14. Elodie

“There you are, Blaze. Do you have any idea how difficult it’s been to find you?”

The woman who marches up to Calder is gorgeous. She’s as tall as he is and statuesque, with emerald green hair that falls to her waist in lustrous waves. Her dress is gray, like mine, but that’s where the similarity ends. Hers is artisan-made, shimmering lace that clings to her body and highlights every curve.

Calder lets her pull him to the edge of the dance floor. I retreat to a corner and watch them. I’m not insecure, but this woman is in an entirely different league from me, and she and Calder look like they belong together.

“Looks like you have some competition for your boy toy.”

I grit my teeth. Foder Throop again. Doesn’t the man have anything better to do with his time? “You need to get your eyes checked, Foder.” I gesture to my podmate. He looks big. Intimidating. Utterly hot. “Calder isn’t a boy. He’s all man.”

His face turns red. “You little—” He thinks better of finishing that sentence, slams his drink down at the bar, and pushes his way through the crowd toward the exit.

I watch him leave, thinking I should feel something. A sense of satisfaction, maybe. Foder Throop murdered my friend for a few thousand credits and an old SpiderRay. The corrupt doctors he paid off swore Tanvi wouldn’t recover from her coma, and they pulled the plug on her. I’d been young then, terrified and helpless. Tanvi was the most important person in my life, and I could do nothing to save her.

But I’m not that person anymore.

Foder Throop walked into Onel, saw me, and assumed I was the same scared, grief-stricken girl he once knew. He thought he could trample all over me. Talk down to me, goad me.

And for a while, it worked. When he sneered at me and asked me if I was dating someone, I responded by making up a fake relationship with Calder. When he told me I looked tired, I took the wind out of his sails by bragging about our borrowed Wraith 9000. I even pretended Calder was a bodyguard, for fuck’s sake, instead of telling Throop he was a courier.

What does that say about me? Nothing I’m proud of.

Nestled in the corner of the most pretentious bar in Luxaria, the ghosts of the past finally loosen their death grip on me. I watch Foder leave, and I feel no smugness. No glee.

Foder Throop doesn’t matter. Not even a bit.

Nothing is going to bring Tanvi back. She’s gone, and so is her SpiderRay. But she will always stay alive in my heart, and I will honor her legacy. No matter how long it takes, I will become a mugalari.

As soon as I get back to Harte, I’m going to quit my job at Onel. Not because I’ll have to work with Throop, although I don’t see any reason to subject myself to him every single day. But because a company that would hire someone as useless as him as the Chief of Engineering isn’t a place that respects competence.

I am a good mech. Other corporations will hire me. Yes, the search might take a while. Yes, I’ll have to deplete my savings, putting my dream of buying my own ship further away.

But this time around, I’m not eighteen. This time around, I have options.

Calder told you that, remember? He told you that you were a mech genius. He said you’d be able to find another job in a heartbeat.

I might not have always had faith in myself, but Calder did.

Telling him about Tanvi was cathartic. Telling him I wanted to be a mugalari. . . I’d been prepared for him to laugh and tell me that the only people who made money from smuggling Crill refugees were scum and that I should pick something more financially rewarding.

I had been prepared for him to trample on my dreams.

But Calder has never done that. He’s always been supportive. He brought me to Luxaria with a Wraith 9000. He showed up to the dinner I was dreading in a suit that made him look like a walking agent of death.

A smoking hot agent of death.

Yes, there’s something he’s not telling me. But it doesn’t matter. What’s important are the words he said to me on the dance floor just now.

Everything I feel about you is real.

Calder is making his way back to me, his face grim. “Is everything okay?”

He takes a deep breath and makes a conscious effort to relax the set of his shoulders. “It’s fine.”

I rest my hand on his arm. Stars, the firm thickness of his bicep. “Is she someone meaningful to you?” I swallow hard. “A girlfriend?”

He stares at me in astonishment. “What? No, of course not. Deandra is someone I used to work with. That’s all.” He laces his fingers in mine. “There’s only one person in this room who’s meaningful to me,” he says, his gaze lingering over me, slow and heated. “And that’s you.”

He looks like he wants to devour me, and I’m more than okay with that plan. A fire ignites inside me, and I move closer to him, close enough to feel the heat emanating from his body. “Calder,” I whisper, my insides hot and tight, my nipples swollen with need. “I want you so much.”

He strokes my lip with his thumb, and a wave of desire washes over me. I drink him in, staring into his blue eyes. My heart beats in rhythm with each brush of his finger.

This morning, I ran away from my overwhelming need.

I’m not running now.

His arm snakes around my waist, pulling me closer, pressing me against his hard length. He cups my cheeks and looks down at me, his expression warm. I’m ready for this. So ready. I was attracted to Calder the moment he moved in, and I tried to deny it when he didn’t appear interested. But my need never really went away, and it surges back to life now in a blaze that refuses to be denied.

I stand on tiptoe, wrap my arms around Calder’s neck, and kiss him.