“It’s a lot to take in, I’m sure,” he agreed, nodding as if there were any chance he could actually know what it was she was going through. “Do you need anything? Something to help you sleep, perhaps?”
Like a drug? She barely repressed a shiver. Pass.
“Pretty sure I’ve been out long enough, thanks.” She saw him flinch at her reminder that she’d been unconscious on their ship. A tiny part of her felt bad for the jab, but only a tiny part. Stepping back, she made a gesture to indicate he should come in. She hadn’t even thought to ask Ruckus any questions on Olena when he’d been there earlier, but now a million of them were circling her mind like rabid wolves. She needed answers or she’d go crazy.
He hesitated, however, searching the darkness at her back a second time, though now with a different sort of suspicion on his face.
“It’s not a trap,” she said with a snort. The idea that she could take on someone like him, a trained alien soldier, was laughable.
He must have realized the idiocy of it himself, for he cracked a sheepish smile and stepped in without further prompting. Pettus kept going until he was at the center of the room before the large window. True to his position as guard, he kept her in his line of sight the entire time, subtly watching her out of the corner of his eye while she shut the door.
She stopped about ten feet away, crossing her arms over her chest and propping a hip against the wall in a nonchalant move she’d perfected when she was thirteen and constantly annoying her father—on purpose.
“What is it you wished to speak about, Delaney?” Now that they were safely within the confines of the massive bedroom, it was apparently all right to call her by name.
“Can you tell me about her?” she asked. “Olena?”
His mouth twisted in displeasure, and he glanced back out the window.
“That part I already got,” she stated dryly, and when he glanced back at her with another frown in place, she elaborated. “People don’t like her very much.”
“No,” he agreed, “they don’t.”
“Why not?” she persisted. “If I’m going to pretend to be her, I should probably know a little more about her, don’t you think?”
“Ruckus—”
“Isn’t here,” she cut him off. “So I’m asking you. Please.”
She felt a little bad pressuring him into it, surprisingly. They may have even been friends under different circumstances. Met at the club, hung out. He didn’t have the same magnetism that Ruckus did, which was actually a good thing, because it meant that she could think clearly in his presence, but he didn’t instill in her wariness like Trystan did, either.
“She’s extremely self-centered,” he conceded on a massive sigh, “as I’m sure you’ve also gathered.”
Oh yeah.
“I’ve never really seen her interested in much of anything. Except for parties—she loves those. And big, flashy events.” He canted his head, gaze sharpening to search for her reaction to his next words. “That’s why we were certain we’d find her at the club.”
She lifted a challenging brow. “And here I thought you had aliens there spying for you.”
He chuckled. “You’re smarter than you look, Delaney Grace.”
“Well, I look like Olena so…”
“Exactly.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now as well. “What else?”
“There isn’t much else, to be honest.” He shrugged. “At least not much I could tell you. I rarely spoke to her, and when I did, it was only in passing, when Ruckus was too busy to do so himself. She didn’t listen to anyone; it was a wonder that she bothered to take his advice as often as she did. Even her parents had trouble with her.”
“So, you don’t know any of her likes or dislikes?”
“She didn’t like very much, as I’ve said,” he reiterated. “As far as dislikes … does everything count? I mean, the girl literally abandoned her home planet. Doesn’t that speak for itself? If there was anything here she cared about, she might have chosen otherwise.”
Delaney quirked a single brow. “You’re forgetting: I’ve met Trystan.”
“You’re saying you’d run, too?”
“I’m saying I don’t know.” And how had this conversation turned to her? She needed answers, and she found herself extremely dissatisfied with the ones Pettus had been able to offer.
“One time,” he said, and his voice had lowered, as if he was afraid of being overheard even though it was still just the two of them, “a few years ago, she pretended to drown. Ruckus wasn’t there; he had a meeting with the Basileus and had placed me in charge. I pulled her out of the pool and tried to revive her—at least that’s what I thought I was doing. Turns out, she thought it’d be funny for Ruckus to walk in on me giving her mouth-to-mouth, and for her to pretend we were kissing.”
That was pretty messed up. “Ruckus didn’t really buy that you were making out, right?”
“No,” he confirmed. “He’s smarter than that. But there was no reason for her to do it in the first place. She could have gotten me in serious trouble, could have cost me my job, and she didn’t care. All she thought about was that it’d be funny.”
No wonder everyone thought she was bitch. Olena treated people like playthings. If that was what people expected of her, Delaney was in more trouble than she’d thought. She couldn’t do stuff like that, fake her death for a laugh.
If this was the girl she was pretending to be, she needed to be on her A game, and she couldn’t do that when she didn’t know anything else about Vakar—or the Kints, for that matter. Somehow she needed to get answers, and after his reluctance to tell her anything about Olena without Ruckus there, she doubted Pettus would spill about how Vakar operated.
She was about to lie and say she was going to try to sleep after all when her stomach growled loudly. Which gave her an idea. She couldn’t make someone panic by faking her death, but a little trickery? That her conscious would allow.
