Veiled Vixen: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Harem Station Book 6)

by JA Huss

  “No. I probably don’t. But I have a feeling. I can tell you’ve got things locked up inside you and—”

  “And you want me to what? Bare my soul to you? Ha!” She pulls her wrist from my grip. “That’s a good one. You’re only here to tell me what I need to hear so you can get me to let Luck and his friends up to level one-twenty-two so you all can get access to the spin node and leave me here!”

  “You can come,” I say.

  “I don’t want to come!”

  “Yesterday you did.”

  “Yesterday I had a reason to keep going!” She shouts this. And then her face goes bright pink in embarrassment. She grits her teeth and narrows her eyes at me. “Today I don’t.”

  “Veila,” I say, reaching for her again, but she pulls away and takes a step back. “Just… talk to me.”

  “Talk to you about what?”

  “Tell me what they did to you.”

  “When? I mean, which fucking time?” Her eyes are lit up pink. And they’re glassy and bright. Like she might start crying. “When the Cygnians first took me into the medical lab at age ten? Or when they first got me pregnant at age eleven? Or when you assholes saved Corla and left me behind with the sun-fucked Akeelians? Hmm? Which fucking time do you want to know about?”

  “What do you mean left you behind? You didn’t go home after Corla escaped?”

  “Home?” She laughs, but pink tears begin spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t even know the meaning of that word. And no, I didn’t get sent back, if that’s what you’re asking. Your father—all your fathers—they took me hostage. The Cygnian king assumed the Akeelians were in on Corla’s escape since, you know, the Governor’s son was the one who shot her through that spin node and then he promptly took off with all the other boys. Including you!”

  “Me? What did I have to do with any of that? I was fifteen years old!”

  “If it worked,” she says—barely able to talk now, her voice is so shaky—“if Crux and Corla worked, then they were going to breed you and me next and then—”

  I guffaw. So loud.

  “You think that’s funny?”

  “I’m sorry. But… they were gonna breed me? With you?”

  “Oh, yeah. I bet that is funny to you, isn’t it? Stupid me with you? How ridiculous!”

  “That’s not what I mean! I mean… I was fifteen, Veila. I would’ve looked at you and been… confused. I wasn’t even thinking about sex back then. I was thinking about…”

  “Luck?” she sneers.

  “No! At least not like that. I was a kid. And if you think we left you behind, we didn’t. We didn’t even know you.”

  She turns her back to me, wiping at the tears on her face with such force, she’s nearly slapping herself. “The King’s guards attacked, but the Akeelians took control, and then they took me and sent the Cygnians away.” She turns back around. “They took me hostage. And from that day on I was their little pregnancy vessel. They turned me silver. Made me… this thing.” She pans a hand down her body. “Kept me pregnant, even though they knew it would never work. Last night was the twenty-fifth time I have miscarried babies. My life has been hell and you and your brothers were the ones who did that to me.”

  “We didn’t know,” I say softly. “We didn’t know anything. Not even Crux. Corla was the one who told us to leave. She told us where to go, how to get through the ALCOR gates, what to say to him when we got there. It wasn’t us.”

  Veila sucks in a deep breath and shakes her head.

  “It wasn’t us,” I say again. “We didn’t leave you behind. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were scared shitless when we left. I remember Crux was yelling at everyone. He was so stressed out. And Jimmy was angry. And Luck was sick. Fucking sick with worry. And I was so sure we were going to die, Jimmy almost threw me out the airlock inside the gate because that’s all I said that whole trip. ‘We’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die.’ Over and over again for hours. That’s the only thing I really remember of our escape. We were scared, Veila. Nothing that happened that day was our choice. And if you think I haven’t thought about it… that I haven’t been in this same place you are now—so pissed off that my life was ruined by stupid fucking Corla and her great escape plan—well, you’re wrong. I know now that the life I thought I had was a lie. But I just figured that out when Tray and I went into that spin node together. So I have spent the last twenty-one years regretting that day. Wanting to go back and hating Corla for ruining my life.”

