Page 48 of Veiled Vixen

CHAPTER EIGHT - VALOR

Lady arranges a lift bot for me to ride back up to the top of the station and even with that luxury, it’s a long fucking ride. Not so much because it’s four hundred levels—even though that is a long climb no matter how you look at it—but because people are screaming at me from the edges. Spewing threats, and insults, and a whole lot of hate.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what would’ve happened to me if I had to walk up all the dozens of non-working escalators without Veila’s cyborg guards and also find myself missing ALCOR so much, my chest begins to hurt. And not because I was shot with a plasma rifle by Captain Red down there.

This station without ALCOR… well, it’s not Harem anymore, that’s for sure. I never realized it. I guess I just took him for granted all these years. So sure that I would be protected by this almost god-like… thing. Person. Whatever he is. That he would always be there on my side. Always have my back.

And now he’s not. Now he doesn’t.

So this is what I think about on my way up even though I should be thinking about how I’m going to convince Veila that we’re soulmates in love, get her to trust me, and then figure out a way to get the Succubus to infiltrate the Baby’s side of the data core so she can come up with a plan to take two huge ships through a spin node that’s only as tall as one level.

That’s assuming Luck can get the Succubus on board with what we’re doing, and who knows if she’s even capable of this little task. Also assuming the Baby doesn’t figure out my plan. Because he has to stay behind and run things. I can’t leave all these people to die on the station. I don’t care if they’re all at war with each other right now. We’re still Harem and these people came here because they trusted us to take care of them.

I will not let the Baby kill them all by leaving.

I should also be thinking about Luck and how angry he is. At me. Specifically. Me. How did things go so wrong? I feel like I told him a lot about what happened to me in the last six weeks but he told me nothing about what happened to him.

I need that story. But it’s too late now. I can’t go back down until I have Veila on our side and that… well, that might not even be possible. She is the most ruthless bitch I’ve ever met.

And she has her own agenda.

Yeah, that little voice in my head says. Babies.

And let’s get real here. Does anyone really think those babies aren’t mine? I do have some vague recollection of sex with her. Or maybe not sex. But… eh. Gross. I can’t think about it. Because if those babies are mine then she farmed me for my genetics.

So gross.

And then I play Luck’s last threat over and over in my mind. I have two spins, then whatever they do, they do it without me.

It’s an insult more than a threat. Because like two seconds before that he was going on and on about how he won’t leave Dicker and Lady behind.

But he’ll leave me.

Fine. Whatever. He’s allowed to have his feelings.

All this is what I ponder as I ascend and by the time I reach the level where my quarters are—which is, thankfully, somewhat private and inaccessible to the angry masses down below—I’m worked up with doubt, and regrets, and sadness, and anxiety, and hate, and probably every fucking emotion a human is capable of when I step off the lift and head into the hallway that leads to my quarters, flanked on either side by cyborgs.

The door opens when I palm the biometric lock and I enter alone.

Alone.

Great. How do I even contact Veila?

“Baby?” I say to the room.

“Valor.” ALCOR’s voice comes back at me. And God, that hurts. It’s so much his voice I have to remind myself several times that this thing is not ALCOR before I speak.

“Is there a way to contact Veila?”

“I can arrange it. For a price.”

“A price?” Yeah. There’s the reminder I needed that this isn’t ALCOR. The Baby is not on our side. He does not have my back. “What price?”

“I need something.”

“Of course you do. What is it then?”

“I need to know how to get the security beacons back online.”