“You’re hungry.” Fortunately, Pettus had heard the sound as well.
“It’s been a while since I’ve eaten,” she confirmed. Then she pretended to hesitate before she asked, “Can you get me something to eat? I don’t think I’ll make it to morning without.”
“I’m not supposed to leave my post,” he told her, though not with very much conviction.
Her stomach growled again—she was actually hungry, but that would have to wait.
“All right.” He sighed. “Stay here and don’t answer the door for anyone. Understood?”
She nodded, only just catching his words through the pounding of her heart. He left and closed the door behind him, and she waited, counting to ten under her breath. If they’d passed the kitchens on their way up to her room earlier, she hadn’t seen them, so she didn’t know how far away they were. It was a matter of guessing how long to wait so that she didn’t accidentally run into him leaving or returning, before going herself.
She felt a bit guilty, especially considering he’d just gotten done telling her that horrible story about Olena and how she’d played him. But this wasn’t the same, right? She wasn’t faking her death or trying to trick him into making out with her so …
Yup, decidedly not the same.
Initially she’d only intended to lure him in and grill him for information, but now … the opportunity to get out of this room, to really explore and find the answers she so desperately needed, was too great to pass up.
She moved to the door and slowly eased it open. It was dark in the hall, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Once they had, she was left with the decision of which direction to go. She hadn’t been paying enough attention when brought here to have any clear indicator of what side of the hall led where.
Throwing it to chance, she turned right, padding down the hallway swiftly but soundlessly. Some hallways were lit with dim orange lights pressed against the walls every few feet; others were almost pitch-black. She avoided those. She wasn’t quite sure wha
t she hoped to find, only that there had to be somewhere with answers out there. The castle was huge, after all.
Knowing that she didn’t want to inadvertently run into the Basileus or Basilissa, however, had her also avoiding the hallways that seemed too lavish. The ones with even more gold trim running down them than the wing where Olena’s bedroom was located were also all carefully avoided. That still left plenty of selections though, and with the place being built like a maze, it was easy enough for her to choose between one hall and another.
A brighter orange glow, more vibrant than any of the other lights she’d seen thus far, filtered in at the end of a hallway. It effectively drew her into the darkness, her curiosity overshadowing her fear.
Logically, her brain told her, if there’d been any true danger here, there’d surely be guards, right? As it was, she’d yet to stumble upon a single one. The castle itself seemed to stand still, the quiet thick and heavy, beating down on her like a live thing. Through her wanderings, she’d found a sort of twisted comfort from it, the silence allowing her mind to filter through the day’s events without any interruptions.
The hallway stretched some thirty feet, not a single light aside from the one at the very end of it. The closer she got, the brighter it became, and she realized that it was a mere fraction of itself shown from beneath the crack of a very large door.
It wasn’t just spilling through the bottom but the side of the door as well; someone had left it open a good half a foot. Through the gap she could make out rows of cherrywood shelves covered with books of all sizes. Despite her enjoyment of the quiet up to this point, the distinct sound of crackling wood attracted her, igniting a homesickness at the center of her chest that had her pushing open the door the rest of the way. The possible ramifications of her actions were a blurry thought in the back of her mind, easily shuffled aside to make room for her inquisitiveness.
She entered a massive library the likes of which she’d only ever dreamed of. The walls stretched so high, she couldn’t even begin to guess where they stopped, the rows of books trailing up after them just as tall. The very top of the ceiling was a dome, lines of golden metal trailing from all edges to meet at the center, where they formed an odd shape she couldn’t label.
Delaney tried though, for a while, standing there with her head tilted back so far, her neck began to ache from it. The night sky above was charcoal with flickers of neon blues, greens, and pinks. She wondered if the windows were special, if there was something about them that turned the tiny pinpricks of light coming from the stars those odd colors. She was once again reminded that everything here was foreign to her, that she was out of place.
Except for the smell.
She found the source of it on the other side of the room, against a wide wall nestled between two stacks of shelves. The floor was solid beneath her feet, and she padded across it silently in her socks. She’d taken off her shoes earlier when she’d attempted to sleep, and hadn’t thought about putting them back on in her rush to beat Pettus’s return.
The fireplace was big enough to fit three of her easily, set in stone that sparkled like gold glitter had been used to form the rock. Heat radiated, hot enough that ten feet was the closest she could get before drops of sweat prickled her brow.
Now that she was in front of the fireplace, she could note that the woodsy smell was different from any of the ones back on Earth. There was a sweetness to it along with the smokiness, almost like someone had tossed a vat of gummy bears in it only moments prior. The scent effectively overpowered any that the dusty old volumes flanking it might have given off themselves.
She moved over to the closest bookshelf, selecting a tome at random. It had a burgundy spine, and when she pulled it from the wall, she found that it also had gold-leaf edges. She traced them with her finger, picking a page and opening it. The writing was in a language she couldn’t read, and with a heavy frown she replaced it, moving on to another. The next five volumes she chose were in the same foreign language.
