“Oh no.I was just taking Jorran for a little walk.”
“Okay… In a body bag?Is he dead?”
“He wishes.I’ve found that dragging him across tiny, unforgiving rocks and some fresh air really makes him come alive with all sorts of info.”
I nodded slowly.“If he’s so alive, then why isn’t he moving?”
Axxel kicked the middle of the bag, making it groan.“Jorran, why aren’t you moving?”
“Because I thought that if I held still, you’d forget about me?”he said with a pathetic whimper.
Axxel jerked his thumb toward the body bag and scoffed.“He thought I’d forget about him.The hired assassin who tried to take out Princess Roxxanne.Not likely, you fuxxing dolt.”
As though Axxel had summoned her, the princess came from within the kitchen, flour smeared across her scaled cheeks like warpaint and her gossamer dress billowing out behind her.“Who tried to take me out?”Her gaze landed on the pile on the floor.“Oh.Take me out like that, you mean, not the nice, happy kind of take me out.Taking your pet for a walk again, Axxel?”
“The only way I know how.”Axxel delivered a swift kick into the bag, making it groan.Again.
To say I was a tad confused about Axxel’s torture habits was an understatement, but he had his way, Mosely had his, and I had mine.Different strokes for different folks.
“So what info did he come alive with?”I asked.
“Get this.He came here on a cloaked spaceship.”Axxel gestured toward the rear of the castle.“It’s parked out in a clearing in the forest.”
My eyebrows shot up my forehead.“A cloaked ship?But that’s…impossible.The technology isn’t quite there yet.The closest anyone’s ever gotten is to put an invisible blanket over the ship, which stays put for about a second before the ship takes off.”
Axxel held out his hands.“And yet that explains how he got here without detection.”
“No way.No fuxxing way.”Roxxanne marched over with a fierce scowl written all over her pretty face.
Pair her expression with Maxx’s favorite curse word, and I was assured that she was one hundred percent his.Not that I had any doubts, but still.She was basically the female mini-version of him, only much less broody.
She knelt by Jorran’s body bag and yanked down the zipper.“I swear to the goddess if you don’t tell me who built the ship, I will bring her wrath down upon you with a blistering plague on your balls.Again.”
Wait, could she really do that?Note to self—never piss off Roxxanne.She seemed to have yet another form of torture.
I shared a look with Axxel, who grinned maniacally and nodded.
“The power of suggestion,” he explained.“Full-blooded Xenoxx females have always had it.”
What?So, me offering to keep all her secrets washerdoing?With her secret power of suggestion?Oh, well played.I adored her even more now, which might havealsobeen her doing, but it didn’t even matter.She was just too awesome.
A young woman, still a teenager, with the power of suggestion though… Poor Maxx.
“O-okay, please don’t hurt me.”Jorran blinked up at her and held up his hands to ward off her wrath.“Earth Space Fleet built the cloaked ship.”
My breath left me like I’d been violently punched.I shouldn’t have been surprised, but here I was, very much surprised.I didn’t even know they’d been considering making the tech, but they didn’t exactly tell me everything they were up to, now did they?
“They just handed you this ship after hiring you to kill me?”Roxxanne demanded.
“How else would I have gotten here?”Jorran said shakily.“The king protects this planet and its people like it’s all made out of diamonds.Earth Space Fleet’s ship got me here unnoticed, deceiving even the most powerful detection systems.”
“Except for the princess herself,” I whispered, my lungs still clawing desperately for air.
Axxel took my elbow gently.“Are you all right, Captain?”
I nodded even though no, I wasn’t all right.How many more times would the answer to all my questions be my employer?Why hadn’t I seen any signs of secrecy and misconduct before now?
Because you were in the far reaches of space, I told myself.Trying to avoid reality the best I could so I wouldn’t have to face life’s harsh brutality after Lucy’s death.
