When he didn’t answer fast enough, she bored her gaze into his and silently begged him to take her away. Something hot and sharp was stabbing the organs behind her navel, and she couldn’t hold it off for much longer.
“Of course. I’ll show you to my mother’s room.”
He cupped her elbow and led her down the corridor in smooth, casual strides that turned hasty as soon as her breath began to hitch and her lower lip started quivering. They picked up the pace to a jog. Seconds later, he ushered her through an open doorway into an enormous, blurry bedroom.
“Thanks,” she said, reaching for the keypad. “I owe you one.”
Gage stood on the other side of the threshold, fidgeting with his hands. “Hey, about what happened back there. If it’s any consolation—”
“It’s not.”
She closed the door just in time. As the panel slid into place, a bubble rose from her throat and burst free in a noisy sob. Another bubble followed, and then another. She pressed a hand to her mouth, but she couldn’t stifle the sound. She kept thinking about her wedding day, and how she’d regretted not embracing her feelings for Kane. All the while he’d been exploring his feelings for someone else.
She was losing him in every possible way.
What followed over the next several minutes wasn’t the sort of dignified weeping that befitted a queen. She drained heartbreak from her entire face. Her eyes leaked, her nose ran—even her chin had needed wiping at one point. When it was over and no more tears would come, she felt like someone had scooped out her insides and stuffed her with sawdust.
Still hiccuping, she shuffled to the adjoining bathroom, where she blew her nose and splashed cool water on her face. She riffled through a drawer of makeup and helped herself to a dab of skin-firming cream to lessen the puffiness beneath her eyes. With the help of a few other cosmetics, she made herself look human again.
Even if she didn’t feel that way.
A peal of laughter rang out from the other end of the compound and reminded her that she didn’t have the luxury of hiding all day. It was time to put on her big-girl pants and do her job. First she would call General Jordan. Then she would scrape together the remnants of her dignity and face the crew. She sat on the edge of the bed and issued a transmission request.
Jordan sat at his desk when he answered. The instant he spotted her, he flew up from his chair and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Do you need troops?”
She touched the delicate area below her eyes. Maybe she could use some more skin cream. “I’m fine. No need to sound the alarm.”
“But you’ve been crying.”
“People cry. It happens.”
“I’ve never seen you crack, not even in Marius’s dungeon. So whatever made you cry, it must’ve been bad.”
“Not really. It’s just a new policy I enacted. Every now and then I’ll shed a few tears to prove I’m not an android.”
Jordan reluctantly took his seat. He rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to hesitate before he spoke. “Want to talk about it?”
“No, I don’t.”
He studied her for a few moments, moving his gaze across her face in a thoughtful way that made her stomach flutter again. This time she couldn’t dismiss it as hunger. “Can I tell you something?”
She swallowed hard. “Can I stop you?”
“Only if you disconnect.”
“Then go ahead.”
“Princesses are born,” he said. “Queens are made.” He paused to let that sink in as he leaned forward and rested both forearms on his knees. “Do you know the first time I saw you as a queen instead of a princess?”
She shook her head.
“On your wedding night, when I snuck through Marius’s balcony and found you holding a laser blade to his throat.” He delivered a serious look, until his cheeks darkened and he flashed a sheepish grin. “I saw what you were wearing and I said to myself: Here’s a girl who can do more in her underwear than most men can do in full-body armor.”
That made her smile.
“You didn’t wait for me to rescue you,” he went on. “You used your wits and your resources to take control of the situation. You’re tenacious, and that makes you unstoppable. That night I looked at a princess, but what I saw was a queen.”
Without meaning to, she lifted a palm to her chest. No one had ever spoken to her like this, and from deep inside she felt her wounded heart beating a little stronger than before.
“You’re destined for great things, Cassia Adelaide Rose,” he said. “Don’t lose sight of that. I know there are obstacles in your path, but I also know they won’t stop you from reaching your destination. I believe in you.” He smiled more tenderly this time. “I hope that counts for something.”
The flutter in her stomach multiplied. “It does. More than you know.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
They sat there grinning at each other for a while. Then Jordan clapped his palms and rubbed them together as if to get down to business.
Over the next fifteen minutes, he told her about a rebel raid on one of the royal fuel stations, and Cassia suggested adding barricades to block the station access. She also advised that he move the location of the royal armory to an abandoned grain silo to prevent weapons from falling into rebel hands.
When her turn came to give a report, she told Jordan everything she’d learned at the black market satellite, including the identity of Arabelle’s former owner, Reegan “Necktie” Fleece. “From what Arabelle told me, it seems possible that the mob is involved—maybe with Fleece acting as the go-between for Marius and his backer.”
Jordan tapped out a message at his workstation. “I’m sending his name to the tech team for an immediate search. Let’s see what they turn up.”
“He was traveling off world when we took Arabelle. I think he’ll come for her.”
“Agreed. If nothing else, he’ll want to preserve his reputation.” Jordan raised a brow as if remembering something. “Listen, I know this is a touchy subject, but we need to talk about your friend Kane. I think he might be feeding the rebels information.”
