Then, through a strange twist of fate, General Cortas had chosen her out of thousands. Now she was a Spectre, guarding the general’s daughter. Living in the residential wing of his estate, attending family dinners, her face displayed across the screens of Arcardius as she stayed close by Kalee’s side at balls and high-profile gatherings. She had purpose. She had a position of the highest honor. Her service made her family, and her planet, proud. The title was hers, earned by her.
But more than that...Andi now had a friend as close as a sister. She’d broken through Kalee’s perfect outer image to discover the girl beneath, a girl who had wounds and hang-ups just like Andi. Kalee worked hard to please her father and her planet—she truly wished to lead Arcardius someday, with a military mind and gentle soul, and the general worked her hard. The pressure of it often became too much to bear.
Andi was always there to help pick up the pieces.
Andi had helped Kalee through the hard times, and in return, Kalee had helped Andi break through her own walls, to work through her anger and her feelings of unworthiness.
Though Andi guarded Kalee, she often felt like Kalee guarded her, too. Together, they were a unit.
Now, as they tiptoed past a closed doorway, Kalee put a finger to her lips. A sliver of bright white light peeked out from the crack near the floor.
It was his room.
Valen Cortas, Kalee’s strange, silent older brother who always seemed to appear at the most inconvenient times. She could imagine him in there right now, seated at his easel, bringing images to life on canvas. Rearranging his tubes of oil paint. Or perhaps organizing his clothing by color, much of which was splattered with paint.
“Come on,” Kalee whispered.
Andi took care with each step, holding back a laugh as they slipped past Valen’s room and made it into the main hall of Averia. A grand, sweeping staircase led down to the rounded entry of the estate, where a holo of Arcardius’s symbol spun in midair far below.
Andi leaned on the marble railing beside Kalee and looked up.
One floor above them was the sitting room, tucked away in the far corner, with a picture window overlooking the gardens. It was Kalee’s favorite place to sit and flip through the pages of an ancient paper book. Illustrations covered the pages, a fairy tale of the planets from long ago.
One floor past that was the docking bay, where Kalee’s father kept his personal transport ship.
“You’ve never even considered taking it out for a ride?” Kalee asked.
“It’s state-of-the-art,” Andi said. “The engine alone is worth more than my life, Kalee. If your father caught us with it, I’d lose my position.”
Kalee shook her head, pale ringlets spilling down her back. “It’s my birthday. He won’t mind.”
Andi sighed, gripping the railing so tightly her Spectre gloves grew taut against her skin. “What if I told you it’s never going to happen?”
Kalee smirked. “What if I told you it already has?”
Andi whirled to look at her, eyes widening to match the moons outside. “What did you do?”
Kalee reached into her pocket, then revealed the silver ignition card she’d swiped from her father’s office earlier. Andi had thought she’d seen Kalee slip something from the desk, but Kalee had learned a few too many tricks from Andi. “One little ride, Androma,” she whispered, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Do it for your best friend?”
“I could lose my job,” Andi said again.
Kalee frowned. “My father will never know. He sleeps like the dead. And besides, you’re practically part of the family, Andi. A slap on the wrist. Maybe a harsh talking-to from the general if he catches us. But other than that?” She waved a hand. “You took plenty of flight classes. We both know you’d have become a pilot if you hadn’t been given this job.” Her blue eyes turned pleadingly large. “Just one little flight around the mountain. Come on, you’re the one who’s always telling me to lighten up.”
Andi laughed as Kalee wiggled the card in her face.
A voice that sounded like her father’s told her that no soldier, at any time, would disobey orders. But if she was keeping Kalee safe while she flew the transport...she wouldn’t be disobeying at all. “Fine. But if we get caught, I’m saying you kidnapped me and forced me into it.”
Kalee nodded, then grabbed Andi’s hand and tugged her down the hall, toward the stairs. “It’s going to be the best night of your life, Androma Racella,” she said as they reached the steps. “It’s not like it’s going to kill you.”
*
Andi woke to darkness, the scent of sweat thick in her nostrils and the too-hot feeling of a metal floor just beneath her, a ship’s engine rumbling close below it.
She cursed, then tried to lift her hands to wipe sweat from her brow.
They were stuck. Bound in chains that clinked as she tried to squeeze her wrists out of the manacles.
For a moment, panic swept through her, twisting itself into her skin, making her itch with the need to run. To get the hell out of here before it was too late.
But then another sound mixed in with the rumble of the engine.
Snores, coming from her left, like the growl of the Marauder when Lira punched it hard and heavy.
Andi knew that snore, had found comfort in it from the very first night she’d heard it, years ago, in the bunkhouse of some brutal bounty hunter on Tenebris. It had always meant she wasn’t alone.
The snore belonged to Dex. And at the sound of it, despite all her anger at him, Andi relaxed as memories of their last moments in the Dark Matter Pub settled into place.
The fighting. The Sparks.
The kiss that left her feeling momentarily like putty as their lips met, like they had so many times before—until her fury took over.
Why was she thinking about that damned kiss? She hated that kiss. She hated Dex’s stupid lips.
She needed to focus.
The plan had worked. They were on a small transport ship, both of them bound in chains, bathed in complete and total darkness. They were prisoners of Xen Ptera, heading to Lunamere, the most horrific prison in all of the Mirabel Galaxy.
They were exactly where they needed to be.
Andi loosed a breath, then leaned her head back against the hot metal wall of the transport ship.
The tranq still in her system called to her and, willing or not, she closed her eyes and sank back into the shadowy depths of sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
* * *
VALEN
VALEN WAS A man made of regrets.
Stuck in this endless turmoil—absent of light with only his memories to keep him company—his mind often wandered.
At first he tried to remember the positive memories from his past. His mother’s warm smile, the adventures he’d shared with his sister, diving off the floating chunks of rock that littered Arcardius into the warm pools of water below with friends.
It gave him peace, a tiny glimmer of hope when he couldn’t grasp on to anything else.
Then the darkness chased the good memories away.
Others took their place.
The void expression on his mother’s face when Valen walked past his parents’ bedroom doorway, peering through the cracks as a single word floated out.
Unfaithful.