Page 85 of Veiled in Shadow
I can’t see his face, but I’m pretty sure he’s smirking. I shouldn’t have promised not to hurt him when I really want to get into another fight with him.
He smells like seasalt andincarnetand Keon.
Like Keon when he’s turned on.
God, why do they all have to be so hot?
He walks up next to me, his hands in his pockets. He looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. He shouldn’t be. I believed all his lies and he has made my life here worse than it had to be.
“I know you’re angry,” he says. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Unless you can hand deliver my best friend to me, I don’t see how you intend to do that.”
He falters a little. “What’s she like?”
“Layla?” I ask, my heart beating hard in my chest. This is good, I can talk to him about her, and I can get him to trust me. Plus, I do miss her. So much. Just talking to him about her makes me feel like she’s a little closer than before. “She’s…amazing. When I first got to college, my life was kind of a mess. My parents were on the brink of splitting up and I barely got a lacrosse–that’s a sport–scholarship. My grades were okay, but I was way in over my head. And she was just always there. From the beginning. The first time we met, I was in the locker room crying because I’d just heard from my mom that my dad was moving out. She didn’t ask me what was wrong, she just sat with me until I had calmed down and then she put her number on my phone. Ever since that moment, we have been inseparable. She was there through it all; their break-up, their reconciliation, me barely being able to hold on to my scholarship and graduate. Then we went into the service together.”
“So you became First Wave together?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m ambitious, but Layla has always been more practical. We signed up to this program to get rid of our student loans because it turns out a lacrosse scholarship can only cover so much tuition before you need to go into debt. And then we were handpicked by the First Wave; a small group of women to infiltrate, contact and spy on Aelyds before your species destroyed our planet.”
“Aelyds have no interest in destroying your planet,” he says. “You’re the only species in the galaxy who isn’t affected by Apollyon after it killed our young, and we’re cross compatible so you can carry our children.”
I nod. “And what about our men, Corvus?”
“What do you mean?”
“Our fathers,” I say. “Our brothers. Our cousins, our friends. What about the men who can get human women pregnant? Am I really supposed to believe that your species is just going to leave them alone while you intend to use women of childrearing age as broodmares?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“We’re not idiots,” I say. “Our technology might not be as advanced as yours, but we are aware of what you’re doing.”
“Which is what?”
“Figuring out how to use us,” I reply. “And look, this is conceptually repulsive, right? Rich men, kings and their courts, find human concubines who don’t know any better to breed them so they can continue ruling over corrupt families that don’t care about the well-being of their species. I like Atlas, I understand why he’s afraid and I don’t want anything to happen to him. But as a ruler? I don’t know. This whole system is broken.”
His eyes turn light purple, sparkling in color against the dark of the starry night. “I didn’t expect you to have such strong opinions.”
“Of course I have strong opinions,” I say. “And now that your people have kidnapped my friend, my opinions have only strengthened.”
“Your government is corrupt, too.”
I scoff. “And I wouldn’t marry one of those fucking assholes, either.”
“So you don’t intend on marrying Atlas?”
I rub the bridge of my nose. I’m dehydrated. My head throbs. My muscles hurt with every step I take, my legs feel like they might buckle every time I take a step. As we get closer to the villa, I can practically taste the humiliation of what happened before he bolted. “I thought you were only interested in me killing him,” I say. “Why do you suddenly care about whether I marry him?”
“I don’t,” he says. “I can just see the way you look at him. I know you were acting when you first got here, but I don’t think you’re acting anymore. You have feelings for him, don’t you?”
I can see the shoreline now, bioluminescent fish lighting up the way to the boardwalk and down toward the villa. Even from where we stand, I can hear the activity down in Joya. The mood doesn’t seem joyful anymore, though. Even from up here, I can tell that something has shifted, and now it feels more like panic.
Fuck.
This isn’t good at all.
“What difference does it have if I have feelings for him?” I ask Corvus, my heart beating so fast in my chest I think Corvus might actually hear how much it hurts me to say the words. “He left me there after he tore down my walls. He could’ve fucked me, Corvus. Instead, he played me until I was gasping for him, begging him to touch me, and then right before he was about to do it, he just…left. He left me tied up, horny, with tears in my eyes from desire. And his men had to get me down because he couldn’t bear touching me. He never wanted to fuck me. All he wanted to do was humiliate me.”