Page 29 of A Sweet Destruction

“Nope.” Peter cut Ford off with a wave of his hand. “I’ll get to you in a second.” Peter’s worried gaze never left me as he repeated, “What were you thinking?”

A low sound rumbled near me, though I didn’t know where it came from. Peter’s eyes bounced to Ford for a second.

I opened my mouth to respond, knowing that his harsh tone and words were nothing more than an expression of his stress.

Peter spoke again before I could, his voice notably more calm. “Please don’t mistake my tone for anything other than concern. Though I disagree with the decision and certainly wish you would have told me your plan, I am trying to understand why you two ran to Pax in the middle of the night. Mere hours after we’d been attacked.” His voice and tone hardened again at the end, his heightened emotional state pushing away his attempt at composure.

I was still confused that Peter had corrected himself in the first place. He was the kindest leader I knew, but he had a direct way of speaking that to the untrained ear could come across as harsh.

This was the first time I’d witnessed him correcting himself in the moment.

Though a large part of the reason I’d headed to Pax was to put some much needed distance between me and Ford, I focused on the other part of the answer. “It would only be logical for us to check on our supply after an attack like that. It was also a perfect opportunity to make it seem like it rattled us more than it did. Roger is clearly in close contact with Muli generals, and we are pretty sure we saw some leaving right when we got there.”

I wasn’t going to share what I’d found about the Prince yet. I needed some leverage, and my instincts were telling me that I shouldn’t share that yet.

Luckily for me, Peter’s attempts at regulating his breathing took enough of his energy that he couldn’t consider that I may be hiding something.

“If we really thought our time here was fleeting, the first place we’d go was to Roger. We would be losing a substantial stream of income,” Ford said, supporting my story. There was a little bit of an edge to his voice, but I knew it to be a result of the fact that we barely saw a cent of what we took home from the smuggling operation. It all went back into Vir’s military budget.

“Fine,” Peter gritted out, begrudgingly admitting that our plan hadn’t been completely stupid. “You both will be giving me an extremely detailed briefing of everything you saw until I am satisfied with our conversation. You may finish your breakfast first.”

Someone snorted a laugh. Actually, Soren did. No one else would have dared laugh in Peter’s face.

As if to prove my point, Peter’s eyes shot to where Soren was sitting behind us in warning.

I couldn’t see Soren, but I imagined he raised his hands in surrender. That, or Bellamy grabbed his wrists and did it for him.

I trapped a sigh on its way out of my throat, resigning myself for what was likely to be an extremely painful handful of hours repeating detail after detail until Peter was content.

“My office,” Peter said to me and Ford, voice hard again. “The second you finish your food.”

Oh, I would be taking my sweet ass time, especially if that meant I was sitting in an office with Ford for several hours. I needed the fresh air to keep his scent away from me.

Peter nodded, content with his warning and stepped away. Deciding he wasn’t done, he turned over his shoulder and called back, “And don’t think for a second you would have gotten away with that little disappearing act. There are cameras covering every inch of this camp. Don’t try that shit again.”

I would very likely be trying that shit again, the fact that my new sleeping arrangement meant I was trapped in a tent with Ford and all.

At the back of my mind, there was another thought lingering, full of fear and painful memories. Memories those very cameras captured and were immediately ordered destroyed. I didn’t even have to ask—by the time I awoke, Peter had already done it.

Something passed over Peter’s expression right before he turned away and resumed his stomping march up the hill and to the main house, as if he was remembering the same.

I sat back down in a haze of warring memories and feelings about how my day was now about to go.

“Well, care to share more about your little adventure?” Freya asked, her voice full of forced innocence once Peter was well out of earshot. Freya wasn’t scared of anything, but her respect for Peter toed the line.

My head fell to where my hands were folded on the table, my exhaustion and defeat catching up to me. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, as if something was hovering right over the skin there, but the sensation went away as soon as it registered.

“There isn’t much to share,” Ford said, his voice a calm rumble that contrasted sharply with the rapid beat of my heart.

I was going crazy again, because I could have sworn my heart’s pace slowed in response to his voice.

“We went over to check on Roger and right when we got there, we heard someone inside with him,” Ford began explaining. I hated the affection that bloomed when I realized he was skipping over the reason for our little impromptu visit in the first place. I’d literally run into enemy territory to get away from him.

Actually, come to think of it, apart from his initial reaction when he caught up with me in Pax, he hadn’t scolded me further. The realization had me sitting straight again, reaching blindly for my water and taking a healthy sip while my eyes adjusted to the sun.

“We framed it as concern for our supply—which wasn’t totally off base. Esme broke away early to check on Sky and Shadow, then saw some people fleeing in the distance,” Ford finished, though I barely heard him.

Apparently, I had reached for his water instead of mine. The average person might not have been able to tell, but I was no average person.