CHAPTER 30

Artemis

T he next morning I was up and ready before everyone else as per usual, but this time I was lying in wait, ready to pounce as soon as a tiny pink Griknot emerged. When she did, she flounced into the kitchen with a pep in her step that could only come from being well-rested and content.

I was looking forward to popping that bubble.

I watched her dart about collecting items to make a quick breakfast for herself. She was required to be on the maintenance deck earlier than everyone else was due to report for duty or classes, so I made sure I didn’t sleep in again like the last time I had slept beside Bromm.

I hadn’t wanted to wake up this morning, finding myself waking up in his arms again felt incredible, and I wanted nothing more than to stay right where I was and snuggle in deeper.

But I had someone to ream out.

I cleared my throat, grabbing her attention because she still had yet to notice me leaning against the counter watching her. She was typically more observant than this, but the lights were still off since it was before the ship’s wake-up-call.

She startled, throwing ingredients in the air and placing her palm over her heart as she leapt almost as high as the ceiling. I wanted to laugh, but I held it down.

‘ Stars , Arty, you scared me!’

‘You have some explaining to do, Adara,’ I said in my most no-nonsense voice. She got the gist.

‘What for?’ Or maybe she didn’t…

‘What were you thinking, forcing me to share a bed with Bromm again ?’ I hissed .

She looked genuinely confused for a moment before realisation lit up behind her eyes. ‘Oh. Oh , shit. I’m so, so, so, sorry, Arty. I completely forgot…’

‘You forgot,’ I deadpanned.

‘I didn’t even think about it. I swear. I just wanted you closer to me.’

‘Closer to you?’

‘Yeah. I don’t know, I feel weird with you sleeping across the hall. It feels like you should be sharing with me, but since neither you nor Xan would be okay with that yet I settled for the spare room. At least then you would be closer, you know? But I honestly didn’t even think about what that would mean for you… Fuck, I messed up didn’t I?’

‘You did.’

She looked absolutely despondent. ‘I’m so sorry, Arty. Can you forgive me?’

I didn’t know what it was about her big pink eyes, but the way they looked up at me from under her lashes, real emotion shining through, I couldn’t help but melt.

‘Just don’t do it again, okay?’

She began nodding voraciously. ‘Never again, I swear.’

And then she shot me the same mischievous look Bromm had sent me last night when I’d confirmed my attraction to him. ‘No,’ I said, wagging a finger at her and whatever it was she was about to say.

‘Oh, come on,’ she whined.

‘Not a chance. Whatever it is, you’re not getting anything from me,’ I said firmly.

When Bromm stepped into the living room then at the same time as the captain, both with their brows arched high, I shook my head and took a step back, feeling cornered.

‘I just want to know what happened,’ she insisted.

‘Fuck off,’ I scoffed, but that was the wrong reaction .

She grinned, a large toothy smile that said she just won something. ‘So something did happen.’

‘ No ,’ I reiterated, but to no avail.

‘Tell me. Something. Anything. Did you kiss again? Did you pin him down and have your way with him?’

I was backing away faster now, desperate to get away from this conversation. More like an attack. She was bombarding me with questions, the captain was trying to hold in his amusement at the way Addy was rounding on me, and Bromm merely smirked. The latter’s face flushed a deep purple that he counteracted with a wink in my direction.

I finally found the scanner to exit the suit and ran for the one across the hall. The other door slid open to allow my entry, and the bedrooms opened to push out the rest of the guys. They look harried and ready for battle, despite their varying stages of undress.

‘Oh,’ said Reece, lowering a shelf that looked like it had been ripped from the wall with its jagged metal edge. ‘It’s just you.’

‘Shit, Arty, we thought we were under attack,’ complained Cadmus.

‘Did you have to rush in here like your ass was on fire?’ Urman continued.

The door behind me slid open as Addy, Bromm and the captain finally followed, and I groaned at the pointed look both Addy and Bromm sent me. The captain patted me on the shoulder with a sly smile and moved to stand at the edge of the room.

‘One little detail,’ Addy continued as if I hadn’t tried to put two doors between us.

‘Not happening.’

‘What do you have to hide?’ she asked slyly.

‘Yeah, Arty? What do we have to hide?’ Bromm chimed in, and the glare I sent him should have turned him to ash.

‘There’s nothing to talk about because nothing happened,’ I tried again.