Delaney was a bit disappointed that the hebi didn’t also help translate the written word. She figured it probably had something to do with the fact the device translated sound specifically. Unfortunately, the writing wasn’t even recognizable enough for her to attempt properly sounding it out.
The part of her that’d grown excited the moment she’d entered the library began to wither, as if under the heat of the fire. This would have been the perfect place to get her answers, so of course it had to be completely useless to her. A blatant taunt from an already bitter universe.
She turned away, spinning in a circle to better inspect the place. There was no telling how large it actually was, not when the stacks formed mazes of their own, rows creating passages that led deeper into the room in every given direction. Seeing as how she was already lost—there was no way she was going to be able to backtrack to Olena’s bedroom—she tossed caution to the wind and went for it.
“There’s got to be some English here somewhere,” she mumbled to herself, continuing on. It was a safe bet, considering Ruckus and his men had originally been speaking English with her on the ship.
At this point, any information she could glean would be good information. She knew little to nothing about either Vakar or Kint—damn Mariana for not pressuring her more into learning about them—and absolutely jack about Olena, aside from her being a bitch.
There had to be something here that could help her develop a stronger understanding of just what she’d been dragged into.
Delaney traveled through another four rows before coming to a stop at a corner made by two connecting shelves. Some of the spines had words on them, and her gaze homed in on one eleven rows up, with American Customs distinctly set in shiny silver lettering.
There was a step stool directly beneath it, as if someone had only just recently been searching the contents of this section as well. She hypothesized that if this book was in English, the rest here probably were, too. The stool was about a foot high, circular, and made of thick glass.
She hesitated when she pressed her foot against the surface, lightly at first, testing to make sure it could actually support her weight before sucking in a breath and going for it. Even with the lift, she had to stretch all the way up onto her toes in order for the tips of her fingers to graze the edge of the spine.
It was a struggle, but after a long moment she was able to grab it, and the two books that had flanked it, dropping down with a huge huff of relief. Absently flipping through the first book, she lifted a single brow when she stopped at a page with a crudely drawn image of a girl in a poodle skirt on roller skates.
How old was this book?
Instead of checking, she carefully placed it onto the stool and selected one of the others. This one was a bit more helpful, written in English but clearly connecting Earth to Xenith. She scanned references to kings and queens, and their deciphering into the Vakar and Kint versions: King: Basileus (Vakar), Rex (Kint), etc.
She was in the process of flipping through in search of new information when she turned. And saw him in her peripheral vision.
CHAPTER 7
It was impossible to tell just how long he’d been there, but it was obviously long enough. The corner that the rows formed turned only the one way, right, and led to a reading nook of sorts, which had been created by another three shelves and was nestled directly after another right turn. A single armchair had been placed there, old burnt-brown leather with brass finishing. It’d been set at an angle, so that it faced both the opposite hallway and the stacks to its right, giving whoever sat there ample space to stretch out their legs.
At least, it would have for just about anyone else; Trystan, however, seemed to barely fit. He had his legs stretched out and his feet pressed against the very bottom shelf despite the fact that he was sitting in the chair and not lounging. His arms sat against the rests, hands holding a book three times the size of the one she had.
He was still dressed in his uniform, somehow manag
ing to appear dignified even here, surrounded by yellowed pages and heavy dust motes. His light blond hair was perfect, not a strand out of place, and he had his head angled at her, watching through those cornflower-blue-and-crimson eyes with an interest that had her gut instantly twisting into knots.
He was so still, she may have been able to convince herself he was a mere statue of the Zane, if not for the slow rise of the corner of his firm mouth. The fact that he enjoyed catching her off guard was obvious, as was the fact that his pleasure only grew from the knowledge that she knew about his enjoyment.
The danger here became apparent so swiftly, it was a raw sensation, a primal one that had her spine instantly straightening and her mind racing to attempt retracing her steps. If she had to get out of there, would she be able to find the door?
“Lissa Olena,” he said, finally breaking the silence, his voice a poisonous purr, “how odd to find you here.”
“I believe”—she cleared her throat, reminding herself that running wasn’t an option—“technically, I found you.”
He canted his head, eyes narrowing, though he never lost the vicious half smirk. “So it would seem.” His chin nodded toward the book she was now clutching. “I wasn’t aware you could read.”
“Come on,” she snapped before she could catch herself, “you can do better.”
Both of his brows arched in surprise, before slowly settling once more. Instead of rising to her blatant challenge, he closed the book and folded in on himself, dropping his legs and standing with a flourish.
Tucking the book he’d been reading under his right arm, he slid his left hand into the front pocket of his navy pants, the material so dark, it could easily be mistaken for black in this dim lighting.
“We didn’t get to finish our conversation,” he said then, but his voice was different, lower. “Back on the ship.”
“I wouldn’t really call that a conversation.” Was she pushing it too much? Keeping herself together was taking a lot more out of her than she’d expected; at least on the ship, she’d been well rested. Perhaps ditching Pettus in the middle of the night without getting in at least an hour’s worth of sleep hadn’t been such a good idea.
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