by Zoey Draven
But looking at them now, she didn’t know how to tell them. It didn’t seem right to make some half-rushed explanation of the past day and a half. They would know soon enough when Valerie began cancelling their clients. And once Eve’s townhouse sold, once the collector on Genesis wired her the credits for what he was claiming, she would be able to give them something. Something concrete. Something tangible.
Not just more empty words.
“It’s true,” she told them, her eyes straying to the door of Dravka’s room. “But there’s more to it, things I’ll explain to you in the coming week. Just not right now.”
“What are you up to, Val?” Ravu asked, his eyes narrowing on her.
“I’m—” She licked her lips, rubbing at her arms when the flesh prickled into bumps there. “I’m trying to make things right. For all of you. I just need time to do it.”
Tavak’s brow bones slammed down, his slim lips pulling into a frown. His and Ravu’s eyes were different than Dravka’s. They were golden and silver in color, those strands weaving through their irises, instead of blue and green.
“Just trust me on this, okay?” she whispered. “I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”
After a moment of hesitation, they both inclined their heads in a brief nod. They stood there in silence until Tavak finally said, “We have to go prepare for the night.”
Valerie hesitated but then nodded. Swallowing, she said, “I need to check on him but I’ll be downstairs later.”
They both left the Cluster. They preferred to bathe and prepare for the night in their client rooms. They called them the ‘mating rooms.’ It kept things…separate in their minds. They became whatever their clients wanted of them in the mating rooms. And that took time. Every time they stepped inside those rooms, they became something different. They slipped into a role that they were expected to play, a role that they were used to.
That was how Dravka had explained it to her once. One of their more painful conversations.
Valerie stood in the quietness of the Cluster. It was dark. Through the small window, she saw the beginnings of the silver projection of the moon lightening the sky. The only other source of light in the Cluster was coming from the slit in Dravka’s ajar door, from the flickering candle sconce on his wall.
Taking a small breath, she walked towards it and pushed inside.
“Dravka?”
Chapter Ten
He was lying on his back on the bed, staring up at the flickering shadows playing along the ceiling.
“So it is true then?” he rasped, not turning his head to look at her.
Valerie bit her lip. Had he overheard what she’d said in the sitting room? Of course he had. Keriv’i had better senses than humans. They could see better in darkness, hear things from farther away, smell things that humans couldn’t.
She went to his bed, sinking down onto the floor next to it, her knees pressing into the thin rug.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out that way,” she said softly.
Slowly, he turned his head to regard her. Their faces were close. All Valerie had to do was reach out a hand and stroke his face. Keriv’i males were hairless but their skin was—supposedly—very sensitive. And to her it felt like soft suede.
“Who is he?”
Valerie licked her lips, her gaze sliding away briefly. Her breath hitched, however, when Dravka reached across the distance and made her look at him, his thick thumb caressing her cheek.
His gentleness was enough to make her want to cry. Couldn’t he understand that looking at him was painful? Couldn’t he understand that his touch made her want to forget everything and just curl up in his arms and wish for more?
It was too hard.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, finding she couldn’t lie to him. She might be able to lie to herself but she could never lie to Dravka. “I met him yesterday.”
The muscle in his jaw squeezed and released, those eyes intense and pinning her in place.
“He’s the son of a wealthy importing family. His mother is a client of Ravu’s,” Valerie found herself saying. “I think that’s how she made this happen.”
There was no question of who ‘she’ was.
“Demav,” he rasped, turning his face back up to the ceiling. His hand left her and he brought his palms to his eyes, rubbing at them. “You…”
“What?” she whispered.
“You don’t have to do this.”
The words were torn from his throat, ravaged and raw. His voice was still husky from the alcohol, curling in her ears.
He dropped his hands and sat up quickly. Valerie leaned back, watching him turn so he faced her, his long legs sliding over the bed’s edge in front of her.
“You don’t have to do this,” he repeated, his eyes flashing.
Her smile was sad. Of course she had to. If she didn’t, it meant that they would stay here. It meant that Madame Allegria wouldn’t pay them what she owed them.
“I do,” Valerie said.
“Why?” he snarled.
She swallowed, feeling the waves of anger rolling off him. He was drunk. She couldn’t talk to him about these things now. It didn’t help that she felt that little ball of desperation and panic rise up the back of her throat, however.
“Dravka,” she whispered.
“Why?”
Her nostrils flared, her breaths coming quick.
“Because I want better for you!” she exclaimed.
He blinked, tilting his head back to rest along the brick wall behind him, exposing his throat. She watched it bob as he swallowed.
“What does that mean?”
“This is my choice,” she told him. “I agreed to this.”
“Agreed to what?” he growled, his impatience brimming.
She didn’t want to talk about this now. Not when he was drunk and angry.