‘Wait, what’s going on?’ asked Reece.

‘I think Arty and Bromm got a little frisky last night,’ teased Foryk.

‘No, we didn’t,’ I tried, but they were all talking over me by that point.

‘Look at Bromm. He looks like a hunter that caught his prey,’ joked Cadmus, and he wasn’t wrong.

‘Nothing happened,’ I tried one more time.

‘Bromm, you wanna tell us what went down last night?’ Addy discarded her attempts to get juicy details from me and decided to try a different source.

‘Let’s just say it’s more like Arty’s the hunter and I’m the prey,’ he smirked, and the whole room erupted into whoops and laughter. I knew he was referring to the way I had taken over when things had gotten rather hot and heavy between us and he’d submitted to me so beautifully, but I certainly wasn’t going to broadcast that.

Face flaming, I decided it would be better to just escape this nonsense entirely and left, making it to the elevator before anyone else could. I slumped against the wall when the door closed without anyone one else inside, mentally exhausted but also feeling a lot lighter than I had in a long time. I didn’t know how the tables had turned so rapidly against me. One moment I was telling Adara off for putting me in a tricky situation, and the next I was being bombarded with questions implying something that hadn’t happened.

Well, nothing had happened last night. Something had occurred another night, but that was in the past. Old news. We’d already moved on.

Or I thought we had. It seemed I was the only one.

The elevator opened to allow someone else to board, and I found myself face-to-face with the creepy guy that I’d met outside Addy’s suit. The one who was sleeping with the first lieutenant .

‘Mercer, right?’ he asked standing too close for comfort when there was enough space to spread out.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, straightening from my slouched position.

‘I’m glad I caught you alone. I wanted to discuss something with you.’

The muscles in my face tightened. ‘Me? What about, sir?’

‘None of that sir stuff, Arthur. Can I call you Arthur? You can call me Markus, but only when we’re alone,’ he winked, and I could see how someone might find it charming if not for the emptiness in his eyes. ‘I was hoping to talk to you about a possible opportunity. You see, I’ve been tasked with recruiting for a very particular job, but there aren’t that many who would be a good fit. You, however… I believe you to be a perfect match.’

‘Why me?’ I asked, refusing to refer to him by his given name.

The elevator stopped on another deck that neither one of us needed, and a group of cadets joined us that I recalled seeing during combat training.

'Why don’t we discuss this more later?’ Markus suggested now that we had company. ‘You cadets have your evenings free, correct? Why don’t I swing by your room and take you for a meal? I am the best chef on board The Carina, after all. Let’s chat over good food, hmm?’

The other cadets gave me a strange look as they listened in, but I ignored them. ‘Sure, that sounds like a plan,’ I agreed.

‘Perfect,’ he gave a toothy grin, but it seemed more like he was baring his teeth.

The elevator stopped on the training deck and we all stepped out aside from Markus. He stayed inside and gave me a pointed look as the door descended. It didn’t escape my notice how the vessel rose again through the decks we had just passed.

He hadn’t needed to use it, then. He had joined me with the sole purpose of speaking to me alone. And if he knew I was alone, that meant he had eyes on me without my knowledge .

Fuck, did he know?

I didn’t have the chance to connect into the ship’s servers to check because my team and Dorian’s showed up at that moment, and class started right after. My only option was to wait for a moment alone or until tonight’s meal. Either way, I needed to inform Adara of the new developments and their possible repercussions.

???

I wasn’t able to find the time to connect to the servers all day. At first there was class, and then during the midday meal I was surrounded by my squad and their ribbing over this morning’s light-hearted banter. They continued to tease me all the way through flight training. We actually got the opportunity to practice using the joystick, and the jokes the guys produced had my face so red I felt my heartbeat throbbing through my cheeks.

Bromm, too, though the heavy-lidded side-glances he kept sending my way didn’t help the situation at all. Instead, I found other parts of my body throbbing throughout the afternoon, and I was starting to look forward to my meeting with Markus if only to get away from it all.

‘Hey, have you figured out which instructor you want on our free day?’ Reece asked when we had made it back to our room. I had sent a message to Addy through the holo-tabs and was awaiting her response.

‘I don’t know. I thought maybe Gwym so Cadmus could get the chance to stretch his wings?’

The man in question gave me a gentle shove. ‘You just want to get up close and personal with them, don’t ya, you kinky bastard.’

