Page 37 of Matched to the Alien King
Avery stared at me for a moment. “Captain, Klio-3 doesn’t haveanyof that. It’s rocks and more rocks.”
“The sand between my toes would disagree with you. You came to the bungalow this morning to see me. The bungalow that you got to by crossing a beach and then a tiny bridge over the ocean. Don’t you remember?”
“Captain, I saw you this morning in a shack on a rocky cliffside.” She tilted her head and studied me like I’d just sprouted tiny doll heads all over my face. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. Never better.” I offered her a fake smile while simultaneously balling my hands into fists.
Because everything wasn’t fine. How could our realities be so different when we were on the same planet? It made no sense.
“Anyway.” She took a step toward me and held out her hand, still with a cautionary ‘this bitch be crazy’ shadow in her eyes. “You came here to give me the weapon?”
“Right. About that.” I shook my head of the rocky versus beach clusterfuck to focus on the oops, I lied clusterfuck. “I don’t actually have it.”
Avery blinked. “But you said—”
“I know what I said. When I went back to the place I stashed it, it was gone. Poof. Without a trace.”
Avery pushed back on her cheeks, already pulled too tightly by her bun, while her jaw gritted down her poor teeth. “Well, where the fuck did you hide it, Captain? Right outside the bungalow you keep talking about that doesn’t exist?”
“Sure,rightoutside the bungalow,” I said without missing a beat. “I even put blinking neon arrows and signs next to it that readFree Beer and Weapons. You know, like any normal person would when they’re trying to hide something.”
Avery fumed, so much that little sparks glinted menacingly behind her icy-blue eyes. “Your sarcasm and complete ineptitude make me think you don’t give twoshitsabout the Faid War.”
My calm meter shifted from zero to Karen in seconds. She thought I didn’t give a shit about the Faid War?
I took a single step toward her, my gaze narrowing, my patience splintering. “Careful, Lieutenant.”
She turned, a scream of rage bellowing out of her as she swept everything from the desk and then stormed out. She might’ve said a few more choice words to me on her way, but too bad I couldn’t hear them.
And by too bad, I mean goooood.
Welp, my work here was done. As I left, I didn’t bother cleaning up the evidence of Avery’s tantrum. You break it, you buy it.
In the hall, I came upon a small group of men ahead. One of them looked so familiar that the sight of him hesitated my mad dash back into Maxx’s waiting arms.
He stopped too, his eyes narrowing. “Nera?”
A chill scraped up my back. My lungs seized.
It was my ex-husband, Mike. Yep, the same one from whom I stole his ship and half his crew.
But worse was the sudden realization that dropped a ton of steel into my gut—hewas left-handed.
Chapter fourteen
Nera
Fuck,fuck,fuckmesideways with a rusted chainsaw.
“Mike,” I said, all sharp smiles and an even sharper edge to my voice. “Fancy seeing you here.”
The other men he was with strode on by, side-eying me with barely contained scorn that lingered several beats past uncomfortable.
Mike’s long legs carried him closer quickly, and he looked every bit older, and more, than the last time I’d seen him ten years ago. Quite a bit of gray salted his short dark hair even though he was only in his mid-thirties.
He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. His hazel eyes scoured my face with a frigid blast of judgement and then down to my ill-fitting, nonregulation Space Fleet uniform and up again.
“Are you wearing makeup?”