She cast a desperate glance at the door, beginning to rise from the floor. “Dravka, I have to—”
“Veki,” he rasped, catapulting himself from the bed with surprising grace and fluidity just as she reached for the handle. He slammed the door shut, hard enough to rattle the flickering sconce on the wall.
He turned her around so her back was pressed to it…and then he pressed into her.
To keep her in place?
Valerie’s heart began to hammer in her breast, hard enough that she knew he felt it against him. His arms rested on the door above her head, his body bowed over her because he was so much taller. She felt cocooned in the heat and warmth and bulk of his body.
It had already been dark in the room but his body blocked out the light from the sconce. Valerie’s swallow was audible, as were the little exhales that fell from her lips.
“Dravka,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
His opal eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. Valerie could smell the brandy on him, though underneath, she smelled that familiar musk that made her fingers curl. She loved his smell.
“Tell me why you’re doing this, Val,” he rasped.
Tears welled in her eyes because she heard something in his voice.
It was hurt.
It was anger and torment.
“Because I know you,” he continued. “And this better not be for us.”
Us. He meant the Keriv’i.
“Tell me.”
He swayed a little around her and Valerie closed her eyes.
“You burned the whips and ropes,” he went on quietly, speaking into their small circle of space.
So…he’d found them.
“You say you’re selling Evelyn Tesler’s townhouse, making hidden accounts for the credits. You tell me that Madame Allegria will never touch us again, that you’re not afraid of her anymore. You come home in a dress and then I hear you crying behind a closed door.”
Valerie opened her eyes.
“Then I find out you’re engaged to a human male you met yesterday,” he grated. Valerie didn’t know if he realized it but he pressed close
r as the words left him, until his thighs were against her own. “So tell me. Don’t lie to me. Not to me, Val.”
She wondered if all Keriv’i were like this when they were drunk. Or if this was just Dravka. Her intelligent, no-bullshit, impatient Dravka, who had always seen her so clearly.
“She agreed to close the brothel,” Valerie whispered, keeping her shoulders back against the door, lifting her head to regard him and his reaction.
His expression was thunderous, his lips pressed into a smooth line, his eyes flickering. The darkness, however, softened the hard line of his sculpted jaw, the high points of his cheekbones.
“Kruvu?” he asked.
“She agreed to close the brothel, to pay for your passage off Everton to a neutral colony of your choosing, and to pay you the credits that are rightfully yours,” she told him, keeping her voice steady. “All of you. You would all be free of this place.”
“Veki.”
That wasn’t what she expected him to say almost as soon as the words left her lips.
“No?” she whispered, her brow furrowing.
“Why would she agree to that?” he growled.
Valerie swallowed. “Because the Larchmonts are one of the wealthiest families not only on Everton but among all the colonies. Their son is the heir to it all…and by extension, when I marry him, I will be as well. It’s always about credits. Credits and social standing. It doesn’t matter that Celine Larchmont hates my aunt’s guts, that she’ll be tied to this family forever. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t what I want. She needs me. For once, she’s at my mercy. And this is what I demanded from her.”
“Veki. You will not go through with this.”
Her chin lifted. “I will.”
Grief tore through her then at her sudden realization.
“And you won’t be here to stop me,” she whispered. Those tears welled in her eyes again, knowing that very soon…she would never see him again. “You’ll be gone, Dravka.”
Once he left Everton, he would be lost to her. Lost in the stars. On a flickering little planet, far away from here.
She cleared her throat, bringing the back of her hand up to wipe at the tears that leaked down her face, suddenly furious that she was crying. She should be happy he would be gone soon. It would mean she’d succeeded. It would mean he might be able to find some semblance of peace and happiness in this life after everything that he’d endured.
He deserved happiness. They all did.
His grin was a little feral, a little wild.
“If you think I’m leaving this terrible little colony without you, you’re solely mistaken, mellkia,” he growled.
There was that word again.
She ignored him, sniffling. “I’m planning to get in touch with Eve and Khiva. She gave me a patch number for a contact of hers. They settled on a colony named Dumera, remember? Maybe you can—”
A gasp escaped her lips.
Dravka’s hands settled around her waist and he stepped forward until there was no space left between them.
Then…
His lips were on hers.
Dravka was kissing her.
Dravka was kissing her!
Valerie’s eyes were open and she stared, shocked, elated, angered, bewildered, into his own eyes. His gaze was a challenge. Up close, even in the darkness, Valerie saw swirls of color in those eyes that even she hadn’t noticed before. Glimmers of gold threaded in the green. Hints of teal in the blue.
Dravka was kissing her?
At first, it seemed he’d decided to kiss her so she would stop talking. A simple way to seal off her words.
But then…
A rough sound chuffed in the back of Dravka’s throat. He crouched, his hands squeezing at her waist. Then, heaven help her, his lips began to move.
The kiss started out soft. A mere brushing of his lips across hers, gentle after the shock had worn off. Valerie sucked in a long breath through her nostrils, desire lighting within her, her hands curling into his chest. When had she placed them there?