  “Oh.” She swipes at her tears again. “Poor you. You were free. With Luck and your special ship and your special bot off doing special things. You were protected by this… this… evil AI that everyone was afraid of! No one dared to touch you!”

  “Fuck you! Just fuck you. Plenty of people tried to kill me. And Luck too. And they almost succeeded more times than I can count. But we never ran home to tell ALCOR about it or ask for revenge. Luck and I helped each other. We fixed each other. And we did our job. That’s all it was. A fucking job.”

  “You never felt fear the way I have felt fear!”

  “Maybe not. And maybe I did have a pretty good life, all things considered. But I didn’t choose it. I didn’t ask for this any more than you did. And right now I’m making you the same offer ALCOR made us that day. Stay with me. Help me. And if you do, I will protect you.”

  “How?” And now she is really crying. “How can you help me? All your brothers want to kill me! Will you choose me over them?”

  I open my mouth to respond, but I don’t have an answer.

  “That’s what I thought,” she says, wiping her nose and pulling herself together. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Look. I could lie to you, Veila. I could say everything you want to hear. But you already know I’m not that kind of guy. So I’m gonna give it to you straight. You are the most hated person in this sector right now. And that’s saying something because there are millions of people on Harem. And all of them want to kill you.”

  “Thanks. I feel so much better now.”

  “But…” I continue. “But I will stand between them and you. And if necessary, we’ll go down together.”

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Why?” She opens her eyes again. “Why would you do that?”

  I close the distance between us and take her hand, look into her glassy, pink eyes and say, “Because you only get one soulmate, Veila. And you’re mine.”

  “That’s not even true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She waves her hand in the air. “You don’t know that you only get one. Look at Jimmy.”

  “What about Jimmy?”

  “He’s got two. A real one and a fake one.”

  “He loves Delphi. She’s not fake.”

  “No. She’s not!” Veila says. “She’s the real one. We’re the fake ones, Valor. Me and you. Corla and Crux. Serpint and Lyra. Luck and Nyleena. We’re the fake ones. The Akeelians gave me a DNA scrambler and I got Jimmy to believe he was my soulmate! And if he hadn’t bonded with Delphi before he saw me, he’d probably still think he was my soulmate! None of this is real. Not one bit of it is real. And one day you’re gonna figure that out. You’re gonna wake up and realize everything you ever felt about me was a lie. And then what?” She turns her body towards me. Looks up into my eyes. “What happens to me then?”

  I let out a long breath. I’m frustrated. And scared. And desperate. I could lie to her and say I’ll be with her forever. That’s what I should do. It’s for the greater good, right? Subdue Veila and use her to solve our problems. And she would probably believe me. Mostly because that’s what she wants to hear, but also because I’m just an honest guy and that comes in handy when you suddenly need to lie.

  “No one gets a guarantee, Veila. Not one fucking thing in this life is guaranteed. That’s the dumbest thing about fated mates. Love cannot be dictated. It cannot be organized, or beaten into submission. But that’s just… life. You know? That’s just life. The w
hole thing from beginning to end is a risk. And maybe I don’t know you at all. That’s probably fair. But you’re a helluva fighter. You’re a huge risk-taker. You’re strong, and you’re courageous, and you’re smart. And like I said, I’m not trying to brush past the significance of what you went through last night or erase the pain of losing your babies. But right now, maybe for the first time ever, you’re also free, Veila. All the decisions from this day onward are yours and yours alone. No one is controlling you. No one is blackmailing you. So if you want me to be able to love you for real one day, and if you want my brothers and friends to see past your evil deeds and have your back the way they have mine, then you need to show us who you really are.”

  She pulls her hand free of mine and turns away again. “Let me guess. I should give Luck and his army access to level one twenty-two so they can all escape to Earth.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please. That’s why you’re here, Valor. That’s the only reason why you’re here.”

