Page 21 of Coveted

Her father scowled but she knew he couldn’t fault her logic. Punctuality was important to him, so it wasn’t a stretch for him to believe another alpha would be irritated by having to wait for her.

“See that you do. And next time, I should be informed before you run off ahead of schedule. Now I’ll have to find another way to get Tina to you. I can’t believe you left without her.”

His scolding tone made Alana want to curl into herself, but she kept her shoulders pulled back and her chin up, steeling herself to stand up to him further.

“There’s no need for that. Libeqor is her home, and Chancellor Vax has enough servants to spare a maid for me.”

Her breaths were shallow, the sick feeling churning in her belly threatening to make her run for the toilet, but she kept her face calm.

“Tina has been with you for years. There’s no reason to train a new maid when she knows how you prefer things.”

The spark of anger that lit in her helped quell the nausea. Tina knew how Alana’s father preferred things, not her. Alana had never been allowed to make her own decisions, and the way he was insisting cemented the suspicion that he’d planned to continue controlling her from afar.

Shaking her head, Alana denied her father again.

“It’s no trouble to train a new maid, and I’m sure Chancellor Vax has already made arrangements for it as you would have if you were accepting a new person into your household. There’s no reason to take Tina from her home when she’d have just as much to learn in a new place. I’m sure Mother can find a use for her in her own retinue.”

Alana planned to be sure she did. She may have felt a bit of resentment toward the woman, but Tina had only been doing her job, and she didn’t deserve to be tossed out after years of loyalty. Even if the loyalty hadn’t been to Alana.

Eyes narrowed, jaw clenching, her father couldn’t come up with a rebuttal before Alana pushed on.

“Mother is probably fretting herself into a mess, so I should call her before she gets too worked up. Once we land on Earth, I’ll have the pilots refuel and leave again as soon as possible.”

Her father took a visible breath, dropping his shoulders and smoothing his expression. She knew anger still simmered beneath the surface, but there was nothing more he could do to her. If he refused to listen and sent Tina to Farcon 1 anyway, Alana would find a way to get the woman back home in a way that would keep him from sending her away again.

“Make sure to present yourself well and be sure to keep in touch. Just because you’re not here doesn’t mean we can’t still guide you.”

The screen went dark, her father disconnecting with his excuse for a farewell even as a fresh surge of anger lit and fizzled inside her. She’d keep in touch with her mother, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to speak to her father again until she’d established herself.

Sighing, Alana let her shoulders sag, taking a moment to allow the worst of her anxiety to drain away. She was out of his reach, on her way to a new life.

All that was left was to calm her mother.

Chapter Twelve

Vax

Every waking minute was spent working, and he only slept as much as necessary. His morning shower was the only time he grudgingly took from the frenzy to get everything in place, and even that was clipped to a quick scrub as he planned out what needed done that day. He didn’t have a second to spare if he was going to have something to show the Council when they arrived on Farcon 1, and keep his people fed as they struggled with the loss of crops.

Burning the infected plants seemed to have made things worse, the blight spreading through the remainder of the Western-face and popping up on the East as well. The mountain the city sat beneath had the only arable land close enough to farm, and they were guarding the Northern-face crops with everything they had as Cha fought to save what he could on the East.

The struggle weighed on Vax, the feeling that he was abandoning his people in a time of need smothering all other emotions. He should have been excited to meet Alana, to finally have an omega he’d never dreamed he’d have, and yet the worry controlled his thoughts.

He crammed every meeting he could into the time he had before leaving. Everything was in place to break ground on the new mine, and while Vax would have preferred to be there, he couldn’t make them wait on his return. They would get started on the third day of his trip, and he could only hope everything went well.

While he hoped he’d be able to make his return trip shortly after arriving on Earth, he packed enough for an extended stay. He was responsible for Farcon 1, but he had capable people in place to oversee things while he was away, and he was just as responsible for the woman whose life was being upended.

Elise had been willing to go to her new life, looking at it as a way to escape the drudgery she’d been trapped in, but she’d reminded him during a call the night before that not all omegas were happy with the situation. Considering Alana’s age, she’d likely been settled into her own life without an alpha, or she could have been seeing one, but never bonded, and Libeqor joining the Federation forced them apart.

Vax had no idea what he’d be walking into. Suri hadn’t given any indication that Alana was unwilling, but he doubted she would.

He hoped Alana wasn’t going to fight him. He was already torn in too many directions, and the guilt over his decision to bid on her still ate at him. He didn’t know if he’d be able to excuse taking more time from the issues facing his people to calm an omega bent on being difficult.

Pushing all those concerns aside, he strode into his hopper, heading straight for the cockpit where Regis was already prepping the ship for takeoff.

He thought back to the previous hopper belonging to the Chancellor of Farcon 1 and snorted in derision. It had been the largest of its class, decked out with every possible excess, rightdown to platinum fixtures along the walls, but Leir had sold it after they’d raided the ship looking for Chancellor Osmel’s son.

They’d found Elise onboard instead, setting off the series of events that landed Vax as the new Chancellor. It was hard to believe it had barely been more than a year on Farcon 1 since then.

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