Page 70 of Nova Academy

‘Not a chance. Whatever it is, you’re not getting anything from me,’ I said firmly.

When Bromm stepped into the living room then at the same time as the captain, both with their brows arched high, I shook my head and took a step back, feeling cornered.

‘I just want to know what happened,’ she insisted.

‘Fuck off,’ I scoffed, but that was the wrong reaction.

She grinned, a large toothy smile that said she just won something. ‘So somethingdidhappen.’

‘No,’ I reiterated, but to no avail.

‘Tell me. Something. Anything. Did you kiss again? Did you pin him down and have your way with him?’

I was backing away faster now, desperate to get away from this conversation. More like an attack. She was bombarding me with questions, the captain was trying to hold in his amusement at the way Addy was rounding on me, and Bromm merely smirked. The latter’s face flushed a deep purple that he counteracted with a wink in my direction.

I finally found the scanner to exit the suit and ran for the one across the hall. The other door slid open to allow my entry, and the bedrooms opened to push out the rest of the guys. They look harried and ready for battle, despite their varying stages of undress.

‘Oh,’ said Reece, lowering a shelf that looked like it had been ripped from the wall with its jagged metal edge. ‘It’s just you.’

‘Shit, Arty, we thought we were under attack,’ complained Cadmus.

‘Did you have to rush in here like your ass was on fire?’ Urman continued.

The door behind me slid open as Addy, Bromm and the captain finally followed, and I groaned at the pointed look both Addy and Bromm sent me. The captain patted me on the shoulder with a sly smile and moved to stand at the edge of the room.

‘One little detail,’ Addy continued as if I hadn’t tried to put two doors between us.

‘Not happening.’

‘What do you have to hide?’ she asked slyly.

‘Yeah, Arty? What do we have to hide?’ Bromm chimed in, and the glare I sent him should have turned him to ash.

‘There’s nothing to talk about because nothing happened,’ Itried again.

‘Wait, what’s going on?’ asked Reece.

‘I think Arty and Bromm got a little frisky last night,’ teased Foryk.

‘No, we didn’t,’ I tried, but they were all talking over me by that point.

‘Look at Bromm. He looks like a hunter that caught his prey,’ joked Cadmus, and he wasn’t wrong.

‘Nothing happened,’ I tried one more time.

‘Bromm, you wanna tell us what went down last night?’ Addy discarded her attempts to get juicy details from me and decided to try a different source.

‘Let’s just say it’s more like Arty’s the hunter and I’m the prey,’ he smirked, and the whole room erupted into whoops and laughter. I knew he was referring to the way I had taken over when thingshadgotten rather hot and heavy between us and he’d submitted to me so beautifully, but I certainly wasn’t going to broadcast that.

Face flaming, I decided it would be better to just escape this nonsense entirely and left, making it to the elevator before anyone else could. I slumped against the wall when the door closed without anyone one else inside, mentally exhausted but also feeling a lot lighter than I had in a long time. I didn’t know how the tables had turned so rapidly against me. One moment I was telling Adara off for putting me in a tricky situation, and the next I was being bombarded with questions implying something that hadn’t happened.

Well, nothing had happenedlastnight. Something had occurredanothernight, but that was in the past. Old news. We’d already moved on.

Or I thought we had. It seemed I was the only one.

The elevator opened to allow someone else to board, and I found myself face-to-face with the creepy guy that I’d met outside Addy’s suit. The one who was sleeping with the first lieutenant.

‘Mercer, right?’ he asked standing too close for comfort when there was enough space to spread out.

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