Page 1 of The Devil's Embrace

Chapter 1:

The music was shitty and the company was even worse.

Even ifhewas the company he was referring to.

Calix Valimir stood by the punch bowl and tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt as he faced the rest of the party. The high school reunion was in full swing three hours in, and many of his old schoolmates were tipsy or on their way to being drunk.

Since Emergency was considered one of the largest occupied planets in the Edith galaxy, there were many options for public and private schooling in each major city. Gradient High happened to be one of five well-known locations, and they held a reunion once every eight years and invited all the alumni to attend.

He’d had no interest in going, but his superior officer, Gideon, had assigned him a case on planet with dates that happened to coincide, and so…here he was.

What an epic mistake.

It wasn’t like he was delusional enough to assume people had forgotten about that horrible event when he’d been eighteen, but a part of him had still hoped the reaction would be better than this. Every time he caught someone’s eye, it was to find them glaring or looking at him with unbridled disgust.

At least when they’d been kids, it’d made sense, but now they were all adults, and to still garner this much hatred for something that had been an accident? He’d been found not guilty on all charges. His name had been cleared.

No one had cared back then. And no one cared now.

After the incident, Calix had been forced to give up on his dream to teach and instead immediately enrolled at the Academy, a military style training facility located on a man-made planet.

There were different fields of study at the Academy, same as any other school, though the focus was on training soldiers and police officers. Every galaxy in the universe had its own Academy, most kept separate from regular society in an attempt to help cadets cut ties with their roots. Once a person graduated, they could no longer be loyal to their home planet and instead swore an oath to uphold law and order throughout the universe.

He hadn’t planned on that path, but once there, Calix had quickly realized he was actually pretty good. He’d breezed through hand-to-hand combat and weapons training, always top three in his classes. His course studies had also gone well, with him grading in the top five percentile all four years of attendance. When it’d come time to pick his focus, studying to become a detective had been a no-brainer.

He'd poured everything he had left into training, into proving himself to those around him. The determination to become something despite the incident. The dark thoughts that haunted him and called him a freak.

The guilt.

The shame.

All of it.

In some galaxies, the Academy was the only thing on planet, but not in Edith. Graduating cadets who went on to become commanding officers, detectives, inspectors, off-siteforensic scientists, etc., were all housed there as well. They were on the opposite side of the globe and didn’t often come into contact with training cadets, but it was nice not having to pick up and relocate to a completely new planet.

Calix’s decision to join the Academy had been the best he’d ever made. The people there hadn’t known about his sordid past, hadn’t questioned him or his sanity. If he hadn’t been able to make any strong, lasting friendships, so what? The goal had been to live normally, not splendidly, and he’d somehow managed it. Managed to coast under the radar even with his perfect grades and stellar record as a sixth-class detective—impressive for his age.

Until Troya Shaw arrived.

In the center of the dancefloor—and the center of attention, as per usual—Calix’s partner, Troya, laughed and swayed his hips to the gods awful techno beat thrumming through the bass speakers.

The two of them were from different graduating classes, with Troya a year behind, but that hadn’t stopped his partner from entering the Academy already carrying the hatred of everyone back home as though it was his mission to uphold their honor through fury or some shit like that.

When they’d still been at the Academy, it’d been relatively easy to avoid him, at least, but that had changed when Calix’s original partner got injured last year, and he’d needed a replacement to step in permanently. To this day, he still couldn’t figure out why the two of them had been paired together. Just because the rest of the student body hadn’t known about his past, didn’t mean it wasn’t written in his file.

The two of them should never have come into contact in the field, let alone have to work together. The worst part? Calix couldn’t even put in for a transfer without seeming like a dick. It’d been over eight months since the two of them startedworking together and he kept waiting for Troya to do it, but the guy kept surprising him.

Which made no sense, considering how openly he loathed him.

Even tonight, they’d arrived separately, and Troya hadn’t so much as glanced in his direction. While everyone else openly glared or whispered spiteful words behind Calix’s back, the man he’d spent six hours traveling on a spaceship with this morning acted like he didn’t exist.

Cumbersome.

Infuriating.

Deserving.

That last one made him flinch, and he quickly turned away, hanging his head as he reached for another cup of the weird-tasting punch.

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