Page 47 of Veiled Vixen

“Ah,” I say, heat filling my whole body. “To see if I was lying.”

“And you’re not. He’s not,” Lady tells Luck. “Most of what he said has been sincere.”

“Which part wasn’t sincere?” Luck asks Lady.

“The parts having to do with Tray. His biological reactions tell me he left a lot out.”

Luck glares at me. But to Lady he says, “But the parts about Veila?”

“All true. He’s not in love with her. That bond is weak. I think his plan could work.”

“And I think,” Dicker chimes in, “that he’s right about Nyleena giving birth on Earth. There’s something to that place. The flowers were enough to get her pregnant, but the chances are very high they are not enough to bring those babies to term. And we cannot get there without getting up to level one twenty-two.”

“We?” Luck says. “You and Lady can’t come with us. We’ll have to leave you behind. And I’m not like—” He pauses to stare at me. “I’m not like that. I’m not walking out and leaving you two to fend for yourselves. So that plan won’t work for me.”

“Not necessarily true,” I say, ignoring his not-so-thinly-veiled attempt to accuse me of abandonment one more time. “Tray worked out some of the mystery behind ALCOR and the station and he says Harem used to be in this other galaxy. And if ALCOR could pull a whole station through a spin node, then there has to be a way to pull two ships through too.”

“Through that hole in the fabric of time and space located on level one twenty-two?” Luck scoffs.

“The Succubus could do it,” Dicker says. “Mighty Minions had a spin node too, after all.”

“Like she’s going to help us,” Luck says.

“Let me take care of that. I think we can come to an arrangement. She’s as eager to leave as we are,” Dicker says.

Luck looks at me, then says, “You have two fucking spins to figure out what Veila knows about Cygnian pregnancies and report back with a plan for Nyleena and our babies.”

“OK.” But goddamn. What he just said—‘Nyleena and our babies’—my heart hurts hearing it.

“Two,” Luck growls. “That’s it. And then whatever we decide to do, we do it without you.”