by Zoey Draven
Underneath the sheet, his body was relaxed. She could see the outline of his strong legs, his thighs, one leg curled to the side. And just above that, she licked her lips briefly when she saw the teasing outline of his cock, thick and long…and hard.
His full lips were quirked in a small, knowing smirk, his darkened gaze watching her. When his hand lazily brushed away the sheet, letting her see his arousal, her heart picked up in her chest, her mouth beginning to water for it as her fingers curled—as if imagining it in her grip.
This is why they always come back, came the stray thought.
His clients.
Because he was…beguiling. Seductive. Confident. Mesmerizing.
“You’re…” She trailed off, not quite knowing how to explain the way she saw him. “You’re wonderful. You know that, right?”
And one day, he’d make a female very, very lucky when he took her as his mate.
Something flickered in his gaze. He sat up from the bed, swinging his long limbs over the edge and reaching for her.
And because Valerie was weak, she went to him, stepping between his thighs. The bed was quite low to the ground so he pressed a kiss into her belly before looking up at her.
Valerie reached forward, stroking his cheek. She felt it then. Reality coming back in. A depressing reality, of memories from the night before, of the dinner at the Larchmonts’, of Gabriel and her aunt.
She licked her lips, her gaze sliding away. “I have to finalize the shipping of Eve’s collections today. I have to meet with the transport representative in an hour, so I should probably leave.”
Touching the back of her shoulder, Valerie thought that…maybe it didn’t matter if Madame Allegria tracked where she was. The credits were hers, in an untraceable account that her aunt wouldn’t be able to touch.
Dravka regarded her in a way only he could. As if he could read everything going through her mind. He could read her better than anyone.
Finally, he nodded, standing from the bed. He followed her as she walked to the bedroom door. But when she opened it, her steps faltered slightly because she saw Ravu and Tavak were already awake. Ravu was standing at the window, which looked out towards the Lake District, his hands behind his back. Tavak was scrolling through the Nu device, his mouth pinched down into his ever-present frown.
Both males turned to look at her when she emerged from Dravka’s bedroom…with a very naked Dravka behind her.
Valerie’s cheeks flamed, wondering if they’d heard her cries last night, echoing through the bathroom and then later, from Dravka’s bedroom.
She cleared her throat. “Um, good morning,” she murmured, her voice a little raspy.
Dravka’s hand came to snake around her waist, partially shielding her from the other Keriv’i males’ knowing gazes. Perhaps because her dress was short? Or perhaps because her nipples were pebbled underneath the silky material?
Ravu was the first to speak.
“Val,” he said, stepping towards her, though a short, strange, trilling sound from Dravka stopped him in his tracks, making him freeze. He leveled Dravka an impatient look, though he didn’t move towards her again, before looking back at her. “Celine Larchmont is my client for tonight.”
Valerie started and Dravka stilled beside her.
“Yes,” she said, trying to run a hand through her hair though she realized she’d already secured it in a bun. “I was going to call and cancel. You won’t be receiving anymore clients from now on. None of you will.”
The thought filled her with relief.
At least until Ravu said, “Don’t. I need to speak with her tonight.”
Valerie frowned, her expression becoming guarded. “You do? Why?”
Ravu’s gaze slid to Dravka.
Valerie sighed. “Look, if it has anything to do with…with the marriage…I don’t think she—”
“I just wanted to say goodbye,” Ravu said softly.
Surprise made Valerie look up at him.
“Oh,” she murmured.
Ravu gave her a small smile and a small shrug. “She was always good to me. I would like to say goodbye before…”
Valerie thought of Celine’s melancholy at the dinner the night before, how she’d stared across her blooming night garden with a semblance of pride but also sadness.
“I see,” Valerie said, feeling her throat suddenly tighten. “Well, all right. If you’re sure, I won’t cancel the visit.”
Ravu nodded, his eyes straying back to Dravka.
“Thank you.”
Silence descended around the Cluster. It felt strained and Valerie wasn’t quite certain what had caused it.
“I’ll go then,” she said quietly, glancing back up at Dravka. Then her cheeks flushed when he pressed a kiss to her lips, in front of Tavak and Ravu.
“Come back tonight,” he murmured in her ear. “Pax?”
Valerie made a small sound in the back of her throat. She might’ve nodded, she wasn’t entirely certain. Regardless, she scurried from the Cluster quickly, pressing the backs of her cool hands to her warm cheeks once she made it to the staircase.
She descended quickly, knowing she needed to dress and make herself presentable before meeting with the transport rep. After this day, more credits would be placed into her account and it would be another weight off her shoulders.
Valerie was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Madame Allegria sitting at the reception desk on the main floor of the lobby.
“Don’t you look…” Madame Allegria started, peering at her over the Nu device in her grip, “chipper this morning.”
Valerie swallowed, feeling the happiness from that morning turn icy and hard in her belly. Immediately, she felt herself withdraw a little, before she reminded herself that her aunt no longer had power over her. At least not in the way she did before.
“I found my little collection downstairs,” Madame Allegria said. Valerie remembered. The burned whips and ropes she’d left for her to find. Her aunt quirked a brow, her expression even, but Valerie saw the fire in her eyes, the burning embers of fury. “Your doing, I imagine?”