  “That’s the reason I came here. Yes. But I don’t have to waste my time making you feel better. I have a plasma pistol strapped to my fucking leg. I could just shoot you.”

  She side-eyes me over her shoulder. “How do you know it works?”

  “I guess I don’t. Does it, though? Because if we have to fight our way down to level one twenty-two, I should know that.”

  “It works.”

  “So there you go. Like I said yesterday. I might not be the smartest Harem brother, but I’m not the dumbest one either. You want to trust me. That’s why you gave me a weapon in the first place.”

  “So how would we do this? How would we even get down there? Your outlaws are pretty pissed off about things right now. They could shoot us as we descend.”

  “They could,” I agree. And probably will. “We need a plan. We should go talk to Crux and Serpint. We’ll have to deal with Nyleena’s little princess rebellion too. Captain Red is gonna be a problem. Not only that, Luck is adamant that we take Lady and Dicker though the node with us and we think that maybe Succubus could know something about how to get that done.”

  “Sun-fucked sentient ships.”

  “And there’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “The Baby. He doesn’t want to stay behind either.”

  Veila shrugs. “Fine with me if he comes.”

  “No. He can’t come. He has to run the station. If he leaves and Succubus leaves, then… everyone dies.”

  Veila sucks in a long breath. “I’m supposed to care about that. Right?”

  “That’s a joke?”

  She sniffs and tilts her head at me with a tight-lipped smile. It wasn’t a joke.

  But whatever. They’re not her people. I’m not sure I would care about a station filled with people who wanted to kill me, either.

  “How long do you think it will take?”

  “To get down to the spin node?”

  “No.” She pauses. “For us to love each other.”

  And in this moment everything I thought I knew about Veila ceases to exist. All the things she was yesterday—silver princess, evil queen, sickening pawn—it all floats. Up and away. Then finally disappears altogether.

  And in that woman’s place is this girl right here.

  Left behind. Alone. Pink. Used. Sad. Desperate. Beautiful.

  And maybe… one day… lovable.

  “Do you know what the definition of love is, Veila?”

  “Is this rhetorical? Or a real question?”

  I smile. “Real question.”

  “Well,” she says with a sigh. “Love is… when you can’t live without someone. And you’d rather die with them than go it alone.”

  I nod my head. “That’s a pretty good answer.”

  “Well, what’s your answer? That was just off the top of my head. I’m sure it will change once I think more about it.”

  “Mine’s pretty simple. I would say that love is loyalty.”

  She shrugs.

  “And that’s something I can promise you. Right here. Right now. You have already said I’m that kind of guy. I’m too honest. I don’t know how to lie. I can be loyal, Veila. I can. And I will. I promise to protect you the same way I would protect Nyleena.”

  “Nyleena?” She scoffs. “But not Luck?”

  “I don’t love you like Luck and I can’t lie and say I do. But I don’t love Nyleena either, and I’d put my life on the line to save her.”

  “For Luck.”

  “For Luck,” I agree.

  “But Luck doesn’t care about me.”

  “No. Shit. Fuck! I’m telling you that I feel bonded to you now. And that bond is at least as strong as the one I have for Nyleena, via Luck. If that’s not good enough for you, then fuck it. That’s all I have.”

  She draws in a long, tired breath, mulls all this over, then says, “If that’s the best you can do… then that’s the best I can hope for, I guess.”

  “Great,” I say, letting out an equally long, tired breath of relief. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Do you need to change?”

  “Why?” She looks down at her outfit. “Is there something wrong with leggings? I see girls wearing them still. Are they out of style? Is my sweater too big and fluffy? Why are you so fixated on my clothes?”

  “No.” I laugh. “It’s just… not you.”

  “It’s not me? Do you really think I like wearing gowns every day?” She scoffs. “I went through a lot last night. I need to be comfortable. And I really hope you don’t need a fighting partner today because I have to be honest here”—she pouts again and the next few words come out as a whisper—“I don’t feel very good. I don’t feel very powerful and I’m not sure I’m really up to this. If I had my choice, I’d spend the whole day in bed crying.”

