“Is that why he’s so skittish of you?”
“Probably. My øda’s a little overprotective. In case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed. Hard to miss.” She walked into his arms. “She already threatened to have me killed if I break your heart.”
Bastien didn’t comment as Alura rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him. Mostly because she’d already broken his heart. She’d done that the moment she’d forced him into a marriage he didn’t want.
But he wasn’t cruel enough to tell his mother, because there was no telling what she’d do to rectify it. As they’d both noted, his mom could be a bit psychotic and overzealous whenever it came to him.
When Alura pulled away, her blue eyes were filled with warmth. “Love you. And one day, I’m going to make you love me, too.”
“Alura—”
She placed her fingers over his lips to stop his protest. “It’s okay, Bastien. I know I’m not your first choice. But I can guarantee you that you’ll never want another woman after me.ThatI promise you.”
For some reason, those words left him with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He watched as she left to rejoin the party.
It wasn’t until he was alone that he realized she’d never answered his question about why Barnabas had come out here with her.
Whatever. His uncle was probably grilling her like he did everyone else.
Sighing, Bastien decided he’d had enough of this fiasco. Not like anyone here could hate him any more than they already did.
“Cald mitta,”he breathed under his breath, using the Andarion words for goodnight.
“Later, bitches” might be a bit more apropos for how he felt.
Peeling off his suit jacket, he draped it over the balcony, rolled the cuffs back on his shirt, then did something he hadn’t done since he was a kid skipping out past curfew—he climbed down his mother’s prized foliage and snuck across the lawn, taking care to dodge sentries, guard dogs, and cameras.
By the time he made it to the road, he almost felt like himself again.
He crossed the busy intersection on foot, to his private storage unit no one knew about, where he kept a couple of his treasured airbikes his mother would have apoplexy over should she ever discover them. In fact, she’d torched the only one he’d made the mistake of allowing her to see when he’d been sixteen and had been dumb enough to drive it home from the dealership.
Lesson learned.
Never let his mother know about his addiction to extreme speed.
Bastien shrugged his Armstitch jacket on and reached for a helmet. He swapped his shoes for a pair of reinforced boots before he settled himself onto the bike and started it. The engine roared to life with a guttural sound that caused the bike to vibrate through him. Yeah, this was what he needed to clear his head—warp speed and some gravity-defying flips.
Pulling the helmet on, he took a second to scan through frequencies, looking for some raucous music to accompany his mood.
His family had always despised his taste in music—to the point his father had once confiscated every playing device Bastien owned. Since then, Bastien had learned to tune in to the unlicensed pirate stations transmitting from Kirovarian outposts. They alone played the songs his father’s committee had banned from their commercial networks. Music deemed too “corrupt” or “dangerous” for the masses.
He actually owed Jullien for this particular skill—his cousin had taught him one summer when they’d been kids, and Bastien had been particularly bored while Jullien had been visiting.
As usual, Quin had ratted Bastien out for violating their father’s music policy and gotten him grounded and his room searched. Feeling sorry for him, Jullien had snuck into his room, past their security guards, to cheer him up.
“Don’t tell them I showed you this, but…” Jullien had taken apart the intercom in Bastien’s room that his parents and security used to monitor his every move, then taught him to rewire it for entertainment. With a wink, Julie had done the same with his video feeds.
“Where did you learn to do this?” Bastien had asked in an awed tone.
“Spend a lot of time alone. Read a ton. Tinker even more. You never know when it’s going to come in handy.”
Like now.
Bastien paused his own tinkering as he caught the tail end of a private conversation between short-range devices. He wiggled the wires to clarify the signal, thinking he must have been higher than Jullien with what he thought he’d heard a heartbeat ago.