Valerie said, “When we came to that deal, you didn’t need them anymore.”
Madame Allegria’s ruby-red lips pressed together before she released them with a loud pop. Her blue eyes—altered in color—ran over Valerie’s form again. She wished that she was standing in anything other than a silky, short dress, but regardless, she kept her aunt’s hardened gaze.
“Dipping a toe in my Krave pool?” Madame Allegria asked, a small smirk coming over her lips though Valerie still sensed her barely leashed fury underneath the careful words. “Did Dravka make it good for you, at least? I suppose I could charge you. Then again, you’re family. So you get the family discount.”
Valerie stiffened, her breath leaving her in a loud whoosh.
Suddenly, and strangely enough, Valerie looked at her aunt for the first time and felt…pity.
How did someone become so…so monstrous?
Valerie looked around the lobby of her aunt’s opulent little brothel as silence stretched between them. She heard the tapping of Madame Allegria’s long nails on the Nu device screen, no doubt going over the accounting, something she did quite regularly. She would see that Valerie had been canceling clients ever since they struck their deal.
“What happened to you?” Valerie asked quietly.
Suddenly, the tapping stopped.
When she turned her gaze back to her aunt, she was staring at her, her eyes narrowed, the blue of them flashing.
“Excuse me?” Madame Allegria asked. Her tone was deceivingly pleasant and calm.
“What happened to you?” Valerie repeated. “What happened to you to make you like this? So unnecessarily cruel? So ruthless and uncaring? So spiteful?”
Madame Allegria’s expression morphed then.
“How is it that you came from the same womb that my own mother did?” Valerie asked, that deep sadness she felt shifting into her
tone. “You are polar opposites of one another. My mother was kind and loving. She helped people while all you do is hurt them. It’s…it’s unfathomable to me, that you share your blood with her, that it’s even possible you do.”
“She was also poor,” Madame Allegria bit out, spitting out that last word like it was diseased. “And maybe you understand a little of what that feels like, Valerie, considering your mother barely had two credits to rub together. Even still, you’ll never know the poverty that we grew up in. You never knew hunger so painful you’d eat paper to soothe it. You never knew the disgusting looks thrown your way, as if you were no better than dirt.”
“So that’s it?” Valerie whispered. “You’re cruel because you don’t want to be poor? It’s always about credits?”
It was true. They had been poor on Genesis, but not in the way Madame Allegria was describing. Her mother had never really talked about her childhood, about her parents. Over the years, Valerie had been able to piece together bits, little slivers of conversations and spare words that came together to form a broken picture.
And if what Madame Allegria was saying was true, that the two sisters had grown up in extreme poverty…it made sense. But her mother had also hinted at abuse. Hell, Valerie had seen the marks on her mother’s back, though she’d desperately tried to hide them from Valerie.
For the first time, Valerie wondered if Madame Allegria held the same marks across her own back—the marks that Valerie and her mother had worn.
Had their father…?
Pity and empathy came. But then anger did too when Valerie remembered.
“She was your sister, your blood,” Valerie whispered, tears pooling in her vision. “My mother. You had all the credits you could ever possibly need. It would’ve taken no effort at all for you to help us when she got sick. But you didn’t care.”
For the first time, Madame Allegria’s mask slipped and Valerie saw an expression on her face that was neither confident nor infuriated.
“You let her die,” Valerie continued, holding her aunt’s gaze, even as tears slipped down her cheeks. “You let your sister die even after I begged you to help her, to pay for her to get the medicine she needed.”
The expression on her aunt’s face was one of…resignation. As if she had accepted her decision long ago and had to live with the knowledge that she could have helped.
“Just one injection! One injection would’ve saved her life. 1000 credits would’ve saved my mother’s life. It would’ve been nothing to you. And you turned your back on her. On me!”
At least until Madame Allegria had brought her to Everton.
Maybe Valerie could understand her aunt slightly. Because the fury and bitterness that had been swirling within her for years felt tainted and wrong and permanent.
Valerie would never forgive her aunt for this. Never. She would be marked by this hatred for the rest of her life, just as Madame Allegria had no doubt been.
“You really are a monster,” Valerie whispered, shaking her head. “And while I understand hatred, while I understand never getting something you want more than anything, I will never understand your cruelty.”
For once, Madame Allegria didn’t say anything. She sat behind the reception desk, her fingers still tightly clenched on the Nu device, staring at Valerie across the wood. Her eyes were like shards of ice. She was cold-hearted to her very core.
“You don’t have anything to say?” Valerie asked her, wiping her cheeks. She didn’t care if her aunt saw her cry. At least Valerie could feel something that made her cry. Like grief.
“Your mother made her choice,” was what Madame Allegria said, “when she decided to marry for love and not security. And look where that got her when her husband died. Look where it got you. She was irresponsible.”
Valerie’s breath left her.
“I won’t make that mistake when it comes to you,” her aunt continued. “You should be thanking me.”
Her lips parted.
Valerie shouldn’t be surprised. Did her aunt truly believe that she was doing right by Valerie? That by marrying her off to one of the wealthiest families on Everton, she was somehow…making things right?