She groaned. Kane was the last person she wanted to discuss. “He’s a lot of things, but a rebel isn’t one of them.”
“That’s not what I’m hearing.”
“Hearsay isn’t proof. You know that.”
“Just be aware of what you tell him. That’s all I’m asking.”
That wouldn’t be a problem. She had nothing to say to Kane.
A beep sounded from Jordan’s workstation, and he glanced at his screen. “Well, that was fast. We’ve already got a hit.” He leaned closer to the screen and blinked in shock. “No way.”
“What?”
“The team was able to hack the transmissions between Fleece’s ship and the black market satellite. They say he’s on his way to New Haven—”
“That’s not too far from here,” she interrupted.
“That’s not the interesting part,” Jordan told her, still reading the screen. “Looks like there’s an outbreak on New Haven identical to the one here.”
“Maybe the mob is behind the contamination.”
“It’s possible. Assuming the mafia supplied Marius with weapons, they would have access to more of the same.”
“And if the mob is using biological warfare against settlers, Fleece could have all the answers we need. Maybe even the antidote itself.”
“We have to capture him,” Jordan said.
Nodding, she thought for a moment. “Nobody outside Eturia knows Marius is imprisoned. As long as you keep jamming the interplanetary transmissions, nobody ever will. What if I contact the satellite and pretend I want to buy weapons from Fleece? Now that I’m Marius’s wife, it shouldn’t raise any suspicions if I act on his behalf.”
“And then we grab Fleece when the deal goes down.”
“Exactly. But we have to hurry or we could lose him.”
Jordan stood from his desk and prepared to sign off. “I�
�ll assemble a team and meet you on New Haven. We can work out a plan once I’m airborne.”
The transmission ended, and Cassia rose from the bed feeling lighter and more hopeful than she had in weeks. Finally, she had a lead on a cure. Her call with Jordan had restored her sense of gravity, and she couldn’t wait to set their plan in motion. She even found herself wearing a grin when she palmed the keypad and opened the bedroom door.
But her grin fell when she found Kane on the other side.
“Cassy, hear me out.”
“Get out of my way. I have new coordinates for Renny.”
He moved forward, crowding her until she had no choice but to back up while he came inside and shut the door behind him. “I know what you’re thinking because I know how your mind works.”
She imagined giving him the finger. “What am I thinking?”
“You want me to go screw myself.”
“Close enough.”
“You also think I want to be with Shanna.”
Cassia’s stomach tightened, but she faked a lazy shrug. “That’s none of my business. I don’t care what you do, or who you do it with.”
“I hope you don’t mean that. I care what you do.”
For some reason that caused her anger to burst.
“Really?” she snapped. “Then take a wild guess what I was doing while you were hooking up with that girl. I was hobbled on the ground while a pair of bounty hunters took turns kicking the shit out of me and asking me where you were.” She saw pain in his eyes and knew she was fighting dirty, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I took a beating for you, Kane. I would have died to protect you. And if the Daeva had taken you instead of me, I would’ve come running. I wouldn’t have let anything stop me.”
“Do you think I stayed here by choice?”
“That’s exactly what I think!”
“Damn it, Cassy,” he yelled. “I did come running. I made it all the way to the air-lock in nothing but my swim trunks. When Doran and Gage tried to reason with me, I started throwing punches.” He raked a hand through his hair until it stood on end. “Solara stunned me. I hated her for it, but she did the right thing. I knew it when you told me my survival was all you had to hold on to. If it weren’t for her, I’d be dead.”
Cassia turned her gaze to the floor. Hearing the truth only made her feel worse because she hadn’t meant a word of what she’d said. She had never wanted Kane to come after her. She’d only told him that to cut him as deeply as he’d wounded her.
“The day of shore leave,” he said, softer now, “we had a fight, remember? You said you didn’t need me anymore. That really messed with my head. I was in a bad place when I met Shanna. She was nice to me, and that felt good. And yeah, maybe I let things go too far, but I shut it down right away because she wasn’t the girl I wanted. She wasn’t you.”
Cassia heard everything he said, but what stuck in her mind and replayed on an endless loop was his admission that Shanna had made him feel good and he’d gone too far with her. What did that mean? How far was too far? Did he like kissing Shanna more than he liked kissing her?
He drew her back to the conversation by touching her arm. “I kept my promise. I told Gage to hold on to his money for now.”
For now.
There it was: two words that reminded her of something she’d been fighting to ignore. Sooner or later, he would take the job Gage had offered him. And when that happened, their lives would follow different paths. He would move on with a new group of friends that didn’t include her. Eventually, he would give his heart to another girl—if not Shanna, then someone else. It was just a matter of time.
She thought back to what Jordan had said about tenacity and how she’d rescued herself when no one had come for her. She had been stronger alone.
“Take the money,” she said, looking him in the eyes so he would know she meant it. “We need all the resources we can get.” She shifted her arm from beneath his hand and skirted around him toward the door. “Please tell Gage to be quick about it. I’m done with this place.”
Kane had just lifted the lid to the breakfast porridge when Renny abruptly shouldered him aside and swiped the ladle from his hand to fill the first bowl. Ignoring Kane’s grunts of offense, the captain reached into the spice cabinet for a pinch of nutmeg and asked, “Where do we keep the sugar?”