I smacked him away good-naturedly. ‘I’ll admit I’m intrigued. I’ve not had much exposure to winged people before. Sue me.’

He winked. ‘Role play, I like it. ’

That brought a round of laughter that allowed me to slink back from the group a little. Our meal would be arriving soon, but I hadn’t had the chance (or the guts) to tell them I wouldn’t be joining them. I was hoping to use Addy as a scapegoat, but she still hadn’t replied, so I was going to have to wing it and figure out a different excuse that wouldn’t raise too many questions.

I thought some questions were inevitable at this point. I was between a rock and a hard place, but this was the intended outcome of my time at Nova Academy. I needed an in to get back to The Program and find Libby, and my time here was just for that.

Adara finally made an entrance, aiming straight for me. The captain followed behind her, and on his tail was Markus. I was expecting him, sure, but when he came in rolling trays of food, something he said in the elevator made a lot more sense. He had called himself the best chef on The Carina, and it seemed that it was, indeed, his job.

Addy bent low to whisper in my ear. ‘I don’t like this.’

I grabbed her around the waist and dragged her onto my lap so I could whisper in ear in return. I understood it would have looked rather intimate to an outsider, and I got a few confused looks alongside some underscored with hurt. The latter came from Bromm and the captain, but I couldn’t give them an explanation. Hopefully when I was gone, Addy could provide some closure for them regarding the entire situation.

‘I know, but this was the plan,’ I reminded her.

‘Markus is in on it?’

‘Seems so.’

‘Does he… know?’

‘I don’t know.’

'Fuck. I knew he was a no-good piece o’ shit,’ she snarled, the sound loud so close to my ear and, with my enhanced senses, caused a stab of pain that made me wince.

Her expression turned sympathetic. ‘Sorry. ’

‘I just need an excuse to leave without drawing any unnecessary attention,’ I told her.

She nodded. ‘Got it.’ Then she stood up, pulling me up alongside her. ‘Let’s go back to the other room and you can tell me all about it,’ she said loud enough for everyone to hear.

‘Gonna gossip about me, Arty?’ Bromm asked from his perch on the floor at Foryk’s feet. ‘I wanna hear this.’

‘You don’t know what he’s gonna say?’ asked Foryk. ‘Weren’t you there?’

‘Yeah, Bromm. Wouldn’t already have all the juicy details?’ Henrik teased.

‘Leave the poor guys alone, already, you bunch of old biddies,’ Urman chastised with a chuckle.

‘Oh, shush, you,’ Dorian said, pointing at Urman. ‘You’re just jealous ‘cause you’re not getting any.’

Addy and I left them behind, quickly making our way to the other suite. Markus followed, a silent observer but smart enough to understand I was trying to make a break for it without cluing the others in to what was really going on.

Before Addy entered, she leaned in close one more time. ‘Be careful. Please.’

I squeezed her arm out of Markus’ view, then turned my back on her as if I’d just dismissed her. When she entered the suite and we were left alone in the corridor, Markus approached me.

‘Interesting team dynamic. Or is it a squad now?’ he asked, though I could tell he didn’t really care.

I recognised the opening his comment created, however, and played along. ‘They think Bromm and I are secretly together or something. We have to share beds sometimes, and I’ve shared with him twice now. The joke’s getting old now, though.’

‘Hmm. You’re not dating the Griknot Princeling?’ he asked, blatantly searching for details I wasn’t about to give. Particularly when those details might hinder my success where Markus was concerned.

‘I didn’t realise you wanted to talk about my dating life,’ I countered, bringing the subject back around to his true intent.

‘It’s always interesting to hear about the Griknot royal family and their conquests,’ he said, and something told me he was insinuating that Bromm would never see me as more than an easy lay.

Adara was right. He really was a piece of shit.

‘Well, anyway. Follow me. I’ve prepared a delectable meal, if I do say so myself, and it’s waiting for us back in my suite.’

I trailed behind him like an obedient puppy, eager for his master’s approval. Though the prize he was dangling in front of my nose wasn’t a treat, but a complete overhaul of my moral compass.

He walked with self-assured strides, as if the universe were working for him rather than the other way around. As if he was the one in control of our upcoming conversation and its subsequent results. He really thought he was the guy in charge, that he was untouchable with The Program at his back.

They would dispose of him as soon as he was no longer useful to them, and I was eager to see his face when he finally realised that he was the true patsy.