by Eva Delaney
Antares turned his head toward me, his dark eyes watching. They filled with an intensity I had never seen from him before. One that made my breath catch in my throat. His long auburn hair framed his pale face, and his gaze seemed to see through my clothes and my skin, right to my core.
“They’re supernovas. Bright enough to light a night sky from half a galaxy away, pulling you in with their beauty and their danger. If you get close enough, you see that they’re so much more than a flash of light; they’re layers of color and fire. Some layers are warm as breaking dawn. Others are hot enough to singe you. And others…others will burn you up. These women are dangerous, sexy, and they are always pulling me in with their gravity.”
I started at him, my heart thundering, my mouth hanging open, my stomach fluttering.
“What happened to your voice?” Lady Camilla said.
“Sick,” Antares said quickly, turning back to the comms, breaking our gaze. Without his dark eyes on mine, I felt unanchored, lost.
“Got to go puke,” he added in Castor’s voice and flicked off the comms.
I stood there, staring at him with my mouth still open and my stomach tying itself in knots.
He was serious, wasn’t he?
He was talking about me.
I believed he was; I felt it deep in my bones. But that didn’t mean I knew what to do with it. I could barely handle Orion.
“She should be seduced enough to turn off the tractor beam,” Antares said.
“Yeah,” I said. “She must be swooning.” I managed to keep my tone dry even though my stomach fluttered. She might not be swooning, but I was.
I turned to stand, and Antares was there with his hands on my face and his fingers stroking the sensitive skin of my neck. I shivered in delight. He was so close that I could smell his warm scent like when we pressed together in the secret compartment.
His nose brushed mine, and I thought for certain that he meant to kiss me. I clenched my fists, ready to shove him away when he did.
But fuck, Antares was good at reading me. He didn’t kiss me, and though I knew I should push him away, I didn’t. Somehow, he knew what limits he could push and which ones he couldn’t.
“You’re trying to seduce me,” I said.
He grinned wickedly. “If I were trying to seduce you, your panties would already be on the floor. I’m letting you know what your options are.”
I frowned at him, wanting to chew him out for talking to me like that, but at the same time, heat flared between my legs. I didn’t want him to stop.
A stammering, soft voice said, “Oh…oh, okay.”
I blinked and yanked away from Antares. Polaris stood in the cockpit door, watching us.
Shit.
Dread drowned my insides. What if he told Orion? My cocky pilot would certainly murder Antares.
Chapter 21
“So that’s how you do it,” Polaris said.
“Do what?” I said.
He glanced away, his hands wringing. “Teasing and joking….”
I sighed in relief. Po was so sweet that he didn’t even realize what was happening. He wasn’t hurt and wouldn’t tell Orion.
Antares shot him a skeptical look.
“I can do that,” Polaris said. “Be like one of the team. Um…let’s see…are you the Aurora Borealis, Cal?”
“What? No.”
“Because you light up my nights.”
Polaris paused with a wide cheerful smile as though waiting for me to get the pun.
I should make him stop rather than lead him on, but he was too cute to shoot down. Besides, I used to do the same thing to him, dropping lines out of nowhere to watch him squirm.
Maybe he was trying to joke around too.
“Yeah. Good one,” I said.
“That’s exactly how you do it,” Antares said, shooting me a sly grin. “Puns and pick-up lines are basically the same thing.”
I glared at him.
“Hmm…. I know!” Po said. “Are you a space rock?”
“No….” I said.
“Because you’re a…” he stammered over his words. “A hot piece of asteroid.”
Antares burst into laughter. I couldn’t help but smile a little bit at Po’s quiet awkwardness.
“Got a thing for ass, Po?” I said to tease him back.
He ducked his head to hide his grin. My heart skipped a beat. Shit, he did, didn’t he?
Worst, finding that out was making my pulse race.
Polaris beamed at me and it made my heart feel soft and squishy. “But I think that’s enough,” I said.
“I think he’s just getting started.” Antares winked at me and strolled for the door. “Have fun.”
I stared after him. First, he was flirting with me and now he was encouraging Polaris to do the same while leaving us alone. What was going on? Was he trying to win me over or not?
He must be messing with me, trying to throw everyone off kilter so that we didn’t go after him for being suspicious.
That shouldn’t disappoint me, but it did. He probably didn’t mean what he said about the supernova. I was stupid enough to hope he had.
Antares paused outside the cockpit and hit the button to hiss the door shut, leaving me and Polaris alone.
I sighed, turning to Po.
He took a step toward me, his eyes blazing hot and determined in a way I had never seen in him before. I had never seen anyone look so fiery even though I had spent much of my life around rebels and soldiers.
“I have to test something.” He looked up at me shyly then pulled his shoulders back as though steeling himself. He placed two fingers under my chin and tilted my head up, so our eyes met.
I sucked in my breath, part startled and part excited at that look in his eyes.
“Okay….” I said because my brain wasn’t quite working. Because I didn’t know what else to do, because I should pull away and yet part of me wanted to see what he would do.
Polaris leaned forward and touched his lips to mine.
