CHAPTER 29

Artemis

T he situation was rapidly devolving. I didn’t understand how anyone could look at Reece and see someone capable of assaulting anyone, but that seemed to be the case. He was being framed, and despite the evidence pointing away from him, he was still being held accountable for somebody else’s actions. Actions that did not match up to the kind, compassionate man I had come to know.

I wasn’t under any illusions that I knew everything there was to know about him. He was still practically a stranger. I didn’t even know his favourite colour, let alone anything about his past. I had gathered from the confrontation earlier that day that he and the victim’s brother were familiar with each other before enrolling at Nova Academy, and that it was an acquaintanceship fraught with tension and negativity that stemmed quite clearly from Tarren. His purist views were loud and obnoxiously unapologetic, and he seemed to think he could get his way regardless of the circumstances.

I didn’t think he realised that he could not simply decide who it was that hurt his sister. There was no pinning it on someone else when there was physical evidence to prove it wasn’t them. It was absurd.

But I also understood it. His sister clearly meant a lot to him, and he was ready to go to war for her. I admired that much about him, at the very least. However, it did not excuse his behaviour.

I had originally planned to ignore the situation, to follow along when necessary in regard to the investigation and wait until it all blew over, but this was now getting out of hand. This mission was quickly becoming further and further out of my control, and I needed to get some of that control back before I lost my opportunity completely. As it was, I was already speeding up my attempts. I needed to be careful or I was going to be discovered by someone more than Addy.

Bromm was a close call. Reece was watching me far too intently. The captain was suspicious of my intentions regarding Addy. I felt as if I were barely holding on by a thread, and that threat was about to snap at any moment and I’d end up drifting endlessly through the vast expanse of space. I needed an anchor.

The obvious choice would have been Adara. She already knew some of my secrets and enough of my past to want to help, and her adamant determination to assist me would have made her perfect for the position. But could I really do that to her? I did not want to involve her unnecessarily. I was planning to make up things for her to do to keep her busy and away from The Program recruiter’s radar.

But if I let her take role, would that cause more problems than solutions?

I figured that was a situation where we wouldn’t know until we tried, and I wasn’t ready to risk her like that. She was sweet and kind, and her care for me was genuine and stronger than I thought possible after not even two weeks of acquaintanceship.

She was a wild card, especially with her connection to the captain. He wore his feelings for her on his sleeve. I could use that to my advantage in the future if I played my cards right. Was I ready to give that up so soon?

No, I wasn’t.

So if Adara wasn’t a viable option, who was?

The answer was no one. Libby had been my only true anchor and I was floundering now because I had unmoored myself. There was no one else I trusted enough or knew enough about to trust with the state of my wellbeing or the mission’s.

Of course, that left only one more option. Someone I had avoided contacting for the past two years after he had abandoned me to the outside world without a backwards glance. But he had helped me once before, and I had successfully escaped The Program thanks to him and his team. Even he hadn’t worked alone.

Except I hadn’t heard from him in those two years either and I wasn’t about to swallow my pride for a man I clearly couldn’t trust. Which brought me right back around to Adara. She was a risk, and it seemed she was my only real friend right now, but since I had already decided to leave her out of it that left me with no one.

I had to continue doing this alone.

With that decision made, I purged all thoughts of it and the emotions it dredged up from my mind. There would be nothing I could do until we docked anyway, and I already had Adara checking in with me frequently, so there was no point in worrying about it.

There were more important things to worry about now anyway, like Tarren and his merry band of brainless followers. None of them seemed to care that Reece was innocent, nor did they seem to care that the rest of us weren’t involved either.

Apparently, there was another assault yesterday, and they had decided to track us down in our rooms last night to ‘teach us a lesson’ only to find them empty. That was enough for them to blast around the ship as ‘evidence’ that we were the guilty party. All it proved to me that it was the right call to find somewhere else to sleep at night.

With my original mission on the backburner until we reached the academy, that didn’t mean I had to sit back, kick my feet up and do nothing. Reece’s framing and the subsequent light it was shining on us all was proving to be more of a hindrance than I could afford. It was time for me to stop sticking my head in the sand and find the real culprit so I could get back to my true purpose.

