Page 8 of Veiled Vixen

“I’m getting to that,” Crux says, once again interrupting me. He flicks his eyes at the ceiling.

“Right. OK. I just have a lot of questions.”

Questions like where is Tray? And Brigit? Not that they would know who Brigit is. And Draden, and the Akeelian girls, and Angel Station, and Earth…

There is so much I need to tell them.

“Here’s the thing,” Crux says, just as Serpint comes back and hands me a pink drink. I look at it dubiously as Crux talks. “There is no more Harem Station. We’re done. It’s over. Veila has taken control and—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Crux sighs as he and Serpint trade uneasy glances. “The security beacons are offline, Valor. Veila has control of the station. What Luck and Nyleena are doing down on levels zero through ninety-five doesn’t even matter at this point. The Baby has made a deal with Veila and they are in control up here. It’s only a matter of time before they reroute the life support systems down below and kill everyone off. We need you to go down there and talk some sense into Luck.”

I smile at him. Wink. He juts his chin back a little like he’s surprised by my reaction.

“I’m fuckin’ serious,” Crux says.

“Yeah, yeah. You want me to go down there and talk sense into Luck. Sure thing. I’ll do that.”

“No, Valor,” Serpint says. “You don’t understand. We really need you to control Luck. Because Veila is going to kill him. She’s going to kill everyone if we don’t have full control over the lower levels in two spins.”

But now I’m confused. Weren’t they just hinting that we’re being watched and this whole conversation is for the benefit of Veila and the Baby?

“Can you do that?” Crux asks.

“Can I do what?”

Crux sighs through clenched teeth. “Go talk to Luck and make him surrender. Because if he doesn’t…” Crux doesn’t finish. Just shrugs with his hands and sighs.

I’m just about to answer him when the door to my quarters opens with a quick whooshing sound and who walks in?

That fuckin’ bitch Veila.

“I’ll take it from here,” she says waving a hand in the air. She’s wearing a long, silver, sequined gown and her silver hair is up in the highest hairstyle I’ve ever seen. Like she’s as tall as Serpint with that pile of hair swirling around the top of her head.

I get to my feet and rush towards her, ready to rip that fucking hair right out of her scalp. But Crux and Serpint both yank me back by the arms.

“You think you can what?” I growl at her. “Just come to my home and threaten my brothers and I’ll fall in line? Fuck you, Veila.”

It all comes out as a low, rumbling, threat.

Veila. God, I hate this woman.

Last year Serpint came home with Queen Corla. The queen of all the Cygnians. Crux’s soulmate. The mother of his children. But she arrived here in a cryopod and we haven’t been able to wake her up because once we did that her pod would send a signal to the Cygnians and they would know where she was.

At least that was the original reason.

But pretty much at the same time that Serpint was bringing Corla here to Harem another Cygnian princess was brought in by some random bounty hunter.

That was Lyra.

Mouthy, defiant, luminosity-challenged, Lyra.

Until we learned that she was sent out of the Cygnian System with her sister, Nyleena, on a mission to blow up a place called Earth, but was actually trying to escape Cygnian control and was using some kind of inhibitor to disguise her pink princess status.

Then we learned she was Serpint’s soulmate and from there this whole soulmate thing kinda blew up. Which is a joke. A bad one. Because it turns out these sexy Cygnian girls who light up when they orgasm are actually made to be… bombs.

That’s right. They are all a bunch of explosives.