“My father was murdered, too.”
I don’t answer. I just reach out and stroke her hand.
She grabs onto my fingers. “He was a good man, and I loved him. I want to be the kind of ruler that would make him proud.”
“Isn’t that the same kind that would make your mother proud?” I ask.
It doesn’t seem like a hard question, but she thinks about it for a long time. So long that I start to think she isn’t going to answer at all. But then she says, “I used to think so. But after the last few days, I’m not so sure. My dad hated for anyone to suffer.”
Then he really picked the wrong woman to fall in love with, didn’t he?
I manage to stop myself from blurting it out, but something about the look in Kali’s eyes tells me she’s already thinking the same thing.
Her hand is still in mine, and I stare down at it, feeling the warmth from our touch seep through my body. At least until she realizes we’re basically holding hands and snatches hers back.
I stand up. This conversation is clearly done.
“As soon as we find Milla, we’ll make sure you get home safe. Okay?” Just saying it fills me with a weird queasy feeling, but I’ve always known that had to be the endgame. No use getting bent out of shape about it now.
“I can wait.” She smiles a little. “I know how devoted you are to finding Milla. It’s admirable, really.”
Her words give me a little stab of…something. Guilt, maybe. Because my saving Milla isn’t really altruistic—at least not the way she makes it sound. I hate keeping secrets, and I hate feeling guilty even more—I just haven’t had enough practice for it to come naturally—which tends to make me mean.
Maybe that’s why I lash out.
“So, yeah, let me do what I need to do, and then we’ll get you back to being a sheltered princess. And just forget about any more kissing,” I throw in.
A hurt look flashes in her eyes, and there’s that goddamn guilt again, stabbing me in the gut. Even her eyes harden.
“What kissing?” She sniffs. “Hey, looks like I’ve already forgotten it.” Her eyes gleam.
And suddenly, the air in the room charges and we’re both thinking about kissing each other.
I take a step closer. “And just so you know, it’s never going to happen again.”
“What isn’t? The kiss that was so unremarkable that I’ve already forgotten it?”
My lips twitch. The really sad thing is, I like her. Besides Milla—and that’s very different—I’ve never actually liked a woman before. Maybe because I’ve never allowed myself to know them well enough to get to that stage, or maybe because none of them were as fascinating as Kali.
The problem is that she makes me feel like the world might not be such a bad place after all. Which makes no sense, considering her family is a big part of the reason this system of ours is such a shitty mess.
Not to mention she just agreed to let me bring her back so she can help Mommy make it even shittier.
I mean, sure, I know everyone says the world is going to end unless we do something drastic and that’s why we all have to suffer—and by all, they mean everyone who isn’t in the Ruling Families—but I’ve always believed it’s just another ploy to try and keep us down. As for the Sisterhood saving us by embracing the Dying Sun or whatever, that’s just a big steaming pile of shit, no matter how genuine Rain seems to be.
“You sure are thinking awfully hard,” Kali says, breaking into my cheerful thoughts.
“Just contemplating the shitty state of the world.”
“And here I was, thinking you must be remembering the kiss. But then I remembered there is no kiss, because we’ve both forgotten it already.”
She swipes her tongue over her lower lip, biting it with sharp white teeth. Obscenely hot.
I pull her up so that we’re standing face-to-face, so close together that she has to tilt her head to look into my eyes. So close I can see the black rings around her silver irises.
Her eyes draw me in, just like they always do when I look at them. I even see something in them before she gives a little shake of her head and they go blank.
“Back off, Ian.” She slaps a hand on my chest and pushes. “You’re right. We should forget the kiss. This—you and me—isn’t going to happen. It can’t.”
That’s exactly what I’ve been telling myself, but the problem is—I’ve never been very good at following orders.
I lean down, and this time she doesn’t back away. “I hate it when somebody tells me I can’t do something,” I whisper close to her face. “It makes me want to prove them wrong.”
“And how would you do that?” she murmurs, her head tilting up to me so that her warm breath caresses my cheek. At the same time, her breasts brush against my chest, and I’m not sure which one of us sucks in our breath harder and faster.
I slip one hand around the back of her neck, beneath the silk of her hair, and tilt her face up farther. Every muscle in my body clenches.
I touch my lips to hers and—
Something slams into the ship. It lurches to the side, sending us flying. We land on the bed with Kali on top of me.
Then there’s a loud crash and the lights go out and the ship lurches again, and we’re on the floor and Kali is beneath me.
“What just happened?” she whispers in the dark.
I have no fucking clue. But I have a really bad feeling. Which becomes ten times worse when Beckett’s voice breaks through the comms.
“Captain, report in. I repeat, report in. We’re being attacked.”
Chapter 31
Kali
As I follow Ian out the door, another blast hits the ship and we both collide with the wall. For a second, I wonder if this is it—the end—and my body clenches, waiting for another hit. But then the ship seems to drop, and we crash to the floor.
“Stay still for a minute,” Ian whispers.
I’m more than happy to oblige. Beckett said we’re under attack, but from whom?
And fuck it, if we’re about to die, I would have actually liked to have that kiss.
Maybe kissing me isn’t a big deal for Ian, but for me? Every time he gets close to me, it just makes me more desperate for him—for the feel and smell and taste of him.
Sometimes I feel like if he doesn’t kiss me again, I’ll implode, like a star that’s burned itself out.
I’ve never felt this way before. Not for any of the people my mother paraded in front of me in the hopes that I’d make an appropriate choice for my royal Askkandian consort. And not for any of the ambassadors’ and Councilors’ kids I’ve had crushes on through the years.
Maybe it’s because Ian was the first person to truly touch me. Or maybe it’s because Ian is a man, not a boy. Sure, he isn’t more than a couple of years older than me, but age isn’t everything. All I have to do is look in his dark eyes to know that he hasn’t been a boy for a very long time. And when Ian touches me, he makes me feel like a woman who can match him kiss for kiss, adventure for adventure.
I like being that woman—probably a lot more than I should.
Several seconds pass without another crash before Ian jumps to his feet. “Come on. Let’s get to the bridge and see who’s attacking my ship.”