Page 55 of Veiled in Shadow
“I understand,” he says. “I’m too young to remember the start of the war, and we’ve never had a problem with pollution here, but things were certainly difficult when I was growing up. Living in a war torn state, with a price on your head, it’s not easy, even when the environment around you is beautiful. But there’s tranquility in these streets, even when things in the outside world are difficult. That's why I always come back here to recharge.”
“Was the Valley touched by the war?”
“Not directly,” he replies, turning his head to look at me. I immediately tilt my head up to focus on the superman curl in the middle of his forehead. “The valley is too remote to have ever been a battleground, and in truth, few have the resources to come here from Solis. But that doesn’t mean the war wasn’t relevant to my life.”
He doesn’t have to explain. I can see it from the forcefield that always surrounds his body, from the fact that he doesn’t want to be touched. From Keon’s confession about wanting to kill him.
Fuck. From my own fucking mission.
“None of that matters anymore,” he says. “It’s all in the past now. Peace on Aelydon might be tenuous, but as we know now human women are able to have our children, it might turn into a more permanent state of affairs. I can only hope that peace can continue.”
“Do you think it will?”
He narrows his eyes as he thinks about that. “I expect it’ll be a difficult adjustment period. When the disease took our young, when we stopped being able to reproduce, my parents were certain it meant the end of our species.”
“Keon said he was too young to remember what happened before the war. Your guard mentioned something about it too,” I say. I’m testing the waters, but I’m also genuinely curious. “You’re about Keon’s age, right?”
“A bit older. I’m also too young to remember the war, but I wasn’t too young to get sick,” he replies.
“You got sick?”
“Yes,” he says. “I was a child, I don’t remember much. It took almost everyone, but I got lucky…” He trails off, swallowing hard. Do alien mob bosses cry? “It’s not something I think about much, but it made my parents protective. My mother never wanted me to control the Family. She was worried about my well-being.”
“And now?”
He smiles. “She hates it,” he says. “But she appreciates all the precautions I take.”
I smile back at him. There’s genuine affection in his voice, softening him even more. “She sounds great.”
“She is,” he replies. “And she’s dying to meet you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
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KEON
She’s getting to me.
And people don’t just get to me.
My heart aches as I watch her stroll away with Atlas, the two of them looking like the perfect pair. I don’t think she realizes how the platinum of her hair complements his silver skin…how their sizes are so different as to look like he was made to protect her. Not that I’m sure if he’ll ever touch her, and if she does, it could end in ruin for us all.
An insect buzzes around my face and I swat it away, glancing over at Penn’s bodyguard as I do. He looks…well, just like I do. A little annoyed. Slightly bored. Putting on a facade, I think, and good at too. But…
“Jealous?” I ask.
His pale eyes slide toward me, his expression settling into much more focused boredom. I don’t see even a glint of color in those eyes; he’s schooled in hiding how he feels.
That’s fine. So am I.
He doesn’t say anything, so I keep prodding him. There’s no reason not to; I have nowhere to be at the moment, and I’m not quite ready to be mobbed by the rest of the Family once I step inside the villa. Instead, I lean back against the railing, then glance down at Penn’s bags, which sit beside Shayd’s feet.
“If not jealous…frustrated,” I say. “You’re angry that I took her from the show last night.”
Nowhis eyes flash, a soft green.
Pretty.