Chapter 61

Chapter

Sixty-One

Fiona

A ll I could do was stare at Devon as his words sifted into my brain. I looked at his outstretched hand, but the idea of taking it was unthinkable. Had he said what I thought he had? I gave my head a quick shake, unwilling to believe that he was serious. He was exaggerating and trying to scare me into going with him. He could not be serious. But a small voice in the back of my brain warned me that he was very serious.

“What did you say?” My voice cracked as I took a step away from him.

“I’m here to get you out before the imminent attack. If you know what’s good for you, Fi, you’ll come with me. ”

“And if you know what’s good for you, Captain, you’ll never call me that again,” I spat out, each word sharp.

Whatever veil had been keeping me from seeing Devon as he truly was had been ripped away, and I could finally see him for the weak, cowardly bully that he was. Now my biggest regret was that I hadn’t actually been the one to knock him out.

He flinched but clenched his teeth until his jaw trembled. “You’d rather stay here with these jarheads than come back with me? What is it? Do you actually like it here? Do you think this crumbling castle isn’t destined for a bulldozer?” Then his eyes flickered with malice. “You really are fucking one of them, aren’t you? You lied to me before. Is that it? Did you spread your legs for one of those aliens like you did for me?”

Fury pounded through me, fueling my rage and making my body shake.

“Well, we both know that it won’t last, right?” He smirked coldly. “You’ve only got one good night in you, isn’t that right?”

“In your case, one night was too long.” I spun around to stomp away, but he caught my arm and whirled me back to face him.

“You think you’re going to run away from me again?” His voice was a snarl as he jerked me flush to him. “I don’t think so. Not again.”

I pushed away from him, but something sharp cut into my side. I glanced down to see the sharp blade of a dagger pointed into my waist.

“Once we get back to Earth, you’re going to see that I did this to save you.” He jerked me forward, the blade nicking me again .

I sucked in air and tried to tilt my middle farther from the blade, but he tugged me back and the blade went into my flesh again. “ Grekking hell!”

“Stop talking like them,” he ordered, as we lurched unevenly toward the open door.

“What’s your plan, Devon?” I asked, steeling myself from the pain in my side. “You’re going to drag me through the halls and hope that no one sees you? Then, what? We fly away and hope no one notices?”

He grunted, the exertion of pulling me alongside him obviously taxing him. “They’ll be too busy to care about one missing human.”

I dragged my feet to make it harder for him to move. “Why? What do you know?”

He let loose a dark laugh. “There’s more than one threat out there, you know. The Drexians are so obsessed with their sworn enemy that they have no idea what’s coming for them.”

I glared at him. “If you want me to come with you, tell me what the…” I stopped myself from saying grek “—hell you’re talking about.”

He stopped and heaved in a breath. Now that I was close to him, I could see that he was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. He might not appear bruised, but he was not at peak health.

“The Sythian swarm. It split into two swarms, and Drex is now in the path of one of them. Like I said, if you want to survive, you’ll leave with me.”

Fear iced my skin as I thought about all my friends at the academy, friends who would be in the path of the swarm. Then rage washed over me and replaced the cold terror with hot prickles of heat that crawled across my flesh like ants. “How long have you known?”

Shame flitted over his face, but he frowned and took another step. “It doesn’t matter. If the Drexians are so tough, let them figure out how to beat the swarm.”

“There aren’t just Drexians at the Academy. Are you really going to sacrifice all the humans here because you’re jealous of the Drexians?”

He didn’t like that, growling as he jabbed the tip of the blade into my side again. “I’m saving you.”

“I’m sure you’ll get a fucking medal for that,” I muttered.

“Once we get back home, you’ll see that I was right. You’ll forget all this Drexian brainwashing and see that we were good together. You’ll see that we belong together.”

That would never happen because I would kill him long before we reached Earth. But antagonizing him wasn’t helping. It was actually getting me lots of stab marks in my side. I took a breath and released a dramatic sigh. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do belong back on Earth with you. Maybe we can have more nights together, and I’ll forget everything about this place.”

He cut his gaze to me, his eyes hopeful but wary. “I am right. You’ll see. It will be just as good as it was before. That night we had before you left should have been the first of many. Now it can be.”

We’d reached the door, so I paused and forced myself to smile at him. “I’d like that.”

Devon leaned in as if to kiss me, but just as I instinctively recoiled, a figure stepped from the shadows and into the doorway. The captain’s eyes went wide as he turned and registered Vyk looming over him with a look of pure venom in his eyes.

I took the moment of distraction to step back, cock my arm, and punch the captain as hard as I could in the side of the head. The man dropped to the floor and the blade clattered from his grip.

Vyk’s unreadable gaze slid to mine then to the man in a heap at our feet.

I shook out my hand and shrugged. “It was my turn.”