‘ Arty,’ a voice whipped through my thoughts and startled me back into the present moment.

‘Sorry, what? ’

Reece was looking at me with so much concern that I felt guilty for letting my thoughts run away with me. I shouldn’t, since I wasn’t here for him, but that was rapidly changing. I was going to have to leave these people behind as soon as I found a way back to The Program. I knew starting this journey that I couldn’t afford to make friends. There was only one person I cared about that I needed to get back to. Adding to that was stupid.

And now I was going to be torn apart when I said goodbye.

‘I asked where you’re sleeping tonight. We need to work out tonight’s watch schedule,’ he said, bringing me back again.

‘Oh, right. I’ll just take one of the pull-outs in the spare room,’ I said.

‘Nope,’ Adara’s bright voice inserted itself into the conversation. When had she arrived? I must have been too caught up in my internal planning that I’d completely missed her showing up. A quick glance behind her proved the captain was also here, never far behind Adara. He was eyeing me speculatively, his forehead creasing with consternation.

A crease that everyone else in the room suddenly copied with one of their own.

‘You’re staying with us,’ Adara informed me, her tone brokering zero debate.

I raised an eyebrow, surprised and wondering what she was playing at. She knew very well that I couldn’t share a bed with anyone, especially after the disastrous results from the last time.

‘Now that that’s settled, it’s time for bed,’ the captain piped up, rising from his perch on the arm of the sofa with a stretch. I pretended I wasn’t watching the delicious way his muscles contracted with his movement, or that I was pretty sure I drooled at the small sliver of skin he revealed when his shirt lifted. ‘It’s been a long day and we all should get some rest.’

Adara reached for my hand to pull me up and I let her.

‘Brommyt, you comin’?’ she asked, and my head snapped up, panic racing through me. I couldn’t share a bed with him again. I couldn’t .

‘Sure. Just need to grab a few things. I’ll be right over,’ he said, heading towards the bedroom where he’d stashed his belongings. Mine were still in the captain’s quarters, so it made getting settled over there a bit easier for me. Excluding being forced to share a bed with the most dangerous person to my secret on this ship. You know, the prince I wanted to do naughty things to but couldn’t.

Or… maybe I could?

Just because I couldn’t allow him to touch me didn’t mean I couldn’t touch him .

I wanted to baulk at the idea, but it broke free from my grasp and cemented itself in my brain. There was no way I would be able to sleep tonight with him beside me and the possibility of more banging its fists against my mental walls. The memory of the way he moaned and submitted to me when I’d pinned him down a few nights ago rushed to the forefront of my mind. The image of him splayed beneath me, ready and wanting, refused to budge.

I stared at the back of Adara’s head, wide-eyed and panicked. Why was she doing this to me?

I had to get control over myself. It wasn’t a death sentence. I could place a pillow barrier between us and lay down some rules. I was perfectly capable of enforcing my boundaries. This didn’t have to be as bad as I was making it out to be in my head. Surely Bromm wouldn’t try anything untoward with me again after the way things were left between us after last time.

Or maybe he would. I didn’t know what to expect from him, and that must have been where my anxiety originated. I had expected him to want nothing to do with me after I’d rejected and threatened him, but he’d bounced back almost immediately and had been making even more of an effort to maintain a friendship between us. And he hadn’t tried to do anything more with me since. He hadn’t pushed or questioned me, instead taking a step back whilst reassuring me that he was still in my corner.

No one had ever respected me in such a way before, and all it did was make me like him even more.

Stars damn it.

Tonight was going to be torture .

I tried to grab Adara’s attention, or stars, I would have taken the captain ’ s . Neither one of them looked our way as we entered the suite, and they left us standing in the living room while they headed straight for the bedroom. We stood there, and awkward silence punctuating the atmosphere of the room, and listened as their bed squeaked. It settled quickly, so despite the excessively uncomfortable moment where we thought we might be subjected to the sounds of fucking, we both released simultaneous sighs of relief.

‘So… time for bed?’ asked Bromm in an obvious attempt to break the tension. Instead, he only succeeded in ratcheting it up.