“You’re delusional. And twisted,” Valerie said, stunned. “I feel sorry for you.”
“Think what you want,” Madame Allegria said, her voice hardening. “But early on in my life, I learned the hard lessons that your mother refused to even consider. I loved my sister, make no mistake about it. But I also knew that she was a fool, one that would be eaten up by this world. Now you have a choice to make. If you want to end up like her or if you want to survive like me.”
Valerie laughed.
The sound was loud and heartbreaking and humorless.
If it surprised her aunt, she didn’t show it.
That laughter turned into sobs, deep, aching sobs that racked her entire body and made it hard to breathe. She marveled that just mere moments before, Dravka had kissed her and she’d felt so…light. So wonderful.
“Make no mistake about it,” Valerie rasped when she finally managed to catch her breath, her throat aching and hoarse, “I will never be like you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Later that night, long after Madame Allegria departed her dying brothel, long after Valerie returned from Eve Tesler’s now-emptied townhouse, she sat at the desk in the lobby.
The Nu device was open before her and she was tempted to do a search for the Dumera colony, but she knew it was too risky. Madame Allegria monitored everything. Instead, she pulled up her own personal storage file, entering her access code, and stared down at the one picture she had saved there.
The one of her mother. The only one of her mother that she possessed.
The Nu devices that Madame Allegria had purchased for the brothel were out-of-date, an older model, so the shafts of blue light that projected her picture into the air before her were grainy and blurred.
Even still, she felt a dull ache in her chest as she stared at her mother’s smiling face. A content happiness was in her eyes, but ever since Valerie’s father passed away—when she’d been a child—there had always been an underlying sadness there as well.
Her mother and Madame Allegria looked very much alike, though her aunt had had altering procedures done over the years. Her mother had green eyes, like Valerie, and deep auburn hair. The smiling lines around her mouth and eyes were untouched and natural. The clothes she was wearing in the photo were old and threadbare. Valerie remembered going to the salvage yard with her to find them. Her mother had always said that people were wasteful, that they threw away things that still had plenty to give.
She’d found those clothes that day…and she’d been right. She’d worn them for years before they’d started to show signs of wear.
Valerie sighed, zooming in on her mother’s face, before her gaze strayed to her own. Proudly grinning next to her mother. Valerie had been around 13 or 14 then. All gangly limbs and frizzy hair and crooked teeth.
We’d been happy though, she thought, a soft smile on her face. For years after this too.
Then her mother had gotten sick. Breast cancer. A common enough disease, easily curable with a single injection, though it was pricey. Too pricey for them, when they could barely afford their weekly meals.
Valerie closed the storage file and the photo disappeared. In its place was the image that would haunt her forever. The one of her mother, lying on her bed, pale and sweating, her eyes seeming too big for her face.
“I love you more than anything,” she’d said, voice brittle, eyes wet. “I’m so sorry, Val. So sorry.”
Her mother’s last words to her. She could still hear them clearly in her mind as if her mother had just spoken them.
Valerie shut her eyes, taking a long breath in through her nostrils.
Suddenly, she heard the whirring of the elevator and she straightened at her desk before standing. Her eyes drifted to the clock. It was ten in the evening.
The elevator gave a b
right, mechanical ding before the doors slid open and Celine Larchmont stepped out. Valerie looked for the telltale signs of sex—flushed cheeks, trembling limbs, wrinkled clothes—but saw none.
Instead, Celine looked pensive. Almost focused as her gaze settled on Valerie, standing at the reception desk.
“Mrs. Larchmont,” Valerie greeted, inclining her head. She’d seen her just a few hours before when she’d arrived at the brothel at Ravu’s request. It hadn’t occurred to Valerie that the Keriv’i males might have preferred to say goodbye to select clients. A spear of jealousy went through her, wondering if Dravka had wanted to say goodbye to any of his.
“Valerie,” Celine replied, stepping up to the desk.
This was when Valerie was supposed to say, “I hope your visit was pleasant,” and other such bullshit. Now? An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. She simply stared, wondering if Celine would say anything about the night before at dinner or about the fact that she was there now.
“Sometimes,” Celine started softly, “I would just come here to talk with him.”
Valerie frowned, her brows furrowing.
With Ravu, she meant.
“It wasn’t always about the sex,” the older woman continued, her features contorting into a strained expression, “though that was nice with him too.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Valerie said quietly. “I’ve heard it all before.”
Celine sighed, her well-manicured hands sliding over the beautiful wood between them. Then her eyes settled on Valerie, spearing her with a long look. “You care for them?”
Her brows furrowed further.
“Them?” she asked, gesturing upstairs. “Of course, I do.”
“And I care about Ravu,” Celine told her. “I’ve been coming here for three years, Valerie. I might not love him. I’m too…jaded for such sentimental notions like that.”
Her words surprised Valerie.
“But I do care for him. He’s been a friend to me and I can’t say I have many genuine friends. He’s listened to me. He’s comforted me. He’s been good to me,” Celine said, a small smile crossing her lips. Her eyes flickered up to Valerie when she said, “I’ll miss him when he’s gone.”