Kane rubbed his sore upper arm. He had at least ten pounds on Renny, not to mention a four-inch height advantage, but the captain packed a surprising wallop. “The same place we keep the unicorn meat and the mermaid tears. On the shelf of make-believe.”
“We don’t have any sugar?”
“What can I say? The captain’s a cheapskate.”
Before Kane could ask what was going on, Renny darted a glance at the stove’s metallic hood, where Arabelle’s reflection appeared from the opposite doorway. Her footsteps halted when she noticed him, but she recovered and sat alone at the table, folding her hands primly atop its surface and pretending to study a rust stain on the wall.
Now Kane understood about the sugar.
“What about honey?” Renny whispered.
Kane took pity on the captain and retrieved the secret stash of vanilla syrup he reserved for Cassia’s coffee. He shook a few generous squirts into the bowl and watched with amusement as Renny bore the porridge toward Arabelle like a priest preparing a ritual sacrifice. After placing the bowl in front of her, Renny set a jasmine blossom beside it—a live flower that’d probably cost more than their entire galley budget for the week.
Kane shook his head. It was a good thing he’d locked up his signing bonus.
“I made it special for you,” Renny told Arabelle, who refused to acknowledge him. “But if you’re tired of porridge, I can have Kane fix something else.”
Fix something else? Like what, beans?
By way of answer, Arabelle stirred her porridge and began eating in silence. Renny must’ve known better than to push his luck, because he patted the table and gradually backed out of the galley until he disappeared.
Poor guy.
At the same time, the rest of the crew made their way to the table—Solara jogging up the stairs from the engine room, Doran shuffling in with his hair still damp from the shower, Acorn scurrying into the galley with something thin and silvery between her teeth, and Cassia chasing after her. It seemed Acorn had stolen Cassia’s com-bracelet, the one she used to chat with that asshole general of hers.
Two days had passed since they’d left Gage’s compound, and Kane still felt the urge to vomit each time he remembered the snippets of conversation he’d overheard. Cassia had gobbled up her general’s words like spiced cake at a harvest fair. But had she bothered to listen to her best friend for a few minutes afterward?
No. And she hadn’t spoken to him since.
Kane filled four bowls with porridge and snuck a glance at Cassia as she pried open Acorn’s jaws. She barely looked at him anymore. His kiss with Shanna didn’t mean anything to him, but it clearly meant a lot to Cassia. In a way he was glad for that, because it proved she thought of him as more than a friend. But he certainly couldn’t say so, and another heartfelt apology would only blow up in his face.
That left one option: picking a fight with her.
After setting her bowl of porridge on the table, he returned to the stove and fixed a mug of coffee with three squirts of vanilla syrup and a pinch of cinnamon. To ensure she didn’t leave the mug untouched as she’d done the last two mornings, he plunked it beside her bowl and then leaned down until their noses almost touched.
“We both know you want it,” he said. “So quit punishing yourself. You can still be mad at me and drink your coffee.”
Her lips thinned while color bloomed on her cheeks. Acorn must’ve sensed a storm brewing, because she took a nosedive into Cassia’s pocket. “If I wanted to punish myself, I’d keep looking at your face.”
“Isn’t my face in half the pictures taped to your bunk wall?”
“Maybe I keep them
there to scare away the devil.”
“Just show him your feet,” he said, going for her weak spot. She had adorable toes, but she hated that her second one was longer than the first. “He’ll run screaming back to hell with his forked tail between his legs.”
“Keep talking and I’ll send you there to meet him.”
“I’ll say hello to your demon-spawn mother while I’m there.”
“Try not to wet yourself like you did at the palace.”
“Hey!” He drew back an inch. That was hitting below the belt. “I was only four when that happened, and your mom was legitimately scary.”
Doran laughed and pointed his spoon at them. “It’s great to see you two fighting again.” When Arabelle slid him a confused look, he told her, “It’s their love language.”
“Oh.” Arabelle gave them a timid smile. “I speak that language sometimes, too.”
“Enough games,” Cassia snapped, though the tension had visibly unwound from her posture. She didn’t even flinch when Kane sat down beside her. “We have bigger problems than your face,” she told him, and then pointed at Doran. “Especially for you, Daro the Red.”
“Me?” Doran touched his chest. “What’d I do?”
Cassia worked the com-bracelet over her wrist. She picked up her coffee mug and, after a moment’s hesitation, paused to take a sip. “I just finished talking to my general. The pirate lord of sector two was found dead last night from garrote wounds.”
“Garroting?” asked Solara.
“It’s Necktie Fleece.” Doran swore under his breath. “He’s taking out the head of each sector. And he wants everyone to know it’s him.”
“That’s what I think, too,” Cassia said. “My guess is he’s paving the way for the Zhang operation to move into pirate territory. This is war.”
“But that’s not how pirate law works,” Solara argued. “You can’t take a lord’s territory unless you challenge him. The only reason Doran ended up in charge is because Demarkus insisted on a rematch.”
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