I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah. Bed. For sleep.’

‘Right. Sleep. That’s what beds are for.’

‘Yup. Rest and relaxation,’ was my genius reply.

He chuckled and made his way into the second bedroom. After a beat of hesitation, he proceeded to remove his clothes and strip down to only his underwear, much like he had the last time we’d shared a bed.

I debated sleeping on the couch.

‘Come on, Arty,’ he pleaded softly. ‘Let’s just get some rest and try not to think about anything else right now, yeah? This doesn’t have to be weird.’

Admitting defeat was difficult for me, but he was right. I was the one making this weird while he was simply going about his nighttime routine. I needed to pull my head out of my ass and work through my emotions without forcing him to work through them with me. After rejecting him, he didn’t deserve that from me too.

Instead, I hid behind the door of the bathroom to change into my nightwear and returned to find him already settled beneath the covers. His arms were crossed behind his head to prop them up, and the sheet coiled low to cover his lower half but left his chest bare and on full display.

He looked delectable, and though I had my suspicions he was trying to show off to draw me in again, I couldn’t deny I wanted another taste.

‘I meant it,’ I said when I pulled my side of the blanket back and climbed in. I figured the best course of action here was to be as open and honest as I could afford. ‘Nothing can happen between us.’

He turned to the side, keeping his head propped up with one hand while he faced me. ‘Why is that? You never really explained. Not that you owe me an explanation or anything…’ he tagged on at the end.

‘Because I can’t be with someone like that,’ I replied after thinking through my answer. I needed to be vague, but not so vague I didn’t make sense.

‘Why not?’

I mulled over my answer again before I spoke. ‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ I settled on.

‘But I do,’ he pushed. ‘I want to understand you, Arty. I think it’s clear that I’m attracted to you, but I also like you as a friend and I want to know what goes on in that pretty head of yours.’

I did my best to ignore the compliment, even when it lit me up inside.

‘I can’t really get into it, but in order to be with someone… like that , clothes kind of need to be removed. Mine need to stay on.’

He frowned down at me. ‘Are you shy about your body?’

If only he knew… ‘Um, I guess you could say that.’

‘You don’t need to be,’ he assured me. ‘You’re beautiful, Arty.’

I didn’t want to laugh, but the irony that he found me desirable when I wasn’t even me burst out in a quick, sharp bark. His face twisted in his confusion .

‘Sorry,’ I said, sobering again. ‘We really shouldn’t be talking about this.’

‘Let me just say this and then we never have to talk about it again.’ He paused, waiting for my approval and only continued when I gave him permission.

‘All I can think about is you. I dream about you at night, fantasise about you when I need a release, and I want nothing more than to touch, taste and discover every inch of you. You said no, and I’ll respect that, but that won’t stop me from wanting you. You’re my friend first, and that’s not going to change just because all I want is to strip you bare and lay you out beneath me to devour at my leisure, but I won’t until you tell me you don’t want me. Because you may have rejected my advances before, but you still haven’t said you don’t feel the same way. And after the way you kissed me back I know you do.’

My jaw was flapping open like a fish out of water. I didn’t know what to say to that, because while it was all very flattering and terrifying, everything he said about me was true.

‘You’re right,’ I admitted, but I held up a hand to stop him when his eyes lit up and a mischievous smile started to pull at his lips. ‘I do like you, Bromm, but it doesn’t change anything.’

‘For now,’ was all he said. And then he laid down on his back and closed his eyes.

Enough time passed that I believed he’d fallen asleep until his hand found mine again under the sheets. He held on tight even when I tried to pull away. ‘I promise I won’t take things further until you give me the green light,’ he began, his voice suddenly quiet and pleading, ‘but just let me have this one thing. Let me feel some sort of physical connection to you, even if it’s just for tonight.’

I didn’t respond with words, but I gripped his hand just as tightly as he held mine.

Right before I drifted off, I heard him whisper one more thing. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Arthur Mercer. I don’t know when or how it happened, but you’ve carved yourself into my heart.’

And that night I fell asleep clinging to a man I could never have, a single tear tracking down my cheek.