Page 59

There it was again.

Evidence. Questions. Pieces that didn’t fit. I turned each one over and got nowhere.

I looked at the male beside me. At Veyr. The first real thing he had given me. A name, handed over like a blade he wasn’t sure I’d give back.

“Are you going to tell me what you actually do?” I asked.

“No.”

I sighed and tipped my head back against the seat. “Progress was nice while it lasted.”

His gaze flicked toward me, then back to the controls. He didn’t answer, but his mouth thinned like he’d heard me.

“Rest,” he said.

I stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“We have time before we arrive.”

“I am not sleeping next to a heavily armed stranger who kidnapped me.”

“I did not kidnap you.” He said it evenly, like correcting a data entry error.

“You threatened me onto a transport.”

“I gave you a choice.” His hands stayed loose on the controls, patient as stone.

“Between you and armed men.”

“Yes.”

“That is not a choice.” I leaned in so he’d have to look at me if he bothered to look at all.

“It was the safest available option.”

I went quiet. My hands stopped moving in my lap.

There it was.

That word.

Safe.

The thing Zunatorian males seemed to think ended every argument. I wanted to throw something at him. Instead I kept my voice level because shouting at a male who could break me with one hand would be stupid, and I’d had enough of being stupid lately.

“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I said.

His gaze turned toward mine. “I decided nothing for you.”

“You knew things I didn’t and gave me two options without explaining either one.” My finger jabbed toward him before I could stop it. “You didn’t even tell me your name until now.”

“You were in immediate danger.” He said it slowly, like he was explaining gravity to a child.

“And that means I stop being entitled to information?” My voice climbed anyway, stupid or not. “That’s how it works here? Someone decides you’re in trouble and suddenly you’re not allowed to know things anymore?”

Silence.

His expression did not change—the same flat, unhurried mask he’d worn since Bren—but something in him seemed to pull tighter, like a cord drawn one notch past comfort.