?” Niko asks as he holds his up.
“Here’s a toast to the Kar’Kali that welcomed me,” I say, making sure to be formal so they’ll understand my wording. Then I tap my glass against theirs.
I think they’d simply clink and then drink, but Mak and Niko seem to interpret that they must make their own statements before doing so.
“Here’s a toast to my mate,” Niko says, eyes glimmering at me when he clinks.
“And here’s a toast to the end of the reign of the Azza Empire!” Mak clinks our glasses and continues on, seemingly a natural speechmaker. “When our people flourish, they will fear for their lives!”
People nearby turn to cheer him on as he throws back his drink. The king immediately starts dancing again because the music simply never stops. There are no song breaks. The band never pauses; they just play on and on.
“Did we toast the right way?” Niko asks me.
“Honestly? Yeah. That was one of the best toasts I’ve seen.”
We dance for a while, but it’s not long before Niko’s hands are roaming to certain areas of my body. Whatever Mak gave me was strong. Only two glasses of it have me showing the Kar’Kali how to get down like an Earth girl would, shaking my ass and twisting my hips. Niko drags me away to the gardens again soon after my workshop on American dance moves.
“I was just about to—”
“You can’t move like that and expect me not to pounce on you,” he says, throwing me down in a patch of clover-like plants that make a lush carpet between beds of flowers.
The second time we stumble out of the gardens, the party has gotten so wild that no one even notices our return. We creep over to the tables for extra snacks to bolster the energy we spent on our sexual escapades. Niko and I are drunk on our own love and the strange liquors that Mak keeps pushing on us, so we giggle at our sneakiness. He offers me a little chunk of meat, hand-feeds it to me, then stares at me as I chew like a man possessed.
My pulse is jumping at the look on his face alone. I surprise myself as I wonder whether we should head straight back into the gardens for one more fuck. It could be a quick and dirty one. He could pin me to the wall just steps from the entryway, barely concealed. No one would notice.
But when I look up, he’s dropping the plate. It clatters and food bounces onto the table and rolls to the floor.
“Wha—”
I follow the line of his gaze up to a flag being waved on the highest tower of the palace. A face leans over the balcony.
“There’s an unmarked ship approaching! The scanners didn’t even catch it!” the male calls out.
The crowd’s cheers die down slowly, as the partiers take a while to process what’s happening. I hear gasps and quiet whispers of, “An attack?”
“Peace, everyone!” Mak’s voice booms across the plaza. “All is well. Resume your evening. I’ll be taking my leave to meet with our visitor.”
The king signals to some guards on the edges who have abstained from drinking. Up until now, they’ve been lazily leaning against the walls of the palace, but they snap to attention when Mak calls. The crowd is still hushed, but frantic whispering breaks out. From what I’ve learned in the past weeks,The Rightful Heirdoesn’t get many unannounced visitors.
“It’s Kalla,” Niko says quietly against my ear. “I’ve gotta go with them.”
“How do you know?”
“I can read Mak’s signals. He said he just got a comm message. Who else would consider it appropriate to barge in like this and send Mak a message minutes before their arrival?”
“I’m coming.” I grab the short cloak Lalo made for me to use in case I got cold. It’s a blue velvet capelet that snaps at the neck and falls to my waist. By the time I get it on, Mak is sweeping toward the edge of the plaza with four warriors in tow. Niko and I rush to follow.
For expediency, we pile into the skimmer that Mak’s guards use to make their rounds of the ship.
“It’s unlike him to arrive like this. He knows better than to give the young soldiers on watch such a scare,” Mak says once we’re alone with his warriors. “Typically, he meets us on theRevenge.”
We pull up to the landing pad just as a small black ship is touching down. It’s compact and strangely flatter than most ships I’ve seen. The closer we get, the tinier it looks. It’s no bigger than a box truck but shaped like a bean.
A hatch opens on the top, and a Kar’Kali male pops out.
“Did I interrupt?” he drawls the question with sarcasm on his tongue as he climbs out of his ship.
“Kalla,” Mak hisses. “Explain.”
The man is monstrously tall and broad. His silvery white hair is pulled into a tight top knot.
“You asked me to report on the planet of Kar’Kal.” His boots clank loudly as he jumps down.
“There must be something other than a report going on if you decided to arrive with zero notice in the middle of a mating ceremony,” Mak says, stepping up to meet him.
His eyes fall on me and Niko. As he approaches us, I realize he’s covered in some kind of liquid. He stinks, and he has small cuts that bleed blue all over him, exposed by tears in his black jumpsuit. He’s dripping purple-gray viscous fluid onto the ground. When it plops with a consistency reminiscent of gelatin, I suddenly realize that he’s soaked in Azza blood.
“Congratulations, Niko. Sorry that you got stabbed on my account. Won’t happen again, I swear. I come like this straight from Sector 5 because there’s no time to waste. There’s never been a better opportunity than now to reclaim our planet.”