For a moment, I was too startled to move. His twilight-blue eyes, so much like my favorite time of day on my lost homeworld, stared back with that hot determination. As his lush lips pressed against me, heat flared up my neck and face.
I shivered, goosebumps covering my body under his warm touch.
I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to discover what that fiery look would make sweet Polaris do, and if he would be flustered while doing it.
But I remembered Orion’s hurt look when Polaris had given me a piggyback ride.
I forced myself to pull away from him.
“I can’t…” I stammered. “Orion….” I couldn’t seem to make full sentences from guilt or desire or a combination of both.
“Some women have more than one man,” Po said, his voice oddly calm for him. “Orion’s mother. The Empress, for political reasons, but still….”
“I’m not an empress.”
“You…you are to us.”
“Orion and me.” I shook my head. “We’re starting over.”
Polaris turned away from me, his shoulders hunching up toward his ears.
“I missed him when we were apart,” I said, as much as a reminder to myself as Polaris.
Po knew that. When I had first arrived at Star Keeper Base, he had found me crying over Orion. He had sat with me until I fell asleep on his shoulder.
I still hated that he had seen me so weak and vulnerable. A great pilot and commander, sobbing over a man. Polaris had been kind enough to never mention it again.
He was always kind to me.
“Oh.” Po heaved a sigh. “Okay. I…um…I overheard Antares telling everyone that I’m in love with you—”
“He teases everyone like that,” I said quickly before Po could make this more difficult. “That’s all he was doing. Teasing. Don’t worry about it. He’s trying to divert attention away from his many secrets by pretending like his dirty ones are in the open. But the real dirty ones aren’t.”
; I paused, surprised. I hadn’t realized that about Antares until I started to talk. Maybe I understood the mysterious man better than I thought. “Anyway, ignore him. Nobody takes him seriously.”
“It’s not only that, the other day when I said….”
“Right! Sorry if I led you on, Po. I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m not in love with you,” he said.
I winced.
“I didn’t feel anything just now when we…anyway, forgive me.”
“Oh,” I said.
“As for the…the kiss and the things I said on the Firebrand…I thought about them, and I was wrong.”
I hadn’t wanted Polaris to like me romantically, but now that he didn’t, it hurt. I guess I liked believing that he was there to come home to at Star Keeper. If he didn’t care for me, then he might not be there one day. His deep anxious voice wouldn’t greet me anymore.
“Sorry for the mistake,” Polaris said. He played with the hem of his sleeve and stared at the wall. “I always make mistakes about this kind of stuff.”
“So do I.” Enjoying that kiss was one of them. My lips still tingled from it. My skin still goosebumped. “Taking Orion back is probably the first thing I’ve done right,” I added for my sake and his. “We’ll still be friends, though, right?”
My heart dropped as I said it. It shouldn’t, but it did and I couldn’t stop it.
Polaris nodded.
“That’s a relief,” I said. “Everything is upside down—I thought Castor was evil, but he didn’t try to kill or torture me. I thought The Uprising was good, but someone in the top ranks is corrupt. I thought Orion hated me, but…well, you know. So, it’s kind of a relief to know that things between us are exactly what I thought they were. Friends. I can count on that, at least. I can count on you.” I was rambling, trying to fill the silence before he could say something else to stab at my heart.
Po nodded. “Yep. We’ll be friends.”
“I’ll stop teasing you so there’s no confusion anymore.”
Polaris’s eyes went wide, almost startled, and I leaned back from him.
He dropped his gaze and looked at me from under his lashes. He was so cute when he did that. “But…Commander…you can tease me if you want,” his voice went husky and soft. His hand still fiddled with the hem of his sleeve.
I stared dumbstruck at his blue-black eyes with that gentle hopeful look. It was so much like the look he had given me when he said that my eyes reminded him of his homeworld.
My mouth fell open and something fluttered in my stomach. Was he going to change his mind again and say he loved me? Even as my stomach fluttered, a heavy dread dropped into my chest like a ball of ice.
Not because I dreaded that he loved me, but because I feared that I wanted to hear it. And that meant I would hurt Orion.
“I want to be part of the group,” he added, cheerfully with a shy smile. “That means joking around.”
I blinked. “Oh! Yeah, of course.” I felt silly for thinking he might have said anything romantic or loving. “Make fun of us.”
“As friends.”
“As good friends,” I said, sticking out my hand. I wasn’t quite sure why, since who shakes hands with friends, but he took it and squeezed it in his rough, strong fingers.
“That’s all I want,” Po said.
“That’s all I need,” I said and forced myself to smile at him.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The glimpse of sadness in Po’s eyes and the lingering tingle on my lips suggested everything we said was a lie.
The comms on the dashboard flashed again. Before I could call Antares and curse about Lady Horny, the docking bay doors across from us cracked open. I gasped at the blue-green orb of Etrea’s gas giant.
“We’re here,” I said. “The crazy-ass plan worked.”
Polaris’s eyes went wide as though he were staring down the barrel of a gun. He backed away from the viewport.
“What?” I said. “Is someone aiming at us?” I studied the docking bay and the Supremacy ships but couldn’t spot anyone who looked to be threatening us.