  I step forward, wrap my arms around her back, and pull her in to my chest.

  She melts into me. No resistance at all.

  And I have a terrible thought.

  What if… what if this is the first time she’s ever been hugged?

  I hold her tighter after that.

  Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But I don’t want to take the chance. I want her to remember this moment. Because this day… it’s not gonna be easy. No magic soulmate bond is gonna pull us over the finish line. Doesn’t even matter if these feelings are real or just something cooked up in a lab, it’s going to be hard.

  And none of that matters anyway. We only have two choices here.

  We either rise to the occasion and fight for tomorrow… or we don’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - VALOR

  Getting to the harem room is easy. It’s on the top level of the Station and just a little ways down the hall from Veila’s airlock. But we take an entire platoon of cyborgs with us, with Veila obscured from view in the middle of them.

  She doesn’t look like Veila anymore. And I don’t want people noticing that right away.

  Once inside the harem room we head towards Crux’s office. I can see him through the glass walls. He’s sitting at his desk, head in hands, like maybe he’s been there all night. He looks up as we approach the doors, then gets to his feet and comes around the desk so that when I enter, he’s in the middle of the room.

  “What is going on?” he growls, his eyes narrowed as he tries to get a glimpse of Veila inside her protective cocoon of borgs.

  “We need to talk to you.”

  “You and who? The borgs?”

  “Veila,” I say. “Come out of there.”

  She does and Crux takes a step back. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Never mind that. We have to—”

  “Never mind that. Why is she pink?”

  “It’s a very long story.” Veila sighs.

  “Crux,” I say, bringing his attention back to me. “We’ll get to that. But first, we need to surrender.”

  “Surrender to who?”

  “To Luck. We need to end this war… rebellion… wh
atever it is. We can’t be divided like this. The only thing we have going for us is that we’re a freaking station filled with ruthless outlaws.”

  “Yeah, and when they find out we’re all planning to leave them here in this shit hole of a station and go through a spin node to Earth, I’m pretty sure they’re gonna turn on us.”

  “Or rush the spin node,” I agree. “But this is not our last stand. Tray and Brigit are still out there. Probably ALCOR too. And maybe even Draden. Not to mention Booty and Asshole. We have no idea what’s been happening while we’ve been locked behind these gates. But this cannot be our last stand. We can’t win that way. We have to find common ground and—”

  Alarms blare through Crux’s office.

  “What the hell?” I say.

  “Luck has invaded,” Baby says. “The Succubus and Flicka are in the process of infiltrating my top-level data core as we speak. They will break through my firewalls if they are not stopped.”

  “How the fuck did they get in?” Crux asks. “That was the whole reason we transferred your mind up here in the first place!”

  “She cloaked herself and Flicka flew her up here.”

  “That’s just great,” Crux says, pacing the length of his office.

  “All the more reason we need to surrender,” I say.

  “Surrender?” Crux laughs. “To who? Luck? Nyleena? Those psycho princesses? You don’t understand how much they want to kill me!”

  “And me.” We all turn to see Serpint and Lyra come in. “Those princesses either don’t care about Luck’s spin node, or they don’t know about it. All they want to do is kill us, Valor. If we surrender, they will. So fuck that. No. I’m not surrendering.”

  “You’re just gonna fight Luck and Jimmy?”

  “Why not? They’re gonna fight us,” Serpint says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why aren’t they surrendering? Luck and Nyleena were the ones who started this stupid rebellion in the first place.”

  “For cover,” I say. “It wasn’t supposed to turn into a real war.”

  “Yeah, well. Not everyone got that message unfortunately. Nyleena flipped some kind of switch in those princesses and turned them into psychotic soldiers. That Captain Red? She’s made it her personal mission to cut our heads off, Valor. Our. Heads.”