Page 54 of Loved By the Alien King
“Captain, are you all right?” Darc asked, sliding her gaze briefly to me.
“Fine. Now, answer my question.”
“The prisoner on our ship made it very clear that his king was in danger and that thereforeyouwere in danger.”
“That fuxxing High Sword of mine,” Maxx growled. “Itoldhim. I told him everything was fine with my communicator.”
“And yet, everything is obviously not,” Darc fired back.
“What’s not fine, Darc?” I asked, slipping closer to her. “Tell me. And put down your weapons.”
She faltered, her gun hands wavering, seemingly wanting to obey. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Captain.”
“Why the fuck not?” I demanded.
“Once we got here,” she answered, “we stopped at Space Fleet’s bunker, and they filled us in on what’s happening.”
Philip and Mosely from my crew emerged from the thick jungle and flanked Darc. They caught my eye and nodded once.
Something soft slipped between my ankles and sideswiped my leg. I looked down and found Major staring up at me with his big green eyes and his little demented kitty smile, acting as though all of this was perfectly normal. He’d appeared out of nowhere like he so often did. I wanted to pick him up and squish him with love, but not now. Not when I needed answers more.
“Fill you in on what exactly?” I asked.
“The package that we were to deliver here to Klio-3 is a weapon that detects Faid with one hundred percent accuracy,” Darc explained.
“Nera, listen to me,” Maxx said, his voice low and careful. “Space Fleet is after me because I’m a—”
“He’s a Faid.” The voice slipped from within the cruise ship, disembodied at first. Then, in a flash of lightning, the voice’s owner appeared from behind Maxx with a dagger pressed to his throat.
Bling’s missing jeweled dagger, now in Bling’s hand.
Miekil, who’d been standing there bleeding and clutching his wound, stumbled away from her and Maxx, his mouth open in shock.
Bling cut her gaze to me, her eyes so cruel and hard that I almost didn’t recognize my friend and co-contestant. “You’re fucking a Faid, Nera.”
I blinked hard. “Wh—”
I didn’t have enough air in me to finish the question. There suddenly wasn’t enough air in the universe.
Darc stepped closer, her attention torn between me and Maxx, both her weapons still raised. “The Faid weapon is currently in my left hand and marking him as a Faid.”
I faltered back a step off the docking bay and shook my head.
I’d heard, but I couldn’t make any sense of it. Maxx was a Xenoxx warrior king. He was my love, my light in the darkness.
But when I shifted my gaze to him, I found the truth in his purple eyes, behind the sorrow and heartbreak…and lies. The truth crystallized around my heart, encasing it, needling it with frozen barbs.
“I’m sorry, Nera.” Maxx swallowed hard, bobbing the dagger pressed to his throat. “So sorry.”
I heaved a shaky breath while I stared at the stranger in front of me. My throat twisted. My eyes stung with tears. My thoughts disconnected from my numb body.
None of this was real. The clash between losing myself on a reality TV show and the Faid War wasn’t happening.
Miekil finally spoke, still unable to tear his gaze from Bling. “You’re Earth Space Fleet?”
She scoffed at him with her whole body, nicking Maxx’s neck scales with her blade. A single drop of blood trailed down his throat. He was staring at me, silently pleading, but I could no longer meet his gaze.
I was going to be sick.
