To keep her in place?
Valerie’s heart began to hammer in her breast, hard enough that she knew he felt it against him. His arms rested on the door above her head, his body bowed over her because he was so much taller. She felt cocooned in the heat and warmth and bulk of his body.
It had already been dark in the room but his body blocked out the light from the sconce. Valerie’s swallow was audible, as were the little exhales that fell from her lips.
“Dravka,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
His opal eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. Valerie could smell the brandy on him, though underneath, she smelled that familiar musk that made her fingers curl. She loved his smell.
“Tell me why you’re doing this, Val,” he rasped.
Tears welled in her eyes because she heard something in his voice.
It washurt.
It was anger and torment.
“Because I know you,” he continued. “And this better not be for us.”
Us. He meant the Keriv’i.
“Tell me.”
He swayed a little around her and Valerie closed her eyes.
“You burned the whips and ropes,” he went on quietly, speaking into their small circle of space.
So…he’d found them.
“You say you’re selling Evelyn Tesler’s townhouse, making hidden accounts for the credits. You tell me that Madame Allegria will never touch us again, that you’re not afraid of her anymore. You come home in a dress and then I hear you crying behind a closed door.”
Valerie opened her eyes.
“Then I find out you’re engaged to a human male you met yesterday,” he grated. Valerie didn’t know if he realized it but he pressed closer as the words left him, until his thighs were against her own. “So tell me. Don’t lie to me. Not to me, Val.”
She wondered if all Keriv’i were like this when they were drunk. Or if this was just Dravka. Her intelligent, no-bullshit, impatient Dravka, who had always seen her so clearly.
“She agreed to close the brothel,” Valerie whispered, keeping her shoulders back against the door, lifting her head to regard him and his reaction.
His expression was thunderous, his lips pressed into a smooth line, his eyes flickering. The darkness, however, softened the hard line of his sculpted jaw, the high points of his cheekbones.
“Kruvu?” he asked.
“She agreed to close the brothel, to pay for your passage off Everton to a neutral colony of your choosing, and to pay you the credits that are rightfully yours,” she told him, keeping her voice steady. “All of you. You would all be free of this place.”
“Veki.”
That wasn’t what she expected him to say almost as soon as the words left her lips.
“No?” she whispered, her brow furrowing.
“Why would she agree to that?” he growled.
Valerie swallowed. “Because the Larchmonts are one of the wealthiest families not only on Everton but among all the colonies. Their son is the heir to it all…and by extension, when I marry him, I will be as well. It’s always about credits. Credits and social standing. It doesn’t matter that Celine Larchmont hates my aunt’s guts, that she’ll be tied to this family forever. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t what I want.Sheneedsme. For once, she’s atmymercy. And this is what I demanded from her.”
“Veki. You will not go through with this.”
Her chin lifted. “I will.”
