While I was still working to control my coughing fit, Roxxanne pressed my glass of iced nimbus tea into my hand and kissed my cheek.Then, with glistening eyes, she threw her arms around Nera, whispered something in her ear, picked up her tomato and soap taco, and then took off with Miekil toward the kitchen.
Nera watched them go long after they’d gone, anything but face me again.
When I could finally speak, my voice sounding like I’d gargled giant boulders, I said, “Look at me, Nera.”
She did, her bottomless, soulful brown eyes filled with tears and her chin quivering.
I slid my hand toward her across the table, a clear invitation that we could work through this together, but she made no move to take it.She didn’t want to work through it.Not with me, and that slashed into my hearts with sharp teeth.
“Tell me what’s going through your head,” I said gently.
“Mostly how stupid I am.You’d think I don’t know where babies come from, and we were so reckless, and I was so stupid to fall into bed with you and trust you and…” She shook her head.
“We should’ve…taken some precautions,” I agreed.
“Do Xenoxx even know how to?”She sniffed and carefully wiped her eyes with a napkin.“I mean, because you’re trying to replenish your population, why would you take precautions?”
“We don’t.Not anymore, but there are ways to,” I told her, but I doubted I could’ve controlled myself around her to put those ways into action.“Nera, whatever you want to do, I’ll understand.Whatever you need, you’ll have it.Just…please, talk to me.”
“Like you talked to me about being a Faid?”she said with a scowl.
I deserved that.Really, I deserved a lot more than that.
I nodded slowly.“I tried to tell you between all the timesAlien Love Islandand Klio-3 were trying to kill us.That’s no excuse, and I know it.I tried to keep my distance, tried to keep from falling in love with you, and then me being a Faid wouldn’t have mattered anyway.I failed at all of it.You possessed my hearts, the most Xenoxx things about me, almost instantly.Even knowing that the truth would hurt you, I was already lost to you.I was selfish, and it was cruel of me to keep something like that from you, and I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you.“ I leaned forward so she could see the sincerity written clearly across my face.“But if I thought for one second that someone was hacking into my Faid technology to turn me against everyone I love, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.With you.With Roxxanne in the next room.I would still be dead.”
Wincing, she looked down at the plate of tacos she hadn’t even touched yet.“So you believed Rain that it would never happen again.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because it only happened once, and once was too much,” I said.“I emailed back and forth with her for nearly a year to make doubly sure there were no risks.She assured me with pages and pages of anti-hacking measures she’d put into place, talking about her own experiences…and about you.”
Her eyes narrowed.“And you believed her.”
“You can’t fake a broken heart, Nera, even one that’s artificial.What she did destroyed you, and it’s unforgivable.That is no doubt the truth, and I’m not diminishing that in the slightest.It also destroyed her though.Two things can be true at the same time.”
“Like me loving you and hating you at the same time.”She sighed heavily as she picked at a taco shell.“Both are true.”
A slice of hope surged through my veins.She still loved me.She didn’t completely hate me.The smallest of miracles had come true.
“I suppose so,” I said gently, nudging her plate of tacos toward her.“You are pretty, Nera.Much more than pretty.”
She looked at me then, two blunt swords twisting right through my chest at the emotion brimming from her eyes.“And you’re a Faid, Maxx.”
With her hand over her mouth, she jumped to her feet and left me at the table, her tacos forgotten.
Everything inside me made me want to run after her, make her understand, show her I was the same king I’d been before I died, but I fought off that compulsion.It wasmewho wanted her to see reason, and if there was one thing I’d learned about Nera, I couldn’t make her do anything.
With time, either she would or she wouldn’t.Either she would love me for who I really was, or she wouldn’t.My feelings for her be damned.
The only thing I could really do was continue leading the Xenoxx from the confines of a reality TV show and find out how an assassin had breached the planet’s security and gained access to Roxxanne.
Time to skewer a few necks to find out.
With my communicator, I contacted Axxel.“Anything?”
“Nothing,” he growled, and the same frustration that heated his voice sizzled through my blood.“I’ll let you know if that changes.”