If possible, Dravka pressed closer. His head slanted and then those soft lips were taking her own with more force, moving over her leisurely but skillfully.
One of his hands moved to cup the swell of her ass, squeezing, another roughened, dark sound emerging from his throat, one that seemed to light her blood on fire like a match had been struck. He used his grip to lift her up, holding her against the door. With her feet suddenly dangling, she instinctively latched her legs around the back of his thighs and it gave him more room to press.
Now their faces were level and Dravka took full advantage of that. In her temporary madness, she couldn’t remember why this was such a terrible, terrible idea. In her temporary madness, swimming in her surprise and her desire, her eyes closed, getting lost in his kiss, beginning to respond to him.
Both his hands were cupping her ass now in an almost possessive grip. Her legs were around him and she felt the hard settling of his cock between her parted thighs. She began to pant, her heartbeat thundering in her ears, her hands clutching him, afraid that he would pull away.
And when he nibbled at her bottom lip, taking advantage of her small gasp to delve his long, dark tongue inside her mouth, her body began to throb. He groaned into her, his hips hitching ever so slightly, rubbing his cock against the seam of her pants, over her own sex and—
Brandy. She tasted the brandy on his tongue.
Valerie’s eyes shot open.
Panic was beginning to rise, reality returning to her though his drugging kiss had temporarily made her forget.
This was Dravka.
Her best friend. The male she loved. The male she had never, not once, kissed in the five years that she’d loved him.
And he was drunk right now on Everton’s sweetened brandy, drunk because he’d learned of her engagement to another man.
Valerie knew he wouldn’t be kissing her otherwise. He’d had all the opportunities in the world to kiss her—when they’d been alone, in this very room, with sunlight streaming across the walls, as they spoke in whispered, low tones so no one else could hear them.
So why had he chosen to right now?
It felt right. So, so right and wonderful.
But it also felt wrong.
This wasn’t…this wasn’t what she wanted.
This wasn’t the right moment, not when they were angry and sad. Not when Dravka had only kissed her in the first place to quiet her words, words he didn’t want to hear.
Valerie broke the kiss, turning her head away.
Dravka’s hot breath fanned across her neck. He suckled and bit at the flesh underneath her jaw.
“Val,” he rasped into her skin.
Suddenly, she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Put me down,” she whispered.
Dravka froze against her, though his lips were still pressed to her throat.
“Put me down, Dravka,” she repeated quietly. Overwhelming sadness overcame her. Kissing him would accomplish nothing. It would only make it hurt more.
It was a mistake.
This was a mistake.
“Please.”
Dravka lowered her back down to the floor and her legs released around him. Her knees felt a little wobbly. She kept her head ducked because he hadn’t moved away. He was still pressed against her. She could still feel the way his cock throbbed between them.
“I—I have to go,” Valerie told him, her voice sounding strangled and high to her own ears. She turned to the door, her forehead practically pressed against it as she fumbled for the handle.
“Val,” he rasped.
Her hand stilled when she felt his forehead come to rest on her shoulder. His arms came around her in an embrace, keeping her in place for long moments.
Silence descended between them. He only hugged her from behind, his head heavy. She felt his warm breath through the t-shirt she’d stolen from him.
“Please don’t,” he voiced. His tone was ragged and raw and husky.
Her eyebrows drew together, more tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
Please don’t…what?
Please don’t go?
Please don’t marry a stranger?
Please don’t try to help them?
Please don’t run away from him?
Or all of those things?
“I can’t,” she whispered. “You know that. We can’t.”
She felt his jaw flex against her back at her words.
Then her hand was fumbling for the handle again, afraid that if she didn’t leave now…she might never want to.
Valerie got the door open and managed to wiggle through it, forcing Dravka to release her.
Then she fled from the Cluster like the coward she was.
Chapter Eleven
“Vauk,” Dravka cursed, leaning his forehead on the closed door that Valerie had escaped through.
Everything in him was telling him to go after her. To find her. To kiss her again. To hold her and never let her go.
But his mind was swimming—partly from the alcohol, partly from that kiss.
His hands shook when he pushed away from the door, stumbling back to his bed pushed against the wall.
We can’t.
That was the last thing she said before she left. Words that Dravka himself had told her. Words that didn’t make any sense to him now.
Because why couldn’t they?
Staring up at the ceiling, he groaned, feeling his unyielding cock throbbing against his belly. Then he cursed again, thinking he might have fucked everything up.
It was a selfish thing to kiss her.
So why didn’t he feel sorry?
The next morning came slowly.
The alcohol burned through his system quickly, leaving Dravka sober but morose. He remembered everything. He remembered everything about their kiss.
That following morning, he was annoyed and frustrated with himself.
In the light of day, with that fresh dawn that broke over Everton—a fake sunrise that he watched from the Cluster’s single window—he had never felt more caged.