I turned back to Po.
“I thought I could handle Etrea, but now that I see it…” He shook his head and spun, fleeing the cockpit.
What the hell was going on with him? I’d have to ask him later. First, I had to flee a princess and rescue a spy.
Chapter 22
“I don’t want you to waste time by waiting here when others in the Supremacy require the jumpship,” Antares said in Castor’s voice. He paused to cough. “We will finish our quarantine on Etrea. I could use your medic and soldiers on my crew, anyway.”
The lady sighed. “If you insist, my prince. I shall miss our conversations.”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“As shall I,” Antares said. He flicked off the comms, but stared at it, frowning. “This was too easy.”
My stomach clenched like an angry fist, because Antares was right. Someone was double-crossing us. But whatever Lady Camilla, Castor, and maybe Antares were plotting, I could not control. All I could do was to keep moving forward. “We have to find Winters either way.”
I gripped the controls and lifted the Invictus off the docking bay floor. I turned the ship around and aimed for the open bay doors and Etrea.
We soared out of the jumpship like a bird from a cage. The harsh yellow lights of the docking bay gave way to the gentle glow of the gas giant. The planet’s atmosphere swirled in a dozen shades of blue and green like an ocean under a bright sun.
Etrea itself was a black geometric smudge against the planet, like a strange word printed on turquoise paper.
Eons ago, the planet’s many asteroid-like moons were brought together with grav manipulators. Now, scaffolding, walkways, and manipulators connected the small moons into a sprawling world.
On the surfaces, bubbles that contained atmosphere protected gleaming cities. It looked like suds in a bath, if suds were connected by angular walkways. Above the cities, taller than anything else, the golden spire of the palace stabbed the sky. It contained the Supremacy’s greatest asset: The Ansible Communications Hub.
All long-distance communications in the Supremacy went through there.
We were here, finally.
But the jumpship still loomed behind us, its massive fleet waiting and watching.
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I piloted the Invictus away from it. I wouldn’t feel at ease until we were far, far away from Etrea and the Supremacy. Thankfully, Antares had a contact here who had already seen Winters, so we should be out in a few hours.
The comms beeped, and I sighed. Lady Horny never gave up, did she?
“It’s an ansible message,” Antares said.
My eyebrows shot up. Ansibles were used to send messages over long distances. The call wasn’t from Lady Horny then.
“Answer it as Castor,” I said.
Antares flipped it up. “My dearest Lady—”
“Oh, shove it up your ass, Antares,” Prince Castor, the real Castor, said.
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath.
Antares sighed and leaned back in the co-pilot’s seat as though bored. “You got my name right.”
“You got my voice wrong. How anyone could fall for your nonsense, I’ll never understand.”
“I’m better at seduction than you are,” Antares said. “Don’t be jealous.”
“You are a servant, not better at a single damned thing.”
Antares frowned at the comms but said nothing. Had Castor landed a hit on him?
“Is Captain Bellatrix with you?”
“This ship is quite wonderful,” I said, mocking his usual tone. “I’ve renamed it The Defiance. Once I destroy your empire, I’ll set the ship on fire and dance around it.”
“An archaic ritual of your primitive people, I’m sure.”
My hands tightened on the controls. I fixed my gaze on Etrea ahead. I couldn’t let Castor distract me from the mi
ssion.
“You mentioned a sister,” Castor said. “Her last name was also Bellatrix, I presume.”
“Don’t you talk about her,” I growled.
“Yes, well, you said you never learned what happened to her—”
“She died in one of your mines, you soulless fucker.”
“You tell me where Winters is, and I’ll have my people search the records and discover what truly happened to your sister. Don’t you want to know whether she lives or where she’s buried?”
I reached over and turned off the comms. “She’s dead,” I said stiffly to my silent crew. “He won’t find anything. Besides, we can’t risk fucking up this mission. Finding Agent Winters is too important to the fate of the entire galaxy.”
Orion’s hands rested on my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Cali. Let me take over for a bit.”
I gritted my teeth. “Let me do my job.”
“I’m trying to help. Castor—”
“Means nothing. I have a job to do. So, sit down, and let me do it!”
I could almost feel Orion’s frown on me. He had to stop trying to protect me from every little problem and source of stress.
“Incoming,” Antares said flatly.
I blinked and turned back to the viewport. A squad of pure white ships blazed toward us, pouring like ocean surf from the golden palace and its air bubble.
“That can’t be for us,” I said.
The comms flashed—the one that meant the message was coming from nearby.
I sighed. Of course, this wasn’t going smoothly, nothing was on this mission. I had flown smuggling missions in and out of Etrea without ever being hailed by mission control.
“Is Lady Puke getting someone to do her dirty work and take us down?” Orion said, his voice tense.
“I fucking hope not,” I muttered. “You all better strap in just in case.” I nodded to Antares to answer the hails.
“Who dares to interrupt my peaceful morning flight?” he said in his best Castor voice.
“Your betrothed,” a woman said tersely. Her voice lacked the huskiness of Lady Camilla’s and was higher, tinged with bitterness.
