Chapter 20

Ishouldn’t feel so good. I had the best sex of my life last night, with a husband I didn’t really think I wanted.

Now? Now I don’t want anyone else.

Half-awake, I snuggle deeper into him, and he traces lazy circles on my back.

“What time is it?” I ask him. My voice is muffled against his chest, one leg tucked between his thighs.

“I don’t know. I think they must do that purposefully, to keep us off-kilter.”

We might be on a literal hell planet, but at least I have this. At least I have him.

At least I found him before I died.

I sit up slightly, wanting to tell him that, not sure how to.

“Hey,” I say softly, and he opens his eyes. I kiss his forehead, then his nose.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

It’s incredible that he already knows the way my moods shift, how it feels like I’ve known him for much longer than just the few months since my crew and I were rescued from the Roth fertility lab.

“I don’t know how to say this,” I start, which, honestly, really isn’t a great way to start this kind of admission. I clear my throat, glancing up at him through my lashes.

His fingers keep making those circles on my back, soothing me.

“I don’t know how this is going to end. Here, I mean. But I want you to know I’m glad that you’re the one with me. I’m glad… you’re my husband. While I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, I’m glad that we have this time. Right now.”

He tugs me so close that I can feel his heart beat against my cheek. I crook my leg around his, wrapping my foot underneath his calf.

“We will have more time. I promise you that,” he whispers in my ear.

I don’t want to argue. I don’t.

“You can’t promise me that,” I say anyway.

He presses his face against the top of my head, inhaling deeply. “I can, and I am. Don’t you feel it?”

“Feel what? This collar around my neck? The cold of the metal on your arm around my shoulders?” I try to laugh, but it comes out choked, my voice lacking all my usual bravado.

I’m stripped bare, physically and emotionally, and the only thing keeping me from collapsing entirely is the male cradling my body in his.

“We end this today. We end this now. We can burn it down. Together.” The words come out increasingly vicious, and I pull away from him, the cold of our cell leaching into the gap between our bodies.

“How?” I ask him, and it’s plaintive. “I want to believe. I want to.”

“You need a trigger,” the voice in my head says, and I sigh heavily.

Lyko goes still against me, barely drawing breath. “What is it?”

“The goddess.”

“What did she say?”

“Tell him,”she urges.

Distrust winds through me, and I shove at the… foreign thing in my consciousness, trying to evict it. All I get in return is smugness and the sense that whatever is speaking through me is fathomless, vast, ancient.

I stare into Lyko’s eyes, dismayed.

“Tell me,” he says.

“She says I need a trigger.” I blink. “She must mean us, right? I didn’t fricassee the crocodile. We did it together. You said so yourself.”

“Fricassee?” he asks.

“I think it means,” I pause, scrunching my nose. “I have no idea what it means. Cooked it. Whatever. I did it with you. With you.”

“Sure,” he agrees. “Yes. Together.”

There’s an air of reticence in how he says together that surprises me. What else could the trigger be?

Of course it’s him. He’s the one who does the energy manipulation thing. It’s the proof of his royal heritage.

“Do you have a plan?” I ask him, brow furrowing. “I thought I hadn’t been out long when I woke up, but was I out long enough for you to have made a whole damn plan?”

“No. You lost consciousness for a few hours, at most. The trigger she spoke of… I have a plan,” he says, then swallows audibly.

I narrow my eyes at him. “It doesn’t sound like you’re sure about your plan?—”

A low grinding noise interrupts me.

We both bolt upright, immediately on high alert.

The stone wall slides open, and I blink at the brightness filtering through the new door. Lyko pushes me behind him, and for once, I don’t mind the overbearing, possessive shit.

In fact, I might actually like it. A lot.

Huh.

A stream of unintelligible words erupts from the doorway, and I peek past Lyko’s massive arm to see a group of bright blue–maned aliens, all armed with more of the cattle prods.

The human translator steps into the room, a bruise purpling her cheek, one eye nearly swollen shut.

Bile rises in my throat, and Lyko makes a feral growl at the sight of her.

He’s right.

We need to burn this whole place down.

“They want you to come to the sponsor’s room,” she says with her heavy French accent. “The stakes are higher now. The betters want to see you again.”

Betters? Confused, I stumble over the word. “Gamblers,” I say out loud.

One of the aliens points a stick at me, energy arcing between the ends.

Her fingers move swiftly as Lyko stands, growling at the guard. We have to act now. You will be the distraction.

“Don’t,” I tell him, tugging Lyko back down. “Don’t you dare get yourself hurt in some dick-swinging contest with these assholes.”

“What kind of contests do you have on Earth?” he asks me, disgust plain on his face.

“Can we get clothes on?” I ask her.

She relays the question to one of the guards in a halting version of the alien language, and they stare at us as one, as if only just now noticing our nudity. They finally respond, gesturing to us.

“They said yes,” the translator tells us.

“I guess it would be too much to ask for privacy,” I grumble.

“Stay here,” Lyko says, drawing the one sheet on the bed over my body. A moment later, he’s found a sack-like dress for me and is pulling on another shapeless pair of pants.

A blue-maned alien steps closer, saying something in their language, his stun stick too close for comfort. I grab Lyko’s arm as he bares his teeth.

“Now is not the time,” I tell him. “Wait.”

The alien waves his stick at me, and I flinch as it sheds electrical charge in a spray of sparks.

Rage builds in me then, and—I feel it.

The presence of the so-called Roth goddess, the smug infiniteness of her, nestled deep inside me. And all around her?

Fire. Fury. Vast, incomprehensible anger.

That’s the trigger to the Roth energy manipulation.

It builds to a roiling boil inside me, and I grit my teeth against it, against the entity inside me vying for control.

Of me.

Repulsed, I recoil from that endlessness inside me. The fire flares, burns brighter, hotter, but I don’t want to give up control. I don’t want to be controlled.

I never have.

The last vestiges of that wild rage melt away, and I suck in a breath, trying to push myself out of the grips of the thing that’s latched on to me.

I don’t think it’s a goddess. Not at all.

One of the aliens shakes his stick at me again, prodding me to move. I have no idea how much time has passed with them waiting for me. Could be seconds. Could be centuries.

Lyko watches me carefully, concern clear in his eyes—but only because I know him. His face is scrubbed of emotion, a blank mask on for our captors.

I throw the dress over my head, my hands shaking slightly.

It must be the right response, though, because the blue-maned alien lowers the cattle prod. Or human prod. Either or.

Lyko’s hand brushes mine as we file out the door, surrounded by the alien guards. My fingers curl around his, and I hold on tight, like I’m afraid he might run away screaming if he finds out what’s inside me.

Hell, I want to run away screaming.

The translator is signing something at me, but I can’t focus. I can’t figure out what she’s trying to tell me.

Cold sweat drenches the back of my dress, and I can feel Lyko’s gaze on me, feel the question in it, but I can’t make myself look at him.

I’m afraid he’ll see the thing inside me looking back.

One foot in front of the other. One more step. My teeth start to chatter, and I clamp my mouth shut, waiting out the adrenaline wave.

I might be panicking a little.

Or, you know, a whole hell of a lot.