Amid Stars and Darkness (The Xenith Trilogy #1)

“You mean what your daughter’s done?” She quirked a brow, but before he could verbally—or worse, physically—attack her, she followed up with, “I know how important maintaining my cover is. For both of our people. I’ll do my job of convincing them, but I want your word that the second you get Olena back, I get to go home safely.”

He eyed her, and she couldn’t tell if he was impressed or simply still annoyed by her boldness. The former must have won out, however, because he ended up giving her a half smile that appeared to be legitimate.

“You’ve got my word, Miss Grace. Play your part, and in the end we’ll both get what we want.”

“Good.” He could be lying, that was always a possibility, but there was no real reason for him to bother. He needed her cooperation, sure, yet that could be forced out of her any number of ways, and he didn’t come off like the type who lacked imagination.

“I have prisoners to attend to.” He bowed his head to her and then acknowledged Ruckus and Pettus. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight, Miss Grace.” He didn’t stick around for a reply.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Ruckus demanded once the Basileus had disappeared down the hall. He yanked on her arm until she glared back at him. He was pissed, nostrils flaring and everything. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I’ll excuse myself, Ander.” Pettus sent her an apologetic look and then hastened away, heading toward the science wing.

“He can’t hurt me,” she reminded him when they were alone. “He needs me.”

“For now,” he snapped. “What about tomorrow? Or the day after? The second he finds his daughter, do you really think he’ll let you leave if you’ve insulted him? He’s a king, Delaney! There are rules here just as there are on Earth, the most important being: Don’t make an enemy of the man in charge.”

She couldn’t help her grunt. If only he knew about her rebellious stage a few years ago, then he’d realize what he was saying fell on deaf ears. Her entire freshman summer of high school had been spent conducting ways to raise her father’s blood pressure whenever she was home on break. Mariana had even helped with a few of those ideas.

At the thought of her best friend, her anger dwindled, leaving her empty. Wrapping her arms around herself, she took a shaky breath. She hated all these highs and lows, the way she’d feel like she’d finally gotten ahold of herself only for something to remind her that she was, in more ways than one, a prisoner here.

“What’s a cycle?” she asked suddenly, recalling she’d never gotten an answer about that.

Her change of subject confused him, but he answered anyway. “It’s our word for day.”

Her eyes bugged. “Day? Back on the ship you said I’d been out for three cycles! I was unconscious for three days?!”

This was not happening. First, she was kidnapped, then she was almost murdered right after breakfast. Next she gets a painful and terrifying alien computer-type chip installed into her brain, and now Ruckus was telling her that she’d been missing for not two days but five!

“It’s almost been a week,” she said breathlessly, backpedaling so that she could lean against the brown metal wall for support. “They must be going crazy. Mariana probably thinks I’m dead.”

“Delaney—”

“I need to contact them.” She’d barely heard him call her name. “Mariana and my parents. They need to know that I’m all right.”

“You can’t do that,” he told her.

“Why not?” It wouldn’t affect what she was doing here. No one knew who Delaney Grace was; they’d never make the connection if she reached out to her friends and family.

“You’re on another planet, for one.” He ran a hand through his brunette hair, leaving his heavy palm at the base of his skull. “You can’t just call them on the telephone, Delaney.”

“So have them send an e-mail,” she said, scrambling to come up with a solution.

He gave her a pointed stare. “We both know that would only exacerbate the situation. Even if the e-mail wasn’t somehow intercepted by the Kint, which is likely, if your roommate thinks something bad has happened to you—”

“You mean like a kidnapping?”

“Then she would have called the police,” he went on, the only sign he’d heard her a slight narrowing of his eyes. “Any contact you make now will be investigated. The bigger the investigation, the more news coverage. And the more news coverage—”

“The more likely it is one of the Kints will notice something is off,” she said, putting it together. Slumping against the wall, she squeezed her eyes shut. There were aliens of both groups on Earth; some even stayed permanently. There was always the chance that they’d tune in at an inopportune time and see that a recently graduated high school student had gone missing in the exact same place the Lissa had been found.

It was a stretch, of course, that they’d even begin to guess what had really happened, that Olena had switched planets with Delaney, but could they risk it? No.

“This is a nightmare,” she whispered, not really meaning to. A second later she felt Ruckus’s warm breath fan against her cheeks, and her eyes snapped open, going wide at his nearness.

He’d moved so that he was standing toe-to-toe with her, arms up at the sides of her head in a similar pose to the one Trystan had used to intimidate her last night. This was different, however, because there was no threat in the way he held his body around hers. It was more like protection, and it caused a strange warmth to pool in the center of her chest.

“Tell me something,” he said breathlessly, the words so low that someone standing even half a foot away wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Something,” she found herself answering, absently licking her lips.

His gaze trailed down and followed the move, and she sucked in a breath when the yellow in his eyes began to glimmer gold. He caught himself, matched her stare again, and shifted his feet, the move bringing him half an inch closer to her. No part of them actually touched, but the heat transferring back and forth was palpable.

Delaney didn’t understand this. She knew what attraction was, of course, but couldn’t comprehend how she could be feeling it toward him. Not only was he of a different species, but he’d also dragged her into this mess, and they hardly knew each other.

“I’m trying to get to know you,” he said then, remaining where he was even when she stilled.

Oh shit.

“How much of that did you hear?” she asked, immediately picturing the clear box around her mind like he’d told her to do. She hadn’t even been aware of the slight burning at the back of her neck. He’d just connected with her telepathically, read her mind, and she’d been too distracted to notice.

Stupid.

“Just the part about us not knowing each other,” he said, easing some of her embarrassment. It would have really sucked if he’d caught the part about her finding him gorgeous.

She was still embarrassed about the hot alien comment from earlier.

“That’s what I’m trying to do right now, Delaney”—he looked at her full lips again as if compelled to—“get to know you.”

She didn’t know how to respond so ended up not saying anything.

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