She scowled at him as if she were baffled by his words. It’d be a nice expression if it were real. “What? Protecting my mother?”
What the hell was she talking about? She hadn’t appeared to be protecting anyone while she’d lain on the floor being strangled. “Yeah, no. That whole act of setting me up for your queen so that she could get her vengeance on me for calling her crap crap. Nice move. But I’m not that stupid.” At least not today. And definitely not for her.
“Are you on something?”
She was good. He could almost believe that innocence she was trying to sell. But he’d been around actresses and grifters before who were much more convincing.
“Like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
She shook her head. “I have no clue and you’re wasting my time.” She pointed toward the sector where the Arimanda had vanished. “We have to get back to the ship before the assassins go after my mother. It’s imperative.”
He paused in confusion. Was her mother one of the Guards or someone else? “What are you talking about?”
Desideria had never been more frustrated in her life. The man was insane. Did he have some kind of mental problem that he couldn’t recall what had happened right before they fell into the pod? How hard had the imbecile struck his head?
“Hello? Remember the fight you broke in on? Me on the floor being choked? The bad guys who attacked you…”
“I didn’t break into a fight. You were setting me up by allowing them to choke you.”
He really was mentally defective. Did he honestly think she’d allow herself to be choked like that? On purpose? What kind of people did he run with that such an idea would even enter his mind? She pointed to the nasty burn on her throat she was sure was bruised if not bleeding. “Does this really look like I was pretending?”
Caillen paused as he focused on the purple welts that belied his accusation. Actually it did look painful and authentic. Not to mention the fact that it would probably scar and most women he knew resisted permanent disfiguration.
Still, there were people who’d maimed themselves before for a lot less reason and Qills weren’t normal in any sense of that word. For her queen’s pleasure, she just might be insane enough to ruin her neck, scar her face or even eat small babies for breakfast. “You were serving your country well. I’m sure they’ll decorate you for it.” That was, after all, what her people lived for.
She screwed her face up in disgust. “What do you think was happening when you barged in?”
Barged in? Yeah, she was a piece of work. In his neighborhood it was called helping someone. Which just proved what he knew, she wasn’t really in any danger.
“I don’t think. I know. I heard your boss lady call security and say that I was trying to kill your princess. That is a cold, hard fact.”
“And which of the women in that hallway do you think the princess was?”
Caillen went over the people who’d been there. Two robed figures whose gender was unknown and the three Guards. A princess wouldn’t have Guard duty so it left the other two he’d been fighting. “ssume one of the people in the robes or no one at all. The bitch just lied.”
She rolled her eyes. “You understand quantum physics and you can’t rationalize this? I am the princess, nescient.”
Yeah, right. Sure she was. That didn’t even make the least bit of sense. He’d seen the way the others had looked at her and treated her—like dirt. If she was the daughter of their sadistic queen, they wouldn’t have dared such. Not to mention one small other thing… “I wasn’t trying to kill you.” Though he might if she didn’t bring that attitude down a notch.
She gave him a duh stare.
And that made him feel like a total fool as he got what she was trying to tell him. “You’re the princess.”
She nodded.
“They were trying to kill you and frame me for it… you fice.” He wasn’t about to let her insult slide without adding one of his own.
By the light in her eyes, he could tell she’d like to beat him into little bloody nuggets. “All right, stop with the high-end insults.”
“You started it.”
She raked him with a repugnant sneer. “What are we? Four? Please cease before you call me a doodie head. I really don’t think in my current mood that I could survive such a juvenile attack. That might actually undo me.” Curling her lip, she flicked her nails at him—an obscene Qill gesture. “You need to respect the fact that at the moment it’s taking every ounce of willpower I have to not hurt you.”
He laughed at her threat. While she was muscular, she was tiny in comparison to his size. So long as he kept his cock guarded, there wasn’t much she could do to hurt him. “Baby, I’d like to see you try. Believe me, I’ve had men and women who eat your lunch try to kill me and here I am. Still standing. Still kicking ass.”
She scoffed. “Explain to me how is it possible that the three of us actually fit into this pod?”